Kerry to Attend Daughter's Graduation

Unlike some presidential contenders who only talk about family values, others actually attend their kid's graduation. Read the rest of this post...

Ron Reagan, Jr.: "My father crapped bigger ones than George Bush"

Wow, wow, wow. I just read last year's interview of Ron Reagan, Jr. on Salon, and man, you gotta read this (thanks to Kos for finding this). He totally rips Bush a new one. I am simply blown away. Anyone who made fun of this guy, take it back. He's good. Real good.

Some highlights from the interview with Ron, Jr (you can read the entire interview with a free one-day pass at Salon - read it):

"The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now," he said during a recent interview with Salon. "Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the '80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's -- these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive, and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people."

"The big elephant sitting in the corner is that George W. Bush is simply unqualified for the job... What's his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk?"

"Sure, he wasn't a technocrat like Clinton. But my father was a man -- that's the difference between him and Bush. To paraphrase Jack Palance, my father crapped bigger ones than George Bush."

"Nine-11 gave the Bush people carte blanche to carry out their extreme agenda -- and they didn't hesitate for a moment to use it. I mean, by 9/12 Rumsfeld was saying, 'Let's hit Iraq.' They've used the war on terror to justify everything from tax cuts to Alaska oil drilling."

"And the weapons of mass destruction? Whatever happened to them? I'm sure we'll find some," he laughs. "They're being flown in right now in a C-130. There were, and will be, a lot of people killed over there. And if you don't care about the Iraqi casualties, what about the American? We stand to lose more people in the next months of occupation than we lost in the weeks of war. One of the reasons we escaped largely unscathed so far was because our military moved so fast. But now we're sitting targets -- we have to establish bases, patrol the streets, guard checkpoints. We're sitting targets for suicide bombers and other terrorists."

"And they told us, 'Don't worry about W. not knowing anything, good old Dick Cheney will be his minder.' Dick Cheney? And this was going to be compassionate conservatism? Dick Cheney is to the right of Genghis Khan, he wants to drill in your backyard, he wants to deny black people their rights --it was all there in his voting record for us to see. What were we, rubes?"

Read the rest of this post...

Reagan's spokesman repeatedly joked about AIDS from 1982-84

In three separate press conferences over a three year period at the beginning, and well into, the AIDS crisis, Ronald Reagan's chief White House spokesman joked and laughed off questions when reporters tried to make serious inquiries about the AIDS epidemic.

You can read confirmation of this here.

Source: "Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine," by Jon Cohen (thanks to journalist Rex Wockner for bringing this to my attention).

PRESS CONFERENCE 1



------------------

PRESS CONFERENCE 2



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PRESS CONFERENCE 3

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

PRESS BRIEFING BY
LARRY SPEAKES
December 11, 1984
The Briefing Room
12:03 p.m. EST

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
MR. SPEAKES: Lester's beginning to circle now. He's moving in front. (Laughter.) Go ahead.

Q: Since the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta (laughter) reports...

MR. SPEAKES:This is going to be an AIDS question.

Q: that an estimated

MR. SPEAKES:You were close.

Q: Well, look, could I ask the question, Larry?

MR. SPEAKES:You were close.

Q: An estimated 300,000 people have been exposed to AIDS, which can be transmitted through saliva. Will the President, as Commander-in-Chief, take steps to protect Armed Forces food and medical services from AIDS patients or those who run the risk of spreading AIDS in the same manner that they forbid typhoid fever people from being involved in the health or food services?

MR. SPEAKES:I don't know.

Q: Could you - Is the President concerned about this subject, Larry

MR. SPEAKES: I havenÕt heard him express...

Q: ...that seems to have evoked so much jocular

MR. SPEAKES: ...concern.

Q: reaction here? I - you know -

Q: It isn't only the jocks, Lester.

Q: Has he sworn off water faucets

Q: No, but, I mean, is he going to do anything, Larry?

MR. SPEAKES:Lester, I have not heard him express anything on it. Sorry.

Q: You mean he has no expressed no opinion about this epidemic?

MR. SPEAKES:No, but I must confess I haven't asked him about it. (Laughter.)

Q: Would you ask him Larry?

MR. SPEAKES: Have you been checked? (Laughter.) Read the rest of this post...

U.S. force in Iraq to grow to 145,000

Well that was quick. Wasn't it only a few weeks ago we were told they'd stay around 138,000? Read the rest of this post...

"Adolf Reagan"

Longtime AIDS activist Larry Kramer, a highly-respected godfather of the gay civil rights movement, has just written a scathing anti-Reagan piece for an upcoming issue of the gay magazine, the Advocate. AMERICAblog has received an advance copy of the piece, and all I can say is: No, Larry, tell me what you REALLY think ;-)

In the article, currently titled "Adolf Reagan," Kramer blasts the ex-president for his willful disregard of the plight of people with AIDS during his presidency. (The AIDS epidemic first became known in 1981, at the beginning of Reagan's first term. Reagan reportedly did not give a speech about AIDS until months before he left office in early 1989.)

Kramer's op ed begins in classic pull-no-punches Kramer style:

"Our murderer is dead. The man who murdered more gay people than anyone in the entire history of the world, is dead. More people than Hitler even. In all the tributes to his passing, as I write this two days after his death, not one that I have seen has mentioned this."

Kramer also reveals that he was recently asked by People magazine for a quote regarding his views on Reagan:

"People magazine called me for a quote on Reagan's death. 'I wish he had died before he was elected' is what I told them. I wonder what they will run."

Finally, Kramer concludes his piece by comparing Reagan to Hitler:

"Hitler knew what he was doing. How could Ronald Reagan not have known what he was doing? But of course no one is writing about this. Reagan too is one of history's gods. So far he has got away with murder."

Kramer's full Advocate piece is due to hit the news stands in two weeks. Kudos to the Advocate on this coup.

In related news, read how Reagan's White House spokesman repeatedly joked about AIDS in press conferences from 1982-84. Read the rest of this post...

Laura disses Nancy on stem cells

I didn't know Laura Bush's father died from Alzheimer's. That only makes her, and Bush's, position creepier and more inhuman. But at least it's consistent. Lesbian kid? Sell her out to the far right. Alzheimer's dad? Sell him out to the far right.

From Reuters:

Laura Bush, whose father died from Alzheimer's, said on Wednesday she admired Nancy Reagan's devotion to former President Ronald Reagan until his death but could not back her call for relaxation of stem cell research restrictions.

Read the rest of this post...

Paris wants to ban SUVs

City council members are pushing to ban SUVs because of the pollution problems as well as the traffic problems and I could not be happier. The City of Lights has been adding trees and making it very difficult to cut down old trees to help the pollution problem. (Maybe they were not aware that trees cause pollution??) Dumping the SUVs will make one of the worlds most beautiful cities even better. Traffic lately has become horrible and I hope they get this program going quickly. Read the rest of this post...

Imagining a speech by the Bush twins...

USA Today reports that the Bush twins could be giving speeches on behalf of Bush's campaign later this year. I imagine they'd have lots to say. Read the rest of this post...

You can kiss his ass goodbye

Report says new Iraqi leader worked with CIA in the 1990s. Read the rest of this post...

Bush debates the definition of "is"

Very cute effort by the White House to clear Bush of having ordered the Abu Ghraib tortures. Note what White House counsel said:

White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales said in a May 21 interview with The Washington Post: 'Anytime a discussion came up about interrogations with the president, . . . the directive was, 'Make sure it is lawful. Make sure it meets all of our obligations under the Constitution, U.S. federal statutes and applicable treaties.'

Now remember that the head of the Justice Dept's Office of Legal Counsel wrote a memo saying that US law and international law may not even cover the president's decisions as they pertain to interrogations conducted in the pursuance of war. That memo means that Bush could have directly ordered the torture at Abu Ghraib and still, technically, be "meeting our obligations under the Constitution, U.S. federal statues and applicable treaties" since none of those laws applied to him anyway, so he definitely "met" his obligation under them.

Very cute way for Gonzalez to say the truth, yet say nothing at all. Tomorrow at the White House we debate the definition of "is." Read the rest of this post...

Reagan delivered first speech on AIDS in May 1988

The Washington Post does a nice, balanced, look at Reagan's legacy:

And the administration showed indifference to an emerging AIDS crisis in the early 1980s. By the time Reagan delivered his first speech on the epidemic in May 1988 -- about eight months before he left office -- the disease had been diagnosed in more than 36,000 Americans, and 20,849 had died.

Read the rest of this post...

Bush, funeral attendance and political gain

It's interesting to see how Bush has wasted no time jumping on the Reagan death as a potential political boost yet he still can not find time to visit services for those who have fought and died for his wars. I guess it's just bad PR or something. Other chief executives believe that showing respects for the soldiers who have died is important but Bush is unable to even personalize his responses.

"Gov. Mark Sanford, Republican of South Carolina, a captain in the Air Force Reserve, who said he attended as many funerals as possible, said he tried to separate the politics of the war from his desire to honor the dead.

"Some folks are against the war, some are for it," he said. "What you're trying to do is not get involved in that debate but to honor the individual. Your presence goes with the role of chief executive."

Kathy Brown of Glens Falls, N.Y., whose son, Nathan, 21, was killed in Iraq on April 11, said she would have liked Mr. Pataki to have attended her son's funeral but understood he was busy. Still, she said, Mr. Pataki called "out of the blue" and spoke to her husband, Ricky, for several minutes. "We were pleased," she said.

But, she said, she resented President Bush for not attending any funerals. "I think he should attend every single solitary funeral and spend more time in Iraq and less time in Texas," she said. "Yes he's busy, but our soldiers are not too busy to serve."
She said she did receive a letter from President Bush, but she was offended that it arrived by Federal Express. "He couldn't have had someone hand it to us?" she asked."

Read the rest of this post...

HIV drug showing promise for South African babies

Though widely used around the world, South Africa previously resisted using nevirapine to help protect babies from becoming infected. As I understand the problem in RSA and neighboring countries to a lesser extent, blacks often believed that AIDS was a plot by the white government to control the black population that was rebelling. Even today the number of people that believe that is surprisingly common. In a land where health care is still very limited to populations living in and around towns and cities, people are suspicious of drugs and disease and some politicians even continue spreading the myth. In regions where modern health care is not available (and even sometimes where it is) locals rely on what we would call "witch doctors" for medical advice.

"Researchers say there are no reliable statistics on how many babies nevirapine has saved nationwide. But at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital -- the main source of prenatal and obstetric care for millions of people in Soweto, the sprawling township near Johannesburg -- 25 percent of babies born to HIV-positive women contracted the disease in the mid-1990s, before nevirapine became available. Now that the drug is administered routinely, the infection rate is about 8 percent, doctors say." - Washington Post

Read the rest of this post...

Gas prices to drop slightly over the summer courtesy of our Saudi friends

The Saudi-Bush love fest continues and everyone is pitching in to help with the re-election campaign. Those bin Laden-loving folks are really there for us in a pinch, aren't they? It's a good thing that they have cashed in for so long despite our governments blind support for their tyrannical government. I guess that's what friends are for. Thank goodness we have not heard any crazy people in Washington promote conservation or some other lefty idea like that because where would that get us? It is important that Americans are energy dependent, right? Read the rest of this post...

Saudi Arabians love bin Laden

Not that this is much of a surprise to the world, but a recent poll shows almost half supporting bin Laden's rhetoric. Even more bizarre is the high level of support for strong US relations and a clear lack of trust of their own military. Considering some of the recent polls in the US, where Americans are increasingly turning against Bush yet support his "war on terror", I suppose it is not that strange after all. Read the rest of this post...