shenanigans-1

"One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally."

"What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.

The president's State of the Union reference to Mideast oil made headlines nationwide Wednesday because of his assertion that "America is addicted to oil" and his call to "break this addiction."

Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

He said the broad goal was to displace foreign oil imports, from anywhere, with domestic alternatives. He acknowledged that oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms. Consequently, it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth.

Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble. (Kevin G. Hall,Knight Ridder Newspapers)

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"The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

"A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports."
"The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1." (By Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, 2/2/06)

Markos in dailykos.com caught one for Rep Santorum

It's starting to sound pathological.

Today Santorum said this to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

"I had absolutely nothing to do--never met, never talked, never coordinated, never did anything -- with Grover Norquist and the -- quote -- K Street Project."

C&L has video of Ricky being introduced by Grover at an event 6/28/05:

"Thank you Grover, and I appreciate your help and support on this and many other issues..."

I mean, there's obfuscation, and then there are bald-faced lies that can easily be exposed. Weird. Ricky is cracking.

"We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and the facilities to make them inside of Iraq, and even more about their intended use, including that a plan to distribute sarin, and the lethal poison ricin -- in the United States and Europe -- was actively being pursued as late as March 2003. The facility where the weapons were being made also housed a large inventory of perfume atomizers of various shapes and sizes to mimic the brands on store shelves in the United States. It doesn't take a wild imagination to understand the chilling implications. It does take imagination to combat it. And that's why we're lucky have an administration that gets it." Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) at the 2005 Conservation Political Action Conference Feb 18, 2005. There were no gasps or shocked looks from the audience which included Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), Dore Gold, foreign policy advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, NRA president Kayne Robinson and Vice President Dick Cheney. They all seemed to know this already.

But the CIA didn't say that. And the inspectors have all gone home. So where are these continuing reports of discovery coming from?

Seems he may be confusing his villains.

# posted by CuriousCity : 2:52 PM  0 comments

Obviously, here is an opportunity for somebody to put their excess earnings in a private (oops personal) account and accept riskier provisions for her old age .

MS. MORNIN: Okay, I'm a divorced, single [57 year-old] mother with three grown, adult children. I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.

THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. First of all, you've got the hardest job in
America, being a single mom...

MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

MS. MORNIN: Not much. Not much.

Yes, the working poor are so quaint. Ms Mornin is a mother of three who has a mentally challenged son.

Vice President Cheney [Catholic University, 1/13/05]

Cheney: Another argument against Social Security reform with voluntary personal accounts is that the so-called transition costs would be too high. Yet focusing merely on transition costs is to overlook the greater cost of doing nothing. Again, the projected shortfall in Social Security exceeds $10 trillion; that figure is nearly twice the combined wages and salaries of every single working American last year. There will be no -- there will be costs no matter what we decide"

Note he is comparing the costs projected for 75 years in the future to wages and salaries from last year. On an apples-for-apples basis the Social Securities Trustees said "in the 2004 report issued last March, the Trustees updated those figures to a $10.4 trillion deficit and a $295.5 trillion taxable payroll." That is it will be a 3.55% shortfall in revenue versus expenses. Under the current formula that could be made up then with a 1.77% increase in the social security tax to both employee and business. If the increase in the FICA is done in 2006, the increase to FICA is 1.33%/2=0.66%. Neither increase constitutes a crisis.

Dick Cheney [Fox News Sunday 2/6/05], "We're going to borrow $758 [b]illion over the next 10 years to set up the personal retirement accounts. We think that's a manageable amount ... Trillions more after that."

Chris Wallace, "Isn't that misleading? Because under your plan, the accounts, the program wouldn't actually start til 2009. So, if you take the first full 10 years, when people can actually invest in the program, the cost is over $1 trillion, and for the following 10 years, it's $3.5 trillion. Isn't it a lot more expensive?"

Especially when the private accounts don't solve the underlying problem of funding Social Security with fewer workers.

Reality is a slippery thing

Rep. Istook's statement ...

Istook, chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee, said in a statement Sunday that the Internal Revenue Service drafted the language, which would not have allowed any inspections of tax returns. "Nobody's privacy was ever jeopardized," the statement said.

The bill's text , added at his request:

Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein.

From that paragon of media responsibily, The Washington Times, (hey we're better than Fox!)

The same day, UPI, owned by the same company as the Washington Times, declares

Somebody's reality is moving sideways from the space-time continuum? Seriously, newspapers developed a system to prevent these reality conflicted reports, ... they call this marvelous invention "editors". Wonder if Rev Moon hired any of them?