Tennessee State Flower

I’m not going to sit here and write to you what I think about President George W. Bush as we spend the next 48 hours bringing in a new president. I think you know how I feel as I haven’t been bashful about it. I think his presidency has been a nightmare for the American people and for the globe.

I think the largest concern I have about Bush is all the secrecy, and of course, mainstream beltway journalists deciding to work in collusion with him instead of, I don’t know, covering the facts.

How many national presidential directives did he sign? I guess because I want to know I need to look that up.

Anyhoo, I am hoping that the next four years will be more transparent. Everyone uses that term these days but it applies. I hope for our country that we work together instead of trying to pull each other apart. I hope that we can lay down some labels that have been volleyed around as a means of verbal weaponry to reduce other people. I hope that we can come together.

(more…)

As I got up before the chickens this morning, I’ve been rooting around the web like a pig looking for truffles. Let us see what delightful things I found today in a rare linkdump.

Cracked has some of most overlooked deaths in 2008. Bob, you have ruined many ballgames for me as children flock to the field doing the chicken dance embarrassing not just me but the masses. You will be missed, you polka genius.

And now to this:

Jim writes letters:

Dear TVA, it only makes you look like an even bigger moron if you keep denying and covering up what happened. Your ash is deadly poison and you’d have a lot less strife if you stick with the truth.

Dear mainstream media, you are even bigger morons than TVA, if that’s possible. Start covering TVA.

George Bush’s Top Ten Moments on David Letterman.

Go here and look at number 4. Politics in action.

Go to Monkeys for Helping and waste some time looking at this post’s awesomeness.

And come back tomorrow when I announce a groovy surprise.

Well, of course, it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day.

So, I did I went to the name generator and put in President George Bush’s name.

It’s Pirate Izzy the Backstabber.

For some reason, I thought this would amuse me more than it actually did. Another failed plan at creating merriment.

Dear Washington White House Folks and Private Companies,

You can spy on me if you want. I will go ahead and tell you about myself and then you can go check it out.

• I have four dogs: Mabel, Duff, Kirby and Jura. Jura was named after Scotch. Yeah, I know. Sue me.
• I like mystical things.
• I think Ding Dongs are the grossest yet most wonderful food ever invented other than pickled okra. I buy them both.
• I watch Reality Television. I think they should do a show on the president. I am sure it would be entertaining.
• I make mistakes. It’s a human thing. Mistakes, I repeat, were made.
• I like Bass Beer and Miller Lite when I cannot find Bass Beer. I don’t like Coors Light. Don’t tell Lee. I do think the mountains that change colors on the bottle to indicate when it’s cold and hot is cool. The German taught me this on Saturday. The German is also really cool.
• I hate it when people misunderstand me. Especially when I’m trying to do what I perceive is the right thing.
• I do not like Joe Leiberman. I realize he’s your friend these days.
• My cellphone officially bit the dust today. You don’t have to monitor me as I will be on my niece’s phone as I really don’t have the do-re-mi to go and get the phone I want. Please, it was me on this 11 yr. old’s phone if you hear anything suspicious.
• Elvis Impersonators seeing a woman back into my car was not a fine, sweet tale. IT WAS TRUE.
• I like men with long hair that dangles in their face.
• Cave Crickets could be the next weapon of mass destruction if I, indeed, was your enemy.

So there you go.

I miss the government that my grandfather loved. And he was a Republican,

Yours truly,

Newscoma

There is a lot of talk in the media about Karl Rove leaving his post in Washington. Now, I’m the first one to say that Rove is not one of my favorite people, but now that I’ve had a day to think about it, there are some things I’m pondering about all of this.

The agenda has changed. Rove needs to be out of Pres. Geo. Bush’s shadow now (or was Bush in his? I’m no longer sure.)

Why, you ask?

Because the Republicans want to retain the White House, and Rove, although he says that he wants to spend time with his family, will be back behind the scenes doing what he does and that is winning elections at any cost. Or at least that’s the way I see it, although I sometimes wonder where exactly Rove’s allegiances actually lie.

Now we could banter about that they didn’t really win in 2000 and all of that, but for me at least it’s representative of my feelings today about what lengths this administration will go to but it’s also ancient history in the political world. We could say that Bush is a lame duck and Rove bailed. But, in watching those two men over the last few years, there is a bond. Rove was the brains and Bush had the brawn. But when you are on top, the only place to go is down. And with some of the things going on in Washington right now from information surrounding Scooter Libby or Albert Gonzalez let’s say, on top of the subpoenas that have been ignored, Rove isn’t considered as golden as he once was.

But he’s still got some life in him.

If you count him out, I think you are probably deceiving yourself, because he took Geo. Bush to the governor’s mansion and to the White House and he wins. We could also banter a bit more about how he won, which many of us believe was sort of like a game of Dodgeball where he was constantly throwing the ball at the other side’s family jewels where it wasn’t always “fair” but Bush got the the big “V” in the scorebook.

And in politics, in this day and age, its about winning.

This was politically the right time for Rove to leave. Not too close to the Democratic wins of last November, not after the Libby case, nope. He waited until August recess when Washington is quiet.

Now, the thing I want to see is if Rove is loyal to all of the GOP or just Geo. Bush. The jury is out on that one.

All of this is very curious.

To quote the This is Huge moniker of days gone by from Nashville is Talking….

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political adviser, will voluntarily step down from his White House post at the end of the month, senior administration officials said Monday.

Rove is leaving! Voluntarily?  So many questions are spinning through my head.

The Washington Post is reporting that he’s leaving politics.

Bush plans to make a statement with Rove on the South Lawn this morning before the president departs for his ranch near Crawford, Tex. Rove, who holds the titles of deputy chief of staff and senior adviser, has been talking about finding the right time to depart for a year, colleagues said, and decided he had to either leave now or remain through the end of the presidency.

Yeah, this is big. In some ways, I’m not surprised, but then again, I not.

I was wandering around the blogosphere this a.m., and found this article about what presidential candidates really CAN’T, or won’t rather, say while being on the campaign trail, and in all honesty, what they can’t do because of the status quo.

I found it to be very interesting. The writer cites that candidates are not going to get too “passionate” about certain things. They want us to think they are leaders, sure, but they only want to touch on things just enough to get our hineys out to the polls on that infamous day in November.

We don’t know what they’ll do in all honesty. Did we expect what we have now as a nation?

Some of the things the post discussed where items like illegal immigration (where they come out and say NO, we can’t get 12 million folks out of this country in a mass sweep cause it just isn’t going to happen) or that conspiracy theories become urban legends that the media reports as facts.

They are going to say what the majority of people who actually vote or going to buy. Retail, of course.

Interesting. Some of the list of the 20 things candidates won’t talk about will most likely make folks mad, but it’s an interesting dialogue to say the least.

Here is a snippet:

What’s sort of weird about all this is that a lot of people actually seem to agree with the “fringe” candidates – those who confront some of the taboo topics on my list. Ron Paul has had some luck pressing forward with ideas and positions that are considered taboo. He’s the breakout “fringe” candidate this year, but fringe nevertheless. And substantial numbers — maybe even a majority — of Democratic primary voters like Dennis Kucinich’s positions on the issues better than those of Clinton or Obama. But Kucinich’s campaign has never even caught a light breeze.

Obviously, perception trumps content. Voters may agree with nearly everything a fringe candidate says, but when the media echo chamber dismisses that candidate as “fringe,” they are drawing a big “L” for Loser across the candidate’s face. And while voters will eventually develop some measure of contempt for the actual President, loser candidates are beneath contempt, and can’t really be taken seriously.

The idea of retail politics gives me a case of the wiggums. Because it’s a selling technique and that’s about it. It also works on the theory that the squeeky wheel gets the oil.

I think I would add the quote “Mission Accomplished” to that list as something that will never be uttered by a president for the rest of this country’s days.

Ironically, I found this post on Fark.

Just saying.

Well, it goes without saying that I really want to go on vacation, I mean ‘recess.’

A lovely week somewhere, anywhere.

I need a ‘recess’. Not the kind that the nieces are getting in school, but this kind.

As I read this, I thought “Hey! I want to be on ‘recess’ for the rest of the month too. It’s hot, I’m grumpy and I want to go somewhere!!!”

Of course, I was thinking Barbados, or Norway, as was suggested by Russ McBee the other day on Twitter.

Then I realized two things.

1. Congress has been out all week and is on ‘recess’ as well. Both Congressman John Tanner and Sen. Bob Corker have been in my county this week.

2. The idea of a vacation in Crawford, TX doesn’t sound like a bundle of fun to me. No. Not at all.  I’m sure it’s great fun for people who find Crawford, TX to be a swinging resort, but I just can’t see it.

3. It’s not a VACATION. It’s a ‘recess.” I know, get it right, Newscoma.

I’ll just stay in Hooterville. Drinking beer and watching Mabel do Spider Pig. She’s getting quite adept at this skill.

I’m reading CNN’s website this morning about President George Bush being treated for lyme disease because he rides his bike and apparently gets bit by ticks a lot. Yeah, that’s what it implies. That’s yukky. I’m not saying it isn’t.

But what made me take pause on this page, was the box in the left hand corner that said with a headline and a subheader these words:

Don’t Miss:

Doctors Remove Polyps From Bush’s Colon.

I wish I was kidding but that’s the actual words. Yeah, that’s something I don’t want to miss.

I guess this would be called breaking news. Or it might be called Newscoma is banging her head into the wall because I think this is going to go over like a lead balloon. Or not because the president tends to get his way. A lot.

Congress shouldn’t go on vacation until it approves reforms to the current laws on government eavesdropping, President Bush said today. Lawmakers are working on a bill that would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act so that the US could spy on terror suspects overseas more effectively without impinging on Americans’ privacy rights, but a deal remains distant.

This program would be supervised by none other than Attorney General Albert Gonzalez.

The FISA court review would happen 120 days after the surveillance began, another senior administration official said Friday. Until then, McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee and approve the process of targeting foreign terrorists, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing negotiations.

snip

The FISA court review would happen 120 days after the surveillance began, another senior administration official said Friday. Until then, McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee and approve the process of targeting foreign terrorists, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing negotiations.

The administration is demanding that this apply to monitoring of all foreign targets, no matter whether they end up communicating with another foreigner or someone in the U.S, and no matter whether they are a suspected terrorist or a target for some other reason, said the first official.

Democrats leery of Gonzales’ involvement said that seemed far too long a period of time before the FISA court could step in.

Mr. Bush said that he would judge any bill sent to him by one measure alone: McConnell’s judgment as to whether it provides “what you need to prevent an attack on the country.”

“If the answer’s `no,’ I’m going to veto the bill,” he said.

The urgent push to update FISA may stem from a recent ruling by the court that oversees it, according to remarks earlier this week by House Republican Leader John Boehner during an interview with Fox News.

“There’s been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States,” said Boehner, going further that most officials have in explaining the pressing need for change.

Just read the whole thing.

Now, they say this wouldn’t mess with Americans but still, it looks like President Bush is sending a message to Congress. And, he says he’ll veto. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

On another non-important note to no one other than me, I wish I could have August off.

And a pony.

Wait, that ain’t gonna happen.

Carry on.

UPDATE: It passed the Senate. 

The Commercial Appeal has a story that I think is pretty scary. And none of us knew very much about it.

President Bush, on a spring day on May 9th, signed a directive. It’s a plan, a blueprint if you will, that would, in case of disaster, set up a plan for the White House.

The plan, embodied in National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), was issued without fanfare by Bush on May 9. It draws upon blueprints prepared by past administrations stretching back to the Truman administration.

The latest directive underscores long-standing presidential authority to declare a “catastrophic emergency” and coordinate “enduring constitutional government.”

But it also awards the president broader authority to take over disaster recovery from state officials and calls on federal authorities to provide “appropriate support” to the vice president to orchestrate any post-attack recovery, if necessary.

Bush says the new plan for dealing with a catastrophic emergency would “enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.”

Bush has ordered White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend to develop details for the plan by Aug. 10.

But the general outline of the plan already has stirred heated reactions across the political spectrum.

The Doomsday Plan?

Just read the whole thing, and when you are done, allow me to be a conspiracy theorist for a moment please. Go to this picture and see when it was unveiled. Then see that our president doesn’t have an end date on the bust. It could be nothing, in all honesty. But, I’m being Fox Muldar right now so allow me to shake in fear for a few minutes. Then we will go back to talking about movie and zombies because they aren’t real.

Yikes.

Oh yeah, we are doing a $20 million dollar arms deal with the Saudi Government.

I’m going back to watch Shark Week. It’s a much safer environment.

Ahh, the presidency of President Dick Cheney had it’s ups and downs. There was drama, there was laughter.

And, of course, it always end in tears.

Wow, the roller coaster ride was amazing. I almost missed the whole thing.

And, then, it ended so abruptly.

Colonoscopies sort of suck. Wonder how George is doing.

Seems he didn’t have a very fun day.