The Deets

Just a couple quick questions for Ed Gillespie, Chairman, RNC:

1. Is the economy better off today than when George W Bush took office?
2. Are more or less people living in poverty today than when George W Bush took office?
3. Is the budget balanced like it was before George W Bush took office?
4. Do more people have jobs today than before George W Bush took office?
5. Who is going to for the tax cuts George W Bush gave to the richest Americans without corresponding cuts in spending?
6. Are we safer today than when George W Bush took office?
7. Who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to Robert Novak? Why did George W Bush decide to discuss this with a lawyer rather than coming clean?
8. Who authorized the use of torture, and why haven’t they been held accountable?
9. Why hasn’t George W Bush’s friend Ken Lay of Enron fame been charged with a crime after more than two years?
10. Why did the White House award a 10+ billion dollar contract to a business who’s moved their headquarters out of the USA to avoid paying taxes?

Someone needs to address the above issues, and Bush hasn’t proven not to be the right person for the job.

Ed Gillespie’s email comments:

Just this week, John Kerry commenced his “Days of Malaise Tour,” trying to convince voters they are again living through the Great Depression–despite the reality that our economy is experiencing some of its strongest growth in decades, homeownership is at a record high and manufacturing employment is at a 30-year high.

John Kerry’s pessimistic strategy is depressing his own party. Call your local talk radio stations and tell them that Kerry’s pessimism is not the kind of leadership we need in this country.

AM 1500’s Bob Davis shouted down a caller in the 8 o’clock hour today by repeatedly stating that Richard Clarke ordered the plane flights that took Saudi nationals out of the country in the days after 9/11. While he said it with conviction, he was incorrect in his statement.

Here’s the testimony Mr Davis was likely incorrectly referring to. Notice that Clarke played a role in the approval, but the request and final approval clearly came from higher up in the government. In reality, it simply makes NO SENSE to think that the responsibility for this decision was in Richard Clarke’s hands.

Footnotes: Richard Clarke on Air Bin Laden: “MR. ROEMER: We don’t know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say ‘Yes, you’re clear to go, it’s all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia’?

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference. I was making — or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don’t know. The two — since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff’s Office. But I don’t know. “

Also, notice how poorly Bob Davis’ misinformed take on the events after 9/11 reconcile with the behavior of Prince Bandar and George W. Bush:

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / Unasked questions: “But some people desperately wanted to fly out of the country. That same day, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States and a long-time friend of the Bush family, dropped by the White House. He and President George W. Bush went out to the Truman Balcony for a private conversation. We do not know everything they discussed, but the Saudis themselves say that Prince Bandar was trying to orchestrate the evacuation of scores of Saudis from the United States despite the lockdown on air travel.”

Bob, please try to stick to fact based debating.

Does this sound like a message from someone interested in allowing everyone in Minnesota have a fair chance to exercise his or her constitutional right to vote? To me, this sounds like a not-so-veiled attempt to sway Minnesota’s election judging with highly partisan Republican judges. It’s simply outrageous to see the chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota coordinating such underhanded behavior. (Emphasis added below.)

As we saw in 2000, the fair use of election laws by election workers can have a significant impact who leads our nation and state. Passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) has created many new changes in how elections are conducted, making Election Judges even more important to Republican success in 2004. To help ensure fair elections we need you to get involved today and sign up as an Election Judge.

The responsibility of the Election Judge is to assist in conducting the balloting in the polling place. Judges are appointed on partisan basis from lists provided by the State or Local Party Units to the County Auditors. Judges must reside in the County, but not necessarily the precinct or city, in which they are serving as a judge. There are more than 4,000 precincts in Minnesota and the State Party would like to assure there are two Republican Election Judges in each precinct.

Election Judges are paid by the county, and employers are required to provide leave for their employees to serve in this civic role. You can view more detailed information and sign-up at: http://www.mngop.com/electionjudge/ or call the Republican Party of Minnesota headquarters for more information at 651-842-0100. Once appointed, the County and the 72 Hour Task Force will conduct trainings for Election Judges on Election Day operations and Minnesota election law in order to ensure that all legal ballots are counted. Please sign up TODAY if you are interested in becoming an Election Judge in your County.

Ensuring that every eligible voter has the right to vote is critical to Republican success in 2004.

Sincerely,

Ron Eibensteiner Chairman

Republican Party of Minnesota

Cheney is nothing is not a hypocrite. Unfortunately, as we all know, hypocrisy is the least of Cheney’s faults.

Cheney pared defense while Pentagon chief | The San Diego Union-Tribune: “Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been charging that John Kerry would be a dangerous president because he opposed many key weapons that the military now relies on, himself presided over the biggest cutbacks in defense programs in modern history when he was secretary of defense under the first President Bush.

As Pentagon chief from 1989 to 1993 Cheney canceled or cut back many of the same weapons programs - bombers, fighter planes, battle tanks - that he says Kerry tried to deprive the armed forces of. “

If the best thing the current president has going for him is comparisons to a dead president who drove the country into debt, broke the law twice by giving arms to Iran and fighting an illegal war, spent a ridiculously unnessecary amount of money on defense against a crumbling USSR, ignored the AIDS epidemic for most of his term, preached about the evil of government while INCREASING the size of government on his watch, put mentally ill individuals onto the streets of America creating a homeless epidemic, then I get the feeling the current president is interested in talking about ANYTHING but his own record.

A Flash movie that does a great job reminding us about the lies we were sold:

Remind Us: Why Did The United States Invade Iraq?

George W Bush, have you talked to your good friend Ken Lay lately? You know, the guy who lent you his corporate jet for your campaign in 2000? Can you honestly say you’ve done something about our country’s energy policy or corporate malfeasance when the former CEO of Enron still hasn’t been held responsible. It will be more than three years since Enron’s collapse by election day.
CBS News | Enron Traders Caught On Tape | June 2, 2004 20:39:26: “Four years after California’s disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, Enron energy traders can be heard on audiotapes obtained by CBS News gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on, and cash-in on, the Western power crisis.

‘He just f—s California,’ says one Enron employee. ‘He steals money from California to the tune of about a million.’”

An administration that gives $10 billion contracts to draft dodging deserters of this country is an administration who’s lost the respect of tax paying Americans. On top of that, the contract is a wasteful investment in Big Brother technology, so the opportunity cost of this is enormous.

Yahoo! News - America’s Digital Welcome Mat: “Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) called the award ‘outrageous,’ according to The New York Times. ‘The Bush administration has awarded the largest homeland security contract in history to a company that has given up its U.S. citizenship and moved to Bermuda. The inconsistency is breathtaking,’ “

Sadly, Accenture [formerly Anderson Consulting] runs the Internal Revenue Service website, which goes to show how bold this company is with its tax dodging. It reminds me of the practices at their past partners at Anderson.

Congratulations to George Bush for only waiting 10 months to agree to cooperate with the CIA leak he claimed he’d get to the bottom of . . . 10 months ago. However, can it really be considering cooperating if he retains an attorney? What’s so hard about telling the truth?

Yahoo! News - Bush Ready to Cooperate in CIA Leak Case: “President Bush said Thursday he was ready to cooperate in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year and that he had consulted with an attorney to determine if he needs legal advice. “

George Bush claims to be a man of principle, yet he sure seems to have a hard time deciding just what those principles are. Let’s face it, George; you can’t satisfy all of your corporate cronies all the time.

President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief - Center for American Progress: “But President Bush’s serial flip-flopping raises serious questions about whether Congress and foreign leaders can rely on what he says.”