I guess a permanent tap into Middle Eastern oil was just too much to pass up for the Vice President's former company.
What a disgusting move. All those no-bid Afghanistan, Iraq War, and Katrina recovery contracts were a money pipeline in allowing Halliburton to cut and run to the land of black gold.
If there's one thing that is quick for a guy like me who never met Ann Richards to learn, it's that wit and a funny story are almost always a must when talking about her. So as we move back to full posting strength, I'd like to offer this funny tale and a quip from my mother that I thought was fitting.
Remember last week when Chris Bell went out hunting? In the story they mentioned how Ann Richards started this tradition.
Richards, the most recent Democratic governor, hunted before TV cameras in 1990 and during her years as governor. She said in 1992 that hunting boosted her popularity.
"Man, after that (1990 trip), my numbers went straight up in (rural) East Texas," Richards said.
Well, at the time, Bell may have had some trigger problems. But my mother who writes me from time to time (an understatement if there ever was one) wrote me this quip which is worthy of Richards herself.
"I would rather go dove hunting with Chris Bell with the safety on, than go quail hunting with Dick Cheney and get shot in the face."
WANDERINGS, with Walter Brasch
For release: after July 22, 2006
Contact: brasch@bloomu.edu
TOPIC: Stem cell research and President Bush’s own morality
Part-Time Principles:
The Rhetoric of the Bush Morality
by Walter Brasch
George W. Bush says he believes in up-or-down votes. He proclaimed it shortly after his first inaugural, and included that belief in his 2005 State of the Union address, when he demanded that “every judicial nominee deserves an up-or-down vote.” A one-vote majority, says the President, should decide nominations and issues. He constantly talked about up-or-down votes in the Senate for the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N., for bills to ban gay marriages, to make it illegal to burn the flag, and almost every bill his administration proposed. His words were echoed by the Congressional leadership and by the evangelical fundamental Christian base.
(Was just writing a post on this. Nevermind! - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
VP Dick "The Headsman" Cheney showed his face in Texas again - but not to shoot another person in the face. Instead, he was trying to shill money for Van Taylor in the 17th District. But the event wasn't exactly a success:
Republican donors paid $150 to $2,100 to attend the fundraiser, in which they stood while munching on roast beef, shrimp, cheese and crackers. Taylor's campaign said that 150 people bought tickets, but attendance appeared to be fewer than 100.
Yeah, but this is probably one of those districts where people had to drive for ten thousand hours to get there, right? I mean, every Republican would die for a chance to meet the Veep - after they donned appropriate headgear, right?
Cheney's hunting victim apparently has had a heart attack. Apparently he's stable. So does that make him even with Cheney in the heart department or is our Veep still one up on him?
Latinos for Texas has a post on some interviews they have with Ciro Rodriguez. LFT-PAC is also meeting tomorrow to endorse in a number of races including Governor, HD-28, SD-19, HD-47 and maybe others. A good old fashioned caucus, sounds like fun!
Katy Hubener launches her first TV spot (as today marks the start of Early Voting in Dallas in HD-106). Watch it on her site. We'll be moving on to HD-106 Special Election coverage just as soon as we get HD-48 under our belt.
The Van Os campaign for Attorney General put out a press release today on Greg Abbott asking for some answers.
Texans have a right to know that wheeler-dealer Republican political operative John Colyandro, a central figure in the Tom DeLay-TRMPAC money-laundering scandal that funneled large sums of corporate dollars into the hands of Texas Republican candidates in the 2002 general election, served on Greg Abbott’s campaign payroll during the same time frame in 2002.
Texans also have a right to know that Greg Abbott is one of the favorite candidates of Bob Perry of Perry Homebuilders. Perry is one of the biggest financiers of Karl Rove’s favorite political tactic of maligning their opponent with insults and lies. For example, he financed the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans" in their 2004 smear of John Kerry. Since 2001 Bob Perry and his wife have contributed over $570,000 to Abbott's campaign accounts. In the month of December 2005 alone, Perry gave Abbott $50,000 in one payment.
By now, there is no doubt that everyone on earth with internet access has probably seen the news coverage of the accidental shooting of the Chair of the Texas Funeral Services Commission by Vice President Dick Cheney.
However, I was surprised that the mainstream media did not, until I saw this piece in the New York Times, pick up on the identity of Katharine Armstrong, who owned the ranch and was quoted in early wire stories.
Still, though, the NYT didn't tie Katherine Armstrong to Bush properly, though they did expound on her mother, Anne:
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed him with shotgun pellets on Saturday while the two were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Whittington was mostly injured on his right side, with the pellets hitting his cheek, neck and chest, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
But thanks to Cheney's heart condition, Whittington was aided more quickly than otherwise would have happened.
"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
