ARRRGGGHH!!!!! McCain Leads Obama in New Poll

WHAT? THE? HELL?

(Don't look for much rational thought into day's post...to be honest, I'm just ranting- I'm so mad.)

I have to admit to a great feeling of frustration at this morning's story (by Reuters): McCain in 5 Point Lead Over Obama.

According to the article, there is no one group that Obama needs to win over (or has lost), there is no one issue that has lost it for him.

Instead, people just see McCain as the better choice to "stand up to Russia" and, unbelievably, lead the nation on the Economy.

This, to me is unbelievable (but of course, I do believe it, the story of the American electorate since 1968 has largely been one of a people who have turned away from facts and chose to embrace illusion.)

In what sense, I wonder could McCain be "better" on any of the issues of primary concern to the American people.

1) On Gasoline? Off-shore drilling will show NO results for YEARS and George W. Bush squandered every opportunity to use the Post 9-11 mindset to declare true American Independence from Foreign Oil.

2) On Foreign Policy? Our troops are too committed to an unnecessary war (Iraq) to successfully wage the NECESSARY war in Afghanistan...McCain claims he wants to stay committed to Iraq...how then, may I ask, does the man plan to DEAL with Russia? With WHAT will he deal with them? We've broken our big stick in Iraq, and we'll need to fix it (and hell, we weren't even speaking softly.)

3) On the economy? Americans have seen a decline in real wages since the 1970s. The policies of Reagan and George W. Bush have plunged this nation into deficit spending - eight years of conservative pull backs under Democrat Bill Clinton merely stopped the downward slide...two years of Bush, and the Republicans were able to re-start their stated agenda of "drowning" America's Government (including education, social security, law enforcement and military spending) "in a bathtub".

And, yet, again and again, American's turn to the smiling face of the Republican party- because what they "say" is so different that what they do.

Another Republican Administration will break this county, I fear, beyond all repair. And we seem to be falling for it...hook line and sinker.

John McCain: Oil in his Eyes

McCain Supports Bush Call for More Off Shore Drilling

According the AP, John McCain has joined George W. Bush in a call for offshore Drilling in American coastal waters.

The American working class needs relief from high gas prices that eat into weekly pay checks, but common sense says that offshore drilling is not the way to go about providing that relief.

As Barack Obama said in his speech on the subject: "The politics may have changed but the facts haven't."

Only One Winner

There is only one group of people who would win from a change in the off shore oil drilling rules: BIG OIL.

American Drivers wouldn't even SEE this oil for years...so there are much better ways to help working Americans make ends meet.

And, when the oil finally DOES arrive, there is no guarantee that prices will go down. In fact, Americans watched for years as OPEC worked very well to keep Oil Prices UP by intentionally limiting the amount of oil they took out of the ground...if supply goes up, prices come down- if you want to keep prices up, you limit the amount of supply. After these boom times, anyone who thinks that the Oil Business is looking for ways to lower prices and profits is a complete sucker.

The Rest of us Lose

Who looses?
Most of Us.

None of us see lower Gas prices anytime soon...if ever.

Fisherman, already waiting on empty boats for fish populations to bounce back, loose most hopes of returning to their jobs.

Working People in Coastal States who rely on Tourism loose when their beaches become blotted with oil bubbles, slicks and spills.

The alternative energy industry, which could help keep this country strong, is forced to wait again while people put off breaking their oil addiction.

We all loose as we continue to damage the planet's atmosphere through fossil fuel consumption.

Americans must resist economic panic. We need to look deeply at this issue and reject the short-sighted, crony capitalism as offered by Oil Man Bush and his would-be successor, John McCain.

When it comes to Oil...just say NO!

Junkies Need another Hit -Drilling Off Shore

Bush Renews Calls for Offshore Drilling

See: AP "Bush Looks Offshore for remedy to high oil prices"
As America's drivers scream in economic pain due to high oil prices, our President proposes to ride to the rescue. How? By lifting the ban on drilling in US Coastal Waters.

That, says Bush, will fix everything.

Bushshit.

According to the same AP article, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama points out that even if we started drilling TOMORROW we wouldn't see the oil for another 5 years.

Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal, they are not panicking, no sir, they are giving out advice: GET IN ON THE OIL BOOM WHILE YOU CAN!

It is time that Americans learn that the age of cheap oil is over. It will NEVER go back down to affordable prices unless something of epic proportions happens...

Adding a temporary increase in supply won't do it...Oil companies will simply drill more slowly and keep the price up...OPEC has done this for years already.

Place this almost non-existent drop in oil prices, that we won't see in 5 years, against what we might loose by drilling off our coasts. It's a bad deal

I'm not just talking about clean beaches for swimming, but about real money...the US offshore fishing market is in real trouble, and yet, in a world which is clamoring for FOOD as much as for oil, this is another potential gold mine for this nation- one even more important that oil (people CAN learn to drive, but they'll never figure out how to stop eating). American fisherman have been struggling on the margins, waiting for the our fish population to bounce back (read Mark Kurlansky's "COD" for a fascinating discussion of this overlooked but vital chapter in American and World History).

An invasion by Oil companies could put the final nail into that coffin. Far to high a price to pay.

Instead, let's use the next five years, not to wait for a temporary supply of cheap oil to come bubbling dangerously from the deep, but instead to break our addiction to this substance once and for all.

OLD NEWSBush Ducks Responsibility for CIA Leak

All I can say about our President is: His Balls must be as Big as Church Bells. He exhibits the sort of bravado and contempt for reality that makes one either a born leader or a born criminal.

Consider the lead paragraph in this morning's AP report:

President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. Yesterday he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing.
"It's run its course," he said. "Now we're going to move on."

Back on February 11, 2004, the President sang a different tune::

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. . . . If
the person has violated law, that person will be taken care
of. [emphasis added] I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice
Department will do a good job. I want to know the truth. . . . Leaks of
classified information are bad things."

...or did he? Read the statement again, and you'll see that the media paraphrased incorrectly. The American people were left with the impression that the leaker, if caught, would be "Fired"...but Bush actually said "taken care of".

See? The Right-Wingnuts are correct...Bush is not a liar...he told the truth: higher administration officials who may have committed the crime of exposing the identity of an American secret agent seem to have been shielded, and Lewis Libby, who took the fall, has had his sentence commuted.

Bush, that stand up guy, kept his word...the leaker WAS "taken care of." Coddled, in fact, like a babe safe in mother's arms.

At any rate, I really love yesterday's "We going to move on" line...

I highly suggest that shoplifters use it while they are being finger printed by police...

...and that little kids who are caught tying tin cans to the tail of the cat use it when their mothers threaten punishment...

As for me, the next time some snake-handling ditto-head starts whining about Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes, I know exactly what to say:

"It's Run It's Course. Now, we're going to move on."

Republicans On Crime: Falling Down on the Job

Perhaps because they love to say things like "Dead or Alive" or "Bring 'em On" or "Lock 'em Up" or "Book 'em, Dano"--- Republicans have earned a reputation as being Tough on Crime.

Perhaps because we have looked to the root causes, have extended some sympathy for the conditions that breed crime, we Democrats have earned a reputation as being Soft on Crime.

But the fact is that it was a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, who presided over the first DECREASE in violent crime in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Under Reagan, under Bush I, crime was up. Under Clinton, violent crime fell dramatically.

Now...the Republican’s are back, and so is crime. Coincidence? I think not.

Neither, apparently, do the Editors of Alabama's Huntsville Times. In my web search on this issue, I came across this editorial. I find it particularly fascinating, because this burst of common sense bubbles up from a Red, Red Republican Red state*

Violence is up; it will be expensive and difficult to reduce it.

If you think the illegal immigration problem is a thorny one to solve, check out the increasing incidence of violent crime. Not violent crime somewhere else; violent crime in Huntsville. The Rocket City's rate was up 18 percent from 2005 to 2006...

... What's the cause? The usual suspects. Here [is one]:

Not enough police. The money for federal grants that pay for more local officers has declined under the Bush administration. It has other spending priorities. And local governments haven't found the revenue to hire more police without federal help[emphasis added].

Now, here's the rub...WE HAD IT LICKED. (When I say "WE", I mean the Democrats, and, although my fellow blogger J.D.Ryan over at Five Before Chaos will HATE THIS, I mean SPECIFICALLY "we" Democrats of the more pragmatic, centrist type...i.e. The DLC.)

The COPs (or Community Oriented Policing) program was created as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement act of 1994. The program is described on the Department Of Justice website as follows:

the mission of the COPS Office is to advance community policing in jurisdictions of all sizes across the country. Community policing represents a shift from more traditional law enforcement in that it focuses on prevention of crime and the fear of crime on a very local basis. Community policing puts law enforcement professionals on the streets and assigns them a beat, so they can build mutually beneficial relationships with the people they serve. By earning the trust of the members of their communities and making those individuals stakeholders in their own safety, community policing makes law enforcement safer and more efficient, and makes America safer

More money to hire police, more pressure put on those police to become a part of their neighborhoods, to cut off crime at the source rather than serve as an occupying army...and crime fell during the Clinton years.

During George W. Bush's administration, however, COPs has been underfunded (and police officers have been pulled from their jobs at home to fight overseas in Bush's disastrous war) and Crime, according to the FBI is going up again.

An essay on the DLC website takes Bush to task:

Remember the great crime wave of the late 1980s and early 1990s? Well, we're beginning to get some nasty reminders of what it was like before the large and sustained -- and in some places dramatic -- drops in violent crime that America enjoyed for about a decade. Recently released FBI statistics showed violent crime up nationally in 2006 for the second year in a row, with particularly disturbing rises in murders and armed robberies in Midwestern cities.

Even as crime shows signs of making a big comeback, the Bush administration and congressional Republicans have consistently worked to undermine the crime-fighting initiatives of the Clinton years, cutting federal law enforcement assistance to states and localities by about $2 billion since 2002. At the same time, many police departments are struggling from personnel shortages (in part because police officers are disproportionately represented in the reserve and national guard units that have been called up for Iraq), higher costs, and new anti-terrorism responsibilities.

A particular target for the GOP has been the COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) program, the signature Clinton crime initiative that placed over 100,000 new officers on the streets in the late 1990s, and also strongly promoted the proactive, problem-solving policing strategies that showed such great success in reducing crime in many major cities...

Democrats are trying to reauthorize COPs...and yet this action is being held up by Republicans in the Senate...

Again, the DLC:

... it's time for Republicans to get over their strange antipathy toward the importance of police officers in fighting crime, and their reflexive opposition to any initiative identified with President Clinton. In anticipation of the unpleasant new crime statistics, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called for a national response focused on -- you guessed it -- longer mandatory sentences for those convicted of violent crimes. If we learned anything about crime-fighting in recent years, it's that smart policing can have a big impact on preventing crimes before they happen. It's certainly no time to deny police departments the help they need to turn around the upsurge in violent crime. And we encourage presidential candidates in both parties to make this a serious issue in 2008.

But, if the Republicans continue to have their way (which, I hope, is unlikely) then we are more liable to get something along the lines of what the Huntsville Timespredicts:

What we require are a variety of approaches that target all of the problems and promote a variety of solutions. Above all, we need, as a country, to embrace the noble concept that civility, not violence, should be a national virtue.

What we'll probably get is a "War on Crime" from a politician who will use the figures to scare us and to make it appear that the matter is being addressed.

But, in the meantime, crime creeps back into our cities, our once solid national financial strength seeps from between our fingers, and our once awesome position of respect throughout the world evaporates like ice in the sun...

Just another example of progress rolled back, and opportunity squandered...brought to you by the Bush Administration.

Post-Script

*(Although, I must admit, I don't know much about the Huntsville Time's editorial staff...they may be a bunch of liberal holdouts trapped in the heart of the Confederacy.)

Poll Position

OH BOY! The right wing are in a tizzy this week. A new Gallup Poll has come out that indicated that Congress's approval ratings are even lower than the President's (29% to 33%).

The Reverend Moon's arch-Conservative Washington Times is crowing that the "Democrat-led" Congress is now trailing the President in popularity. (I will say this for the Right-Wingnuts: You have to have incredible powers of imagination and creativity to find good news in the fact that your fearless leader is running at at steady 33%; of course, on the other hand, Reverend Moon- founder of the Washington Times- does believe himself to be the Messiah- so he's got what it takes to engage in this kind of powerful self-delusion.)

At any rate, my friends in the DOP (that would be: Damned Old Party)were quick to start forwarding the news of their President's latest "victory".

Here is my response:

Dear R---,

Thanks for sending this along. What is interesting about the way Big Corporate Media handles the story is that they use this Headline: "Congressional Approval Down" and yet, a little deeper into the story, buried, we learn that: "Although ratings are quite low, Americans have been more positive in their assessments of Congress this year than last year, when an average of just 25% approved of Congress."

In other words- MORE Americans approve of this Democratic Congress than of the Republican Gangsters and Yes-Men who were in Washington last year.

But, of course Congressional approval is still low. Understandable, because this Congress was elected to bring an end to your crazy president's war against the wrong thug in the wrong country. To date, they have not been able to do that.

However, we can still hope, there is lots of good work going on in Washington. Perhaps we can still find a way to win the war on terror by going after the villains who actually attacked us on 9/11 rather than by being distracted by providing business opportunities for the Bush cronies.

And make no mistake, we MUST do this...after all, in just a few months, we will mourn the the SIXTH anniversary of September 11, 2001. And for SIX years, Osama bin Laden has eluded this hapless President.

Afghanistan, despite all of our Military's hard work and sacrifice, is once again becoming a strong hold for the Taliban and a source of Opium and Crime. Of course, this is because George W. Bush pulled our troops off the job.

However, as ever MORE corruption is uncovered in this, the most shiftless administration since that of Warren G. Harding, perhaps we can send Bush to jail where he belongs. Then, perhaps, this Congress approval ratings will rise.

God Bless America.

Now What?

Yesterday, we got to read about how the Presidential Spokes-Goblins complained that the timing by Democrats in forcing Bush to Veto the Spending Bill near the anniversary of the Land-on-an-Aircraft-Carrier-and-declair-mission-accomplished speech by Bush was just a stunt designed to expose a....what? Legitimate Photo Op by the President?

Today, Bush has vetoed the suplimental spending bill which contained withdrawal deadlines. Bush said it would be stupid to tell the enemy when we were going to withdraw...but then, if, as the President said, the mission WAS accomplished...then what the hell are we still doing and dying there for?

The problem is that it will be difficult for Democrats to create a fallback strategy that works. Ultra-Liberals are going to vote for NO FUNDING if the bill doesn't talk about withdrawal. Moderate Democrats and Republicans will vote for funding without withdrawal timelines because we just can't leave our troops in the lurch. We can't hurt Bush without hurting them.

What should be done then?

Personally, I like the plan favored by the Democratic Leadership Council--- go ahead and vote the money...get the troops what they need...but only keep them in the field for a short time until the money Runs out, and Bush has to come back and ask for more... this will remind the American people of two things. 1) Democrats DO support the Troops, and 2) Bush's war strategy has been a complete failure which has cost far too much in both lives and treasure....

The "short leash" approach undermines the administration's classic Rovian tactic of polarizing the debate into a false choice between perpetual pursuit of failed policies and a precipitous withdrawal, with no rational "exit strategy" in either event. And forcing Bush back to the negotiating table quickly will also maintain unity among virtually all Democrats and some Republicans who agree that ending our combat role in Iraq

Read the DLC article here:
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=254282


UPDATE

According to an AP Article posted this afternoon entitled, Veto Makes Democrats Weigh Concessions, :

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters ...``We're not going to leave our troops in harm's way . . . without the resources they need,'' said Hoyer, D-Md.

Hoyer was reluctant to say exactly what the bill will look like, but said he anticipates a minimum-wage increase will be part of it. He also said the bill should fund combat through Sept. 30 as Bush has requested, casting doubt that Democratic leaders would adopt a proposal by Rep. John Murtha, R-Pa., to fund the war two or three months at a time.

In the article, Nancy Pelosi is quoted as saying: ``The president wants a blank check. The Congress is not going to give it to him"

But, somehow, I fear that that is EXACTLY what is going to happnen.

Whew...I'm back...

After what seems like several years of redoing the bathroom, painting the house and packing up books, I have returned to Rip and Read.

Did anyone notice I was gone?

I still have to keep this brief today, but could not let this new story go without comment:

Bush to veto Iraq bill, make statement

See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/pl_nm/iraq_bush_veto_dc_4

In a move that comes as no surprise, the President is going to try to thwart attempts to stop his trumped up detour from the war on terror and return the nation to the path of common sense.

But here is what caught my eye...

Democrats appear to have timed the delivery of their bill for Tuesday's fourth anniversary of Bush's landing on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean where he declared that major combat had ended in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. The deck was decorated with a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

..."It is a trumped-up political stunt that is the height of cynicism," Perino said. "It is very disturbing to think that they possibly held up this money for the troops and troops' families and the resources that they need to try some PR stunt on this day."

Wow! A trumped up stunt to call attention to another trumped up stunt that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of American Lives.....Gee...no wonder she's pissed.