Steve’s Weblog

Texas arresting people in bars for being drunk

Wed Mar 22, 6:05 PM ET

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

Yahoo News

…including Kay Bailey Hutchison. Which kind of figures, the woman is a classic bushbot, incapable of original thought. I have a stack of unopened response letters on my desk from her. There’s not much point in opening them, they just prove she doesn’t listen to constituents. Each one will regurgitate the issue, ignore all the reasons you gave for taking your position, then tell you she’s doing whatever she wants anyway.

So, on to Social Security privatization, an issue that most Amreicans think sucks, but she voted for it. What does she care, it’s not like she’ll need Social Security when she retires, and as far as I’m concerned, she could retire this November, if it weren’t for the fact that a majority of Texans are foolish enough to vote her in for another term

The President’s plan to privatize Social Security was strongly opposed by the American public last year. Americans of all political stripes – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – rejected the plan because they recognized its serious flaws. It cuts benefits, increases the deficit, and makes retirement much less secure for senior citizens.

This was a case where the American people got a chance to take a good, long look at an idea, and make up their own mind. And the more we looked, the less we liked.

But despite this strong public and bipartisan opposition, the Administration has not given up on the idea. Although we have not heard a lot about it in public, the Administration quietly slid a proposal to move forward with privatization into the 2007 budget.

Magic City News

Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches – Yahoo! News

Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 18, 12:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON – “Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day,” President Bush said recently.

Another time he said, “Some say that if you’re Muslim you can’t be free.”

“There are some really decent people,” the president said earlier this year, “who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care … for all people.”

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

When the president starts a sentence with “some say” or offers up what “some in Washington” believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he “strongly disagrees” — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.

Bush routinely is criticized for dressing up events with a too-rosy glow. But experts in political speech say the straw man device, in which the president makes himself appear entirely reasonable by contrast to supposed “critics,” is just as problematic.

Because the “some” often go unnamed, Bush can argue that his statements are true in an era of blogs and talk radio. Even so, “‘some’ suggests a number much larger than is actually out there,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as “a bizarre kind of double talk” that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.

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AFA, 18 Other Groups Call for Boycott of Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company will continue funding homosexual groups which are pushing homosexual marriage.

Ford had agreed to stop funding the groups in a meeting with AFA on Nov. 28. But when confronted by a group of homosexual leaders about the decision, Ford reneged on the agreement with AFA and announced they would continue their funding.

For the past three months, AFA has been trying to get Ford to honor their agreement but Ford has refused.

Bigoted Fundamentalist organizations endorsing the boycott of Ford include:

American Family Association
Center for Reclaiming America
Citizens for Community Values
Vision America
Free Market Foundation
WIN Family Services
Liberty Counsel
CatholicVote.org
Point of View Radio
Coalitions for America
Mayday for Marriage
RealMarriage.org
Judeo-Christian Council
Constituent Voice
Faith2Action
Coalition for Marriage and Family
ConservativeHQ.com
Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
National Association of Marriage Enhancement

AFA

With all the boycotts AFA is supporting, is there anything left to buy or anywhere you can safely go? just asking….

More and more I find Pat Robertson ‘Lunatic’.

Robertson Finds Radical Muslims ‘Satanic’ – Yahoo! News

By SONJA BARISIC, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago

NORFOLK, Va. – Television evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday on his live news-and-talk program “The 700 Club” that Islam is not a religion of peace, and that radical Muslims are “satanic.”

Robertson’s comments came after he watched a news story on his Christian Broadcasting Network about Muslim protests in Europe over the cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

He remarked that the outpouring of rage elicited by cartoons “just shows the kind of people we’re dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with.”

Robertson also said that “the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination.”

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Kind of like “Dr. Evil” in the Austin Powers movie series? Maybe the problem isn’t world domination, per se, but competition with Christianity. Islamic Fundies will be sending their money to someone other than Pat, so that’s a bad thing…