Most people underestimate the degree to which the Bushster is succeeding at changing the country in the direction that he and his corporate supporters have long desired. For example, on March 17, a federal District Court ruled against the Bush administration's claim--via its appointees at EPA--that the EPA could water down the Clean Air Act's requirements that older power plants must meet the Act's emission standards if they upgraded their plants rather than retiring them from service as they wore out.
But in 21st century "Bush's America" good news is never more than a prelude to more bad news, and the Bush admin certainly didn't disappoint, according to a news release today from the National Resources Defense Council:
Fresh from the Orange County Register, on April Fool's Day, no less: O.C. voters were duped into GOP registration--Petitioners lie, cajole and commit forgery while duping more than 100 O.C. residents into joining the Republican Party
These are strange times. Very strange times. The daily headlines are often enough to provoke uncontrolled laughter, vomiting, or both. The oddest statements can lurk beneath innocuous headlines. Reality's getting hard to find.
Here's a small selection of the above:
John Mulaa, of Nairobi, has a dead-on description of our president in the East African Standard:
Bush is not saddled with an opaque vision. Not at all. His problems stem from having too clear a vision but being unable to reconcile it with reality.
Just in case you've forgotten, some anonymous staffer once bragged about Bush and friends not being constrained by reality the way a lot of us other fools were. I believe the phrase was that Bush & Co. were "not reality-based." And now we've got multi-millions willing to sign affadavits to that effect.
Our esteemed president caused quite a stir in his State of the Union speech by calling the country "addicted to oil," and announcing efforts to increase research geared to reducing the nation's oil needs to operate our vehicles.
WTW has already discussed the contradiction between that speech and the budget cuts that forced staff layoffs at the government's primary renewable energy research center. Now it turns out that the government has been actively fighting a federal law mandating use of alternative fuel vehicles as a conservation measure.
Try this one on: tromp on the Constitution and the federal law against warrantless spying and you're okay, but download some music illegally and you're in B I G trouble, my friend. So much trouble, you'll have to see Alberto G in person.
I find it so absolutely amazing, at the number of Rethugs who want to drown in Shlub's wake...
The Iraq apologists, in their ever-dwindling numbers, insist that the media doesn't report "good news" from Iraq, and exaggerates the bad news it does report. In fact, that seems to be the theme of the month for a White House desperate to stop their public opinion bleeding. Sort of a "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes," except the administration doesn't want to tell people their eyes are lying; they want to tell them that their eyes are simply focused on a bunch of media lies.
So, with the same good faith employed by the White House in their campaign to smear the media, let me offer some good Iraq news.
So Big Jack the Flack Abramoff got the minimum sentence of 5 years and 10 months in Florida. I wonder why. Is it because he's such a nice guy that his goodness far outweighed his badness? Sadly, that may be just what the Judge thought.
Raw Story has a link to the PDF of the Pre-sentencing Memorandum that Jack Abramoff's defense team submitted in hopes of mitigating his sentence.
Today's announcement (preceded by the RNC's distribution of talking points: Card "was not fired") that Josh Bolten is moving from Director of OMB to replace Andy Card as White House Chief of Staff seems eerily like John Boehner replacing Tom DeLay. There's a nanosecond of relief followed by a million seconds of "uh oh."
