Unless you have been living in a cave, you have heard of the Cheney shooting.  Some facts are here for posterity.  Cheney and one of his 78-year old lawyer friends, HarryWhittington,  went hunting on  Katherine Armstrong’s Ranch in South Texas last week when Cheney shot Whittingon in the face.  The press was livid that Cheney and company (his lawyer friend and two other women - Katherine Armstrong and Pamela Willeford, US ambassador to Switzerland) covered up the incident for over night before releasing information. 

After the heat was turned up by the white house press corps, Cheney decided to run to Fox news for an interview.  Fox convienently left out the video in which his interviewer, Brit Hume, asked Cheney if there was any drinking.  Cheney said he had a beer at lunch hours before the incident.

MSNBC also participated in the cleansing.   Dan Abrams is on MSNBC giving Cheney a pass, saying that "The Vice President didn’t do anything wrong" and finding nothing irregular about the fact that he was not interviewed by law enforcement officials for 15 hours after the incident.   Catherine Armstrong told MSNBC,  "There may be a beer or two in there," she said, ‘but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.’".  Later the network removed that quote from the transcript.

 The Nation Magazine reported that Cheney has a previous troubles with irresponsible alcohol consumption.  They reported Cheney was thrown out of Yale for drinking and garnered two DUI’s during his college years.

For those of us that are not Vice-President of the United States who shoot hunting companions in Webb County Texas, they don’t get quite the pass. From the San Antonio Express-News, June 3, 2003:

Juan Garza Mendoza, 34, an employee of the ranch, was charged Monday with manslaughter, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison….

Mendoza had apparently hit Barrera Vasquez while shooting at a feral hog, and immediately contacted authorities after the shooting, Hurd said.

Sheriff Garza said interviews with three of the victim’s Mexican traveling companions and the others in the ranch hunting party led him to rule out anything but an accidental shooting.

"They mistakenly shot a human being," he said. "It’s reckless. It’s inexcusable."

Bush just gave a speech and harped on America’s over-dependance on oil.  What?  My ears deceive me.  Can it be the former oil barron wannabe has turned green and is actually looking to the future?  Yes, he’s looking to the future, and yes he’s green - but not an environmental sort of green.  It’s the more like the color of money.

The oil companies are trying to quietly post the highest profits in history.  Even congress could not get their story (nor could they swear in the executive and force them to tell the truth).  But George is perparing us for what he knows will come soon - inflation.  That wicked ecomomic nemesis caused by the free falling dollar and higher oil prices.

Who caused both of those things?  Why, I believe it was Bush.  He rolled into Iraq (without Congress or a war declaration) when he should have kept his ass in Afganistan thereby wasting billions of dollars and too many lives.  He kissed China’s red rump and allowed WalMart to launder our dollars and support Communism.  With the 2006 elections comming on, he is trying to wiggle out of responsibility and blame inflation on the US appetite for oil.Joe Schmoe drives a Ford F350 and wastes gas, therefore he can’t afford to send his kids to college.

How predictable. Bush is blameless again.

 Last year the ACLU took on the Dover, Pensylvania school board for requiring intelligent design (neocon for creationism) to be taught in high school biology classes.  Eleven parents joined the ACLU and filed suit, arguing it is religious belief dressed in the cloth of science.  Last week Judge Jones, a Republican appointed by President Bush, concluded that intelligent design was not science, and that it was unconstitutional for the Dover School board to require it to be taught in high school.

Ironically, the radical Dover School board members that pushed the issue have already been voted out of office.

In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to settle this question, ruling that Louisiana could not make creationism a part of the science curriculum. The state, Justice William J. Brennan wrote, cannot "restructure the science curriculum to conform with a particular religious viewpoint."  Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, arguing that creationism could be "valuable scientific data that has been censored from the classrooms by an embarrassed scientific establishment." 

Yes, Scalia, it is good judgement to us embarassment to teach those pagen scientists a lesson.  If the matter were brought before the Bush-altered supreme court today, the outcome may be different. 

On behalf of the intelligent and compasionate Americans, we extend an apology to Canada for the constipated Republicans that are attacking your character.  For you see, Canada, that is what these retards do.   We reasonable Americans also have to endure their petty diatribe.  Tucker Carlson (MSNBC), Neil Cavuto (Fox News) - they are all a bunch of political dollies spewing trash from the corrupt Bush Regime. They are not the majority in this country, so just ignore them.  These phony networks are just polical toys directed to spread hate in order to keep most Americans angry and afraid. 

So don’t get mad as us, feel sorry for us.  Hopefully the ring leaders will be in jail soon and we will all be vindicated.

Bush was in Philadelphia last Tuesday, Jack Murtha’s home state, to give a rah-rah speech to the Philidelphia World Affairs Council on Monday.  This day Bush opened his sanctum to Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News for a little PR exercise.  Given his pathetic approval ratings in the 30’s,  the Bush Administration must have felt the need to reach out.

After his speech at the luncheon, Bush gets a silly grin on his face and says, "I’ve got a little extra time on my hands, maybe I’ll answer some questions." 

Nobody expected this.  He usually just smiles and waves, then darts for the safe haven of the Presidential limo.  Not this time - this time he had a reporter to cowtow to so he improvises.  God help us all.

 The first bomb:Bush called on Didi Goldmark, 63, a former libel defense lawyer from New Hope, Pa. "Since the inception of the Iraqi war," she said, "I’d like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators." The Bush administration has usually brushed this question by saying that the Pentagon does not count Iraqi victims. The President showed a new confidence by answering the question, "How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war?" he said, beginning the answer that would create the headlines from the event. "I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq." The White House later backpedaled and stated the number was not a government estimate, but was based on news reports that the total was 27,000 to 30,000.

 The second bomb:Bush called on Faézé Woodville, 44, of Stratford, Pa., who cares for two sons at home. "Mr. President," she began, "I would like to know why it is that you and others in your administration keep linking 9/11 to the invasion of Iraqwhen no respected journalist or Middle Eastern expert confirmed that such a link existed." She got a burst of applause. 

The only applause the official White House transcript references is after Bush’s vacuous answer.  Bush pretended not to hear the question (Freudian, no doubt) and made her repeat it before he answered.  She repeated it word for word the second time.

"I appreciate that," he began, which is the way he often begins the answers to questions he does not appreciate the continued, " 9/11 changed my look on foreign policy. I mean, it said that oceans no longer protect us…"

In reality, this means his answer is that we should all be afraid and stay afraid and that is the justification for all unjustified slaughter.  Bush continued with the usual drivel about how Sadam was such a bad guy, etc.

Chatting afterward with reporters from TIME and The Washington Post, Woodville said she was disappointed by the non-answer. "He must think we’re morons," she said.

Bush excapes the real world for the sanctuary of la la land and a chat with Brian Williams.  During some non-camera on Air Force One that day Williams asked Bush about thePresident about one-time administration claims that Iraqis would welcome Americans as liberators. "I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome," the President replied.

Wow…and the scary part is he had no idea what he just said.

Just a couple of weeks ago, JD Hayworth (R-Az) denounced Bush as an asset to his ongoing campainging efforts on the ever-popular Imus show. 

IMUS: Would you just answer my question, would you like [President Bush] to come to Arizona and cut campaign commercials and run them on those TV stations everywhere?

REP. HAYWORTH: In a word, no. At this time.

Since then it has been reported that JD is dancing up a storm to make his way back into the inner circle.  He has been persuaded to visit with Bush in Tuscon then slink up to the Biltmore in Phoneix to slurp down a $1,000 per plate meal for Arizona Senator Kyl featuring his favorite war president, Bush.

Kiss the ring, Bitch. 

Scientists in Tuscon have discovered the information about the Clarence Thomas "pubic hair in the Coke" issue.  Gerald Lassiter, a Biology PhD candidate from the University of Arizona, was able to secure the actual Coke can in question from Dr. Anita Hill.  Dr. Hill donated the can to the school for student forensic analysis.

Lassiter was able to isolate specific markers from the hair found in the can.  There were two individual donors - one a black male and one a white female.  Ther Markers were mapped and compared to known DNA samples for previously arrested individuals across the country.  Upon analysis from a network of law enforcement databases around the nation, it was determined there was a hit for white female DNA profile. 

The DNA was that of political pundant Ann Hart Coulter.  According to Ann Arbor police, her DNA entered the system in 1991 for identity purposes when there was a young law student from University of Michigan who was reported missing by her frantic parents.     

This was just months after the first gulf war has erupted.  There was a Corporal from the USMC corps in Kuwait that had attended a party thrown by Haliburton in honor of George Herber Walker Bush at the Kuwait Sheraton in 1991.  According to a marine Corporal, whose sworn statement was file with the can, there was a lot of drinking and "carousing" happening that night.  "There was a blonde woman doing a strange dance with the Coke can", he said, "It was nothing I had ever seen before".

After the first gulf war, the Corporal Smith’s unit was shipped home.  He was discharged and returned to his native home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Corporal Smith was arrested later that year for possession of a small amount of Marijuanna during the "Hash Bash", an annual parade in Ann Arbor glorifing the smoking of pot.  Upon a police search of Corp. Smith’s living quarters, the Coke can was seized.  The can was entered into evidence and remained in police custody.  Corp. Smith was released and not charged.

Ms. Coulter could not be reached for comment.

Last night the House Rule committee, in an effort to cleave the Democrats and ridicule Jack Murtha (D-Pa) for his emotional and heart-felt plea to end the war and pull out troops within 6 months, put forth HR 572 to force a vote on a corrupted version of Murtha’s plea, HR 571.

The Republicans changed Murtha’s language from “within 6 months” to “immediately”. Their goal was to cleave the Democratic vote and put this measure to bed before the Thanksgiving break. In short, they exploited the Iraq war in a cheap shot aimed at political gain.

When HR 572 went to the floor, it was a vote on whether or not to put the corrupted version of HR 571 to a vote. C-Span reported last night that JD Hayworth (R-AZ) was the mastermind behind the scheme. The Republicans used their C-Span air time to accuse the Democrats of being unpatriotic – their version of a political spanking.

Republicans all voted “yea” to HR 572 forcing a vote on the corrupted HR 571. When the vote for HR 571 came, they all switched their votes and voted “nay” killing the measure they brought to the floor.

The Democrats consistently voted “nay” to both measures, not taking the bait. The Republicans were unsuccessful at exploiting the war to bring down the Dems.

According to an AP report, at one point in the emotional debate, Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel.

“He asked me to send Congress a message — stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message — that cowards cut and run, Marines never do,” Schmidt said. Murtha is a 37-year Marine veteran and ranking Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee.

Democrats booed and shouted her down — causing the House to come to a standstill.

What little press coverage this has received misses the underlying motivation of the entire incident. The Republicans will exploit anyone, anywhere, to further their selfish causes. They are afraid for their jobs next November (as they should be) and they are slinging as much mud as they can.

In an attemp to cleave the Democrats apart, the Republicans of the House offered up a mutated version of the call from Representative Murtha’s to get our military out of Iraq. They changed one word – withdraw the troops as soon as practible, to “withdraw the troops immediately”. They have stooped to a new low even for them, according to Nancy Pelosi.

In a White House memo send to key staff yesterday, Bush ordered his staff to take refresher classes on ethic rules. No doubt Bush is backpedaling to create some sort of damage control after Dick (go fuck yourself) Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, was indicted for lying to the to a grand jury.

White House counsel Harried Miers will conduct the ethics investigation. No doubt she thinks it the greatest idea ever and that Bush is the smartest-est man alive for coming up with the idea.

This also comes on the heels of Bush’s lowest approval ratings ever. A CBS poll on Wednesday put Bush’s job approval rating at 35 percent. Less than half Americans view the president as trustworthy and honest, which begs the question - will Bush sit in on his own ethic’s classes? He was never an academic type.

I thought this would be a long 4 years for me….Bush is going to reap what he has sewn over the first 4 years. I’m sure there will be more corruption and scandal to come.