posted 07-26-2003 11:46 PM            

OK guys, take your fingers off that 'Write Mail' button. I find it to be my civic duty to point out the flaws of these guys. I had high hopes for the GOP in 1994 but, as usual, things never quite pan out they way they should. Be warned, if you do decide to pen a non-intelligible email to me, I may feel inclined to reprint it in this space, as to embarrass you in front of your peers. So, on with the column...

1. Smaller government? Yeah right. Remember the Contract with America? All this talk of spending cuts and a smaller, more responsive government was just that. Talk. The federal outlays for 1994 were $1.461 trillion The outlays for 1999? $1.731 trillion or an increase of 18%. The budget projection for 2003 is $1.954 trillion. That will increase the size of federal government by 1/3. A third! If this is smaller government, then I want a smaller penis.

2. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond. It seems that the mantra for the GOP convention this year was "We're not a bunch of old white guys." If you want to change your image guys, ask these two to step down. Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948. You know, back when milk was still delivered and sex only occurred with your wife. Truth is, these guys are the first image that occurs to people when they hear the term "conservative."

3. House Speaker, Dennis Hastert. This is who you came up with? Say what you will about Newt Gingrich, he was a fireplug. This is the role of House Speaker. You need your speaker to withstand the opposition's ire and be able to rally up and inspire the troops to pass legislation. Denny seems to be a nice guy and all, but the only person he seems to inspire is Bill Clinton, and that's to bully you guys around.

4. The Christian Coalition. What is up with these guys? This is the base of your party? I have always respected Religion, but it should stay out of politics. If you want to convince people to vote for you, guilt is definitely not the most effective tool. There are places people can go to find religious leadership, they are called Churches and Synagogues and I think we can find them with little help.

5. 1992 and 1996 campaign. You run two campaigns where the crux of your campaign is "We ain't Clinton." Surprise! You lost. The George W. Bush campaign this year seems to be flirting with this idea. Quick suggestion, you tried it twice and it didn't work. Unless you want to become the Buffalo Bills of the political world, get off this track and fast.

6. Rush Limbaugh, corporate spokesman. People, people, people! Rush Limbaugh is entertainment. If you continue to treat him as your spokesperson he will continue to drive away the independent vote. Limbaugh is a comedian with an ideology. He is not your leader, nor should you treat him as such. I personally believe that he drove John McCain out of contention for the presidency and that is just insane. Ask yourself this question: If Rush ran for president, would he win? If you answer this with a yes, please ask yourself again, and again and again, until you come up with the correct answer.

7. Impeachment. It is believed that Bill Clinton is the most corrupt president we have ever had. It is suspected that he committed numerous impeachable offenses, and all you guys could come up with is perjury. That's sad. The Senate abandoned the House on impeachment and then the entire Congress abandoned Ken Starr. He took the brunt of the attacks and you all left him out to dry. Speaking of which, when are you guys going to find the testicular fortitude to actually investigate the media diversion known as the Sudanese Aspirin Factory Invasion and show you have an understanding of the term "abuse of power?"

8. The perpetual minority. Face it guys, you work better when you are out numbered. I don't know if it's because you act out of desperation or because you can't handle the majority role, but you are blowing it. You have controlled Congress for nearly 5 years now and we have more bureaucracy, a more cynical public outlook and a federal government that owns more land then ever. If you can't handle the lead, I beg of you, get out of the game.

posted 07-27-2003 12:01 AM            

Cracks in the Wall - 2003-06-02
For months, indeed years, the Bush administration has been protected from effective criticism by a wall of "national security". After all, the nation was "at war". Our risk level was high. Everyone must rally behind the president!

I have written several times on this site about how I believe that the Republican Party faces impending disaster by our connection with the policies of this administration. Unfortunately, the "wall of silence" has been very effective, especially within the Republican Party.

However, the time which I have been worrying about for months seems to be arriving - the time when all of the Bush administration's foreign policy mistakes (or outright deceptions?) come home to roost. The question is whether our Republican party can run away fast enough to avoid getting caught in the ruin. Is it still possible for another candidate to be nominated for the 2004 election?

In no particular order...

Crack #1: Mis-treatment of arrestees.

It is always a bad sign when a department rejects the conclusions of its own Inspector General's office. You would expect the department to at least feign contrition and make empty promises of change... I'm afraid this will be a damaging issue. See the Department of Justice's Inspector General's Report here.

Crack #2: Lies, Part I

The story in US News & World Reports about Colin Powell's United Nations speech, and how he rejected most of what the White House wanted him to say as being unverified or even "bullshit". What he finally said in front of the Security Council was only the tip of the iceberg

Crack #3: Lies, Part II

As to what Colin Powell and others did say in public - where is the evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction? And why are we still looking instead of cutting our losses and admitting we were wrong? How did the administration come to be so far off on its assessments? The vultures are gathering: the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Bob Graham, and numerous media outlets. Sen. Warner (R) of Virginia is prodding the administration forward by calling for an investigation - maybe he can show America that some Republicans still care about truth. I saw an article in the latest Economist calling for UN inspectors to be called in and questioning the whole administration line. If a not-so-liberal English business/news magazine is calling for blood, the end is near. The problem for the administration is that they dug themselves a deep hole before the war, and have continued to dig themselves deeper. Can anyone outside of Paul Wolfowitz's office still believe that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons ready to fire at any recent point in time? More disturbingly, did anyone in Paul Wolfowitz's office ever believe that?

Here are some additional links to columns and articles questioning the Bush line on WMDs pre-war: A column by the defense correspondent at the BBC. Newsweek's story on the MSNBC site. Michael Duffy in Time.

Crack #4: Iran, the Next Target?

So, is Iran to be the Next Target, the next reason why America must remain in a state of war? They are next alphabetically in the Axis of Evil. The problem here is that convincing Americans and the world that Iran is an imminent threat to the US and the world is going to be a very tough sell. Why? To begin with, Iran is Shiite Moslem, Al Qaeda is Sunni Moslem - accusing Iran of connections with Al Qaeda is like accusing the Pope of backing the Protestant extremists in Belfast - not bloody likely. Iran does certainly back Hezbollah in Lebanon, but selling the idea of Hezbollah as a bunch of wild terrorists is going to be tough in the Arab world. If you define them purely as a terrorist group, then you pretty much have to define all armed Arab resistance to Israel as terrorism. That isn't going to be convincing anywhere in the world except maybe in the US. Iran is also presently run by a freely-elected government that is widely regarded as being secularizing and reform-minded. Admittedly they don't have complete control over the Iranian security apparatus, but that is quite obviously something the reformers are working on. Pushing Iran hard from outside can only strengthen hard-line religious elements in the country and make Iran less cooperative - and most observers outside the administration realize this, the struggle between reform and hard-line elements in Iran having been in the news for years. And the longer the US continues to insist that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq, the less Bush administration accusations about Iran's nuclear program are going to be believed, either internationally or even in the US. There has turned up not a whit of evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear capability in recent years, and the Bush administration it appears has stopped even claiming that Iraq had an active program.

Crack #5: Overselling the War

The Pentagon and the administration did a fabulous job of making American troops look good and get favorable coverage during the war. "Embedding" reporters was a brilliant concept, and may have produced both more favorable and more accurate coverage.

However, it has emerged that at several points during the war incidents were "managed" to the point of actual deceit, apparently in an effort to build public support for the war. Two such incidents that have been widely reported on since were the "rescue" of Pvt. Jessica Lynch and the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad.

A story on the BBC site challenges almost every part of the Pvt. Jessica Lynch "rescue" story. Pvt. Lynch's Iraqi doctor says that her injuries were consistent with a truck accident, not combat. Two days before the "rescue", the doctors attempted to return her to American lines, and the ambulance was turned away. The Americans were told by multiple sources that there were no Iraqi troops or guards in the town or at the hospital, but still chose to perform a dramatic - and disruptive - nightraid "commando raid" to remove her. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has recently called for the release of the full videotape of the "rescue", but it looks like "national security" will prevent that...

Here is the transcript of the full BBC program, and the shorter BBC online article.

The statue toppling story looks like a much more hastily arranged farce. Pictures show that the "Iraqi mob" pulling down the statue was in fact a group of about 100-150 people, filling only a fraction of the giant plaza, watching an American tank pull the statue down. The plaza was blocked off by American tanks. This and other evidence leads to the conclusion that the statue toppling was in fact originally intended as a ceremony in front of a picked group of Iraqi exiles and locals. (Eyewitness accounts and news pictures seem to indicate that many of the people were members of Chalabi's exile group.) Apparently some participants believed that the American flag briefly draped over the statue was in fact a flag that was flying at the Pentagon on 9-11 - a flag which clearly would have been flown in for ceremonial use. (See the BBC report here, for example.) At the last minute the event was repackaged as being spontaneous. See the story with pictures here. Here is a column by a sharp-eyed Canadian columnist who remarked the next day on how few people had been involved. This is an eyewitness account, an interview on Australian television with an Australian minister and peace activist who saw the statue go down.

- Brian Youmans, a Republican in Boston, MA

posted 07-27-2003 12:11 AM            

We haven't had a president that wasn't a globalist stooge in a long time.

As the 60's rock group The Who once said "Meet the new Boss...same as the old boss." "I hope we don't get fooled again"..

US Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Sec. 8 (g): "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature."

President Bush signs American flags for workers at Beaver Aerospace and Defense after speaking about jobs and economic growth in Livonia, Michigan, Thursday, July 23, 2003.

"President Bush, in campaign-style speeches in states vital to his reelection, sought Thursday to make sure voters give him credit for rebates heading to millions of taxpayers this week."

http://www.jimboellis.com/

Here's our moron in chief desecrating the flag that our kids are dying for. I am so sick of hearing about the new casualties everyday. And for what? Are we any safer? Is Saddam dead? Found those WMDs yet? No- just more of the same- soldiers dying so the moron and his buddies can turn a profit. The news is coming out so fast and furious and conflicting, that Joe Six Pack doesn't know what to think. And that's just where the government wants us. Too confused to form any opinion- just go along to get along. Too confused to figure out the president is a liar. Too confused to know the economy is in shambles. To confused to know the US is making more enemies everyday. The death of Saddam's sons sure quieted things down in Iraq, eh? Tell that to the dead soldier's families, and the soldiers that continue to be sitting ducks. Now we're sending troops to Liberia- better order up some more body bags! If we haven't used them all up in Afghanistan. Remember Afghanistan? Another country we "liberated" then high tailed it out of there to leave the same chaos that was there before.

Hopefully, and soon, this country will collapse upon itself from the weight of the crap that our corrupted government has heaped upon us. Then, again, hopefully, we can start over, learning from the mistakes that got us into the stinking hole we are in. I can already hear the right-wing assholes saying "love it or leave it". Well screw you. Remember this country was built on dissent, and some part of our Constitution, (the part that hasn't been used for toilet paper by our "leaders") says that I and any other citizen has the right to bitch and moan all we want. But all the complaining and protesting won't do any good. Just wait till the 2004 elections. If you don't think that it's already in the bag, then you're a moron also. The only reason Clinton was allowed to take the office from daddy Bush is that Bush knew he would carry on the same criminal acts and he would keep his mouth shut about the Iran-Contra debacle. After all, Clinton was Governor of Arkansas when the plane loads of cocaine were brought into Mena, AK to finance the Contras. That same cocaine was sold in our cities to waste our youth, particularly black youth, and provide a convenient way to put them in jail. If you think your vote will count in 2004, you're delusional. The mainstream media is finally coming around to reporting on the vulnerabilities in the new electronic voting systems we'll see in use in 2004.

I can hear some of you saying "Wow-Jim's on a rant today, eh?" But you wait and see. See how much longer this country can go on supporting wars in other countries while nothing is done to help citizens here. While the US kills civilians abroad and provides aid to the next dictator-of the-day. While women and children live on the streets and eat out of dumpsters. While senior citizens have to decide between prescription meds and eating cat food. While our borders remain open, and if you're an illegal immigrant, you can get free health care and a subsidized education, but if you were born here, these programs are not available. Hopefully the collapse is near- I can't wait to see it happen. I've got my tar and feathers and rope ready.

posted 07-27-2003 12:15 AM            

my president and theirs....

posted 07-27-2003 12:18 AM            

You call that a "choice"?

By the way...Clinton did a lot worse than
"not have sex with that woman."

He passed Bush SR.'s NAFTA GATT for one thing.

Of course Bush Jr. passed FAST TRACK to cement it in place.

There is no difference between the two.

Both are working tooth and nail to bring in

posted 07-27-2003 12:48 AM            

another wonderful example of a democrat...

posted 07-27-2003 01:08 AM            

maybe they are all reptillian's ?

posted 07-27-2003 04:19 AM            

"typical demonrat..."

Why stop there?

Amazing how you never mention the dirty deeds of your favored REPUBLICRAT party.

posted 07-27-2003 03:09 PM            

of course not when your ignorant of the facts and in denial to boot...lol...

and mech I have critisized bush and the admin on many occasions...

posted 07-30-2003 11:18 PM            

btw, jesse was wonderin' if you remembered that magical nite 6 or 7 years ago there quak...

for shame !

posted 07-30-2003 11:32 PM            

I'm against "the war" because I know for a fact that its simply moving us one step closer to building a global government.

Bush is a NWO shill--a puppet.

So are the democrats..

Stick your left vs.right paradigm up your heiny $#!+head.

posted 07-30-2003 11:55 PM            

basically I was refering to your stance on the war no inferences....