Bolton Nomination Handjob Continues
The latest scoop in the Bolton nomination to be Minister of Cruelty at the UN is detailed in the following Yahoo News excerpt:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Friday dismissed demands to turn over additional documents on John Bolton despite Democratic threats to delay a U.S. Senate vote on his troubled nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
The day after a Senate committee advanced Bolton's nomination to the full Senate -- but took the rare step of withholding its endorsement -- the White House defended its embattled nominee and said senators had all the information they needed.
Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said she would delay a Senate vote on Bolton, currently the top U.S. diplomat for arms control, until the administration turns over classified documents that Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee had sought before the committee's vote on Thursday.
Good for you Barbara. Now I hope to hell you have the guts to stick to your promise...
Democrats are weighing whether to use a broader procedural roadblock -- a filibuster that would require a 60-votes majority for confirmation -- to try to defeat the nomination. The Democratic caucus likely will decide that next week, and Boxer's action "should not necessarily be read as a step along the way to a filibuster," said Norm Kurz, spokesman for Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, top Foreign Relations Committee Democrat.
Typical white flag maneuver by Biden. As my buddy Bartcop all too frequently asks, why is this hack cashing his Senate paychecks? I agree. His constituents should sued him for fraud.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan called Boxer's move "just a delaying tactic," and said the administration "has been very responsive to the needs of the Senate."
What a load of complete and utter bullshit. McClellan, like the rest of this crooked gang of thugs, should have the graphic "He's Lying" imposed over his image whenever he speaks, similar to the way the immortal Joe Isuzu was presented several years ago.
Pointless Trivia: Who played Joe Isuzu in those commercials?
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, "We don't think anything further is required before a floor vote," adding that release of some materials on deliberations within the administration would have a "chilling effect."
A chilling effect? Really? As chilling as say, the document that the Brits released earlier in the week that showed British Prime Minister Blair and President Useless met to fudge the facts concerning WMD as an excuse to attack Iraq when Dubya swore he hadn't made up what passes for his mind to invade? That kind of a chilling effect?
McClellan defended Bolton as "a results-oriented kind of guy" after a bruising Senate committee session in which he was depicted by Democrats and some Republicans as a bully who tried to intimidate intelligence officials into making their findings support his hard-line views.
Full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050513/us_nm/bush_bolton_dc_25
I'm quite certain Bolton is "a results-oriented kind of guy". He gets the results that fit his paranoid world view, and that of his puppet masters, while ignoring (at best) and attacking (at worst) results that don't fit into the Bush Administration One Size Fits All Valu-Pak. Why else would George Voinovich (R-Ohio) have lambasted him so badly during the final confirmation hearing? Or is referring to Bolton as the "poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be" not an obvious enough indicator that this fool is unfit for this position? We need the UN. We do not need a piece of excrement like Bolton to be the next UN ambassador. Ms. Boxer, I hope you are true to your word...
Help Is On The Way...NOT!!!
In a move that proves President Bush is the biggest lying mothershitter to ever occupy the White House, he and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced a major military overhaul. The overhaul takes the form of massive military base closures, as is demonstrated in the following Yahoo News excerpt:
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is proposing the most sweeping changes to its network of military bases in modern history, a plan that would close 33 major facilities in 22 states and reconfigure hundreds of others to achieve savings and promote cooperation among the armed services.
More than two years in the making, Friday's recommendations by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld represented his attempt to balance a whirl of competing forces. They include the changing threats facing the nation, massive federal deficits, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economies of local communities and political pressures.
Are they referring to the federal deficits that resulted from increased spending and massive tax cuts for the rich?
While state officials, community leaders, lobbyists and members of Congress combed through a thicket of data the Pentagon presented, the overarching theme of Rumsfeld's plan was surprisingly simple: To be more combat ready and affordable, the individual services must become leaner and more unified.
An example: The Army would move the 7th Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg, N.C., to the Air Force's Eglin, Fla., base, so both services' elite troops could train together more easily. An airfield next to Eglin is the headquarters of Air Force Special Operations Command.
Out would go the crown jewel of the Army hospital system: the venerable Walter Reed hospital in Washington. The hospital would move staff and services to the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md., to create a new, expanded facility carrying the Walter Reed name.
Oh, so one of the most prestigious medical facilities for the treatment of our veterans is being eliminated. And I don't believe for one nanosecond that nonsense about expanding the National Naval Medical Center.
The proposal submitted to Congress and an independent base closing commission evoked immediate howls of protest from members of Congress whose states stand to lose jobs civilian and military and the Pentagon pledged to lend a helping hand to the hardest hit communities."It is wrong. It is shortsighted," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said when he learned the closures would include the submarine base at Groton. He called it "cruel and unusual punishment" of his state, which would suffer a net loss of 7,133 military and 1,041 civilian jobs.
Hey Joe, fuck you. You signed up for this shit when you removed your trailer hitch from Al Gore's Cadillac and attached it to President Asswipe's Yugo. Do us all a favor and change your party affiliation.
Full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050514/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/base_closings
Everyone in this administration should be ashamed of themselves. Does anyone remember Dubya's Campaign 2000 pledge to the military that help was on the way? Better yet, can anyone who has served, or is currently serving in our armed forces explain to me why you support this asshole? He has proven time and time again, through not giving the troops the equipment they need, by letting Halliburton and it's centipede arms of subsidiaries gouge and steal from them, and now by closing these bases and medical treatment facilities that he is not a man of honor. I was under the impression that honor trumped everything in the military.
And how does this "overhaul" make the country safer? It stands to reason that by closing these bases, we are putting our eggs in fewer baskets, so to speak. That does two things: One, it decreases our readiness to fight, or to have a ready pipeline of resources for places in which we are already engaged. Two, it increases the likelihood that any terror attacks could take out larger portions of our military infrastructure as a result of this downsizing.
I hope these sons of bitches sleep well, and that these decisions do not come back to bite us in the arse.
Brainless Baseball Analysis
I just witnessed some exceptionally brainless baseball analysis on ESPN's SportsCenter. Jeff Brantley, former NL relief ace was asked to critique Bobby Abreu of the Phillies. Abreu is currently riding a streak in which he has homered in five straight games. Brantley's "analysis" consisted of him saying that, as closely as I can recall, "Bobby is one of those guys who gets his bat on the ball. He doesn't strike out much, and he's finally found a stroke that allows him to hit homers."
Brantley, as my grandfather would have said, is full of old shoes. First, Abreu DOES strike out a lot. Even though he owned a .305 career batting average entering the 2005 season, he has, since emerging as a regular in 1998, struck out over 100 times every season since then. He has struck out 858 times in the 1,096 games he has played in a Phillies uniform (and an additional 51 times in 74 games he played for the Astros in 1996 and 1997). That works out to 122.5 strikeouts a season. In fact Abreu had the tenth most strikeouts of National League batters in 1998 with 133 and in 2001 with 137.
The second issue with Brantley's assessment of Abreu's sudden power surge is equally wrong. Abreu has hit 163 homers for the Phillies from 1998 to 2004, an average of 23.3 per season and hit a career high of 31 in 2001 and hit 30 in 2004. He also swatted 25 big flies in 2000 and had 20 on the nose in 1999, 2002 and 2003, so it's not like he just found the secret to hitting homers, he's just hot right now.
Abreu has long been an overlooked star, consistently hitting over .300, averaging 23 homers, 41 doubles and 6 triples a season. He has also stolen an average of 29 bases a year making him a total offensive threat. He has also drawn an average of 105.6 walks a season, so his on-base percentage is always over .400 which leads him to score an average of 104 runs a year. And as a middle of the order guy he is also productive averaging 92 RBI a season. Add to that the fact that he is a good defender in right field and you will quickly see that Abreu is one of the most complete players in the major leagues.
I can understand the average non-Phillies follower not understanding these facts, but Brantley is a former major leaguer. Not only that, he was Abreu's teammate in 1999 and 2000! He has no excuse for being so ignorant of these facts.
Note: Through the Phillies first 36 games of 2005, Abreu is hitting .313 with 8 homers, 28 RBI, 24 runs scored and 10 steals. None of these numbers figure into the averages computed above.
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