Good god, what is Heather thinking? All across America, Independents and Democrats HATE Duhbya. Do you think his 30% approval rating is bad? That’s after you average in Republicans — among the rest of us, he’s in the teens, if he’s lucky. So, in a majority Democratic district, which, granted, has only elected Republicans, she is gleefully embracing Duhbya. After all the spin about independence, which even Duhbya mouths on stage at her fundraiser, this event — this picture — says it all. Got a problem with Duhbya? Vote Madrid!

As an aside, who in the world would spend $1000 to hear Duhbya speak? And $5000 for a photo-op? Some people have more money than sense. mjh

Shake that money-maker!

(photo by Marla Brose/Journal)

ABQjournal: Bush Pit Stop Nets $375,000 for Wilson By Tania Soussan and Leslie Linthicum, Journal Staff Writers

President George W. Bush praised Rep. Heather Wilson as an independent-minded woman during a Wilson campaign fundraiser in Albuquerque on Friday.

While about 300 Wilson supporters gave the president an enthusiastic welcome inside the Albuquerque Hyatt Regency, about 200 protesters outside called for Bush’s impeachment and Wilson’s ouster in the fall election. …

Wilson campaign spokeswoman Anne Ekern said the reception brought in about $375,000. …

“It should be no surprise to New Mexicans that Heather Wilson and George Bush will again be standing side-by-side today in Albuquerque,” Madrid said, “because Heather Wilson has stood lock-step with George Bush since he was elected.” …

Gerald Pacheco, a 29-year-old Albuquerque banker, brought his 13-year-old nephew to the event to get a picture taken with the president. But Pacheco said he was there more to support Wilson. [mjh: Oh! So Bush is hoping to get a lift from Wilson, not the other way around!] …

Wilson flew with Bush from Washington, D.C. … The Bushes have made three trips to New Mexico in the last three months. …

Chris Berkheimer, a 38-year-old Albuquerque attorney and a combat veteran of the first Gulf war, said Iraq has been a disaster and, like many in the crowd, he linked Wilson to Bush in his blame for the result.

“I’m not opposed to the war on terror,” Berkheimer said. “What I’m opposed to is Bush, with Heather’s help, fighting the war incompetently.”

The protest moved closer to the Hyatt when Bush arrived and, with baton-wielding police standing guard at the door, a couple of Bush supporters shouting “Remember September 11th!” faced off against the 100-strong anti-Bush crowd chanting “Impeach the son of a Bush!”

Sigh. “Remember September 11th!” These people are frozen in time unable to think of anything but 9/11. And they think they are the only ones who remember.

On the other hand, cries for impeachment galvanize the extremes on both sides and may turn-off anyone who manages to sit in the middle (how they stay in the middle, I can’t imagine). Let Bush run out his days in all his incompetence; let him continue to fuck up; he’ll be the stake in the heart of the Radical Religious Right. mjh

“New Mexicans deserve a leader who will stand up to George Bush – not stand next to him for fundraisers and photo-ops,” Patricia Madrid said.

Bush Brings Controversy And Cash to Campaigns By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

Wilson was enthusiastic in her embrace of Bush today, and the president returned the favor in a joint appearance at a downtown hotel here, where he called on New Mexicans to return “a clear-eyed realist” to Congress. He described Wilson as a strong supporter of his effort to “stay on offense” against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere.

The events Friday underscored how Bush remains a powerful fundraising magnet for GOP candidates, as well as the president’s desire to play a major role in the crucial midterm elections. By the end of the day, the White House said, Bush will have appeared at 39 events for congressional candidates and raised $125 million, more than he had at this point in the midterm elections four years ago. This time, however, he is a much less popular figure, and Democratic challengers are rushing to tie incumbents to the president in a way they did not four years ago.

“I am sure he’s going to raise her a tremendous amount of money,” Wilson’s challenger, Patricia Madrid, said in an interview before Bush arrived in Albuquerque. “But it makes it difficult for her to appear independent of him.”

Yahoo News Search Results for bush albuquerque

US House panel backs minimum wage increase By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Tuesday voted to raise the U.S. minimum wage in increments to $7.25 an hour by January 1, 2009.

The House Appropriations Committee backed the proposal by a vote of 32-27 during work on a massive fiscal 2007 funding bill for labor and health programs.

The surprise result came after seven Republicans on the committee supported the Democratic amendment.

But the legislation faces many hurdles, including possible efforts by Republican leaders to have the proposal stricken from the legislation, according to Republican and Democratic aides.

Under the proposal, which was offered by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, the current $5.15-per-hour federal minimum wage would rise in 70-cent increments starting January 1, 2007. On that date, the minimum wage would be set at $5.85 and a year later it would go to $6.55 before topping off at $7.25 in 2009.

Think Progress » Right-Wing Shelves Vote on Minimum Wage

Earlier this week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour by 2009. The increase passed as an amendment to the Labor-HHS spending bill after seven Republicans — Reps. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), John Sweeney (R-NY), Ray LaHood (R-IL), Don Sherwood (R-PA), Mike Simpson (R-ID), James Walsh (R-NY), and Bill Young (R-FL) — broke ranks to pass the increase.

The right wing objected to the move on the grounds that the committee “shouldn’t be legislating on an appropriations bill.” (They forget how Sen. Frist (R-TN) and Rep. Hastert (R-IL) did exactly that last year when they slipped liability protections for vaccine makers into a defense spending bill.)

The “next step” for the bill would have been for the House Rules Committee “to decide whether to ‘protect’ the amendment as part of the bill,” followed by a floor vote on their ruling.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who offered the amendment along with Rep. George Miller (D-CA), told ThinkProgress he was planning to fight attempts to take the increase out of the bill. “If there is an attempt to strip the amendment on procedural grounds,” he said, “we will fight back for the American people. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 50 years, and hardworking American families deserve a fair, livable wage.”

But now it looks like the vote will be delayed indefinitely. CongressDaily reported yesterday that “the bill would not reach the floor next week” and “there is a chance it would not come up even the following week, and possibly not at all.”

Conservatives are clearly afraid to be on the record opposing a minimum wage increase at a time when 83 percent of Americans support such a move.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: House lawmakers take $3,300 pay raise

Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that would increase their salaries to $168,500.

The 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate. Lawmakers easily squelched an attempt by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the increase, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.

In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA.

EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief’s Letter to Rove – Los Angeles Times By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers

A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove. …

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to “openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.”

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and “get a response ASAP.”

Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a “keen awareness” within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the “economic, energy and small business impacts” of the rule. …

Angelo had been mayor of Midland, Texas, when Bush ran an oil firm there. He is also a longtime hunting partner of Rove’s. The two men first worked together when Angelo managed Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign in Texas.

In an interview Monday, Angelo welcomed the new groundwater rule and said his letter might have made a difference in how it was written. But he waved off environmentalists’ questions about Rove’s involvement.

“I’m sure that his forwarding my letter to people that were in charge of it might have had some impression on them,” Angelo said. “It seems to me that it was a totally proper thing to do. I can’t see why anybody’s upset about it, except of course that it was effective.”

Asked why he wrote to Rove and not the Environmental Protection Agency or to some other official more directly associated with the matter, Angelo replied: “Karl and I have been close friends for 25 years. So, why wouldn’t I write to him? He’s the guy I know best in the administration.” …

The EPA rule issued Monday adds fine print to that broad exception in ways that critics, including six members of the Senate, say exceeds what Congress intended. …

White House and administration officials disagreed.

At the EPA, Assistant Administrator Benjamin H. Grumbles said the rule responded directly to congressional action. He cited a letter from Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, endorsing it. [mjh: Inhofe is the deep thinker who believes Global Warming is a hoax.] …

Sharon Buccino, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s land program, called the rule “yet another example of the Bush administration rewarding their friends in the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and the public’s health.”
—–

See mjh’s blog — It Helps to Have a Powerful Friend

A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School (HBS). read more …

Seed: As Science Goes, so Goes the Nation by Chris Mooney, From the JUNE/JULY issue of Seed

Bush’s mistreatment of science has expanded into a story that resonates deeply within his own country, and widely throughout the world, because it’s similar to the greater political narratives already being played out.

… a similar pattern—ignore experts, favor ideologues—has been followed by the administration on any number of other science issues, ranging from global warming to the morning after pill. …

The president, for whatever reason, hasn’t shown that he respects what’s going on in what one of his aides so hilariously described as the “reality-based community.” The “Bush is anti science” meme carries political weight because it underscores why so many Americans (including previous supporters) are becoming increasingly disenchanted with Bush: They don’t think he’s fit to lead, and they don’t believe many of his appointees are competent administrators of various branches of the government, virtually all of which require some form of scientific or other expertise.

A Bush Aide’s Blunt Words By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

Bill Clinton is a “virtuoso deceiver” and Hillary Rodham Clinton a “true chameleon” guilty of “self-serving behavior, comparative radicalism, and dubious personal morality.”

Al Gore is a “mad dog” known to “foam at the mouth.” John McCain is given to “showboating.” And Jacques Chirac, Nelson Mandela, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan are all “feckless fools.”

Says who? President Bush’s new chief domestic policy adviser, … Karl Zinsmeister, who started his new job yesterday.

For a dozen years until his appointment, Zinsmeister held forth on all manner of issues and personalities as editor in chief of the American Enterprise Institute’s magazine. With a sharp pen, he skewered the left, taking special aim at environmentalists, anti-globalists, feminists, contemporary artists, university faculties, Hollywood, Broadway and particularly the media, composed mainly of “left-wing, cynical, wiseguy Ivy League types, with a high prima donna quotient.” …

For Zinsmeister, provocation has been his stock in trade. “That’s kind of my M.O., for better or worse,” he said by phone last week. “My main beef with much of the Washington discussion is you’re forced to be so mealy-mouthed. I had the luxury as an outsider of being as blunt as I wanted. When you’re outside trying to push the elephant even an inch, you have to be very crisp and uncouched.”

But Zinsmeister said he understands that must change now that he advises the president. “When you’re inside the tent, you have to shift gears. That’s a double standard, but it’s an appropriate one.” …

In fact, his antipathy for Washington got him in trouble when he was appointed. In a 2004 profile by the Syracuse New Times, Zinsmeister was quoted as saying, “People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings.” But the New York Sun discovered last month that he doctored that and other quotes when he posted the profile on the AEI Web site. The edited quote said, “I learned in Washington that there is an ‘overclass’ in this country stocked with cheating, shifty human beings that’s just as morally repugnant as our ‘underclass.’ ”

Zinsmeister later said he was “foolish” to change the quotes and did so only because he had been misquoted. …

[In 2005,] he declared victory. “The War is Over, and We Won,” announced a June 2005 piece. “With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over,” he wrote. Although there will still be “egregious acts of terror,” he said, “contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq.” …

At a time when Bush has lost support among some conservatives, Zinsmeister’s appointment may reassure some of the disaffected in the party that a strong voice will be heard in the White House. Snow said Zinsmeister will be useful for his challenging viewpoints.

“You want interesting people who are smart, who have serious policy credentials and who are able to make other people think,” Snow said.

It is nauseating that the official response to suicide at Guantanamo is to call it “PR.” Granted, this is an administration run by talentless PR flacks for whom everything is marketing and spin. mjh

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | ‘Killing themselves was unnecessary. But it certainly is a good PR move’ by Suzanne Goldenberg and Hugh Muir, The Guardian

The Bush administration stared down a new wave of international condemnation of Guantánamo yesterday, dismissing the suicides by three inmates of the prison camp as a “good PR move” on their part and an “act of asymmetrical warfare”.

The deaths of two Saudis and a Yemeni, who used knotted bedsheets to hang themselves in their solitary cells, brought renewed calls from European governments and human rights organisations to bring the 460 inmates to trial, or close down the camp. But Bush administration officials rejected suggestions that the three had killed themselves in despair over their indefinite confinement.

“It does sound like this is part of a strategy – in that they don’t value their own lives, and they certainly don’t value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic,” Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told BBC’s Newshour yesterday. “Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move.”

On Saturday, the camp’s commander, Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris, said the suicides were an al-Qaida tactic. “They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us,” he said. …

Lawyers for the detainees called the comments by administration officials deeply offensive. Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents most of the detainees, said: “It’s very clear that any human being who is kept in indefinite detention over four years, not given any kind of hearing, and whose life and fate is subject to such uncertainty, inevitably will contemplate suicide, and the fact that three of them finally succeeded comes as no surprise. This is not an act of warfare, it is a consequence of inhumane and immoral treatment of human beings by the United States.” …

In Britain, Massoud Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said of the US officials’ remarks: “This is the sort of statement that SS officers in Nazi Germany would have been envious of.” Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, deplored the “incredibly insensitive and callous” comments. “The deaths of these three people was not an act of war, it was an act of desperation.”

President George Bush at the weekend expressed “serious concern” about the suicides.