Friday, February 13, 2004

shrub-ability problem FEATURED ARTICLES - BUSH BUDGET CONTAINS 40% CUT IN NATION'S LOW-INCOME HOUSING - War As An Excuse For Everything, By Robert Scheer, - The President Enters Credibility Gap, by Tom Engelhardt, - George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama, By Glynn Wilson, QUOTE OF THE DAY "Most worrisome to Republicans is Kerry's war hero image while, in the words of one prominent Bush supporter, ''our guy was drinking beer in Alabama'" - - Robert Novak (From his 2/2/04 column entitled, "Bush's Credibility Problem) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - FEBRUARY 13th 1967 -- Carrying huge photos of Napalmed Vietnamese children, 2,500 members of the group Women Strike for Peace storm the Pentagon, demanding to see (quote) "the generals who send our sons to Vietnam." Women strike for peace members always dress neatly & appear as they are -- middle-class homemakers. When Pentagon guards lock the main-entrance doors, the women take off their shoes & bang on the doors with their heels. They're finally allowed inside, but Defense Secretary Robert McNamara will not meet with them. Senator Jacob Javits agrees to meet a few hundred of the women, but he's roundly booed & heckled when he denies the US is using toxic gas in Vietnam. 1991 -- During the Persian Gulf War, approximately 400 Iraqi civilians, mostly women & children, are killed during a US laser-guided missile attack on a fortified bunker in the center of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. Economic boycott imposed this year by US will lead to the deaths of 1,500 children under the age of 5 - every month from 1991 through 1999 -- according to the UN. US media, fixated on military acts & being "patriotic", flexes its knees. RHINO HERE: Is shrub vulnerable to being beat in November? Today's blog contains several well researched articles which show he is. But then there's those pesky electronic touch screen voting machines & the dangers in store if the shrub gang steals the election & has 4 more years to wreak their havoc. For more info, visit VerifiedVoting.org which champions transparent, reliable, & publicly verifiable elections in the United States. http://www.verifiedvoting.org True Majority has a quick & easy way for you to send your representatives a message urging them to support pending legislation requiring that voters be able to approve a paper copy of their choices before they're registered in the computer. These anonymous paper copies can then be saved. If there's ever a question about the intent of the voters, the paper ballots can be checked & both voters & candidates can be confident in the outcome. Check True Majority's Action Center At: True Majority Action Center More ways to help pass H.R. 2239 and S. 1980 at: http://www.verifiedvoting.org/volunteers BUSH BUDGET CONTAINS 40% CUT IN THE NATION'S PRINCIPAL LOW-INCOME HOUSING PROGRAM BY 2009 Proposal Represents Deepest Cut in a Major Domestic Program in New Budget The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) will hold joint conference call briefings on Thursday, February 12 at 1:00 p.m. (ET) and Friday, February 13 at 10:00 a.m. (ET) to discuss a new study that CBPP is issuing on the single deepest cut in a major domestic program in the President's new budget - the proposed cut in the housing voucher program, the nation's principal low-income housing assistance program. The report finds that if enacted, the budget proposal would shrink the voucher program 40 percent by 2009 and represent one of the deepest cuts made in any major program to help low-income families and elderly and disabled people in recent decades... MORE:   http://www.cbpp.org/confcall.htm War As An Excuse For Everything By Robert Scheer, AlterNet, February 10, 2004 Is it just me, or is President Bush's demeanor a bit Napoleonic these days? The enemies of the republic are everywhere, he says over and over, and only he stands between them and our utter ruin. Sunday on "Meet the Press," he could say nothing without also referring to military battles he is apparently fit to fight - presumably based on his stealthy stint in the National Guard. I am a "war president - with war on my mind," he insisted to Tim Russert, dodging the newsman's every question, as if his trainers had assured him that the phrase was a talisman that would ward off all charges of ineptitude and bad-faith leadership. Yet it was hardly clear from his filibustering responses exactly what war it was that Bush thought he was fighting... MORE: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17808 The President Enters Credibility Gap by Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com , 2/11/04 Two lines which not so long ago seemed firm as battlements -- places where a sign reading "Go no further" might well have been posted -- now seem drawn in the sand of an Iraqi desert. The first was, of course, that Florida 50% mark of an evenly divided nation of voters (quite different of course from a nation of Americans, who have, until the recent Democratic primaries, been deserting the voting booths in droves). Last year, the President's "approval" rating dropped close to the 50% mark and then held firm until the "Saddam bounce" in December drove it impressively upwards for a month. At the end of January, however, in the space of a week his approval ratings plunged about 10 points, which in the strange world of serial polling, is a bit like an elevator dropping from an upper floor to the basement... ...Why did this happen? READ IT ALL AT: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0211-04.htm 7:33:39 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama George W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama By Glynn Wilson, The Progressive Southerner, 2/2/04 BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Feb. 2 (PS) - The result of an investigation into George W. Bush's lost year in 1972 reveals a cocky privileged son who used his family connections to avoid military service in Vietnam and spend seven months in Alabama partying. He clearly skipped out on National Guard duty and avoided a mandatory drug test, all while learning the politics of "dirty tricks," deception and coded racism in the land of George Wallace. It was the year Wallace, the spunky Alabama governor and presidential candidate, was gunned down in a Maryland parking lot, the year of the Watergate break in and the beginning of the end for "Tricky Dick" Nixon. It was also the last year for segregationists to openly fight integration of the public schools, a time when racism went underground in American politics in the form of a "Dixie Strategy." And it was the beginning of a major political realignment that transformed the American South from a one-party Democratic stronghold into a solid block for the GOP. Bush made the move to Alabama in May to work on Winton "Red" Blount's campaign for the U.S. Senate against Southern Democrat John Sparkman. The lessons of that year were not lost on Bush or his political adviser Karl Rove, who also cut his political teeth in 1972. Their path to electoral success is a lesson in itself about the state of American Democracy, an issue suitable for an H.L. Mencken-style analysis... MORE: http://www.southerner.net/blog/awolbush.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:29:52 AM    comment

© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.