He just acts according to his evil nature - just as a snake bites.
Blame the people who voted for him.
cdj |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 12:27 pm | #
it's incredible, it's sad and depraved, but I'll tell you, I know as a fact from conversation, republicans agree with this kind of crap
me to me |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 12:31 pm | #
These people make me sick. I am speechless in the face of their compassion.
shooogarp |
03.25.06 - 12:34 pm | #
And if you are a big hearted Houstonian you do realize he has just co opted your generosity as tacit agreement with his comments.
The left doesn't get how clever these guys are with their language. And the media never ever calls them on it.
Bionic |
03.25.06 - 12:37 pm | #
Privileged white male syndrome:
If you weren't born into the same situation as I was, too bad for you.
cathy |
03.25.06 - 12:38 pm | #
It's just how white people - as an aggregate - feel about black people. Black people are perfectly well aware of it. Apparently "good whites", not so much.
cdj |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 12:38 pm | #
Yep. All those deadbeats should go back to New Orleans, where FEMA will be happy to help them repair their homes and rebuild the businesses at which they used to work.
Seems to me that the biggest deadbeats these days are Federal politicians.
Cujo359 |
03.25.06 - 12:40 pm | #
I'm getting good at this EPU thing.
For
al-Scooter | 03.25.06 - 12:14 pm |
What is the Mexican saying, "So far from God and so close to the United States"?
The reality is that Mexico mostly a third world country lives next door to the largest economy on the planet. It can not ignore and has not escaped the consequences of this situation.
Neither can we. Much of our country was at one time Mexico.
Supporting economic development in Mexico is not charity. It is both humanitarian and smart. It is also in both countries' and peoples' interest.
There are examples we can look to. Ireland and Spain were second world countries before they received large and sustained investment from the European Community. I would call both countries now rich and successful. I think the first thing we need to realize is that because of our proximity, our history, and our intermixing of both people and culture we have a shared destiny or at least a relationship that is worth fostering to the benefit of both.
Hugh |
03.25.06 - 12:41 pm | #
Oh, is Babs' term "underprivileged people" the new code word for "deadbeats from New Orleans?" How disgusting.
Delphyne |
03.25.06 - 12:42 pm | #
I could certainly have done without ever setting my eyes on Culbertson. He looks like some strange genetic mutation between Jack Abramoff and Garrison Keillor.
You always have to wonder what John Culberson's tune would be if he came from, oh say, the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. Then I suppose he would be asking why those deadbeats in Houston were whining and why the Federal Government and all those shiftless Congresspeople weren't getting off their lazy butts and doing something. Just supposing, you understand.
Hugh |
03.25.06 - 12:49 pm | #
OT, but from previous thread. I've found the text of the Presidential signing statements for the PATRIOT Act and the McCain Amendment banning torture. These are from the whitehouse.gov site, so they should be authoritative, I think. They're linked in the previous thread.
Cujo359 |
03.25.06 - 12:50 pm | #
Can you know a man's ethics from his physical presentation? I am struck by how much this Houston guy looks like (all-around nasty type) Jeb Bush who looks like ex-MZM, Inc. CEO (and fraudster) Mitchell Wade. It must be something about the look of pompous superiority emanating from a puffy, overfed face. Or perhaps it's in the GoOper water.
Constant Reader |
03.25.06 - 12:50 pm | #
Hugh @ 03.25.06 - 12:49 pm -- I find it easier to imagine a Universe composed of anti-matter, but I'll give it a try.
Cujo359 |
03.25.06 - 12:52 pm | #
Been reading Jim Hightower, just because I don't seem to be able to do anything else constructive.
It seems there is a mayor in this little border town named Clay Henery III.
He had a unfortunate incounter a while back with some drunken rednecks(for lack of better terms). They changed his mind from ass to grass as we say around here.
Oh,btw,he's a goat, so they could only prosecute for animal cruelty.
Been reading the Declaration of Independence alittle Too.
cdc |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 12:53 pm | #
lump o'stepford boyfriend killer said:
"I also want to encourage anybody who was affected by Hurricane Corina to make sure their children are in school." –First Lady Laura Bush, twice referring to a "Hurricane Corina" while speaking to children and parents in South Haven, Mississippi, Sept. 8, 2005
Can't say I have heard her say anything or do anything for these underprivileged deadbeats since, but Babs did give money to her son Neil for software programs and W. did stop by on his way back from voting in the TX primary cause he didn't get an absentee ballot. Oh and what about Jenna and not Jenna-- have they done anything for the victims? 'eewww, but we can't daddy, those are icky poor people.'
pfft!
angie |
03.25.06 - 12:55 pm | #
OT but I'd like to recommend an email campaign to the Post asking them to choose General J.C. Christian as their next conservative blogger.
More here.
John Moltz |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 12:56 pm | #
What he fails to realize is that most of those "deadbeats from New Orleans" who've settled in Houston are now his constituents and can vote his sorry ass out of office.
P |
03.25.06 - 12:56 pm | #
Constant, I was just gonna say something like that. You can spot these people a mile away. His entire visage says "Proud Member of the Total Prick Club."
Sharkbabe |
03.25.06 - 12:57 pm | #
Constant Reader | 03.25.06 - 12:50 pm |
Re physical presentation
It's that look of earnestness (largely the result of a tightening of the sphincters) which is meant to convey forcefulness and decisiveness but more often masks a constipation of the mind and spirit.
Hugh |
03.25.06 - 12:58 pm | #
Oh P, from your fingers to the ballot box. Mwahahaha.
ReddHedd |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 12:58 pm | #
OT -- Wave of the future.
On ABC right now is a one hour infomercial for Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. ABC calls it the "Dubai World Cup," that started in 1996.
Ostensibly it's an international horse racing venue. In fact every image touts Dubai, Nakheel, Duty Free, Fly Emirates, "Fly non stop from New York to Dubai and the world."
All Emirates all the time.
It's the wave of the future. We're being bought out hour by hour. It's a full court press by the UAE.
Get used to it America! It's the future on TV as I type.
What is it with Texas that it keeps on producing such repugnant politicians?
Evil Progressive |
03.25.06 - 1:03 pm | #
Don't these "puffy, overfed faced" people know they are going to be the first people lined up against the wall by the masses? Does anyone else agree that the direction of our country right know resembles the lead up to the uprising of the Bolsheviks and the subsequent Russian Revolution? Should the 2006 and 2008 elections go wildly against exit and public polling, I think things could get very messy indeed. Most days I am hopeful, but some days I am afraid. Very afraid.
shooogarp |
03.25.06 - 1:06 pm | #
OT--- Russ Feingold is in Iraq (with McCain--grrr. and I do hope he watches his back) but check out what I believe to be a very clever statement:
Wisconsin Democrat and war opponent Sen. Russell Feingold joined McCain in pressing for the quick formation of a government, but he also declared his concern that the continued presence of American forces was prolonging the conflict.
"It's the reality of a situation like this that when you have a large troop presence that it has the tendency to fuel the insurgency because they can make the incorrect and unfair claim that somehow the United States is here to occupy this country, which of course is not true," Feingold said.
angie |
03.25.06 - 1:10 pm | #
OK, Hugh. I appreciate that you have a good grasp of the economics and have taken the high road with this issue.
Maybe I'm a little too close to the situation, living as I do in sunny SoCal. I see any number of facets to this issue on a daily, or even hourly basis. I think that it's rather complex, and - given our currently FUBARed situation - I'm not sure that building Mexico's economy is quite as high a priority as reforming our own just now.
There are plenty of actors in this drama, and I don't see any of them as being pure heroes, although there certainly are some villains. (Honesty compels me to include myself in the non-heroic category, BTW.)
If you're interested, probably the highest-quality economic work to date on this issue has been done at UC Irvine. Their bottom line: the net effect of illegal immigration is an economic wash; but the federal government does very well (via withholding taxes), while state and local governments here get reamed, steamed and dry-cleaned having to pony up for the incremental services required.
I'm hoping that, in spite of the demagoguery around this issue, we finally can have a national debate about some fundamentals such as what it means to be an American, what our values are and where our resources ought to be placed, etc. Right now, I think it's a discussion well worth having.
al-Scooter |
03.25.06 - 1:13 pm | #
angie @ 03.25.06 - 1:10 pm -- A good statement, especially since it would be hard to make a sound bite out of it that would support the contention that he's somehow bashing America. Not that this will stop some people from trying, of course.
Cujo359 |
03.25.06 - 1:15 pm | #
OfT: Campaign 2006
"Key Senate, House and Governor Races"
Click on a shaded state below to see key races http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...6/
keyraces.html
Really good high level tool.
John Casper |
03.25.06 - 1:18 pm | #
John Culberson is also a member of The House Republican Study Committee whose 2006 agenda consists of promoting the following progressive legislation.
1. Make the tax cuts permanent - repeal the marriage tax penalty, repeal the death tax, and pass fundamental tax reform.
2. Pass budget reform, a line item veto and establish a "rainy day" fund.
3. Pass another deficit reduction bill.
4. Pass ethics reform and rules to block budget "earmarks" that are major budget busters.
5. Pass a marriage protection amendment to keep marriage between one man and one woman.
6. Pass a balanced budget amendment.
7. Offset any emergency spending (Katrina) with cuts from other spending programs.
8. Ban human cloning and promote ethical adult stem cell research.
9. Pass protections for religious freedom.
10. Stop the raids on the Social Security trust fund. http://www.texasconservativereview.com/
All this tells me that Culberson is a religious right winger who can't add.
Hugh |
03.25.06 - 1:19 pm | #
Privileged white male syndrome:
If you weren't born into the same situation as I was, too bad for you.
cathy | 03.25.06 - 12:38 pm | #
It's not even that; they are entirely blind to the fact that they were born with any advantage whatsoever. To be a modern conservative, you have to believe that everything you have is a result of your own talent and effort, and if someone is poor or suffering, it is entirely their own failing. According to journalists who have traveled with them, every member of the Bush clan believes he is a self-made man, "born on third and thinks he hit a triple."
As John Kenneth Galbraith so eloquently put it, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
Redshift |
Homepage |
03.25.06 - 1:20 pm | #
Economic Development in Central America is good for the United States.
Clothing assembled in factories in the Western Hemisphere will have 40-50% content made in the USA; goods from China has less that 5% USA content.
On that point, I agree with you completely. Smart, reasonable discussion is an absolute necessity for workable solutions. It is something that for different reasons we are not getting from either major party right now.
Hugh |
03.25.06 - 1:26 pm | #
J i O | 03.25.06 - 12:59 pm | #
I think you just haven't noticed before but Dubai has been working to be a major player in the world for several decades.
The sports in Dubai are often featured because lots of major players partake. Back in January I think I watched the Dubai Open with my mother because she loves Tiger Woods.
And while there are always questions about the games behind the games that diplomats play, that I can't hope to answer, I would not be so quick to write off the UAE, as a whole, because it is one of the more moderate countries in the Middle East.
In 80-82 my folks lived there, working in a hospital in a town in the middle of the desert. I spent 3 months in the country and learned a lot. The late president of the country did a lot of things that you as a Democrat would have applauded. He literally pulled them from time immemorial to the modern era in just a few decades.
Women there are much freer than in say, Saudi. They can drive, get higher education (the University open in '79 I think, since then 20,000 have graduated) and good health care.
They've gone in fifty years from a mostly illiterate society to one with over 85% adult literacy.
As I said, my folks worked at a hospital. My father was the lab scientist in charge of running the lab. He went into a brand new so called state of the art hospital.
That had been the mandate to the western companies that built it. State of the art, something that could be dropped into any major American city and be number one. And they paid the necessary big bucks for the same.
What they got was not state of the art. For one thing they didn't put in a public address system. People had to leave phone trails in order to be contacted as they went from department to department. The beds, while new in the box, were old technology.
In my time there I heard numerous stories like this outside of the hospital, where they asked and paid for one thing and got something less. I said then that the West would pay for that one day.
I'm reminded of reading that the Japanese tried to join modern western society in the early 20th century but were rebuffed by xenophobes in Europe and the West. That attitude helped build the will that led to Pearl Harbor.
Countries are full of gray shades. No one can claim moral high ground, we all have our dirty little or not so little secrets. I think we need to work on finding common ground together than driving others as far away as possible.
Bionic |
03.25.06 - 1:28 pm | #
Michael Eric Dyson on CSPAN 2 re Katrina-- powerful stuff!!!
angie |
03.25.06 - 1:28 pm | #
CSPAN2 is currently rebroadcasting Michael Eric Dyson on racial realities and Katrina.
RBG |
03.25.06 - 1:30 pm | #
this is what he's talking about:
On Saturday, March 25 at 4:15 pm
Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster
Michael Eric Dyson
Description: In "Come Hell or High Water" author Michael Eric Dyson criticizes the U.S. Government's response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The author argues that the Bush administration and FEMA's failure to provide aid in a timely manner is another reminder of the deep class and racial divide in America. He analyzed the problems displaced survivors of Hurricane Katrina are facing today, and debated if the storm was caused by God. This event was hosted by Eso Won, an African American bookstore in Los Angeles, California.
angie |
03.25.06 - 1:30 pm | #
Angie---you're faster at the keyboard...or the remote control...than I am.
RBG |
03.25.06 - 1:31 pm | #
RBG--Just fired up by Christy's posts today and lucky, i reckon ;)
angie |
03.25.06 - 1:34 pm | #
angie | 03.25.06 - 1:10 pm |
I've been leaving anonymous comments off and on over at swopa about this but today is a kind of anniversary. It has been exactly 100 days since the December 15, 2005 elections and, despite the specter of civil war and ongoing instability, Iraqi politicians have yet to form a government. Why do when you can dither?
Hugh |
03.25.06 - 1:35 pm | #
I'm going to break from the pack here and say that I don't find this comment to be terribly offensive. Tens of thousands of people relocated to Houston after Katrina. I don't think he's saying that he thinks ALL of them are deadbeats. He just trying to say that there are a few bad apples in the lot.
That being said, I will immediately concede that he's speaking in code and playing to racist fears, and that all the hatemongers out there will nod their heads and murmur "Amen!" to what he's saying. But based on the actual content of the quote, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.
That being said, I do not agree with the statement. I won't go so far as to call myself "big-hearted", but I volunteered at the make-shift med center at the Reliant Center, and almost all of the people I met there were weary but still greatful to the volunteers. Since that time, the city has done what I consider to be a fantastic job of relocating thousands of evacuees who were made homeless by the horrific combination of a natural disaster and profound government incompetence. I live within a few miles of the Reliant Center, and the only "problem" I've had with the evacuees is that some of the stores and restaurants are a little more crowded than they used to be. (And there are a bunch of Tulane students running around the halls of Baylor College of Medicine, which I also do not see as a big enough problem to call my Congressman about.)
Finally, I think Representative Culberson should be reminded that the shoe was very nearly on the other foot: Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of Houstonians fled the city when Rita was coming. I am still greatful to the Arkansasans (sp?) who took me in during that evacuation. They were not compassionate conservatives, though. Just compassionate.
Frank Probst |
03.25.06 - 1:38 pm | #
Constant Reader -- It's that effin' smug smile; Turtle Boy has it, too (I'm betting the kid is mad as hell at we nasty moonbat types but feels zero culpability or shame, so he may be rotten to be around at present, but he's in no pain). Around here, we've been calling it "the famous megachurch smile" because, you know, they're all getting Raptured and we're clearly not.
Such a perversion of Christianity: we were asked to be humble, weren't we?
dannyboy |
03.25.06 - 1:41 pm | #
OT: Hey Redd, Wolcott has a new post that might provide some context for your AIPAC trial reading:
Compassionate Conservatism: in all, it's gory
punaise |
03.25.06 - 1:45 pm | #
Hugh-- right. 'why do when you can dither?'
If they can't or won't form the government, well then yeah, we could blame it on them; but in reality, it points to our failures. It will eventually
make the American population and neighbors sicken of the misadventure. The Iraqis want the occupiers and shapeshifters out of their country and affairs.
Man, Dyson is good-- hitting on NSA and Belafonte's absence at Coretta's funeral. whoowhee.
angie |
03.25.06 - 1:45 pm | #
OT:
Ambassador Joseph Wilson said in his speech Monday night that he reads 20-25 blogs before he reads the NYTimes in the morning with FireDogLake being the best and his favorite. He recommended that everyone make it a regular read.
Frank, you ARE one of the big hearted Houstonians.
But I think you are looking through the wrong end of the binos. I don't think anyone would deny that there are deadbeats among the population from New Orleans, as there are in virtually any population.
He's playing to his crowd looking for easy scapegoats for their problems.
It's not government policy, it's those deadbeats from NOLA.
I hope you will speak up as a proud and big hearted Houstonian and remind him of how easily pride goeth before a fall, there but for the grace of God go I and that the world is full of compasionate people, conservative or not.
Pea Ess Glad you and yours were spared.
Bionic |
03.25.06 - 1:46 pm | #
Also off-topic, but some name calling going on over at RedState.
Feingold in Iraq with McCain -- be careful the company you keep Senator. You start agreeing with him, and all the good will I have for you might just disappear in a haze of bullets.
I wonder what Feingold's stance was on the Murtha ideas for 'redeployment.' When Feingold and Murtha agree about censure and Iraq, we will have a winner.
GrandmaJ |
03.25.06 - 1:48 pm | #
Bionic, 1:28
Was the company that built that hospital spelled
H-A-L-L-I-B-U-R-T-O-N?
Sure sounds like their type of work ethic not only in providing for our troops, but for all of their ventures. Get the most money with the least amount of responsibility.
Where is Jesse Jackson? He needs to hear that Houston has a problem, and voter registration would be just the ticket for getting rid of Mr. Culbertson. That is a takeoff on Some Guy's, and P's suggestions. Which were excellent ideas.
Apple Canyon 2 |
03.25.06 - 1:51 pm | #
'Charity is no substitute for justice!' Dyson rocks-- oh you guys-- you gotta hear this man.
angie |
03.25.06 - 1:54 pm | #
Apple Canyon 2 | 03.25.06 - 1:51 pm | #
LOL
At this late date I don't remember, but there were many Western companies there eager to get a piece of the pie -- they were SSSSOOOOO rich. You just don't really get an idea until you see it.
It's just this attitude these rapacious companies have.
Shocked, absolutely shocked that anyone gets pissed off at being robbed.
Or more darkly, they do it because they also have "defence" contracts.
Bionic |
03.25.06 - 2:04 pm | #
Compassionate Conservatism: in all, it's gory
punaise | 03.25.06 - 1:45 pm | #
"Ann Coulter and others came up with the crap that Joe coudlnt' get a job on his own, he needed his wife to find one for him because "he's a wussy man". Well, when I thought about it, I wasn't really all that surprised hearing it from Ann. Afterall, she is a rather manly woman."
Edward Teller |
03.25.06 - 2:18 pm | #
Wonder how he'd feel, what he'd say, if it had been a whole lot of people from Houston in shelters in NOLA. Culbertson is a marron. (For the record, I have family in Houston, at least one of whom evacuated in front of Rita.)
P J Evans |
03.25.06 - 2:21 pm | #
Go read the comments in the Redstate link above.
Usually I think I'm "above" looking at, let along enjoying, a bad car wreck (I'm a universe after all), but not this time.
Seemingly, Malkin is now persona non grata - the enemy of the majority of Redstate's orc army of commentators. Some bizarre analysis where "friendship" trumps sanity, morality. Of course, friendship doesn't mean what they think it does - BTB is not even an acquaintance of theirs, let alone a "friend." But hey, let them eat their own in their quest of ideologically purity. I'm certainly all for it - hell, I'll even watch.
OT - Just saw this at the Salon letters page and had to share. It's in response to Farhad Manjoo's' article on Jim Brady's excuse-making re: Ben Domenech. Normally, I'd just point you to the page, but I just have the feeling it's not going to be there long, and it's a treasure. Oh, and I don't think it was really posted by Ralph Reed. At least, not that Ralph Reed.
So Cheney & I were sitting around
Smoking rock with Satan round the bible and fetus fire one night and he said; "Why don't you get the WaPo to hire some freshly scrubbed fratboy who stole and lied his way through 5 years of undergrad to be a...what do they call them? Blotters? Yeah hire one of them to be a blotter for the rag. It'll show the youngsters how 'groovy' we are. Make it easy to sign up the next batch of targets for Iraq."
I thought he was shitting me - I mean the guy does not have the most coherent downtimes, does he? But damn!! He made a call and that's what happened. I guess he figured if we were so Hip that we'd get a pass on the whole plagarism thing. Lying isnt' what you do or what they catch you doing, it's what you can't easily deny. Oh well.
Anyway that's what happened. Now toss another baby on the fire and call to get another boy sent up here - the last one burst. You like these Cubanos? I get em flown in from Fidels personal stash.
I hope you will speak up as a proud and big hearted Houstonian and remind him of how easily pride goeth before a fall, there but for the grace of God go I and that the world is full of compasionate people, conservative or not.
Pea Ess Glad you and yours were spared.
Bionic | 03.25.06 - 1:46 pm | #
--------------------------------------
Oops, and I forgot to mention--he's not my Rep. I live just outside his district, and thanks to Texas gerrymandering, I have a different Rep. :)
Frank Probst |
03.25.06 - 3:40 pm | #
How inconsiderate of those deadbeats to go and have a hurricane and get breached levees just so they could move to Houston and live on public assistance.
I live in Tucson Az. After the hurricane we were told that our city would be receiving about 800 evacuee's from New Orleans.
I was a volunteer for the 2-3 weeks that Tucson was preparing for their arrival and I cannot tell you what a massive outpouring of donations we got.
The Tucson Community center was fully prepared, thanks to the Red Cross and all the people who live here, beds food clothing and more donations than we could have ever dreamed of. Not to mention the unbelieveable services that were being offered at the expense of our state tax payers. Who were more than happy to do their share.
After the first (and only) 90 evacuees arrived we were told that no more would be arriving, as the Govenor of Texas wanted them all to stay in Texas. Apparently the Federal government was going to suppliment the states who had taken in large numbers of evacuees.
We ended up boxing and shipping LITERALLY hundreds if not thousands of boxes of donations from the people of this city and trucking it to Texas for those in need. Nothing was left behind for our own homeless. But no one complained, we were so happy to help all those who suffered from this disaster.
I bring all this up because reading this article is so so disturbing. Every single evacuee that came to Tucson was placed in a home of their own rent free for as much as 6 months, given money, sullpies free bus passes and offered jobs thru local business owners. Over 600 homes were available, less than 100 were ever used.
None of these people have ever been referred to as "deadbeats", none were ever made to feel unwelcome. And from what I hear, most have stayed and made Tucson their home.
The state of Texas representatives are greedy ugly nasty people. Shame on them! The selfserving ass-holes!
Corey |
03.25.06 - 6:42 pm | #
On Katrina...
I was blogginng from New Orleans a few weeks ago. Here is a link to the website on the trip. There are many stories, videos and pics of what is happening in New Orleans. Link: Blogging from New Orleans
I also have many Katrina posts at First Draft and here is a music video I put together of what I saw in the....
