So much going on in BushWorld...so little space to write about it. [sigh] For instance, it's good to know that the war in Iraq has been downgraded by Rummy to the status of, "a global struggle." Bush's folly is now anchoring in the 30s in the polls lately. No wonder the man is hiding out at his ranch in Tejas. His approval is dipping below Johnson's during his last term. If we're lucky he'll forget where Washington D.C. is located.
The Army has been looking the other way when gays in the military decide to "tell." Recruitment is behind to such a degree that discharging soldiers due to their sexuality no longer carries the stigma that it once did. Apparently a bird in had is better than one in the bush now. No pun intended.
Judith Miller - 45 days in the can. Freedom of the press has joined many other American freedoms in the toilet under the Bush administration. Geeze...mayhaps he can find a way to run again. After all, we shouldn't change horses in the middle of a war. Opps...I mean in the middle of a struggle. I hope the American people have learned the untruth of that concept.
What do the states of Arkansas, Michigan, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia have in common? They all have bills that were introduced by state legislators that will allow doctors, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers to refuse service based on ethical, moral, or religious grounds. No, this isn't just aimed at women with prescriptions for birth control pills, it's also aimed at gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. If a doctor doesn't agree with your sexual persuasion, they can refuse to assist you. Where does the stupidity end?
Then there's Missouri, which passed a new law yanking adoption subsidies in an effort to ease the state's budget strain. About 12,000 children benefit from these subsidies and doing away with them will decrease adoptions in the state. But whose counting? By-the-bi, it's against federal law to terminate adoption subsidies. Wake up Missouri!!
The state of Georgia pardoned a black woman recently that the state executed 60 years ago. Somebody decided that not offering her clemency in 1945 was a "grievous error." She was convicted by an all male, all white jury. The state, however, wouldn't go so far as to clear her name for killing the white man who held her in slavery and threatened her life. Let's hear it for the Stars and Bars.
CRWXtians poked another stick into the eye of the separation of Church and State last Sunday with Justice Sunday II coming to your home direct from a tax-free religious institution. Punctuated with inflammatory and inaccurate attacks on "activist" judges, the good Xtians of the religious right foamed at the mouth while demonizing our judiciary as "unelected, unaccountable and arrogant." Led by that purist of Washington lawmakers, Tom (the chaste) DeLay, the assembled leaders expressed their desire to take away the Supreme Court's ability to strike down any law that Congress passed - no matter how unconstitutional it might be. (Yes - these idiots really want that.) To show just how pious these people are, they wouldn't allow Senator Bill Frist to speak because of his recent stand in support of stem cell research.
A recent study from ACT reports that over half of this years graduating high schoolers don't have the reading skills they need to succeed in college [who could have guessed?]. When you look at math skills, it's even worse. But on the plus side, two thirds knew where to go to download the info needed to unlock the hidden sex scenarios in Grand Theft Auto - a definite college level skill.
Farm subsidies or food stamps? It seems in order to keep the tax cuts for the rich, one or the other of these two programs has to be drastically cut. The path of fairness couldn't be clearer, could it? Thank gawd Bush believes in sharing the pain in these times of sacrifice!
Ronnie Paris was found guilty by a Tampa jury for aggravated child abuse after beating his 3 year old son to death in January because he didn't want the boy to grow up gay. And in Chicago, all five Repubos on the Clark County board of commissioners withdrew their names from a routine proclamation welcoming the 2006 Gay Games to Chicago. Mayhaps they were concerned their sons and daughters might grow up to be gay as well.
Finally, Canada's right wing political and religious pundents were asked how they could allow gay marriage to become the law of the land in Canada. The conclusion - they lost the battle to make gay marriage a "moral issue about family values." Canadians, it seems, saw the right of gays and lesbians to marry as an issue of "equal human rights, not morals."
But then, Canadians don't live in BushWorld, do they?
