Needlenose

Nope, no legacy peace treaty...just a stinking pile of crap!

A couple of days ago, I was joking about the Shrubya transition plan – wondering if he would leave a trashed WH and pop all the “Os” out of the computer keyboards.  But on seeing Condi’s failure to make even an iota of progress on a ‘legacy’ peace deal in the cis-Jordan, I further reflected on the transition from Clinton to Shrubya, then contrasted it with the current transition.  Clinton left Shrubya with:

* a balanced budget
* $2 billion budget surplus
* under $6 trillion national debt
* fewer Federal employees than his predecessor
* an economic boom
* high levels of unemployment
* the virtual elimination of Big Ag agricultural subsidies
* a 98% agreed-upon peace deal for the cis-Jordan involving S. Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, the occupied territories and Jerusalem with Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians
* an anti-nuke deal with Little Kim in N. Korea

What presents have King George the Witless left for Obama?

* $400+ billion dollar budget deficit (not counting the cost of the Iraq war)
* $12 trillion national debt (doubled in 8 years)
* a surge in the number of federal employees and paid political appointees
* the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression
* 6.5%+ unemployment highest level in 14 years (since his daddy, King George the Clueless)
* unprecedented levels of corporate welfare Big Ag and Big Oil tax breaks and subsidies
* complete breakdown of cis-Jordan peace talks and 2nd intifada, massive unrest and hardship in the occupied territories and regional ‘cold war’
* Nuclear-armed Little Kim
* election of hard-liners in Iran, virtual elimination of moderate faction
* And to top all that off – a failed costly war in Iraq and a failing war in Afghanistan

And to remember King George the Witless and TurdBlossom’s biggest complaint was a few computer keyboards missing “Ws.” I never thought I’d miss Clinton.

Check out the other major sellout by Nancy Pelosi. Remeber the $200 billion dollar Agribusiness handout legislation I raged about before? Nancy & Co. have larded on another $100 billion in pork to the tune of $300 billion!!

The bill would spend about $5 billion a year on automatic payments, mostly to farmers of five crops – corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybeans – giving two-thirds of the money to the top 10 percent of growers. Embarrassed by the spectacle, some farm-state lawmakers pushed for payment limits, fearing a loss of public support for farm aid.

Pelosi touted a ban on payments to farm couples earning more than $2 million, 10 times higher than Bush’s $200,000 income limit.

At the same time, she backed a 50 percent increase in the actual amount of money each farmer could get. The Senate added a new $3.8 billion “permanent disaster” program to bail out farmers of drought-prone land, intensifying the push to plow fragile prairie.

“This is not even the illusion of reform,” said Rep. Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat who intends to fight a $1.7 billion cut in money added by the House for conservation. “Not when you dole out $50 billion in direct payments over 10 years that bear no relation to market prices or production. … The president is right.”

I really hate it when I’m forced to agree with the worst president in U.S. History. Screw Pelosi, I’ve voting for the other chick in the next election.

From the Associated Press today:

The $6 billion reading program at the center of President Bush’s signature education law has failed to make a difference in how well children understand what they read, according to a study by the program’s own champion — the U.S. Department of Education.

The program, Reading First, was designed to help boost student performance in low-income elementary schools, but failed to improve reading comprehension, says the study from the Institute of Education Sciences, part of the Education Department.

There was no difference in comprehension scores between students who participated in Reading First and those who did not, the study found.

But if students didn’t benefit from the program, who did? You hardly even need to ask:

This isn’t the first time supporters of the program have been dealt bad news.

Congressional investigators and Education Department Inspector General John Higgins previously found that federal officials and contractors didn’t adequately address potential conflicts of interest. For example, federal contractors that gave states advice on which teaching materials to buy had financial ties to publishers of Reading First materials, according to the investigations.

Amazing, isn’t it, how every initiative this president launches has the same results — nothing for ordinary people, but plenty for the well-connected pigs feeding at the government trough.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Heading home for the holidays? Dreading the inevitable collision with that Libertarian uncle or redneck cousin where you both unavoidably launch into a heated, and family-alienating political discussion after he/she taunts you with Bush? Well, this year stay cool and stay on-message with these handy talking points on so-called conservative issues:

Fiscal responsibility:
* $1/2 trillion-dollar budget deficit and climbing, of which:
* $300 billion is pure government welfare pork
* $100-200 billion additional pork pending in the Energy and Prescription Drug bills
- Remind him/her that Clinton balanced the budget

Small government
* 12.5% growth in Federal Government last year
- Remind him/her that Gore, working for Clinton, trimmed 300K federal jobs and reduced Federal spending 3% (as share of GDP)

Fighting Terrorism
* Where’s Osama?
* Why are the Taliban operating out of Pakistan with impunity?
* Why weren’t the CIA/FBI heads and their staffs sacked?
* What happened to the 9/11 investigation?
* Why does Bush withhold information about possible Saudi complicity in 9/11
* Why is Al Qaeda still blowing things up around the world?

The War in Iraq
* War crimes (on the basis of Geneva Conventions) due to U.S. criminal negligence:
# 1,500 civilians killed in uncontrolled looting following the fall of Baghdad; insufficient forces on the ground
# 12,000 unique, priceless artifacts looted from the Iraqi Art Museum
# 1 million unique, priceless historical documents burned in the Iraqi National Library
# 8kg of uranium missing from looted Tuwaitha reactor; enough for several ‘dirty bombs’
# Thousands of Arabs ‘ethnically cleansed’ from Kurdistan
# Dozens killed in ‘reprisal’ slayings and ethnic civil war
# Destruction of houses, farms and other personal property in punative raids
# Hundreds of Iraqis being held without trial or tribunal
# Occupational Authority making significant changes to Iraqi legal system
# Occupational Authority making long term committments of Iraqi resources
*War botched:
# Where’s Hussein?
# Where are the WMD?
# 294 casualties since war ‘ended’
# Soldiers suffering dozens of daily guerilla attacks, the pace is increasing
# Guerillas have easy access to Hussein’s old arsenal
# Large political bloc militias still run free and armed
# No credible Coalition Government has been set up
# Strong-arm tactics appear to be further alienating the civilians
- Remind him/her that Clinton won the war against Serbia without a single U.S. soldier lost

Civil Liberties
* Patriot Act ‘sneak and peak’ provisions clearly unconstitutional
* DeLay used Homeland Security to spy on the movements Texas state legislators
* Why do Bush and war opponents end up on ‘no-fly’ lists?
* The FBI is spying on anti-war protestors
*The Secret Service is selectively enforcing ‘free speech areas’ – America is a free speech area!

I’m under no illusion that I can convince any of my reactionary relations to budge from their simplistic world-view, and I won’t try to persuade you that you will have any better luck. We can, however, potentially discourage them from contributing to Bush Co., and maybe, if they are lazy as well as misguided, discourage them from casting a vote next year. BTW, South Knox Bubba has a more comprehensive list of more general Bush failings that might be useful in political discussions with your non-rabid relations.