parody videos about Bush

Is he humble?

Or crazy?

(Yes, I already know that it’s 4000 US soldiers dead in combat and not 3000. It’s an old video!)

Or just plain evil?

 

This week’s political cartoons

 

Who is in charge of decisions in Iraq?

If we (the United States) turned everything over to the Iraqi government and we’re so proud of how democratic things are becoming there, then why are we (Condi Rice) trying to overturn their rules? We have nearly run out of soldiers and marines to send to Iraq, but the private
mercenaries are not as reliable since they are not subject to any laws or rules. The article in the Guardian points out that:

The dilemma for the US government is that it needs private security firms but a reversal of the Iraqi government decision
would undermine the credibility of assertions by the Bush
administration that the Iraqi government is autonomous.

No wonder the Iraqi Government wants the mercenaries security contractors out.

The private security firms are controversial, often hated by Iraqis who regard them as trigger-happy. US soldiers can face court martial if accused of unprovoked assaults or over-reaction, though the ratio of those convicted is low. But the law in relation to private security firms is vague.

Here is more of the article:

Iraq orders expulsion of US security firm

· Decision taken after killing of Iraqi civilians
· Rice tries to overturn ban on Blackwater guards

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday September 18, 2007
The Guardian

The Bush administration faced an embarrassing stand-off yesterday when the Iraqi government ordered the immediate expulsion of all employees of the security firm Blackwater USA.

The Iraqi ministry of interior took the decision after eight Iraqi
civilians were killed and 13 wounded in Baghdad when shots were fired from a US state department convoy on Sunday.

Iraqis, quoted by news agencies, reported seeing helicopters, protecting the convoy, opening fire.

The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was forced to intervene to try to have the ban reversed. She was planning to call the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. “She is going to express regret for the loss of life … (and) make it clear that we are investigating this incident,” the state department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said. The state department has refused to confirm whether Blackwater was involved. The state department and reconstruction workers rely heavily on protection by Blackwater.

Like most of my political posts, this is cross-posted at
Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

 

Two Political Cartoons on the Surge in Iraq

How stupid does Bush think that we are?

Note: spew alert for the second cartoon.  Don’t have anything in your mouth that you don’t mind having all over the screen and the keyboard.  —Freckles

 

Gonzo is finally Gone-zo

Wouldn’t it be nice if Bush would nominate some honest lawyers who respect the constitution to head up the justice department?  All of the top spots are empty.  But he will want people he can trust to not investigate his administration, someone who agrees to illegal wiretaps and torture and  prisoner rendition around the world, and I really hope that the congress doesn’t give in.

Gonzales leaves Justice Department

from Yahoo! News

AP – Resigning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left the scandal-scarred Justice Department on Friday, declaring himself hopeful about its mission of ferreting out crime and defending the truth. Gonzales quit after 2 1/2 years at the department amid investigations into whether he broke the law and lied to Congress. He has denied any wrongdoing.

 

Progress

Bush is supposedly all about accountability. Every year we have to do better on the tests and every year the tests get harder. Know what the teachers say when you don’t pass a test the first time? They say you’re making PROGRESS. I think that means you did better than you did before, and that you’re getting closer to passing.

But that’s not what it means to Bush. Watch this video from MoveOn.Org and see if you can figure out what the word PROGRESS means in his world. If you figure it out, please let us know in the comments section.

 

Are we ready to fight?

    My brother was 6 when he decided to join the military and 18 when he did. He was not drafted. It was his choice. I do not want to get drafted when I turn 18 in 2 yrs (and a few months). Do you? If Bush doesn’t ever let this war end, and if Congress never pushes for it to end, then we all might end up fighting. Even with enlistment bonuses and 5th tours of duty, the military is going to run out of soldiers and marines.

This is an ad that is being run in Maine where Susan Collins is up for re-election, but it could run anywhere. Watch it. Share it with people. Keep me and my friends and our classmates and our generation from having to get drafted to fight Bush’s war.

Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to go on 3 or 4 or 5 deployments? Are you ready for PTSD? Are you ready to die?

 

Knowing your Audience

When I was in 8th grade, my language arts teacher focused a lot on our writing styles and wanted us to always have in mind who the audience was. She taught us that writing a letter to the editor called for different vocabulary and style than a letter to a friend. Even my first or second grade teachers taught about about school words and playground words.  When I was very little, my mom told me there were certain words that were only bathroom words. (So of course I stood in the bathroom and screamed them as loud as I could.  What can I say? I was two!)

George Bush is not a two year old, and has completed the second grade and even the eighth grade.  And college.  And MBA school. But he has not yet learned which words and expressions are appropriate in private and with friends, and which ones are appropriate to use when speaking with the prime minister of a country he is visiting. Mr. Bush, would you like Ms. Livingston’s phone number? I bet she could teach you to be aware of your audience.

Things are going well in Iraq, according to President George W. Bush.

Upon his arrival in Sydney Wednesday, Deputy Australian Prime Minister Mark Vaile “inquired politely” about his stopover in the war-torn country.

“We’re kicking ass,” Bush said.

The remark was overheard by a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald and caught by an Australian blog.

According to the paper, Bush arrived in Australia in a “chipper mood.”

…..

“Apart from his introductory remarks, Howard never spoke during the press conference,” the paper added. “It was the George W. Bush show.”

The Herald asserted that Howard’s staunch position backing the Iraq war “is growing.”

“He implied that those who argued against the war in the first place had no role in the current debate,” the article said.

 

new political cartoons

Freckles is back to school and hoping to get back to real blogging when the homework settles down. In the mean time, political cartoons.

 

Bush’s legacy

It seems that George W is concerned about his legacy, and he is talking to a biographer named Robert Draper:

In book, Bush peeks ahead to his legacy

from Americas – International Herald Tribune

In an interview with a book author in the Oval Office one day last December, President George W. Bush daydreamed about the next phase of his life, when his time will be his own.

The articles talks about these kinds of issues

First, Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With joint assets that have been estimated at as high as nearly $21 million, Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets – it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

and

The transcripts and the book show Bush as being keenly interested in what history will say about his term despite his frequent comments to the contrary; as being in a reflective mode as his time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue dwindles; and, ultimately, as being at once sorrowful and optimistic – but virtually alone as commander in chief, and aware of it.

Here is the worst line in the whole article:

And in apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq, he continued, “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ – there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.”

HE just wants to make money, but I think that his real legacy will include these:

1. a million people dead because of wars that we started
2. 3000 dead at Ground Zero, flight 93 and the Pentagon, with bin Ladin still on the loose and not even a suspect by the CIA
3. an unsolved anthrax terrorism case that killed five people
4. increased opium exports all around the world
5. privatization of everything from highways to schools to prisons hospitals to the maintenance of Walter Reed hospital and rehab
6. many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with no access to decent health care when they need it
7. the drowning of a city and a whole section of another state
8. hard times for poor people, and a whole lot more poor people
9. most of his administration resigning on him, and some of them being investigated and tried and convicted for crimes
10. having the whole world hate us
11. almost (I hope) starting a war with Iran
12. stealing elections
13. having hookers in the white house pretending to be reporters
14. the giant corporations having a super time while the planet heats up and regular people suffer
15. high gas prices and high prices to heat houses
16. spying on Americans without a warrant or even telling the FISA court
17. locking up Americans for years without a trial
18. locking up thousands of other people in torture camps with no lawyers and no rights
19. making students only learn stuff that is tested in April and not the important things in each subject

I bet George won’t talk about those things when he has speaking tours. (He’ll get more for one talk than my whole family has in a year!) What do you think his legacy will be? Can someone please call the Hague?

Like most of my political posts, this is cross-posted at
Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

When can we leave Iraq?

So …. If half the republican people want us to withdraw troops from Iraq, we can assume that even more of the democratic people want to withdraw troops. So when will the politicians in Washington know what the people know? When will they listen? When will they start a withdrawal?

This is from ThinkProgress:

51 percent:

Number of Republicans in Iowa who “favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months.” Just 39 percent are against a withdrawal. (via Atrios)

 

Fox and War with Iran

Why does Fox News want us to have a war with Iran? Why do Americans let Fox News decide what is happening in our foreign policy? Why don’t they have to report real facts?

 

call to action on CHIP

I just got this email. But it sounds like people in other states can call their governor too.

—Freckles Cassie

Dear Cassie,

George Bush has done it again. He has sided with insurance and drug company profits over the health and well-being of our nation’s children. Late Friday night, the Bush administration released a letter to state health officials that
effectively eliminated health insurance coverage for millions of American kids. This underhanded one-size-fits-all cutback limits Texas’s ability to cover uninsured kids and cripples any chance of reasonable expansion.¹

What can you do? Let’s face it; President Bush isn’t going to take your call.

On the other hand, when the governor of a state calls, even Bush will listen.

Call Governor Perry right now and demand that Texas stands up to President Bush’s anti-children campaign.

Governor Rick Perry
512 463-2000

Here’s what you can say:

“President Bush’s new rules which reduce the availability of the Children’s Health Insurance Program for uninsured kids must be repealed. Governor Perry must call President Bush today and demand a complete rollback of the new rules. Can I count on the governor to stand up for our kids?”

Please report how your call went here:
http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com/chipcalls

This is a very important time. Congress is poised to send an extensive expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan to Bush’s desk next month, and Bush has already threatened to veto it. If we amp up the pressure now on a rules change they didn’t even think we’d notice, we send Bush and Republicans in Congress a clear message that the health of America’s children always comes first.

Please call the Governor right now. Your neighbor’s kid might be depending on it.

Charles Chamberlain

Political Director

¹: “Rules May Limit Health Program Aiding Children” NYTimes,8-21-2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21health.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

 

 

New political cartoons

 

Karl Rove and the TV media

Think Progress has a post up called

If It’s Sunday, It’s Karl Rove

and in it they have a list of questions that they want the talk show hosts to ask Rove. Here’s the list:

• Promoting the war as a member of the White House Iraq Group
• Leaking Valerie Plame’s identity
• Compiling the list of fired U.S. attorneys
• Politicizing government agencies
• Dealing with Jack Abramoff
• Violating White House email record-keeping rules
  

In addition to those, I think they should also ask him about these things:

• Who Jeff Gannon was spending nights with in the White House?
• Is George Bush drinking or doing drugs?
• Who is the real president, Bush or Cheney?
• Why did you decide to leave now?
• What gave you the idea that there are no rules for you and your friends?
• Why did you decide Congress doesn’t matter anymore?
• Did you rig the voting machines?
• Don’t you feel guilty destroying the country like this?

What else would you ask him?

 

Domestic Spying

Am I the only one that is not surprised by this headline? Or the details? People a lot older than I am seem very surprised that the government is behaving like this, but kids are used to having no privacy and no personal freedom. So, if they can take this from Americans now and patriotic older Americans (who expect the constitution to be in force) get upset, what will it take to upset my generation?

Domestic Use of Spy Satellites To Widen
Law Enforcement Getting New Access To Secret Imagery
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 16, 2007; A01

The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers.

A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as
early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law
enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance.

Administration officials say the program will give domestic security and emergency preparedness agencies new capabilities in dealing with a range of threats, from illegal immigration and terrorism to hurricanes and forest fires. But the program, described yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, quickly provoked opposition from civil liberties advocates, who said the government is crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement.

Although the federal government has long permitted the use of spy-satellite imagery for certain scientific functions — such as creating topographic maps or monitoring volcanic activity — the administration’s decision would provide domestic authorities with unprecedented access to high-resolution, real-time satellite photos.

They could also have access to much more. A statement issued yesterday by the Department of Homeland Security said that officials envision “more robust access” not only to imagery but also to “the collection, analysis and production skills and capabilities of the intelligence community.”