Have you had your TV on? Your radio? Clicked over to your favorite Online news outlet? Can you believe all the crap going on out there? Just as my new column was about to debut, the news tickers stopped politely ticking and starting clattering joke shop teeth, spitting out more news than I could keep detailed notes on without hiring assistants.It wasn't in the budget.
And so the new column was put on hold until things calmed down. Which they didn't. Doesn't look much like they're going to, either, so the column will just have to be retooled. Which it has been. Instead of focusing on one political topic, we're going to take a monthly fly by so we can get a quick look at the happenings out there. Some you'll know only too well, some will be news to you and those, I hope, will lead you to a search engine for more information. Be active, people. Be active. Let's get started, then.
How 'bout them debates? Well, apparently there aren't many people watching the Democratic debates yet, which is news to me! You're missing a show. Nine people, most of them funny (intentionally or not), half of them gunning for each other, all of them gunning for Resident Bush, have to figure out how to either answer questions or cleverly not answer them while dealing with moderators who won't let them make stump speeches instead. You should watch, though, because any of them would be better than Heir Bush.
[Bill Richardson]Hispanics! It's your turn! Trust me, really, you've got the ear of every candidate right now. The Hispanic vote is being courted so intensely that candidates are trying to learn to speak Spanish. Don't be surprised if the Democratic Veep candidate isn't from this field of 9, because a Hispanic-friendly candidate will swing some states. Look to the Governor's mansion in New Mexico and see who you find there. The name Bill Richardson doesn't sound Hispanic, but the man is. Time will tell.
Tell me why the story of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife's CIA cover being blown has been pushed off the front pages of the papers in this country and you're not all screaming bloody murder? Where are the picket signs? It's being forgotten, and it was a crime. The Resident says Ashcroft and the Justice Department will investigate it? Cool, that makes sense. Let's have Jeff Nelson investigate his fight with the grounds keeper at Fenway Park during the American League Championship Series, too. Jeff can be trusted to tell us if he's guilty and should go to jail.
Speaking of the Resident, I see his approval and popularity ratings were falling when the Dow Jones had a good run, and then suddenly the rich people give him high marks again. What happens when people get filthy rich, exactly? Do they stop caring about things like human suffering and abuse of governmental power? "Give me a 2 dollar per share bump on my stocks and I don't care how many civilians you killed based on a lie."
Anybody seen one of those heartfelt letters from a hometown hero in a local paper? You know, one of your own, off fighting in Iraq, has a letter to the editor printed, telling about parachuting into the mountains and being welcomed by the people, who really want them there, and how proud he is to be part of this whole thing. It's inspiring. It's bullshit. Newspapers have stopped publishing a particular letter that has showed up all over the country signed by different soldiers. The soldiers exist, but the letter wasn't written by them. They were told to sign it and asked for the names of the papers in their hometowns. Then letters were altered just slightly, but they're almost identical. All of them end with something like "I have been serving in Iraq for over five months now as a soldier in the 2nd Battalion of the 503d Airborne Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as 'The Rock'." One of them ended that way even though the letter was supposed to have been sent by the soldier to his mother, who claimed to be sharing it with the paper because she was proud of her son. What son has to tell his mother he's a soldier serving in Iraq for over five months? I think she'd know. I guess these were preferable to real letters saying things like "God, Mom, can you get a lawyer to get me out of here before we have to fake another statue coming down? People shoot at us when we do that stuff."
We've spent too much time in this area, and we now have to fly like hell if we're going to get a look at the other important things going on. Tell y'what, we'll skip the California part of the trip. Everybody knows what's going on there, baffling as it may be. Yes, Ahnuld, the Gropenator, won by a landslide, which means there are far more sheep in Cali than we ever imagined. You'd think if anyone would be wary of landslides, it would be Californians. Oh well, it's off our flight plan.
We should probably scratch New York City, too. I'm not sure I trust the air after finding out what Christine Todd Whitman did a few days after the World Trade Center buildings came down. Whitman, then head of the Environmental Protection Agency, went on TV and told everyone the air was safe. Come on down, get back to work around the area, no problem. Great, except it wasn't safe. The air was toxic. It even included liquefied glass. Sound like something you want to breathe? Whitman resigned from the EPA but she's having to answer questions now, including "is it true that you were told by someone at the White House to make that statement?" Why would that happen? To get people back to work as fast as possible. If she did this regardless of the fact that the evidence showed the area to be unsafe, it sounds to me like another important thing for John Ashcroft not to investigate, don't you agree? (He could at least pretend, couldn't he? Arrogant bastard does everything but flip us the bird.)
Thank goodness ol' Christie isn't running the EPA anymore, y'know, because she never brought one lawsuit against a company for violations against the environment and always acted like a Bush worshipper. It's good to know we'll now have former Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, who so loves the environment he only took one in every ten of his campaign contributions from polluters like USMagnesium, and he only tried to block investigation against some of them, after all. He wasn't able to block the investigation against his own fish hatchery when it was found to be the source of fish spreading Myxobolus cerebralis (the fish equivalent of AIDS) through several rivers in Utah. Leavitt was the director of the hatchery, and he threw quite a fit when the family business was nailed with stiff fines for violations ranging from operating without the proper inspections to transporting fish while under quarantine.
Yeeeah, let's put HIM in charge of the EPA. At press time, George Bush is sending him up to the hill for confirmation.
Not like this is anything new in the land of Rove and Bush. Hell, let's just save time and refer to them as one person from now on, since it's well known that Rove is Bush's brain. Rovenbush has been appointing wolves to head up departments of injured fawn safety all along. Just look at the Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, Mark Rey, who spent years and years as a lobbyist for the timber and paper products industry.
[J. Steven Griles]J. Steven Griles is Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior. What did he do before that? He was a lobbyist for National Environmental Strategies (NES), an oil and gas firm that wanted easy access to public lands, something that would be much easier to get ahold of if they had someone on the inside. You know, in some government job like... oh, I dunno, maybe something high up in the Department of the Interior. But who could they get? Hmmm. Did Griles have a change of heart that made him suddenly want to protect the environment? Golly, who can say? Only thing we know is he gets $284,000.00 per year from NES as part of a 1.1 million dollar payout for his client base, and that doesn't sit well when you consider that in his current job he is the overseer of environmental regulations that directly affect his former clients. Those would be the ones he's being paid for by NES. Yep, he oversees those rules and he's the guy who can retool them. Spiffy arrangement, wouldn't you say? Another big win for the environment.
The more you study the list of Rovenbush appointees, the more you're surprised he didn't name Tex Cobb Secretary of Defense, or Ken Lay Treasurer, or John Ashcroft Attorney General. Oh, wait, the most ludicrous of those actually happened. Sorry. No, I really mean I'm sorry.
It's not just a matter of Sylvester being put in charge of cleaning Tweety's cage. Important posts have been given to unqualified people who simply bought them. As if our foreign relations weren't bad enough since Rovenbush tore into office like a bull in a china shop, ambassador posts were given out like gift baskets. A lawyer and real estate developer named Joseph B. Gildenhorn and his family gave around $230,000 to GOP campaigns beginning in 1984. What'll that kind of dough getcha? How does a post as Ambassador to Switzerland sound? The American Academy of Diplomacy, which is run by former high-ranking diplomats, says Gildenhorn is unqualified for the job.
That's screwed up, isn't it? If being a lawyer, a real estate developer AND rich isn't enough to qualify you to represent America to the Swiss government in Bern, then what the hell is?
Hey, that was some trick flying, wasn't it? We were doing a barrel roll over Utah, we somehow came up over the Beltway, and next thing you knew we were zipping over the Swiss Alps. Time to head back home. Even at high speed it'll take a few minutes, so let's bring out the crystal ball.
PREDICTIONS:
John Ashcroft will step up his investigation into allegations that the White House has been overcharged for cable TV for the past two years. The investigation will use up all the man power of the Justice Department for the foreseeable future, making any investigation of the White House/CIA leak impossible.
The Washington, D.C. Office Max will turn a profit this month, primarily due to the order of 142 shredders placed by the White House to replace the ones that burned out from overuse during that convenient little grace period right before they were told to save all documents that might be useful in an investigation of the White House/CIA leak. Which isn't going to happen anyway, so what a waste of perfectly good shredders!
Dennis Miller will run against Barbara Boxer for the U.S. Senate in California with a campaign slogan of "Don't mess with my fuckin' destiny, babe."
Israel will blow Iceland off the face of the earth in retaliation for a Palestinian suicide bombing. Ariel Sharon will blame confusing roadmap for peace. Three months of odd calm will follow while everyone tries to figure that one out.
FOX, citing their undeniable record of fair and balanced journalism, will demand the right to televise all Democratic debates. Bill O'Reilly, of The O'Reilly Factor, will moderate the first, using the same format he uses on his show. In other words, he'll ask pointed questions and then answer them as well, speaking to cardboard cutout images of the nine candidates which will be used in order to save the network on airfare and prevent unwanted candidate answers. It will be short, and it will become known as the O'Reilly Masdebate.
And me and you and a dog named Boo will be watching it because nobody cares yet. Mistake. Tell your friends to get involved. Spread the word. In these times when speaking your mind as a liberal moves people to say you're not a patriot because they've been conditioned to say it, and something as scary and broadly drafted as The Patriot Act exists, you've really got to be involved in the effort to rid the country of this administration. We're definitely living in strange times. Some people say it's right out of an Orwell novel, but it's really not to that level just yet. It does feel like the prequel, though, doesn't it?
(C) 2003 - DJ Johnson