Jan 31 2008
Jack Penate – Matinee
In case you might possibly be curious as to what music I’ve recently been reviewing, go read my review of Matinee, the debut record from Jack Penate.
Jan 30 2008
The 2008 Florida Primary Results
Well folks, the votes have been tallied in Florida, and it appears that Senator McCain has won the GOP Primary and Senator Clinton won the Democratic Primary.
As is being reported in several places, due to his less-than-stellar turnout in the only state where he really did any campaigning, former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is expected to withdraw from the race sometime on Wednesday. Those same sources are declaring that Giuliani will be throwing his support behind John McCain. This, in effect, turns the GOP race into a contest between McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, though former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee states that he has no plans for leaving the race any time soon.
The real story for the Democratic Primary is that, much like in the case of Michigan, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) penalized Florida for holding its Primary outside of the proscribed party schedule. Thus, as in the case of Michigan, no candidates receives any delegates, no matter how well they did, meaning that Senator Clinton’s victory is a bit empty. The DNC asked candidates not to do any campaigning in the state because the state party officials violated national party guidelines, a request that Senators Obama and Edwards complied with, but Senator Clinton asked to have lifted.
Thus, we head into Super Tuesday (24 states holding their primaries on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008) with the knowledge that the GOP race has come into sharper focus and the Democratic race is still a contest between Obama and Clinton, though neither of the two have truly staked a claim on the party’s nomination, even with the news that Edwards is dropping out of the race, but hasn’t endorsed either remaining candidate. It should be fun!
Jan 29 2008
State of the Union Address (After)
At approximately 8:10pm CST, President Bush began his final State of the Union Address. If you’re interested, here’s the transcript of the speech. And if you’re still interested, here’s the Democratic response to the President’s speech.
Predictably, the speech covered the same, safe, comfortable themes that have populated all of the prior State of the Union Addresses in the Bush Presidency — taxation policies to stimulate a flagging economy and staying the course with the “War on Terror.” The speech was broken down into two primary sections: for the first half of the speech, he discussed domestic issues, while in the second half, he moved onto discussing Iraq, Afghanistan, and the continued need to stay the course.
Key Domestic Policy Initiatives Included:
Passing a “Stimulus Package” to stave off the impending (already here?) recession
Making his earlier tax cuts permanent
Ending/curtailing the earmarking of special interest funds
Passing legislation to help people hit hardest by the weakened housing market
Expand consumer choice, not government control (regarding health care)
Reaffirm No Child Left Behind Act & create Pell Grants For Kids
Create trade agreements with Columbia (to weaken Hugo Chavez & Evo Morales), Panama, and South Korea
Trust entrepreneurs to develop clean energy technology to reduce the US dependence on foreign oil
Fund new coal technology until the clean energy comes about, as well as look into emissions-free nuclear power
Fund new medical research that seeks new treatments that respect moral boundaries (i.e. stop stem cell research)
Reform Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid
Hire more Border Patrol agents to further secure the borders
Seek a lawful way for immigrants to move to the US to lawfully support the economy
Key Foreign Policy Initiatives Included:
Stay on the Offensive
Keep up the Pressure
Deliver Justice
Add 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan
Troops will be slowly coming home
Congress must fully fund troops
Troops move from leading to training to oversight
20,000 troops should be coming home in 2008
The troop draw-down must be approached with patience
Any further draw-down depends upon conditions on the ground in Iraq and what the generals recommend
Iraqi government must seek reconciliation between Sunni, Shia, & Kurds
Define a Palestinian state in 2008
Demand from the government of Iran that they stop supporting regional terrorists
Demand from the government of Iran that they be more open with their nuclear plans
US must protect interests in the Middle East
Take every lawful opportunity to gather intelligence that will protect Americans
Reject genocide in Darfur
Defeat famine
Defeat diseases like malaria & HIV/AIDS
Reform the benefits system(s) for current veterans and veterans who will be coming home from the Middle East
What did I think about the whole shindig? Honestly, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before from either President Bush or any of his cabinet members in any of their speeches during Bush’s entire tenure in office. Nothing substantive was discussed, as evinced by the fact that Bush never laid out any clear policies for reforming Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, coming up with these clean energy technologies, lawfully transitioning immigrants into citizens, or a host of other issues he tossed into the air. Simply put, he had nothing to say, because no one is really listening to him — his own party fails to talk about him on the campaign trail. And that is the most damning indictment of all.
Jan 28 2008
State of the Union Address (Before)
Officials say that President Bush’s last State of the Union Address will address the economy. He’s also going to be talking about changing the way that politicians (i.e. the currently Democratic-controlled Congress) earmarks money in legislation.
2008 is proving to be a year of firsts for President Bush. January saw the President visit the Middle East for the FIRST TIME in his entire Presidency. And now, with this speech, it seems like he will finally be discussing some domestic issues that aren’t related to gay marriage, abortion, or intelligent design/creationism. Hopefully, he will remain on the topic of the economy, an issue of REAL importance to the American people, and won’t drift off into another fear-mongering discourse on the “War on Terror,” federal wiretapping/spying/stripping away our civil liberties, or border control. I wonder what might happen next….
**dreams a bit**
“Hey there America. I’m sorry about that mess in Iraq. It turns our that Saddam guy really didn’t have WMD’s. And in the middle of all that hullaballoo, we lost track of that Osama Bin Laden guy. Ya know — the guy who actually admitted to planning the bombings on September 11th. Yeah. We never got him. Oops. My bad!”
“Hey there America. About this impending recession — that was me too. By dumping lots of money into destroying a country that had nothing to do with September 11, I wasted all of that money that was in our budgetary surplus and instead created a bigger deficit than even Reagan created during the last days of the Cold War. That weak international dollar? Yeah…. I’ll take the blame for that one.”
“Hey there again America. I’m going to go ahead and take some blame for that whole Katrina thing. No, I didn’t cause the hurricane and, no, I might not be responsible for the lack of infrastructure in the city of New Orleans directly (that would be the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana), but I will say that I didn’t have “Heck-of-a-Job” Brownie & his FEMA folks respond very quickly, nor give them enough funding to adequately help out some of the poorest of my fellow Americans in their time of need. I’m sorry.”
“Hey there America. It’s me again. This whole President thing? It’s not an easy job and I wasn’t really prepared for it. Ya see, when I was working for the oil company, at a job my Daddy got for me, I didn’t really do very much, except lose them some money. And then, when I went to go help run the Texas Rangers baseball team, all I did there was get the city of Arlington to invest in a new stadium that they haven’t even begun to pay off yet. After that, my Daddy helped me get elected to be the Governor of Texas, and there, I had a Lieutenant Governor who really did everything (go read the Texas Constitution!). When that was over (after overseeing the quality of the Texas public school system drop to where it mirrored that of Mississippi), I got elected President of the United States and my Daddy’s old buddies came along to do it all for me (just like the old days) — Dick Cheney was my Vice-President, Rummy was the guy in the 5-sided building with the military fellers, and General Powell talked to everyone from all the other countries so I wouldn’t have to. So, all those mistakes I made? I’m sorry. With such a stellar record running things in my past, did you really think that I would actually do a great job? Ya did? Really? Seriously? Well anyway… See ya later! I’m headed back to the ranch in Crawford. Enjoy who comes next! I wonder why none of the candidates have asked me to come campaign for them….”
**Wakes Up With a Start**
Wow. Wouldn’t THAT be nice to hear?!? Too bad it won’t….
Jan 27 2008
The 2008 South Carolina Democratic Primary
Winning the South Carolina Democratic Primary with 55% of the vote, it seems as if Senator Barack Obama is the newly-crowned Democratic front-runner for the 2008 Presidential nomination. Next up for both parties? Tuesday, January 29th in Florida!
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