Hepkitty's Litter Box

There's a great Newsweek article explaining how the Bush camp can only hurt itself by attacking John Kerry's service record in Vietnam. I think the damage is already being done, in that it has forced the press to reexamine Bush's own spotty military record, which points out that he was AWOL during much of his service in the Texas National Guard.

"The charge against Bush is that he was AWOL for a year of his service in the National Guard. Once the pundits finished critiquing the impact on Clark of the presumed gaffe, the next logical question is to ask where Bush was during that year, how he got away with his absenteeism, and does it matter?"

The amazing thing to me is that this was never widely reported the first time Bush ran in 2000. Now, in the midst of a war and renewed national security concerns following 9/11, Bush is trying to run as the military candidate. Unfortunately for him, he may find himself doing it against a highly decorated veteran and war hero, while his record finally gets the scrutiny it deserves. Just goes to show the truth comes out eventually. Sometimes you just don't get to choose if that truth is convenient.

The revelations made by the Kay report this week, which found there were no weapons of mass destruction before the war raise several questions. The most important one, in my mind, is who knew what when, and were we lied to in the race to go to war? The way Kay spins it, in the face of all the evidence, is that the intelligence community is at fault, and owes the President an apology. Josh Marshall makes the very valid point of, how the hell would Dr. Kay know who messed up where? Since he's shown himself to be somewhat of an apologist for the president, where he thinks the errors lie is really only his opinion. So it is in that spirit un uninformed opinion giving that I offer my take-The President owes us and explanation and an apology. I want an independent investigation into all the pre war intelligence, but no matter who's to blame, the President took us to war on false information, and now over 500 Americans, and countless others, are dead. We deserve an apology-we deserve a commander in chief who has the balls to take responsibility for the mistakes of his tenure. And, above all, we deserve the truth.

Paul Krugman's latest column in the Times is definitely one worth reading if the democratic race has distracted you from the real reasons we need change in this country. It's easy to get wrapped up in the election coverage, but that makes it more important than ever to keep an eye on the White House, since they love to get away with stuff when the country's back is turned. Hey, look at the Charles Pickering appointment. Like it's not bad enough that Bush celebrates the life of Dr. Martin Luther King by appointing a controversial, reportedly segregationist judge to the federal bench, he does it while congress is on recess, and while all eyes are on the Iowa Caucuses. I'll be keeping my eyes on them this week and every week until we get them the hell outta there.

Dead Whale Explodes on Busy Taiwan Street

I think that says it all...Consider that your science and scociology for the day all in one.

Al Sharpton's showing in South Carolina tuesday is going to be interesting.

Man, this is becoming a Dean-Kerry Dog Fight! Politics is so wicked fun!! God I'm a dork!! :P

Good God John Kerry! It's been pretty obvious the other candidates have taken some chunks of Dean's message for themselves-which is fine since Dean has great ideas that any nominee should adopt-But he just took Dean's stump speech Harry Truman refrence!! Man that was low....

Here's a link I've been meaning to put up for a long time.

U.S. Senate

I'm gonna put it up in the permanent bar to the left, but for now I wanna draw attention to it and explain why it's important. (This is basic civics, but hardly any schools teach that anymore so sorry if I sound condescending) Mid term elections in this country don't draw enough voters to the polls. I guess I can see how voting for senators is not as exciting as voting for a President, but it's just as important. Say we get a Democratic president this year (please please please...) That president promises us stuff during the election, and we want him or her to deliver that stuff. Right now we have a republican majority in the house and the senate tho. That generally means it's alot harder for a democratic president to get any of their laws passed. With how partisan the debate is now it means it'll be damn near impossible to get any democratic bills passed. That sucks. It sucks for everybody who voted for those changes when they chose a president.That's why those voters have to vote for their senators too-and pay attention. This website is the official site of the senate. It tells you how the senators from your state voted on everything that comes in front of them. This way you can keep an eye on them, reelect them if you think they do a good job, or boot their asses if you think that they don't, or if they don't even show up to vote at all-also you can email them and bitch-(I do that alot cuz one of my senators is Rick Santorum). So use it-abuse it, and tell those lazy ass senators to do their jobs-after all-you're their boss! And if you're not old enough to vote yet-you will be and they know it so email them anyway.

I really really wish Joe Lieberman would drop out. Dennis Kucinich however needs to stay in as long as possible to keep Nader out. And he greatly contributes to the debate and keeps the party a bit to the left which we need I think-screw this centrist BS. Look what happened to Al Gore-that should've been a landslide but he sounded so much like Bush nobody cared. Now we have a tremendous opportunity-the voter turnouts in the early primaries were record breaking-people are voting again, and weather this renewed sense of civic duty and patriotism comes from Love of America or hatred for Bush, it's still a great great thing for people to once again realize they have a voice and a duty to our democracy. I give alot of the props to Dean on lighting that fire. Even if his campaign fizzles out, he definitely lit a candle under the ass of the party. For that alone this election year may be one for the history books. Meanwhile Moby endorsed Al Sharpton today on his website-and hearing him again now (Rev. Al I mean) I don't blame him. Al Sharpton is a great smart guy. I hope we can as a country get past the media's trying to make this a horse race or a spectacle, or tell us who can't win before a single vote is cast. Iowa proved they aren't psychic. We need to get back to voting for people because we believe in them and their ideas. Unfortunately our first priority must be getting Bush out of office before we as a people can effectively put our house in order. Lieberman's centrist nitpicking is counterproductive and downright damaging. He may as well go work for the Bush campaign right now. He already sounds like he does-sheeesh. I hope he loses what's left of his "joe-mentem" sooner than later.

Dean may actually benefit from his newly reestablished underdog status-he's comming out swinging!!

Alrighty Doctor!!-you tell that mean old Tom Brokaw!!

Watchin the debate-I feel so bad for Dean-he looks so down... :(

Dean's national campaign manager was just on inside politics, and i'm not sure what to think at this point. On one hand, yes, there are still a load of big primary states to go, but in saying that they don't need to compete in the Feb. 3rd primaries....that's a little crazy to me. They sound almost as crazy in denial as Lieberman at this point. I mean, they went from perceived front runner status to losing the first two major battles (battles they were projected to win big just two weeks ago), changing major senior staff, and being almost out of money. They've had to pull their ads in the Feb 3rd states while everyone else is running them. The only thing i can think is they're taking this time to desaturate the electorate. Maybe they think since his name is already out there, they'll let the voters get sick of everyone else, and then those voters will go to the polls for Dean? That's crazy-probably not crazy enough to work. I dunno-I'm no great political strategist...I guess we'll just wait til next tuesday and see. In the meantime, I'm still looking forward to the debate this evening just to see the change in dynamics.

The debate's on MSNBC at 7:00 pm. :)

Ya know what? I actually DID post yesterday-or at least i tried to-but an error erased the post before it published so ......Anyhoo, I'm sure everyone's heard enough about the primaries at this point.The big shake up is Howard Dean's split with Joe Trippi. Trippi is almost solely responsible for Dean's meteoric early rise-but following his tumble I guess they felt a change was necessary. We'll see I guess. In any case there's another debate this evening in South Carolina but damned if I can find where and when it will be televised if at all. If I find out I'll let you know since the debates are the only form of media where you can get some idea where these guys stand on the issues-I really wanna watch it tho to see how Dean and Kerry perform. If not, I guess I'll be watching yet another Friends rerun...

I swear I'll weigh in on the primary and everything else tomorrow but I was watching tough crowd and I have to say something-The Patriot Act sux-it impedes civil liberties-but when asked whose civil rights it violates -for the love of God- don't say Jose Pedilla!!! Even if true he's the most non-sympathetic person I can imagine. And in defending his civil rights in a fight to protect your own you do nothing but reinforce the stereotyped bad press of the ACLU-which is a kick ass watchdog dammit-if you want an example of how the patriot act violates civil liberties bring up Tommy Chong for god's sake!!Or the Sex Toy Lady!!(I'll find links) -these are everyday doin' whatcha do Americans-NOT potential shoe bombers-Put a finger in the wind people-test the frickin climate!!!!! Liberal is one thing-but today is not the day to stick the daisy in the barrel of the gun.

Oh-quick follow up on the Bush/Giuliani rumor. It's just that -a rumor. Akin to the "Hillary Clinton will announce she's running at the Democratic National Convention and get the nomination" rumor. Don't the other political junkies have enough to do with actual events taking place? Sheesh... :)-

I found it rather funny on the night of the SOTU address when the statement about the patriot act being about to expire got riotous applause from the floor before the President's appeal to reinstate it was finished. It's not a very popular act it would seem. All I can say now as it's tenure draws to a close is that this will be, for me, a defining moment for my elected representatives, as they will now have a chance to do what they failed to do before-read it before they sign anything. I'll give that they did actually read it the first time-well, they read a version of it. And I'll give that they were trusting enough to assume the version they signed was the same version they read the night before. But, as it turned out, that wasn't the case. Well, now's their chance to fix some of the damage done by this Orwellian monstrosity disguised as security, and actually pay attention this time. Looks like one court is already trying to dismantle some of the shadier parts-

Federal judge rules part of Patriot Act unconstitutional

This, being just the latest scrutiny this act has come under after the librarian harassment, arrest of sex toy and bong salesmen, and various other outrageous breaches of civil liberty that have fallen under the blanket of the USA PATRIOT act, I hope, nay, insist, our representatives don't dare reinstate the parts set to expire without a magnifying glass, a dictionary, and a copy of the Constitution.

Ok-Admittedly, the "Scoop!" column on MSNBC isn't exactly a hard news source but, if true, this has the possibility to screw the democrats-

Will Giuliani replace Cheney in ’04?

I don't see how this could happen given that word inside Washington is that Bush is just the face and Cheney actually runs things but if this is accurate......well, lets just say it would change alot in this race. And that may be putting it mildly.

Take this for what it's worth
Schwarzenegger's $4 million loans ruled illegal

Makes you wonder how a millionaire who couldn't even legally finance his own campaign is going to balance Califonia's budget....

Yay everybody!! It's New Hampshire primary day!! Who'll get kicked off the island this week!! Shouty? Pouty? Maybe the Breck Girl? (No, of course not the Breck Girl-not before South Carolina.) OOOOh the suspense!! The drama!! The constant annoying press coverage!! Anyone reporting early results at 6:30 in the morning needs to settle down a bit. In reality it's anyone's to win at this point, and admittedly very exciting. I love America!! I love Democracy!! Woo Hoo!!

I must say I'm mighty ashamed of myself. I just realized that I didn't have a link to The Guardian on here. Now i do. Pip pip and cheerio-enjoy a very fine news source from the UK!!

Ok-back to reality-in what seems to be an effort to further destroy the world (and further explaining the mad rush to go to Mars)-The Bush administration is easing restrictions on strip mining.

Rule Change May Alter Strip-Mine Fight

Hey-why look for alternatives to fossil fuels when you can simply chop off the tops of mountains? They plan to implement these rule changes as soon as March of this year. I guess that goes to show what you can accomplish when you really want to blow stuff up.

I must admit I watch too much TV. The problem is that I got sucked into a pundit vortex. You see, I read the paper-lots of papers actually, and I listen to alot of NPR. These are generally decent ways to get your news. If you read a good variety of papers (national and international), and listen to "nuthin' but the facts" news like npr generally is, you get the chance to see a story from all angles, and form your own opinions. But when you find yourself a political junkie, with no job, you start watching a little show called "inside politics" at 3:30 followed by "crossfire" at 4:30. And on mondays they always report on amazing revelations made on "the sunday morning programs" (these would be, "meet the press", "face the nation" etc.) so you start watching those too so you'll feel more "in the know". Now, all of these shows have a certain degree to contribute to the national debate. But I realized this week as the New Hampshire primary has become a circus that I am sick to death of all of these pundits and they are pretty much full of crap. Even worse is that alot of people think, as I used to, that they are authorities who must have some insider info. But Y'know what-in general their insider info is the same as yours or mine-they read the papers and form opinions. I don't know why I'm going off on this except to say this-don't let polls or talking heads tell you what to think. If you're reading this you have the internet, and hence the greatest resource ever invented to actually follow the news around the country and the world. Plus -bonus-if you form your own informed opinions and ever come up against someone who thinks they know better you'll have the mad hard skills to tell them you agree or disagree using big words and names of world leaders and believe me, at parties that feels awesome. (especially at parties with your second cousin who works at the American enterprise institute.) ;) The point is this-you've heard it before and it's good advice-think for yourself. If you can form opinions about what music you like and which clothes to wear you are just as capable of forming opinions about things going on in your world-in fact that's the job of a citizen in a democracy. And never let pundits and commentators tell you you're wrong or stupid because if you're smart enough to care who the hell are they to think they know better? Alright-I'm done.

I already admitted I'm a cspan watching nerd, and you all know i'm a politi-nerd. so needless to say it rocks that cspan has been showing the concord 11 o'clock news every night. also, as an npr nerd i heard a good commentary today by time magazine contributor, James Poniewozik. It was about how more voters are focused on electability this time around and how that makes us as arrogant as the pundits. Point taken (i'll try to find a transcript) but he misses the "why". We're not being arrogant-we're scared shitless of four more years of this domestic policy terrorism and are desperately trying to do whatever we think will help us achieve regime change here at home. Short of a pre-election where we all get together on a secret website and promise to vote for anyone but bush....wait we have that. damn-if only we knew how many it would take to be a majority we could tally up and breathe a collective sigh of relief. But i understand where he was coming from-he doesn't want our democracy further undermined by people not voting for who they believe in rather who they think can win. all i can say is these are messed up times-bush was appointed to office and in the past three years we've had a record surplus turn into a record defifcit, the first major terrorist attack on American soil, a war, a mass exodus of countries that have been our allies since WW1, the first US case of mad cow disease, a curtailing of our basic civil liberties in a way only ever seen in science fiction, record job loss and the crappiest job creation record since the great depression and countless other, dare i say, horrible shit eating insane things unfathomable only 3 years ago all while living under a president who has taken more vacation time than any other president in recent history. So if we're a little jumpy on the "electability" issue i hope you'll understand-it's not arrogance-it's rabid commitment to change. And in a country full of people who's asses are as soft as mine any commitment to change anything is rather revolutionary.

watching the diane sawyer interview with dean and his wife-it's really really good-it might actually help.....

Alright here's the thing-Ok-Dean's little crazy moment went more global than his message-but, let me tell you something-I'm a nerd-and I've watched alot of C-Span lately. the cool thing about cspan is that you not only hear the speech-you hear the candidate talk to people afterwards. Dean really talks to people. weather he agrees with them or not he does talk to people. I just saw the end of a Clark speech-all he said to people was ,"Tell your friends". He has no message-just four stars. I'm gonna be scrutinizing Kerry and Edwards....

There's an "I heart" I forgot-it's one i've meant to put up here for awhile -I heart Lou Dobbs!!!-anyone who hasn't should watch his "Exporting America" segment,. He is truly an American hero!

Oh my god-I just heard the best joke on "tough crowd"-Democrats look at half a glass of water and say it's half empty-republicans look at it and say "who the hell drank half my glass of water?"

How the hell can McCain go to NH for Bush? He obviously hates him-and he's the most reasonable Repug I've ever seen in action-Can't we send him a dem muffin basket-or at least an independent muffin basket-pull a jeffords dude-i'd back that. We can't give the repub sheep such a wonderful public servant...

switch parties McCain!!!!

I also heart John McCain-if we had to have a republican president i sure wish it had been him.

I heart Jon Stewart. Graphic soon to follow (i hope)

My next democratic party meeting should be coming up soon. I'm not sure if I have time to qualify as delegate but now that I'm unemployed I'm actually thinking of running for boro council. We desperately need at least a NY state style recycling program, school reform, and a revitallization program to make our downtown beautiful. We're far enough away from the nearest walmart to have a nice strip I think. HEPKITTY FOR BORO COUNCIL!!!!

Chapelle's show premires it's second season in about a half hour-I am, frankly, psyched. He's one funny muthaf***a.

So as you can see by the link to your left, we are currently at terror threat level "Bert". Thanks to geek and proud for the index-and God help us if we ever go to Elmo...

Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser were on fresh air today talking about move on.org, and one of them (can't remember which) made an excellent point about the media's coverage of the presidential contest so far. He said something like, that his brother in-law, who is a total news junkie, called him up and was like, "Can you please tell me anything about where any of these Democratic candidates stand on the issues, cuz I watch cable news all day and all I know is who's up in some poll and who's wife is campaigning and whose isn't, and who's wearing a sweater." or something like that. But that brings up an excellent point-what happened to responsible media doing the job of actually reporting stuff we need, yea want to know?

Is anyone listening to Bill Frist on Larry King right now?! What's with the sports thing-and how can this a-hole say he was just in Iowa for the Caucus then say he's not paying attention to the race in one breath? I feel like making that noise Dean made last night!!

Thank God it's over-I need a drink.

What an asshole-so there he goes with the tort reform-for anyone who doesn't know what that is it means-well, -did anyone see Erin Brockovich? You know how she got all those people together and sued that chemical company or whatever it was cuz they all had cancer etc. from living near it and working there? Well, tort reform makes it so it would be illegal for those people to sue that company. In the SOTU it is billed as "getting rid of frivolous lawsuits" what they don't say is it only works to get rid of frivolous law suits against big polluting corporations. Don't believe me? He did the same thing when he was governor of Texas-read Molly Ivins, "Bushwhacked". Also , in case you missed it he wants to dismantle social security-now since I know my demographic is young males 15-30 ( ;) hey dr.j )I know you don't think about social security much-but remember all those people who lost all their retirement in the Enron scandal? Without social security they're screwed-there's too much more he saying right now that is making me want to cry. Later.

OK,OK, I can't change the channel-I can't turn my back on him-And I'm glad I didn't-the looks on the faces of Teddy Kennedy and Hillary Clinton made up for my having to endure this-hee hee;)

Watching the SOTU-oh yeah, this isn't remotely political. Perish the thought. "We [can't] leave our work unfinished." No really, you can. Actually, please do-your work scares the shit out of me. Ok-here comes the scare tactics. I knew this was coming. Also the whole, "there hasn't been another attack cuz I protected you", BS. That always reminds me of the words of Lisa Simpson "by that logic I can claim that this rock keeps tigers away", "How so?" "Well, I don't see any tigers do you?" "Lisa, I wanna buy your rock." To you I say, (shaking my fist with my thumb on it) America, don't buy that rock!! God this is a load of crap-I may need to be overly un-civic and change the channel. Oh, ok-Afghanistan's kids are back in school. Don't you mean Kabul's kids-I don't think the majority of Afghanistan is in any shape for you to say---aww screw this, why bother, nothing he's going to say is going to do anything other than make bile rise in my throat. I'm gonna see what else is on and read the transcript later without the smirk-Maybe I'll just go give more money to the DNC. :(

PS-one final thought-how can he say America's people will no longer be terrorized by thugs and assassins-is he dropping out of the race? ;)

Pay attention to the language of the SOTU tonight, it should be full of interesting, little, turns of phrase like, "ownership society". I'm reading between the lines that alot of the domestic agenda will basically be a "it's your problem America-not ours" kind of thing. For instance, the health care savings account thing-where we get a tax cut so we can start a savings account to pay for our own healthcare and insurance. We're on our own kids-Mr. Pwesident thinks the rich need to get richer again I guess. Also expect the Prez. to bash gay marriage some more and try to force that debate into the campaign spotlight. I sincerely hope the dems don't fall for it. All the response that issue needs is the constitutional response, ie "Since when in the history of the republic has the constitution been a tool to limit civil rights for Americans? First we get the Patriot Act, now we're going to legislate people's love lives? Whatever happened to this smaller government republicans always say they want? Oh, that's right, they use that mantra to take away Medicare and social security and cut taxes for the rich. When it comes to our private lives the government can be as big as it wants I guess-especially when they can use the debate to turn Americans against each other and make us forget we have no jobs."

Or something like that.

You know I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next gal, but this, I dare say, doesn't qualify as a conspiracy theory as much as an explainer. I couldn't for the life of me figure out the whole "going to Mars" thing. Yeah, I heard the whole, "bringing America together under a common lofty goal" crap, but coming from the idealistic sinkhole of the current administration it struck me as odd. Also, we're already in debt up to our eyeballs with this bullshit war and people are understandably very concerned with our myriad domestic problems we can't pay to fix, so why Mars? This might be why-

Industry Hopes Soar With Space Plan


excerpt..."President Bush emphasized American ingenuity, international cooperation and human destiny when he announced his new space policy this week, but the plan also reflected long-held ambitions of the U.S. aerospace and energy industries. For years, they have labored to persuade NASA to pursue interplanetary voyages more aggressively, with companies standing to reap billions of dollars from the contracts and spinoff technologies that would result.

Industry officials said yesterday that they see a huge boon to business in Bush's "renewed spirit of discovery," which set a mission to Mars as a long-range goal after astronauts build a science base on the moon. Among the companies that could profit from the plan are Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co. and Halliburton Co., which Vice President Cheney headed before he joined Bush's ticket.

Now I get it-Bang, Zoom.....

Poor Howard Dean. I was an early supporter, but with his recent string of missteps and misstatements I'm leaning more towards the position of, what one button says is, "Dated Dean, Marrying Kerry". I started to become unsure when he said we shouldn't pre judge Osama. I realize that under our great system of justice everyone's innocent until proven guilty, but c'mon- that's the kind of statement that will hand the election to Bush on a silver platter. Also it was pretty bad when he yelled at that old guy last week. Then last night, listening to the various speeches of the candidates Dean sounded like a WWF wrestler-do you ssssmmmellllll what the doctor's coookin'!?! Then as a final insult that screamy noise he made (if you heard it you know what I'm talking about) was a sound button on the Howard Stern show this morning. (I think it replaced the Sulu laugh) I know it was only the first primary, and it's far from over, and Dean's far from out-things can change rapidly as we saw just this past week-and I swear that I will support whoever who gets the nomination. Part of me still wants Dean to recover-the idealist part that fell in love with his populist anger-but mostly I just want to get Bush out of the White House. And lately I have serious doubts that Dean has the steely temperament to do it. Stay tuned.....

Hiya! I apologize to any potential readers I may have for my prolonged absence.A one-two punch of my computer taking a crap and my recently joining the ever swelling ranks of the unemployed has kept me from blogging for awhile, as well as the usual holiday madness of course. Golly, gee, damn, it's cold today. Anyhoo, I didn't finally log back on to discuss the weather. I logged on to discuss business as usual from the White House. First thing pissing me off is the Mad Cow situation. My husband and I are former vegetarians who haven't eaten red meat in years so I'm not too worried for us, but what does bother me is this BS story about DNA tests proving the cow came from Canada. Where it came from isn't the immediate issue here. The issue is the fact that the cow was slaughtered and butchered and sold to the public HERE, because of eased regulations on so called "downer" cows. That cow was apparently all wobbly and sick looking, but was still killed and sold because eased regulations said it was just slightly less sick than would be considered questionable. The issue is the beef industry getting those regulations eased by giving huge amounts of money to the various campaigns of the president, and various people in charge of agriculture. If these restrictions were left alone the cow in question would have never made it to the killing floor. But instead of dealing with these serious issues our government has chosen to do what? Tell us everything's fine, don't worry, keep eating beef, and blame Canada! Bravo, I feel safer, don't you?

"Banning Sale of 'Downer' Meat Represents a Change in Policy"