Call me stupid or just a Conservative/Republican/Bush Lapdog/war monger/chickenhawk..….whatever witty title in your disgust and anger makes you happier. As much as many in the media and anti-war faction of this country are concerned, as E.J. Dionne said this morning; the president by:

“insisting upon a confrontation will be another mistake in a long line of bad judgments about a conflict that grows more unpopular by the day.”

The “conflict” no doubt is Iraq, which I have heard distracted us from the “war on terror,” and “only creates more jihadis,” to name just two. How exactly it is more “unpopular by the day” is where I get lost or concerned. Undoubtedly unpopular to many, yet by what means does someone like Dionne use to arrive at this conclusion? Does he rely upon the media reportage? Does he rely upon polling? Does he rely upon speeches by say, Sean Penn and take this as representative of the majority of Americans? Since when have our elected officials really done what we want anyway? Does he rely upon statements by the likes of Nancy Pelosi following November’s election:

"Nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in the war in Iraq."

If so, how exactly does she know? Is it because the majority changed and with the change does this then mean whatever she/they say is the “mandate,” is the “mandate?” But what if that isn’t truly how people feel? Does Pelosi rely of the orations of Sean Penn too?

Dionne sees the 218 to 212 vote as:

“a test of the resolve of the new House Democratic leadership and its ability to pull together an ideologically diverse membership behind a plan pointing the United States out of Iraq.”

Does E.J. really believe the Democrats are truly ideologically diverse or do you think he’s talking from a visual angle? Dionne sees this as a good indicator that Pelosi will be able to put up a good fight in making “a new direction,” a reality. Yet also must place a certain amount of the blame of Bush for his recent Saturday radio address in which the president used:

“harsh rhetoric against the House version of the supplemental appropriations bill to finance the Iraq war may have been decisive in sealing Pelosi's victory.”

I certainly hope he has noticed “harsh rhetoric” from both sides of the aisle although I have my doubts as he notices that Democrats did not splinter as “pro-Bush” people would have liked, but:

“Instead, antiwar Democrats, including Web-based groups such as MoveOn.org, discovered a common interest with their moderate colleagues.”

I don’t think he would refer to Conservative web-based groups as just web-based groups. In addition to the “common interest” discovery Dionne does mention the term “pork,” but only in so much as that is politics as usual; something I thought Nancy et al were against. Nothing new here, but swaying “moderate colleagues” becomes easier with Congressional additives and incentives:

From the Senate side of the meat processing (includes only the most egregious):

• $1.5 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers for recovery along the coast, including funding for Hawaii for an April 2006 flood;
• $850 million for Department of Homeland Security grants ($625M for rail/transit grants, $190M for port security grants, and $35M for urban area security grants);
• $660 million for the procurement of an explosives detection system for the Transportation Security Administration;
• $640 million for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program;
• $425 million for education grants for rural areas;
• $388.9 million for a backlog of Department of Transportation projects;
• $165.9 million (including $60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath Basin region) for fisheries disaster relief;
• $100 million for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions;
• $95 million for dairy producers;
• $75 million for salaries and expenses for the Farm Service Agency;
• $48 million in disaster construction money for NASA;
• $25 million for grants through the Safe and Drug Free Schools program;
• $25 million for asbestos abatement at the Capitol Power Plant;
• $24 million to sugar beet producers;
• $22.8 million for geothermal research and development;
• $20 million for reimbursements to Nevada for “insect damage;”
• $13 for "ewe replacement and retention;"
• $12 million for Forest Service money requested by the president in the non-emergency FY2008 budget
• $3.5 million for guided tours of the Capitol;
• $3 million for sugar cane; and
• Allows the transfer of funds from holiday ornament sales in the Senate gift shop.

Following the “anti-war tide rising” vote Speaker Pelosi said:

"I stand here with great pride on this historic day in the Congress of the United States. Proudly, this new Congress voted to bring an end to the war in Iraq."

That is indeed quite an accomplishment, something the president has been unable to do to date; all with only a victorious vote. But what is “an end?”

John Murtha “emotionally” stated:

"We are going to make a difference with this bill. We are going to bring those troops home. We are going to start changing the direction of this great country."

I wish he had mentioned what direction.

Is home the new agreed upon location for the redeployment of the military in the Middle East? It certainly would seem that bringing them all home would be appropriate with the “end to the war in Iraq.”

I guess the rising anti-war tide that Dionne avers to is none other than the same group in D.C. that has been against it for so long now. I don’t know that it’s rising but it certainly is more dramatic and fun to get people to see it that way even if it’s just politics as usual.

After searching The Corner at NRO, I found this quote from Mark Steyn, which Bill Bennett referenced in part this a.m. on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America and at The Corner regarding the Libby trial (italics mine):

“The resilience of Joe Wilson’s scam is remarkable. I’m getting gazillions of e-mails castigating me for defending Scooter Libby, a man who apparently “recklessly endangered the life of a covert agent and her fellow operatives in Africa and elsewhere”. I wish the CIA had covert agents in Niger. But it doesn’t. That’s why it has to fly in Joe Wilson to sip tea by the pool and interview bureaucrats. And the fellows the CIA does have in Africa are a very curious bunch, including a former station chief in Khartoum who subsequently signed on as a lobbyist for Sudan’s genocidal government."

"But nevertheless an anti-war deputy secretary of an anti-war department leaking to an anti-war reporter the name of an anti-war analyst who got her anti-war husband a job with an anti-war agency is supposedly an elaborate “conspiracy” by Cheney, Rove and the other warmongers. Looked at more prosaically, it’s a freak intersection of bad personnel decisions, which is one of the worst features of this presidency. So many of the Bush Administration’s wounds come from its willingness to keep the wrong people in key positions: Tenet should not have been retained at the CIA, Armitage should not have been at State.”

The driving force behind this entire fiasco is more in line with political retribution; not the political retribution that Wilson/Plame and those of the “rabid” Left claimed the Administration instigated in response to Wilson/Plames scathing editorial in The NY Times regarding his trip to Niger. But retribution for daring to challenge the status quo of the international arena; for daring to deny the veracity of a “diplomats” editorial report in, basically a political game intended to further the nation away from the truth.

The media not only jumped on the band wagon, but built and serviced it, allowing it to make its multi-year trek to the verdict that is now apparently (again?) only the “tip of the iceburg.” We are reveled with remarks from all over, including and allowing Joseph Wilson/Plame the opportunity to further his lies:

"Well, I think the President and the Vice President both owe the American people a full explanation of what they know about this matter."

Thanks to a willful disregard of Wilson’s claims by the media from the get go; Wilson can state the above and somehow oddly remain unscathed by his and the oppositions scam.

Revelations that might have widened the reality of what had happened may have been reported once by each of the media outlets yet were dropped beyond that in order to continue the scandalous and manipulative evil administration reporting going. Meanwhile, we get stories on secret CIA operations for holding individuals in Europe and leaks regarding the NSA program (which is a lesson in how to avoid any real substance), that earn their authors Pulitzers. Future stories involving Fitzgeralds prosecution and investigation always mention the administration for summarizing purposes, you know to get us up to speed if we’re slow. But each of these stories invariably ignores the questionability or at least revelations of the Wilson claims. This does a service to administration haters, which is one thing and a disservice to the public. Am I just biased or wrong? Maybe, but that’s more than the msMEDIA can say; which undeniably did not get to the bottom of the story no matter what side you stand on.

I personally, as many do, feel Libby was railroaded. However, it was for the court to decide, just like it was for OJ, regardless of how one feels about the outcome. That aside, forget about Libby for a moment, We the People, are being railroaded with partisan politics being played “as usual,” the Left (I’m sure the Right is in here as well, but being canted to the Right and need to keep my membership duties up to code, I won’t mention it) and worst of all the msMEDIA.

Why do I say “worst of all the msMEDIA?” Because they are the “self-proclaimed” watchdogs to the public good. Because they say the are not Liberally or Conservatively biased yet they do lean in a direction which to me is to the Left, but this does not matter to the ultimate point I am so poorly trying to make.

The Fourth Estate, does not contain any individuals that are voted for and/or elected by “We the People.” Yet, it is their day in and day out drone that drives what is important to us. They have chosen a mantle and deceive us and likely themselves that they are not biased and are just reporting it as they see it. To report as one “sees it,” is to report it as on “sees it;” this is not unbiased no matter how unbiased one is. To see only the administration’s “deceptive” side of the story ignores the Wilson “deceptive” side of the story. To chase leads based on an ‘anonymous’ source with possible ulterior and partisan/biased motives is to be lead by the nose after a bogeyman that may not be at all.

This entire chapter, which unfortunately is still being written (“Libby Framed Around Vile Scheming, Skip Armitage, Tie in Reagan” ignore Wilson, but include him in the stories because he started it), at full speed after the imaginary “bogeyman.” ‘Time for another and/or more investigations; you bet, and we, the msMEDIA are on it, don’t worry about a thing.’

Think the Bush Administration twists “intelligence?” Think again who exactly twists reality because it doesn’t fit into the storyline.

Short title: `Employee Free Choice Act of 2007' (not to be mistaken with `Employee Free Choice Act of 2008,’ `Employee Free Choice Act of 2009 and so on)

The New York Times lead editorial today puts the blame right at the president’s feet regarding the "Employee Free Choice Act."

From the editorial board:

"The House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would strengthen the rights of employees to form unions, and it drew an immediate veto threat from President Bush. But if Mr. Bush were, as he claims, truly concerned about rising income inequality and truly committed to improving the lives of America’s middle class, he would support the legislation and urge the Senate to approve it."

H. R. 800:

"To amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes."

One has to wonder what it is that our leaders consider “efficient,” which I find laughable. Most politicians spend their days speaking about how they intend to fix something that isn’t broken; the only reason one might think the something is broken is because so and so said so.

The editorial board believes the most significant change that will be brought about by the bill is “majority signup” wherein employees at a company that wish to unionize get a majority of employees signatures on a petition. According to the Times (italics mine)

“Under current law, an employer can reject the majority’s signatures and insist on a secret ballot. But in a disturbingly high number of cases, the employer uses the time before the vote to pressure employees to rethink their decision to unionize.”

Further the editorial board states the argument of the bills “opponents,” as:

“Replacing secret ballots with the majority signup would be undemocratic.”

It appears that the editorialists state that as it is, an employer can say NO to the majority signatures petition. Yet SC 159 (e) Secret ballot, limitation of elections references “30 per centum.” The language to SEC. 2. STREAMLINING UNION CERTIFICATION from H.R. 800 amends by following the 30% requirement, which allows for a “secret ballot,” if an election hasn’t taken place in the past 12 months. So to simplify, the “majority signatures” do not overwrite the 30% as much as they enhance it by following it numerically and alphabetically, i.e. SC 159 (e) (1) and (2) at the end ADD (6) and (7) (A) yada, yada, yada.

The editorial board wants the reader to believe “opponents” are against something, which according to the paper already exists, but this is an out right lie by the paper; it’s 30%. Am I being petty? I don’t think so, as if the paper wants to advocate an for a certain argument, it would be nice if they could do it honestly.

The papers lying aside, I think I would be more comfortable voting secretly with the hopes of avoiding any ramifications for my vote from my employer; since the vote was “secret.” But then I am not (at least as of today), affected by this change as employees of company A or B may be; yet neither are the politicians or the paper.