Talk about Crude Oil

Exxon can only afford $2.5 billion for their CEO's holiday bonus for earning them $116 billion revenue in 2007, and not the $2.5 billion in punitive damages in an attempt to make up for the thousands of dead marine animals, the hundreds of thousands of dead birds, or the countless fisheries put out of business by their carelessness when 10.8 million gallons of crude oil was spilled by the Exxon-Valdez into the sea on March 24, 1989, and the Bush Supreme Court says so. So there!.

The Republican Supreme Court is at it Again

If the Democrats campaigning for President really want to get elected, they'll get to each and every registered voter, no matter how far off the beaten path they live and make sure they have everything they need to vote including federal, photo ID and a ride to get there. Make sure they know where to vote as that has been a surprise for many voters who went to the same place they always voted to find they now have to go elsewhere. Don't let the Republicans get away with their tricks this time. Be smarter than they are and that isn't hard to do.

Bush's Not -So-Supreme Court

Yesterday, the Supreme Court did exactly what Bush wanted it to do, which is why he arranged it the way it he did. It refused to hear the case from citizens suing the government over the wiretapping program because no one can prove they had their privacy invaded by the government. This is the same body of government in which the people have no choice to protect them from the injustices of government and big business that are quickly becoming one and the same. There was no comment at all from the court.

Today, the Supreme Court decided the makers of faulty medical devices causing injury and/or death to the individuals who use them are not to be sued because the FDA approved them as safe. Of course, the F.D.A's approval leads people to believe these devices are safe to use but Justice Scalia wrote, "the F.D.A. spends an average of 1,200 hours reviewing each device application and grants premarket approval only if it finds there is a 'reasonable assurance' of its 'safety and effectiveness.' It may thus approve devices that present great risks if they nonetheless offer great benefits in light of available alternatives.” Oh, the "Better than Nothing" defense.
Yesterday was a victory for government over the people. Today was a victory for big business over the people. What will tommorrow bring?

Just Say No to Bush

Bush wants Congress to approve his 180 nominees for federal positions before he finally leaves office. His nominations have a way of going badly for the country, but he keeps nominating people and the Senate keeps approving them no matter how reluctantly they seem to do so. The latest was Mukasey who doesn't know if Waterboarding is torture, even if Hayden seems to think it is illegal. Of course, Hayden, also a Bush nominee, did not think it was illegal when it was used by the United States against detainees, but he thinks it is illegal now. Mukasey was nominated to replace Gonzales who, as Attorney General, destroyed the trust of the American people for the Justice Department, forcing partisan decisions by agencies that were historically non-political. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were also Bush nominees who came to a bad end and were complacent in the disaster of the Iraq war. Wolfowitz brought his bad sense and arrogance to the World Bank for a little extra worldwide humiliation for the U.S. during the Bush Administration by hiring his girlfriend for a top position there. The Supreme Court has been unevenly stacked by Bush to vote his way against the American people, using Roberts and Alito to sway decisions the Republican Conservative way until they either retire or die in office. Judges all over the country have been appointed to the positions they now hold by Bush and decide cases for the corporations against the working class on a regular basis. Now he wants 180 more public service employees to do his bidding after his second fraudulent term is up. His staff is full of unqualified people who have nothing more than a diploma from Pat Robertson's God School of Ridiculous Fairy Tales and the Supernatural. Our country is being run like a low income trailer park by the offspring of Boris Badenov and Natasha Dahling and, like his father, Bush refuses to give up the White House easily. Perhaps, he fears in his absence, people will realize how many crimes he has committed in the oval office. We already know about many of them. The fact that nothing has been done to punish him for them, notwithstanding, we know.

The Frauds Will Not Stand For Voter Fraud

The Bush Administration is finally willing to end voter fraud. Of course it is not the kind of voter fraud in which they themselves use to make presidents out of lazy, stupid, incompetents, but rather the truly important kind that might enable a terrorist to pose as an elderly, disabled, poor, black woman voting for a Democrat. Whew! That is scary. You really have to keep an eye out for those terrorists and it is a good thing we have the Bush Administration and the Bush controlled Supreme Court to protect us from such dangers. If it was not for them, we just would be left to defend ourselves from old ladies in wheel chairs without photo IDs, the Dan Rathers of the world trying to tell us the truth, teenagers wearing offensive t-shirts, the pesky Constitution enabling us our freedoms, people thinking they could say anything they want, and us in our own folly believing our own eyes. Just what would become of us if we were not protected from these things? Without them, we might not have our privacy invaded, our phone conversations and emails intercepted, our reputation as the greatest country in the world might still be intact, we might still be able to afford to drive to work, our cops might not have access to those important tasers and the mentality behind using them, the separation of church and state would still be visible and somehow seem necessary, Ken lay might still be dead and several thousand U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis might still be alive, corporate America and the poor HMO's might not be able to intimidate every aspect of our lives without this grand and oh so necessary protection. Just imagine what a mess we would be in. We might be forced to think for ourselves and, worse yet, stand up for our rights. Then where would we be?

Voter fraud didn't seem to bother the people bothered so much by it now when the elections of 2000 and 2004 were skewed to put someone in office that did not belong there or earn the privilege, but it bothers them enough now to enact a law to make it impossible to vote unless you can show a federal photo ID. While this does not seem such a great inconvenience to many of us, it is one to many others and enough of one to skew the vote again in the favor of the Republicans. Where were these bastions of justice when the phone lines to Democratic voters offering rides and answering questions during the 2002 Senate election were jammed, or when the conviction of the party placing those line-jamming calls directly to the White House was overturned? Where were they then? And who paid the $3 million+ in legal fees for that defense? Non other than the Republican National Committee.

Exxon Valdez in the Wrong Hands Again

The Supreme Court, the very same court that refused to hear the recent CIA kidnapping and torture case, and this summer sided with jesus over the First Amendment will decide probably in Exxon's favor in its request to not have to pay the amount of 2.5 billion dollars to about 32,000 commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the 1989 tragedy that is the nation's worst tanker spill in history, because Dumbya would not like it if his good buddies at Exxon would have to pay for their mistake. That is why he stacked the deck of the Supreme Court so full of dishonest judges that would support the needs of one despot instead of the preservation of the Constitution. Poor Exxon only made $39.5 billion last year and could barely afford to pay their CEO the $2.8 billion bonus for 2006 he so richly deserved. That was in addition to a 17% salary hike to $1.75 million. They have no problem handing over $2.8 billion to one guy who makes them so much money, but they don't want to give what amounts to less than that amount to be split between 32,000 families and individuals who were devastated by Exxon's own inconsideration eighteen years ago. Since the punitive damages Exxon doesn't feel it is their responsibility to pay to those most victimized by the oil spill, which would add up to around the price of a new car for each of the victims, spitting in their faces even more, you would think the money hungry friend of George W. would seize the opportunity to put the profits from 32,000 more oil and gas operated offenses to nature on the road directly into their pockets without blinking. Why wasn't this corporate crone of the Bush Boys forced to serve a sentence of community service, concentrating its efforts and vast connections on solving the greenhouse gases inducing global warming disaster? One would think the families of these greedy bastards did not live on the same planet as the rest of us for them to be so arrogantly brave. I know they are lying about the seriousness of the effects of ignoring the problem, but are they stupid enough to believe their own lies?

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Torture Appeal

The state secrets privilege, a judicially created doctrine that the Bush administration has invoked to win dismissal of charges that touch on issues of national security, protected the government’s actions from court review.

The case involved Khaled el-Masri, who was detained while on vacation in Macedonia in late 2003, transported by the United States to Afghanistan and held there for five months in a secret prison before being taken to Albania and set free, evidently having been mistaken for a terrorism suspect with a similar name. Oops! I'm sure he got a sincere apology from the CIA along with a basket of fruit. Those secret prisons have such lovely parting gifts.

I see the wave of the future. I see case after case being ignored by the courts. I see the Bush administration getting off scot free with all the crimes they have committed and are still committing. Must be nice to have all the branches of the government in your pocket even though you are and have always been an idiot with no aspirations other than your next buzz. He spies on us, but doesn't want us to know what he's up to. Hmmm... Don't just read this. Pass it on. Get your friends and family pissed off too.