According to CBS News, Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to 28%, a new low. By comparison, at this point in his presidency, Bill Clinton’s job approval stood at 65%… and that was during the height of the impeachment proceedings.
UPDATE:
If you really can’t wait for the speech, the White House has already released talking points and excerpts.
I read in the news that Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt died today. Hunt explained the motive behind the burglary: The Nixon people had heard rumors (which were false) that Fidel Castro was contributing money to George McGovern’s presidential campaign, so they raided the Democratic National Committee office hoping to find evidence of these contributions in the DNC’s accounting records.
Right wingers make paranoia an art form.
Nixon won 49 states and 60% of the popular vote, for chrissakes! These idiots could’ve saved themselves a ton of grief if they had looked at a fucking poll. What were they thinking?
I heard that Bush is going to personally ask Redneck to drive a Volkswagen to save gas!
Talking points? Excerpts? What are they trying to do, ruin State of the Union drinking games across the country?
Roger says, “I heard that Bush is going to personally ask Redneck to drive a Volkswagen to save gas!”
Probably me too Roger, if the previews I’m hearing are accurate.
But Bush will never get my V-8 pickup unless he pries it out of my cold dead hands.
My pickup actually gets better mileage than our old VW ever did. It’s a lot better at hauling lumber, too.
@5 “But Bush will never get my V-8 pickup unless he pries it out of my cold dead hands.”
That won’t be necessary — just keep pouring gas into that guzzler so my oil stock will keep going up! Up another $2s today (because Bush sent another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran) — and if Bush attacks Iran, I’m gonna be a rich fucking bunny!!! :)
Past SOTUs:
Nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular.
Nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular.
Nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular.
Nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular.
Nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular.
Nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular nucular.
Maybe by the time he is indicted, arrested, impeached, or otherwise apprehended he will learn how to say this deep, dark, mysterious word. Every single time I hear Smirky McFlightsuit try to say this I am sorry to be an American.
” just keep pouring gas into that guzzler so my oil stock will keep going up! Up another $2s today (because Bush sent another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran”
I don’t think you have a future as a financial advisor, Roger. I didn’t see anything today that mentioned any connection between the spike in the price of a barrel of oil and any movements of aircraft carriers. Made a few bucks on oil today myself, by the way. You won’t get rich however on the amount of miles we drive, “guzzler” or no.
I am Republican – I lie, steal and cheat when I’m not being a family man (fat whore) or a crying hypocrit. I follow the white sheep. Hail Hitler!
Kennedy had a rough night, he is napping…..
HI WINGNUTS. THE CHIMP YOU WORSHIP IS GIBBERING.
GOTTA BALANCE THE BUDGET – BY CUTTING ALL SPENDING EXCEPT FOR THE WAR ON TERRA AND THE PENTAGON BOONDOGGLES.
GOTTA GUT SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE – TO SAVE THEM.
GOTTA DESTORY PUBLIC EDUCATION. IF SCHOOLS FAIL PARENTS CAN MOVE THEIR KIDS TO WINGNUT MADRASSAHS IN STRIP MALLS.
GOTTA PROP UP THE INSURANCE COMPANIES – THEY GIVE BUCKETS OF CASH TO REPUBLICANS.
AFFORDABLE CHOICES? SHEESH!
HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS – ANOTHER RICH MAN’S TAX SHELTER.
I’M BORED…
Nancy isnt bored, she keeps clapping………..
Wasn’t the Democrats of many moons ago who were pushing alternative energy?
Did I just hear MTR’s hear explode? Bush used the words “global climate change”!
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE? WHAT KIND OF “MOONBAT” IS THIS CHIMP?
HEY MTR. CALL THE WHITE HOUSE AND ASK FOR THAT CHI-SQUARED BULLSHIT!
TERRA, TERRA, TERRA…
AFTER WMD IN IRAQ, YOU WANNA BELIEVE THIS MONKEY?
Hey, I just saw Dick take a swig of Gin and not even flinch. He sure looks like a happy guy.
He just said do our doody. Shit!
HEY WINGNUTS. SIGN UP FOR HIS NEW “RESERVE”!
YEAH RIGHT. FOR A WINGNUT (LIKE “DUCK” CHENEY), IT’S ALWAYS THE OTHER GUY WHO FIGHTS AND DIES.
Some dude, Sen. Jim Webb, gave a response to Bu$h xliii’s stumble-fuck. I think Webb is a former GOoPer, Ronnie RayGun’s SecNav or some-such. Webb said:
Is this the same guy who told the Texas Bu$h Pussy that the condition of Webb’s son is between the young infantry Marine & his father, the senator?
Semper fi, mother-fucker!
How many times did he say “kill”?
What the hell was the peHOsi constantly CHEWING.
Good God, blinky (pulled those eyelids a tad too tight there last time doc!) looked like a cow munching cud. That lip wave thing she does with her constant blink tic…blech!
Surely with all that leaning she did to the RIGHT edge of her chair, she KNEW she was on camera.
Webb says, “But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy,”
Geez, that sounds wonderful. Who wouldn’t be in favor of “diplomacy”? But what in the world does that really mean? Sipping chai tea with the Iranian leaders?
If it was that simple why didn’t Jimmy Carter and the UN bring peace to the middle east years ago?
Bill Cruchon @ 24:
Strong diplomacy means SecState & undersecs for MidEast + Central Asia + North Africa on aircraft & in-country.
Regionally-based means focused on the nations that border Iraq, plus a few other oil-rich countries with specific OPEC ties to the neighbors.
Diplomacy is not a word that you or your neocon, GOoPer, wingnut, rethuglican or Bu$hInc pals can understand.
Jimmy Carter did broker a deal. Ronnie RayGun, Adm. Poindexter, LtCol. North & the rest of the Iran-Contra gang (you may have heard about this group, like NOT!) destroyed all of the underlying “diplomacy” with the arms-for-hostages & the “arms cash for Contras” treason that could not be prosecuted because of Saint Ronnie’s alzheimers & the super top secret encrypted decoder ring presidential “findings” surrounding these traitorous activities by White House operatives & Adnan Kashoggi.
Well, I got the Israelis and Egyptians to quit fighting. That was more than anyone else had done.
Diplomacy isn’t something you do once and it’s finished. It takes time and hard work and a willingness to cooperate and compromise. The results are worth it, though.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have some humanitarian crises to attend to, and I’m not as young as I used to be.
Turdburger @ 24:
Webb was in the Cabinet when Senor RayGun fucked the pooch right in front of the US citizenry & the world. He had a front-row seat to the destruction of Carter’s Middle East policies that could have precluded this current insanity.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
Now, then, if you are actually as stupid as your posted comment appears, you certainly can’t understand my definition of what Sen. Webb said in his response to the Texas Bu$h Pussy. Diplomacy is a functional part of any foreign policy. The problem is that wingnutz don’t know what it is or how it functions. Folks like yourself seem to think the “Book of Revelation” from the Holy Bible is a fucking, goddamned US negotiating position for international relations.
Jim says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucular
Were you sorry to be an American when Carter and Clinton pronounced the word “nuclear” this way as well?
It took Jim Webb to mention NOLA.
But of course the chimpster wants to forget NOLA and the entire gulf-coast region. . . . . . . .
She was chewing her cud, a Ghirardelli Chocolate bar.
Jim Webb is everything the chimpster isn’t:
Honest.
Forthright
Patriotic
One who truly and happily served
The SOTU was truly delivered by Jim Webb. Not by the midget who went before him.
When you hold up a picture of the chimpster NOT Presidential
Hold up a picture of Jim Webb Presidential
And in this context, it’s interesting to set up a rogue’s gallery of traitors & try to guess which of them, even one, would recommend “diplomacy” to the Texas Bu$h Pussy.
from Wikipedia, again, same “url.” My boldface.
George W. Bush appointees
So, in my opinion Mr. Cruchon, Sen. Webb may have just fired a shot across the bow of Bu$hInc’s ship of state on the subject of “strong regionally-based diplomacy.” I can see how this is going to get really uuuuuuuggggglllly! for George xliii & his various satraps, warlords & praetors. It’s informative that you think this implies drinking tea in Tehran (by the way “chai” & “tea” are the same word in different languages). Fortunately, every swinging dick & flapping pussy in the State Dept. knows what Webb meant & they can also guess the reception he’ll give them at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings. Har de har!
Semper fi, mother-fucker.
Jim Webb isn’t presidential – he was and is a sexist pig!
auntie libido @23. You should be used to that look “Good God, blinky (pulled those eyelids a tad too tight there last time doc!) looked like a cow munching cud.” Must be the spitting image of your loved one at your side when you wake up from your binge.
SmegMac, you are a boneheaded blogweed.
The really amazing thign was the way Cheney and Bush drank water at the same time. Now that’s a sychronized drinking game!
now, now smegmac. aren’t your panties tied a bit to tight tonight? must be that sinking feeling of the good ship GOP going down.
37. they have many years of practice at that game
Frog Tree, magpie, Gidget, & Lucy
you are nothing but a screeching yardbird
oh and shut the fuck up!
And since our blog midgets want to comment on Nancy Pelosi. . .allow me to suggest that Laura shouldn’t mix vodka with botox. . . .
kind of like mtr and inoffe, both of the same wingnut blood line and both with their big heads stuck in the same golpher hole
SmegMac,you would deserve “man on dog” Ric Santorum. . . . .
no, Christine,
nothing’s going down and if does – it will rise again! Just hearing Webb’s name makes my skin crawl. I’ve met many sexist pigs like him in the military and the best thing for all of those pompous assholes like him is that sooner or later someone will totally fuck them over.
No homes, no jobs, no schools. . .the Gulf Coast has gotta love being “shined on” by the chimpster.
No homes, no jobs, no schools???????
Katrina wasn’t yesterday, what did the Democrats do with all of the billions sent down there……. freeze them?
Smeggy, you show your true colors. . .Not a thought about your country. That was an American, That was a Patriot.
Not an empty flight suit.
Not a mouther of talking points.
Not a fraud.
Twenty eight percent,Smeggy. Twenty eight percent.
Froggy, what was an American and a Patriot?
you have to go very slow for smeggy, it takes her about 45 seconds to count up to condi’s bf’s current approval ratings.
Smeggy, your ignorance is astounding. . .FEMA, your chimpsters executive arm sequestered funds. Even in the face of court action.
Does it hurt to be that stupid?
auntie librul @ 23:
My sources tell me and SOME people say that Speaker of the House, Nancy d’Allessandro Pelosi (D-CA-08), was biting her lower lip & holding her tongue to avoid standing up, hitting the Chimp-in-Chief in the back of the head with her gavel, and screaming “The gentleman from the White House is out of order, now suspend–you lying scumbag pretendisent.”
Actually, I feel Pelosi handled the rest of the Democrats like she handled her sons…. . .you will respect the office if not the stumblebum who holds it.You will stand. You will applaud. . .and you won’t grimace. . .you wouldn’t want to look like that Rice woman. . . . .
Froggy,
For being a school teacher, you are blinded. Sequestered funds, my ass. Katrina funds have paid for anything and everything under, over and inbetween the sun and the moon. Sex, drugs, divorces, plastic surgery, football tickets, wild parties, strippers, you name it and Katrina paid for it, or should I say you and I paid for it!
Correction @ 51:
Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi. My sources & some people are saying that I transliterated her maiden name to either a French or a Sicilian variation. Mea culpa.
@8 Don’t worry yourself sick about me, Bill! I’m doing just fine, thank you. I don’t have to work anymore — you?
Oops — #55 is by Roger Rabbit
Forgot to change the screen name back …
re 53: They’d make good Republicans, huh?
Not a School teacher, Smeggy. The chimpster broke NOLA, He owns it. No amount of mind numbingly stupid spin by you or any other wingnut will change that.
He broke it, he owns it. Just like Iraq: He broke it. He owns it.
WORST. PREZNIT. EVER
Seems CNN is now reporting that Jim Webb’s son is serving in Viet Nam.
I know, I know, it’s so easy to confuse one quagmire with another. . .
re 14: They admit to the waRMING BUT BLAME IT ON VOLCANOS OR AN ABUNDANCE OF TREES.
Froggy,
Only New Orleans seems to have the problems, every place else has recovered. The politicians there have been corrupt for generations. Nothing changed. Check their freezers for the cash!
Frogster,
What part of third responder don’t you fucking understand.
President Bush didn’t break New Orleans. The mayor is a yardbird, the Governor didnt’ do anything to help because she wanted revenge on the mayor who didn’t support her election. That city was broken long before Katrina, Brown & FEMA hit them!
Smeggy, you really shouldnt post on the blog when you are “in your bag” like this.
Yup, the Chimpsters gonna ignore the entire gulf coast. . .and faux sez everything is just fine down there. . .Smeggy, take another toke out of that bag.
For a SOTU, this was a humongous bust.
However, there was a ray of sunshine. . .every penny sent to defeat Senator Macaca was well spent.
sgmmac @ 62:
Correction mizrus hockey puck–the money flowed freely to Haley Barbour (Rethuglican of Mississippi) and Rick [Big Texas Wedding Hair] Perry (Wingnut of Texas). Louisiana & New Orleans, not so much. Don’t let the facts & the faxes get in the way of your ignorant [meaning illiterate, unread, untutored, uninformed] opinions, especially when it comes to Saints tickets on the FEMA credit card.
And the Texas Bu$h Pussy got another “Get out of jail FREE card” because his French-kissing senate butt boy, Revoltin’ Joe Lieberschmuck has decided NOT to hold hearings on New Orleans & Louisiana with his Senate Homeland Security Committee. How suite, as an tout d’suite for those 2 poonce tongue twizzlers.
Edwards and Webb?
Hey, I don’t know if you guys remember, but New Orleans took a direct hit from a Category 5 hurricane last year. Not only did Katrina flood New Orleans and ruin most of the city, there are places around New Orleans like Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, which were pretty much wiped out and will take a very long time to recover, if they ever do.
Billions will not be adequate for the reconstruction of southeastern Louisiana, not to mention parts of Mississippi (and Alabama, if I remember right) hit by the storm. One year will not be adequate; one decade probably won’t be. And that’s giving FEMA, Haliburton and others (Democrats and Republicans alike) tasked with the rebuilding the benefit of the doubt.
So let’s cut them a little slack. We Washingtonians who only have to put up with an occasional couple inches of snow and a hurricane-force windstorm once every 10 years have no idea what they’re going through down there. It’s going to take a very long time for jobs, houses, and schools to reappear.
Trillions won’t be enough money to fix New Orleans until they fix the culture of corruption down there. As for me being unread, I don’t know how you can miss hundreds of reports and news articles about all of the fraud and corruption………….
But then I guess, you believe that the UN is a great fun loving organization who helps countries out………..
Hey looky what I found! Some obscure little blog I’ve never heard of quoted HorsesAss … proof that HA is widely read! It’s written by a guy named Don Bangert. I’ll quote only highlights; you can read the whole thing here: http://tinyurl.com/37meek
“I was reading a post at South Puget Sound Libertarian about raising taxes [again] to pay for Washington’s education system. … Libertarian, a regular poster on Mark’s blog, left a comment about another post he read at http://www.HorsesAss.org, in which they’re considering a state income tax to help pay for education. Let me go on record as stating that I am opposed to a state income tax. The state will just as easily squander revenue they receive from an income tax as they do from our current tax structure–they’ll just have more of it to waist.”
Roger Rabbit: Right off the bat you know Don Bangert is a wingnut, because (a) he thinks anything the state spends on education is “squandered,” and (b) he can’t spell “waste.”
“I followed Libertarian’s link back to … Goldy’s post …. Goldy wants to impose an income tax to pay for education …. Keep in mind that I’m not familiar with Goldy’s politics, but judging from the company he keeps at http://www.HorsesAss.org, I’d have to conclude that he’s of the liberal mindset.”
Roger Rabbit: No shit, Sherlock! But you’ve got it backwards: Goldy’s mindset is not a product of the company he keeps; rather, it’s his mindset that attracts the company he keeps to his blog. This may be too subtle for a libertarian mind to figure out.
“So to hear a liberal railing for an income tax comes as no great surprise to me. … But that’s not really why I’ve drug you down here. The real reason is the comments left by his readers. Some, like a person calling himself Roger Rabbit, seem to be professional commenters.”
Roger Rabbit: I strive for professional quality in my work here, but as for getting paid – no. No one pays me. My motivation is patriotism … and a guilty conscience for having once been a Goldwater Republican.
“Either he is Goldy, or he thrives on arguing.”
Roger Rabbit: I’m sure Goldy gets called a lot of things, but I doubt anyone has ever called him “Roger Rabbit” before — this has to be a first! It’s a good thing Don left himself another rabbit hole, because I’m not Goldy. As for “thrives on arguing,” I’m a lawyer – does that tell you anything, Don? But don’t infer confirmation of your thesis from this; that would be facile. I don’t argue for the sake of arguing. Normally I argue because there’s money in it. But on HA, I do it to save America! I have a good thing going here — I sit on my fat rabbit ass all day living off a state pension and capital gains, doing no work! In other words, I’m living like a Republican. It’s hard to find a deal like that anywhere else, except in a few banana republics, and I don’t want the GOP fascists to wreck it for me.
“Roger Rabbit, in responding to a comment left by Libertarian, said: You’ll have to find a better red herring than this one, Lib. It doesn’t ring true. It doesn’t have the feel of authenticity. It’s as transparent as glass. Why don’t you be honest and just admit that (a) you’re afraid of a tax increase, and/or (b) you don’t want to pay your fair share and like the current system that puts the burden on those least able to pay.
“Ignoring most of what he says, I want you to focus on the concept of ‘paying your fair share.’ He’s not the only one who put this forward as justification for taxing you. … Wally the talking Badger asked, ‘Are Libertarians in favor of being individually responsible for paying their fair share of taxes?’ I presume he meant to belittle Libertarian’s argument that libertarians believe in being responsible for themselves by showing that paying one’s taxes is a form of self-responsibility. He obviously doesn’t understand that individual responsibility means not standing in front of government with your hand out looking for taxpayer-funded freebees.”
Roger Rabbit: Man, this Don Bangert guy sure makes simple things complicated! The Gates Commission said the poorest 20% of Washington’s households pay 17% of their income in state/local taxes, while the richest 20% pay only 4% of theirs. All “fair share” means is it should be the same for everyone.
“Libertarians aren’t opposed to paying taxes; they only want to pay for the services they use.”
Roger Rabbit: I get it – privatize every fucking thing! How does toll roads, toll schools, toll libraries, toll parks, toll cops, toll firefighters, etc., grab you? How about a war toll? Here’s my idea. If an Iraqi citizen wants U.S. soldiers to guard his house, he puts coins in a meter outside. When the meter runs out, he either puts in more coins, or the soldiers leave.
“Remember: small government=good; no government=better.”
Roger Rabbit: I think this guy is a fucking anarchist. He’s also a dumbass of First Magnitude! He’s too supid (or maybe wilfully ignorant) to realize that government is man’s greatest invention. Without government, there would be no social organization, no economy, and we’d all still be living in trees.
“We still haven’t arrived at my question: what is your fair share when it comes to paying taxes? How much is fair? Who decides what amount is fair?”
Roger Rabbit: It takes Bangert guy half of fucking forever to get around to his point, doesn’t it? He sure wanders off topic a lot. The framers answered all of his questions when they wrote the federal and state constitutions: We elect people to represent us in Congress and the Legislature, and they decide (a) how much to spend, (b) what taxes to impose, and (c) who pays them. You have to know this to pass 9th-grade civics class — at least, you did when I took that class.
“The ‘Fair Share’ argument seems to be trotted out whenever someone who’s aim is to take from you wants to guilt you into letting him. How do you argue against ambiguity?”
Roger Rabbit: Glossing over his glaring grammatical error (“whose,” not “who’s”) … the only ambiguity here is whether Mr. Bangert is in the top 20% that is skating under our current tax system, or the bottom 20% that’s getting screwed, or somewhere between. I gather he’s not a screwee, because if he was, he’d be screaming for tax reform. So he must be one of the freeloaders who isn’t paying his fair share of the state and local government budgets that are balanced on the backs of the poor.
“Is a 10 percent tax on your income fair? Would 11 percent also be fair? How about 12? Or would that cross some imaginary excessive line? Seriously, if anyone can define what ‘fair share’ means, let me know.”
Roger Rabbit: State and local government consistently spends about 15% of national income, and our state is about average, so your fair share of the tab for state and local government would appear to be your fair share, unless you want to define “fair share” to mean (a) the rich, or (b) the poor should pay proportionately more than you.
“As it stands right now, this is what I envision ‘fair share’ would mean to Roger Rabbit and Wally the talking Badger. You have property. In this case, its money. We need money for our education program to operate, so we’re going to ‘ask’ you to contribute. If you resist, we’ll force you to pay. We’ve determined through a mathematical formula that your fair share will be 10 percent of your property. Now, pay up!”
Roger Rabbit: Don’t you just love it when some wingnut appoints himself as your spokesperson? If you want to know what your fair share is, add another 18% to 22% for federal spending to the 15% for state/local spending, and you’re there. The math is very simple. Note that some of these people who bitch about paying 10% of their income to government (man, I hate to think of how loud they’d scream if they had any fucking clue of how much they’re actually paying) have no problem with tithing 10% of their income to some guy like Haggard or Fuiten (or Ken Copeland, so he and his wife can buy his-and-her private jets at $20 million per copy).
“Now, here’s my idea of fair share. Let’s say you have a child that needs an education. You open up a phonebook and look under schools in the yellow pages. Finding a listing, you dial their number. After talking to the sales staff, you agree on a price, and arrange to send your child to their school. Did you see how that process worked? … In the end, the consumer controls the education market, not some government bearucracy. That, to me, is fair.”
Roger Rabbit: According to Mr. Bangert, libertarianism is the notion that the education of our children is a commodity … something to buy from the Yellow Pages. But what if a kid’s parents can’t afford ANY school? I’m pretty sure his answer will be, tough luck – should’ve picked better parents.*
(* See? I can play the put-words-in-your-mouth game, too! After all, I used to be a Republican, so I learned how to play these games from experts.)
All I can say is, Mr. Don Bangert’s parents must have been poor and lived in a libertarian state, because a guy who can’t spell “waste” or know when to use “whose” and “who’s” obviously didn’t get much of an education. He doesn’t know any history, either. He’s fucking clueless. The single most important idea behind the American success story is not unregulated capitalism — an idea that numerous depression and countless depradations proved doesn’t work — but universal free public education. The latter is what made Amercians the most productive workforce on earth, and made America the richest country in the history of the world. Without educated workers, we would not be what we are today. Could Henry Ford have assembled his cars with illiterates who can’t read a blueprint or printed instruction? Could Andrew Carnegie have made steel with workers who didn’t know a P from a Q? Could Cornelius Vanderbilt have run his trains with illiterate country bumpkins? America was built by America’s workers. All those skyscrapers you see in our cities were built by guys who can do math and read engineering books. After World War 2, the G.I. Bill made it possible for millions of working-class Americans to go to college. What followed was the greatest period of economic growth in our nation’s history. Mr. Dan Bangert just doesn’t get it. He’s another home-schooling failure. He needs to get the basic stuff down, like simple everyday spelling and grammar, and basic math like 15% + 22% = 37%, and learn a little history and civics, before tackling complicated subjects like taxing the rich 1/4th as much as the poor is unfair.
Spare me. You are using human misery to try to score cheap political points. I’m not interested. I’m also not arguing about the corruption, but what have you done to try to clean it up? What have you done to help sort out the mess? I started by helping to vote in a Congress that would do something about it — or at least I thought I did, until Joe “Every Man For Myself” Lieberman was put in charge of the committee that should be investigating this national tragedy. I’m hoping someone else will pick up the slack, and that someone makes Joe ambassador to Uagadougou where he’ll never be seen or heard from again.
@11 Yeah, I noticed Bush didn’t say a fucking thing about getting health care costs under control. Well, you wouldn’t expect him to brag about his threat to veto reasonable drug prices in his SOTU address, would you? He’ll do that on a Saturday night before a big football game.
Here’s the deal. About 25% of our health care dollars that get thrown at the private sector disappear into the maw of Administration and Overhead. In the government-run Medicare program, A&O is 1%. So, the private sector, which some folks tout as more efficient than government, spends 25 times as much on A&O as the government does. And most of that money is spent saying “no,” meaning, even though you paid very high premiums for your health insurance, your medical expense is “not covered” and you have to pay it yourself.
Bush’s solution to this is a form of socialism that taxes workers with union health benefits to give a tax break to people who don’t have health insurance. I suppose it occurred to him this “tax break” exists mostly on paper because most people who don’t have health insurance don’t pay much taxes to start with, and won’t be able to afford the health insurance even with a tax break. To illustrate:
Let’s say a couple in their mid-50s makes $20,000 a year. After subtracting their personal exemptions and standard deduction, their taxable income (using 2006 figures) is $6,400 and their tax is $643. If you’ve priced health insurance lately, you know this couple could purchase an individual Group Health policy for roughly $875 a month. How the fuck is saving $643 on their taxes going to enable them to pay $10,500 a year for health insurance?
See what I mean? Almost all of America’s 47 million uninsured are “working poor.” This group includes people working in low paying jobs, unable to get full-time work, and unemployed for part of the year. The elderly get Medicare; the very poor get Medicaid. But there’s nothing for those who work and just don’t earn very much.
Nor did Bush address quality of care. We just don’t get very much for our health care dollars. Despite spending more per capita on health care than any other nation on earth, our overall quality of care ranks down there with many Third World countries.
My point is, you can’t fix the problems in America’s health care system with tax breaks. The system needs a top-to-bottom overhaul. We need to reform the way we pay for health care, how we deliver health care, and what health care is provided. For one thing, we spend too much on transplants and not enough on preventive care. And we spend way the hell too much on middleman expenses(translation: insurance companies that skim 25% off the top while providing no useful service). But we do NOT spend too much on making whole patients who are injured by negligent health care; legal expenses and settlements account for only 1.5% of our health care spending.
The public has been lied to so much, most people simply don’t understand the realities. For example, drug company propaganda has led the average citizen to believe drug prices are high because of R&D expenses. In fact, R&D accounts for only about 12% of pharmaceutical industry spending. Three times as much is spent on marketing as on R&D. And R&D also is less than the accounting item known as “profit.”
Our health care is expensive because our the private-sector health care system contains enormous inefficiencies. Those inefficiencies are so large that if we could eliminate them, we could provide better quality health care at less cost, and provide it to everyone. Done right, this could be achieved without raising health insurance premiums or taxes, because there’s more than enough dollars sloshing around in the health care system now to get the job done.
@24 “Webb says, “But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy,” Geez, that sounds wonderful. Who wouldn’t be in favor of “diplomacy”? But what in the world does that really mean? Sipping chai tea with the Iranian leaders?
This comment proves you’re a simple-minded know-nothing moron, Bill! Let me give you one example and I’ll let you take it from there. We conducted diplomacy with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Even when they were fighting wars against our proxies and we were fighting wars against their proxies in Third World countries. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. owned about 50,000 nuclear warheads between them. We’re still here. And we never surrendered to the Russkies.
Any questions?
@28 “Nuclear” is king’s English; “nucular” is peasant English.
@34 Your basis for this statement is what? Or are you just blowing smoke out of your ass?
@46 As I recall, most of those billions went to no-bid contractor pals of Bush$$$ie, Inc.
Mac, when will you get it through your thick skull that “federal spending” by this administration is equivalent to bank robbery? They just shovel the money into duffel bags and boxes, and disappear, ya know?
It’s called “cash and carry.”
I s’pose next the wingnuts are gonna lecture us about how those contractors got rich by “working hard.”
@53 “sgmmac says: Katrina funds have paid for anything and everything under, over and inbetween the sun and the moon. Sex, drugs, divorces, plastic surgery, football tickets, wild parties, strippers, you name it and Katrina paid for it … 01/23/2007 at 10:00 pm”
Well I guess that means there were some problems with how the Bush administration managed those funds, doesn’t it?
Hey Smeggy, how much traction are you wingfucks getting with that “Katrina was the mayor’s fault” spew?
Twenty-eight percent, Smeg. TWENTY-EIGHT PERCENT.*
* This is NOT the mayor’s approval rating.
@70 You know as much about the U.N. as you know about everything else — nothing. The World Health Organization and various other aid agencies are all part of the U.N.
Roger,
80 Yes, there is a problem with how the funds were administered. But that’s not the only problem. Not all of the funds going to NO are administered by FEMA and no matter how much money you through down the rat hole, it won’t be enough.
Me @ 23: anti-liberal says: What the hell was the peHOsi constantly CHEWING.
Good God, blinky (pulled those eyelids a tad too tight there last time doc!) looked like a cow munching cud. That lip wave thing she does with her constant blink tic…blech!
Surely with all that leaning she did to the RIGHT edge of her chair, she KNEW she was on camera.
~~ @ 30 GS says: She was chewing her cud, a Ghirardelli Chocolate bar.
~~ @ 35 Christine Jorgensen ( well and first noted for his/her gender confusion) was busily and inartfully mocking.
~~ @ 51 whl a representative and typical ASS
Watching the SOTU Speech on ABC… “ What was worth commenting on, however, was the contrast in blinks per minute between Pelosi and Cheney. While Pelosi clocked a good 25-30 blinks per minute, “
at 1/24/2007 3:58:20 AM, Frankie G said: Pelosi was obviously high. No one blinks that much unless they are tweaked.
at 1/24/2007 4:04:21 AM, Beans said: Pelosi”s false teeth seemed to be giving her fits… too bad it had to be on LIVE INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION…
at 1/24/2007 4:07:17 AM, ice eater said: Eye blinks – what did she have stuck between her teeth – he tongue was going like a snake in a bag!.
at 1/24/2007 4:12:37 AM, IM Me said: Pelosi also spent some time chewing on something besides blinking like a banshee.
at 1/24/2007 4:29:44 AM, Bukkiah said: Pelosi, probably the most obviously fake persona in American politics. She cannot stop blinking, she cannot say two sentences without stuttering and stammering. A few years back when she started doing the democratic responses to the STOU she was absolutely HORRIBLE. Not a public speaker and probably worse as a public figure. Now with more visibility it should be more plainly obvious. Don’t get me wrong Cheney is just good at behaving in the public eye, doesn’t mean his policies are any better, but at least the man doesn’t act like he’s in a 2nd grade stage play for the first time.
at 1/24/2007 4:31:05 AM, ed from fairfield said: Pelosi looked just like the witch that she is. Did anyone notice the way she drew her lips back and forth over those enormous horse-like teeth? I clocked it at 132 mph.
at 1/24/2007 4:33:23 AM, Jeff said: My girlfriend and I found it rather amusing to count the blinks as well. When Cheney would blink, I would yell GO! Then she would count Pelosi’s blinks until Cheney blinked again and I yelled STOP! We found the Pelosi:Cheney blink ratio to be about 12:1.
at 1/24/2007 4:34:59 AM, Jack D said: I dont know how other people saw Ms Pelosi, but she looked uneasy, and had something stuck in her teeth. I have never seen anyone work their mouth like she did.
at 1/24/2007 4:35:33 AM, Mudboot McDaniel said: Cheney drew Pelosi offside when he inserted a mint into his mouth following a suppressed cough. He always does that and pulls it off well. When she tried it, it looked awkward – like she got the sour apple flavor . . .
at 1/24/2007 4:42:54 AM, Charlie said: If Cheney was on standby power, Pelosi must have had a short somewhere, because in addition to excessive blinking she displyed a facial tic and some bizzare lip and tongue twitching.
at 1/24/2007 4:45:39 AM, cmac said: It wasn’t just the eye blinks with Pelosi – was she ever going to finish that mint (or whatever she was sucking on)? She looked like she was permanently puckered.
at 1/24/2007 5:00:11 AM, wawasee74 said: What the hell was she chewing on? Did she have a piece of gum tucked away inside her cheek like a hamster or was she biting the inside of her gums?
at 1/24/2007 5:20:43 AM, Patty said: Pelosi also chewed her cud constantly, too.
at 1/24/2007 5:22:05 AM, miller said: The more eye blinks the more dishonest. That is a proven.
at 1/24/2007 5:24:54 AM, KC said: blink blink blink blink blink blink All I know is, she almost gave me a seizure watching that last night.
at 1/24/2007 5:30:02 AM, Nad said: eye blinks were annyoing but the lip smacking from a too tight face lift was darn right annoying!
at 1/24/2007 5:30:41 AM, TONY said: pelosi looked like a mental patient.
at 1/24/2007 5:31:51 AM, cdb1430 said: I was watching the eye blinks myself….it was as if she was sending out morse codes to someone…very strange.
at 1/24/2007 5:51:53 AM, snorpht fingerpoot said: rapid blinking is a sigh of lying or insincerety
at 1/24/2007 5:56:12 AM, mike said: Nancy Pelosi looked like she was sucking on something the whole time. When she clapped her mouth went into all kinds of contortions.
at 1/24/2007 6:09:23 AM, AMON-RA said: You counted the blinks… talk to me about all the lip licking and lip pursing that she went thru, more than 7-10 a minute. The wonderfully lipsticked lips were soon reduced to a mere hint of color w all the lip wringing she went thru.
at 1/24/2007 6:11:44 AM, fordmilll said: Eye blinking and adjusting her dentures appeared to be Ms. Pelosi’s prime occupation of the evening. Hey, how about Teddy Kennedy’s stupor or was that a coma I saw.
at 1/24/2007 6:13:04 AM, Brooks said: Eyeblink rates increase with lying. Perhaps the high Pelosi count suggests she knows the Democrats’ positions are not grounded in reality. Just a thought.
at 1/24/2007 6:26:37 AM, Tom15000 said: Counting eye-blinks. 25-30 was a low estimate. At one point I counted 80 in one minute. She either has dry eyes or some serious psychological problem
at 1/24/2007 6:26:37 AM, Tom15000 said: Counting eye-blinks. 25-30 was a low estimate. At one point I counted 80 in one minute. She either has dry eyes or some serious psychological problem
at 1/24/2007 6:27:19 AM, crashemt said: Frequent blinking is a sign of lying or hiding something.
at 1/24/2007 6:30:48 AM, Tex said: I think Pelosi is either possessed or getting senile. Maybe her eyeliner was too heavy for her eyelids. It was challenging to watch.
at 1/24/2007 6:31:30 AM, SAM said: Am i the only one to see Palosi chewing on gum or candy? At times her facial expressions were hilarious
at 1/24/2007 6:31:41 AM, Dale Thompson said: Pelosi seemed very uncomfortable like she would rather have been any where else. She wiggled in her seat and made very bizarre movements and twist with her lips and mouth. Most of these in the chamber acted child-like. If they were students in a class room the teacher would have called them out for their rudeness, fidgety behavior and even sleeping. Washington needs to grow up and be adults.
at 1/24/2007 6:33:54 AM, Mr. Tranpar said: excessive blinking is a symptom an un healthy mind. its really ironic that the new Dem Leader exhibits clear symptoms of a mental illnes. One Nut to rule them all…
at 1/24/2007 6:37:52 AM, Matthew Loomis said: I was observing the same things! Pelosi’s eyeblinking energy could provide power for the entire state of New York.
at 1/24/2007 6:38:13 AM, James said: Yes, Madam Speaker Pelosi seemed to do a lot of blinking
at 1/24/2007 6:53:47 AM, William said: How about Nancy sucking her teeth all night?
at 1/24/2007 7:04:14 AM, John said: Meth is big in California ;)
at 1/24/2007 7:08:31 AM, texas said: More interesting fact would be how many times Pelosi cleaned her teeth with her tongue. She could not keep her mouth still.
at 1/24/2007 7:10:42 AM, Freddy said: I had Pelosi’s blink rate at more like 50-60 per minute. She also licks her teeth when she disagrees with something. Body language says more than words ever can, IMHO.
at 1/24/2007 7:15:42 AM, sitarro said: Pelosi has probably lost her tear duct work with all of the face lifts she has had done. She looks like some kind of horror show character. Wasn’t she wearing an ear piece to get instructions on when to applaud, sit, stand, rollover……good dog.
at 1/24/2007 7:17:51 AM, Kimmie said: I couldn’t concentrate on what W was saying because of the furious eye blinking by Pelosi….what the heck is wrong with her?
at 1/24/2007 7:19:06 AM, Hooky said: I kept asking myself,”what in heck is wrong with her,first the teeth baring,then the sucking,then the blinking”, it would be very distracting to say the least, if one were to have a long conversation with her if she does that all the time.
at 1/24/2007 7:19:45 AM, Mary said: The eye blinks do indicate something in psychology. As for the rest of Pelosi’s behavior: she was obviously barely paying attention, and was rudely still finishing her supper as she sat there. If she were a Republican, the pics and jokes would have been all over the nightly comics: “Umm, that corn on the cob was good!”
Ok, Auntie. You’ve shown that Ms. Pelosi exhibited great restraint in sitting politely and even applauding occasionally during the speech given by the man called the “worst President in history”.
She bit her lip, chewed her tongue until it was raw, blinked in astonishment at the continued spin.
She squirmed upon hearing statements that seemed to say that the President had somehow missed the memo telling him that, under his leadership, his party had suffered a defeat that was beyond the Democrats’ wildest dreams.
She sat through a self-congratulatory speech by a man who has taken our country from being respected throughout the world to being despised and ridiculed.
Hopefully, her examination of this man during the obviously painful ordeal of having to sit in the same room and be polite to him will change her opinion on a topic that many in this country feel she should revisit.
She’s been opposed to impeachment.
Still sucks to be you.
Sggmc, while I won’t argue that New Orleans has had some govermental corruption proglems, they have nothing to do with the problems they are facing now. In fact, the current problems are so overwhelming that the corruption problems are really insignificant by comparison.
New Orleans and surrounding parrishes suffered a considerably worse hit from Katrina than did Mississip and Texas (Hurricane Rita). In Mississipi and Texas, the hurricane came ashore, blew out coastal homes and businesses, and then moved inland. There was some temporary flooding, but the water quickly receeded. New Orleans, in contrast, was subjected to a bath for several days or weeks, depending upon which area you were in. Everything was destroyed – utilities, roads, homes, businesses, business inventory, etc. The only real solution was to demolish or gut most of the buildings.
In Mississipi and Texas, federal funds were distributed in the usual fashion, with local governments getting the bulk of the funds to direct as they deemed best for local conditions, and low-interest rebuilding loans issued under the small business administration. In Mississipi, however, Rep. Sen. Trent Lott had to join others in a lawsuit to force his insurer to pay (they just agreed to do so in settlment of a class-action suit). You may recall Sen. Lott has spoken numerous times about the need to outlaw lawyer’s contingent fees to reign in “frivolous” lawsuits, yet his own lawyer represented him on a contingent-fee basis.
In New Orleans, however, a huge majority of the appropriated federal funds are still being held by the federal government, using one excuse after another to avoid releasing the funds. The details would take far to long to go into here. We saw a glimpse of the problems when FEMA announced the recovery contracts were awarded to huge Republican conglomerates (no-bid contracts), and local businesses were shut out from even applying. As we approach the one and a half year anniversary of Katrina, more and more former New Orleans businesses and residents have given up returning, and the population of New Orleans will be a fraction of its former self.
The conclusion one must reach is that the federal government, while trying to maintain the appearance of attempting to help New Orleans, is actually trying to drive people out of the city. Why would they do that? A little electoral math makes the answer simple. New Orleans is solidly Democratic, and is enough to swing Louisiana into a Blue State for electoral college purposes, and in its share of Congressional delegates. Spread those residents out among the reliably Red southern states, particularly Texas, and their political power is dissapated. Given the closeness of the recent Presidential elections, as well as the balance of power in the Senate, then it could be enough to change the balance of power in the counrty.
Of course, ten years ago I would have scoffed at the suggestion that anyone in the White House would be so crass as to kick a noble and historic U.S. city while it was down for mere partison political advantage. But the more I have learned about Karl Rove and his band of neo-cons which have hijacked our Federal Government, the move I see it as a realistic possibility, if not a probability.
And as for the money spent on items other than food and shelter? Take any other part of America and pass out $2,000 debit cards, and see what happens! Sure, most of it will be used on necessities, but enough will be used on stupid items to make any news reporter giddy. Besides, the $2,000 debit cards were a predictable disaster, a band-aid thrown at the huge refugee problem only after the Bush administration learned that their incompetence had become a public-relations nightmare, and they started “throwing money at the problem” to try to make themselves look better. Then as the scope of the incompetence was being revealed, the Bush administration decided to try to blame the New Orleans residents themselves for the problem, and directed FEMA to scour through the records to find those flaky expenditures and reveal them. This was while they were trying to blame the Louisianna Gov. at the same time.
You know, I wouldn’t be so upset with Bush about the Katrina deal if (a) his administration hadn’t made a conscious attempt to dismantle FEMA, (b) he hadn’t appointed a minor partison hack to head that important post, and (c) he had admitted his mistakes early, within a couple of days of the Hurricane, and gone right to Louisianna to kick ass and get things moving. Instead, the first words out of his mouth, about four days later was that “No one could have predicted a Hurricane would have caused this much damage…”, and “…we have just learned about the situation in the Superdome…”, even though every news network had been reporting on it non-stop for several days.
For me, and for much of American, Bush at that time revealed himself not as an amiable bumpkin, but instead as a liar, a neo-con extremist, and incompetent to boot.
Roger Rabbit, thanks for stopping by my blog. I really enjoyed reading your comments on my post (even though you actually didn’t leave them on my blog). They were very insightful in answering what the concept of “fair share” means to other people.
Best regards.