ThePoliticalCat

A Blog devoted to progressive politics, environmental issues, LGBT issues, social justice, workers' rights, womens' rights, and, most importantly, Cats.

Monday, January 23, 2006


Oh, looky! A photo of the Lesser Shrub at a gathering sponsored by Abramoff. Getting all smoochy and close-up with none other than the Governor of the Marianas Islands.


Read all about it here.


See my previous post about the forced labor conditions in the Marianas, and the forced abortions inflicted on young Chinese women workers there.

Even the comments on AmericaBlog are brilliant.




Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.
Revphat | 01.23.06 - 3:10 pm | #

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Sunday, January 22, 2006

EEEP!!!

It's not ME saying it, it's the Prince of Darkness, aka Novakula:

ROVE MUST GO

A national survey by pollster Mark Penn shows two-to-one sentiment that not only Rep. Tom DeLay but also top presidential adviser Karl Rove should resign from office.

Interviews of 1,003 voters last Nov. 5-16, conducted for the Democratic Leadership Council, showed 59 percent felt Rove should quit while 25 percent said he should not. Comparable figures for DeLay were 63 percent and 24 percent. While DeLay faces trial in Texas after being indicted in a campaign finance controversy, Rove has been investigated but not indicted in the CIA leak case.

Penn's poll showed deteriorating Republican support for both Rove and DeLay. GOP votes favored DeLay's resignation, 45 percent to 40 percent, while 35 percent said Rove should go and 43 percent that he should stay.

Robert Novak is a television personality and columnist. Novak is also editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report available through a free offer from Human Events Online.

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Monday, January 16, 2006

how 'bout a turd bounce?



Dear Leader


OK, I really like animals, on the whole, except maybe when they're trying to rip out my innards. So I don't want to use the term "dead cat bounce". However, it appears Dear Leader may be having a smoodgle of a problem with his poll numbers -- again:

ReadAllAboutIt

Maybe a turd bounce? I mean, if you fling anything hard enough, likely, it'll bounce. Just sayin'.

...and Abramoff


ReadAllAboutIt

Looks like Der Leader's orders to hide all pix showing him with Abramoff will avail him nothing - they're out there.



The real economic picture?



Texas Tom at The Daily Kos offers an excellent analysis of the job figures for the past month and the past year, in some kind of realistic perspective:

ReadAllAboutIt

I've always thought that the jobless stats were pretty damned unbelievable. I know an awful lot of people who are still out of work, some eight years or more after the dotcom bomb, or underemployed, or otherwise out of the workforce (back in school, started their own small business, et cetera ad nauseam). Part of the "wageless" economic recovery. Texas Tom's analysis fits in with what I've always thought. If anyone else has, or knows of, a good analysis of the current economy, please, feel free to add it in the comments.



Fall of the House of DeLay


If I remember correctly, Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert put a couple of loooong knives in Newt Gingrich's back. I hold no brief for Gingrich, but it's nice to see that Tom DeLay is getting his comeuppance in spades (schadenfreude, anyone?); and that Denny Hastert might be next on the list:

ReadAllAboutIt


Auditioning for The Supremes



Is anyone quite as annoyed by the sinister, smirking Samuel Alito as I am? Apparently, Dick Durbin, according to the Chicago Sun Times, and enough other Dem and RePug senators that there's a whiff of the "f"-word (filibuster, not fuck) in the air:

ReadAllAboutIt

If they filibuster that sanctimonious weasel away from the Supremes, I, for one, will be doing the Frabjous Day, Callooh Callay dance of happy happy joy joy all around the house.




Never take your eye off the ball



From WaPo, the EvilKarl speech:

Rove referred only indirectly to the corruption issue, warning Republicans against becoming complacent in power. "The GOP's progress during the last four decades is a stunning political achievement," he said. "But it is also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party -- in this case the Democrat Party -- when its thinking becomes ossified, when its energy begins to drain, when an entitlement mentality takes over, and when political power becomes an end in itself rather than a means to achieve the common good."


I call that pretty cheeky, coming from a Republican as the scandals threaten to overwhelm them.

And a quick and fitting response from Howard Dean:

Democrats were quick to respond, with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean challenging Rove's fitness to serve. "Karl Rove only has a White House job and a security clearance because President Bush has refused to keep his promise to fire anyone involved in revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative," Dean said in a statement. Dean added: "The truth is, Karl Rove breached our national security for partisan gain and that is both unpatriotic and wrong."

It was four years ago this week when Rove, appearing at another meeting of the RNC, said Republicans would make terrorism a central issue of the 2002 midterm elections. Rove's remarks infuriated Democrats, who protested that, until then, Bush had stressed bipartisanship and national unity in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.


ReadAllAboutIt

I made this a tinyurl, so if it doesn't work for some reason, try:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001853.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

However, in more heartening news, it appears that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has already met once more with the Grand Jury, and the pressure is getting to Karl:

ReadAllAboutIt



And other backlash



Anyone who is following the Abramoff case probably remembers what went on in Saipan several years ago - U.S. lawmakers, who traveled on Abramoff's dime to the Marianas Islands and received, um, consideration, voted against applying American labor laws to the workforce in the Marianas.

ABC revealed at the time that many of the workers, young Chinese women, were forced to have abortions to keep their jobs:


ReadAllAboutIt

Apparently, Christian Family Values Congresscritter Tom DeLay was heavily involved in this scandal. If his constituents knew he supported forced abortions, how do you think they'd react? Someone in Texas really ought to publicize this fact.

Another dirtbag caught with his hand in the cookie jar:

ReadAllAboutIt

This is my very first blog, and I'm a little rusty with HTML, so please bear with this blog as it keeps undergoing changes.

And if you haven't yet visited Daily Kos, Atrios' blog, or Americablog, you owe it to yourself to hie thee there forthwith.

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Finally, the crooks and liars are starting to go down, down, down. Let's start with The Very Unreverend Mr. Christian_Clean, better known as Ralph Reed:

ReadAllAboutIt

Bye, Ralphie, wish I could say it's been fun.

And who's this, next? Nay, it can't be Ney. Why, yes it is! Yet another corrupt Crook&Liar, snared by the GOP scandal:

ReadAllAboutIt

"Temporarily stepping down," he says. Reminds me of another popular euphemism from the work world: "He's resigning to spend more time with his family."

Newsweek doesn't think Ney's, er, stepdown, is so temporary:

ReadAllAboutIt

And the good Christians of the Fundie Megachurch right appear to have their knives out for each other:

ReadAllAboutIt

Whatever happened to "Do as you would be done by"?

To no one's surprise, the GOP, like its craphead-'n-thief, thinks it's above the law:

ReadAllAboutIt

Before Tom DeLay's corpse had even gotten cold, Roy Blunt leapfrogged the fallen Leader to get his knife, I mean, application, in (for DeLay's recently vacated post). And now? There is reason to hope, and believe, that the man handpicked by Tom DeLay for his position is going down mit der Fuhrer, I mean, Hammer:


ReadAllAboutIt

Who'd'a thunk? BushWaaah gets to tell you what the law is, no matter what congresscritters or the courts say:

ReadAllAboutIt

And, in other news, the Washington Post is hardly as neutral as one would expect it to be:

ReadAllAboutIt


Nope, no problems at all recruiting cannon fodder for Dear Leader's War on Little Brown People With Oil:

ReadAllAboutIt

Nothing to see here, move along.


In other news, even Cronkite thinks it's time:

ReadAllAboutIt

Surprise, surprise. Delay doing worse than Bush in polls:

ReadAllAboutIt

Less than 20% has *got* to hurt.

Remember when Georgie Porgie royally pissed us all off last week by trumpeting the reconstruction of NOLA? Apparently Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican, agrees with Most People that The PrezNitWit is talking out of his other orifice:

ReadAllAboutIt


We're glad to know that you think your husband should be allowed to spy on us, Laura:

ReadAllAboutIt

No, really. It's so important to have constitutional scholars weigh in on these issues.


Meanwhile, Shrubya's career as author/pundit appears to be taking off. Have you read "How to Win Friends and Influence People," by George W. Bush?

ReadAllAboutIt

And, wonder of wonders, Roy Blunt might have an ethics problem:

ReadAllAboutIt

For those out there who haven't heard, Rep Murtha has had comments on the war in Iraq. And I'll bet you're shocked, no, horrified to hear that Faux News might not have told you everything you might want to know about the response to Rep Murtha's comments on the war in Iraq:

ReadAllAboutIt

Scroll down to Rep Murtha & Rep Moran Town Hall Meeting.

In other "I-word" news, former Rep Holzman says: I could get wit' dat:

ReadAllAboutIt


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