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President George W’s iPod: The Playlist
President George W. Bush received an i-Pod for his birthday, a present from his daughters. What Does Bush’s iPod Reveal About Him?
Here is the President’s List:
Brown Eyed Girl Van Morrison Hear It Now! – The Sound of the ’60s
Centerfield John Fogerty Centerfield
Circle Back John Hiatt & The Goners Beneath This Gruff Exterior
My Sharona The Knack My Sharona / Good Girls Don’t – Single (Re-Recorded)
(You’re so Square)
Baby, I Don’t Care Joni Mitchell Joni Michell: The Complete Geffen
Gone Country Alan Jackson Alan Jackson: The Greatest Hits Collection
Summertime Blues Alan Jackson Alan Jackson: The Greatest Hits Collection
Down On the Corner Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Gold
Have You Ever Seen
the Rain Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Gold
Lookin’ Out My
Back Door Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle, Vol. 1
I Go Back Kenny Chesney When the Sun Goes Down
Who’ll Stop the Rain Creedence Clearwater Revival Cosmo’s Factory (Gold Disc)
The Race Is On George Jones & Travis Tritt Bradley Barn Sessions
The House Is Rockin’ Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble Drivin’ South – Southern Rockin’ Smash HitsPresidential media adviser Mark McKinnon says the president is never more of a “pod person” than when exercising. “It’s heart-thumping music,” McKinnon said. “This is music to mountain-bike ride by. He likes to get the heart beat up to 170.”
Although it can store up to 10,000 songs, the president’s iPod currently only contains about 250 — lots of country, of course, like George Jones, but also Joni Mitchell’s “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” and Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “The House Is Rockin’,” as first reported in The New York Times.
If the iPod is a mirror into the soul, what do these songs say about the commander in chief?
“It’s consistent with Bush’s image as plain-spoken Texan and man of the people,” said Dave Itzkoff, a senior associate editor of Spin magazine. “It seems to be the playlist of somebody who stopped listening to popular music in the 1980s.”
The president does not exactly surf the Net, hunting for tight tunes. The songs are purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Web site by either Bush’s personal aide Blake Gottesman or McKinnon, a former songwriter for Kris Kristofferson.
And does the President only listen to the artists that have supported his presidency?
Nope.
Not every song on the presidential playlist is as “on message” as Alan Jackson’s “Gone Country.” It also includes musicians who campaigned against him, such as John Fogerty.
“The fact is that any president who would limit themselves to pro-establishment musicians would have a pretty slim collection,” McKinnon said.
“No one should psychoanalyze the playlist,” said McKinnon. “It’s really just great songs designed to for a great workout. And if there any songs in there with controversial lyrics, I’ll take the heat for that.”
Good List, thank you, Mr. President -
Robert Novak: Biden’s Power Play with Pattiz Going Bust
Newly announced Presidential candidate and plagiarising Senator Joe Biden, D-Delaware, now wants to make play Monty Hall on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Robert Novak’s latest column “Biden’s Power Play Going Bust” has this:
The connection was obvious to senators of both parties, though nobody said so publicly. Four days before Sen. Joseph Biden declared he would seek the Democratic presidential nomination if he could find the financing, he held hostage an important, non-controversial Bush diplomatic appointee. His intent: to force President Bush to reappoint a billionaire backer of Biden to a government oversight board.
Nobody expected Biden’s move when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee convened last Wednesday to send routine nominations to the floor. Biden, the committee’s ranking Democrat, blocked Senate consideration of White House personnel director Dina Habib Powell as the State Department officer named to use public diplomacy to improve U.S. relations in the Middle East. As the price for releasing her, he demanded retention on the Broadcasting Board of Governors of radio tycoon Norman Pattiz.
It won’t work. Bush has no intention of naming Pattiz. Biden rejected his staff’s advice and let Powell’s nomination out of committee Wednesday, but he can still keep his hold on her to block Senate floor action. The veteran senator’s audacious maneuver was extraordinary. Senators occasionally trade off confirmations on two controversial nominees. But it is without precedent for a senator to pressure a president to make a specific appointment by this blatant political use of the confirmation process — a process already in disrepair because of the mass Democratic assault on Bush’s judicial nominees.
Biden tacitly admits he is just playing politics by not even pretending there is anything wrong with Powell’s selection as assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. At her May 26 hearing by a foreign relations subcommittee, she was praised by Democrats who pressed to get the Egyptian-born Powell quickly on her Middle East assignment.
It’s all about Pattiz, Biden admits. The senator issued a statement calling the president ”short-sighted and doing the country a disservice” by not reappointing Pattiz to one of four Democratic slots on the eight-member board.
The Hold is all about Biden and the money Pattiz will bring to his Presidential campaign.Pattiz, founder and chairman of the Westwood One radio conglomerate, in 2000 was a generous Democratic contributor ($360,000 for that election cycle alone) and an overnight White House guest. President Bill Clinton named him that year to the BBG, which oversees the U.S. government’s worldwide radio and television broadcasting services.
Bush in 2002 reappointed Pattiz as part of a conventional package deal to get the Senate, then under Democratic control, to confirm a Republican nominee to the board: conservative Kenneth Tomlinson, former editor of the Reader’s Digest and Reagan-era head of the Voice of America. Pattiz and Tomlinson, now the BBG chairman, was no marriage made in heaven. According to sources, Tomlinson viewed Pattiz as a Hollywood control freak.
Still, Pattiz would have had another term this year had his name not appeared as a signatory in a Sept. 23, 2004, New York Times advertisement assailing Bush’s record and calling for his defeat. That broke the unwritten rule that a minority appointee cannot attack the president who appointed him.
When Pattiz was sworn in for his second term Sept. 10, 2002, Biden made the cross-town journey from Capitol Hill to deliver a lengthy panegyric for his political benefactor. In 1992, Pattiz’s Westwood One was fined $75,000 for offering to illegally reimburse employees who contributed to Biden’s aborted 1988 presidential campaign.
What insolence!
The guy campaigns against the President who appointed him and surprise surprise expects reappointment? But, why not if you can buy off the senior Democrat Senator on the Foreign Relations Committee with some campaign cash.
Pattiz played a leading role in establishing a radio music service to the Arab world, but associates say he was not the dominant force Biden’s statement claims. Certainly, he is less important in public diplomacy for the Middle East than Dina Powell would be.
Sen. John Sununu, a Republican who was there, described to me Powell’s confirmation hearing almost a month ago: ”We all agreed her job should be filled immediately because of the impact of public diplomacy.” The hearing record bears him out. Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes urged committee approval ”promptly, in the near future.” Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold promised ”strong allies on both sides of the aisle.” Biden was not present.
Give up the block Senator.
I can hardly wait for you to go up against Hillary.
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Flap over Rove Remarks: He Should Apologize or Resign
Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political advisor and deputy chief of staff suggested last night that liberals sympathize with the enemy and are intent on endangering American troops.
The New York Times has Rove Criticizes Liberals on 9/11Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions.
“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,” Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.
Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, “I don’t know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.”
The Washington Post has Rove: Dems Didn’t Get 9/11 Consequences:
Speaking in a Manhattan ballroom just a few miles north of ground zero, Karl Rove said on Wednesday night that the Democratic party did not understand the consequences of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,” Rove said. “Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.”
Rove, President Bush’s chief political advisor, spoke at the state Conservative Party’s annual dinner. He praised the conservative movement’s success, calling it “the guiding philosophy for the White House, the Senate, the House.”
Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for “moderation and restraint” after the terrorist attacks.
“Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies.”
Rove also derided comments made June 14th by Senator Richard Durbin, D-Illinois:
“Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?” Rove asked “Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”
Now the Democrats want Rove to either apologize or resign.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:
“Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks or he should resign,” Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement. “I hope the president will join me in repudiating these remarks.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean:
called on Bush to “show some leadership and unequivocally repudiate Rove’s divisive and damaging political rhetoric.”
During a Senate hearing on Iraq in which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other military leaders testified, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., read Rove’s statement and urged them to reject the remarks.
“I would hope that you and other members of the administration would immediately repudiate such an insulting comment from a high-ranking official in the president’s inner circle,” Clinton said.
Senator Charles Schumer, D-New York:
said New York has had unity since Sept. 11. “To inject politics into this and to defame a large number of people” is outrageous, he said. “It’s not what New York and America is all about.”
Senator Frank Lautenberg, D- New Jersey:
said nearly 3,000 Americans died on Sept. 11 and “we should not dishonor their memory by using that tragic day for political trash talk.”
Chill out Lefties. He won’t apologize or resign.
Karl Rove is telling it like it is.
Do you not think that by the outrageous statements of Howard Dean, John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin that you are not undermining the President to conduct the War on Terror and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Captain Ed over at Captains Quarters weigh in.
Blogs for Bush have this piece.Ankle Biting Pundits has this excellent piece.
Over at Huffington’s blog they have this photo of Rove and this. Real Class.
“It’s outrageous that the same Democrats who stood by Dick Durbin’s libeling of our military are now expressing faux outrage over Karl Rove’s statement of historical fact. George Soros, Michael Moore, MoveOn and the hard left were wrong after 9/11, just as it was wrong for Democrat leaders to stand by and remain silent after Dick Durbin made his deplorable comments.â€
– RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman
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ScriptCenter: A New Way to Obtain Prescription Medicines
The Wall Street Journal has Getting Your Drugs From a Vending Machine:
There’s a new antidote for long lines at the drugstore pharmacy: machines that serve up your prescription refills like a can of Coke or a Snickers bar.
The idea behind the machines, which look much like a typical bank ATM, is to expedite a process that is often bogged down by long lines and frustrating waits.
Once customers have filled an initial prescription with the pharmacist, they can register to retrieve and pay for their refills at a vending machine inside the store — even when the pharmacy counter isn’t open. Consumers order their refills in the usual way, either online or by phone. A pharmacist then fills the script and places packaged medicines in the machine. To pick up the order, consumers log on with a user name and password and swipe a credit or debit card. Their pre-wrapped package drops into the bin.
What a convenience and a plus for food store pharmacies that are open 24 hours.
Hat Tip: MedGadget
A screen shot of the ScriptCenter -
California Election 2005: Latest Field Poll
The Latest California Field Poll has been released:
Public Employee Union Dues, Required Employee Consent for Political Contributions (Paycheck Protection)
It prohibits public employee labor organizations from using dues or fees from its members for political contributions unless the employee provides prior written consent.
57% majority of both registered voters and likely voters are inclined to vote Yes on the initiative, if the election on this proposal were heldtoday. This compares to 32% of registered voters and 34% of likely voters who are inclined to vote No.
Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy, Waiting Period and Parental Notification initiative.
It would require parental notification before abortion for a minor under age 18, except in cases of a medical emergency or with a parental orjudicial waiver.
Voters are narrowly supportive on this issue – 48% in favor and 42% opposed among all voters, and 48% Yes and 43% No among likely voters.
Prescription Drugs; Discounts initiative
It would establish a discountdrug program overseen by the Department of Health Services and enable certain low and moderateincome residents to purchase prescription drugs at reduced prices. It also imposes an annual 15dollar application fee and authorizes the Department to contract with pharmacies to sellprescription drugs at agreed-upon discounts and negotiate rebates with drug manufacturers. The initiative is sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.
The poll finds it leading in the early going, with registered voters supporting it by a 60% to 23%
margin, while likely voters favor it 57% to 26%.
Prescription Drug Discounts: State Negotiated Rebates initiativeIt would provide prescription drug discounts to low income Californians funded through rebates
from participating drug manufacturers negotiated by the California Department of Health Services.
The initiative is sponsored by Health Access.The poll finds it also leading by a somewhat smaller margin – 54% to 28% among all registered
voters and 48% to 33% among all likely voters.Virtually all of the voter subgroups examined favor each of the two prescription drug discount
proposals.Again, these are early polls, but, finally some encouraging news for the Governor.
The Public Employees will be turning up the heat and watch for even more demonstrations.
Cross-Posted to The Bear Flag League Special Election PageUpdate #1
Dan Weintraub has a correct analysis of the new polls: A sudden comity in heated Sacramento battles
This supports Flap’s contention that the Governor has already won.
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Day By Day by Chris Muir
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Supreme Court Watch: O’Connor to Step Down?
Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard speculates that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will step down next week.
Moroever,Kristol further speculates that President Bush will appoint Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, to replace her.
(1) There will be a Supreme Court resignation within the next week. But it will be Justice O’Connor, not Chief Justice Rehnquist. There are several tea-leaf-like suggestions that O’Connor may be stepping down, including the fact that she has apparently arranged to spend much more time in Arizona beginning this fall. There are also recent intimations that Chief Justice Rehnquist may not resign. This would be consistent with Justice O’Connor having confided her plan to step down to the chief a while ago. Rehnquist probably believes that it wouldn’t be good for the Court to have two resignations at once, so he would presumably stay on for as long as his health permits, and/or until after Justice O’Connor’s replacement is confirmed.
(2) President Bush will appoint Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to replace O’Connor. Bush certainly wants to put Gonzales on the Supreme Court. Presidents usually find a way to do what they want to do.
Flap handicaps this a definite possibility with no change in the Supreme Court’s Liberal vs. Conservative Balance.
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Asinine Way to Treat Ultimate People Asset? NOT!
Glenn Reynolds, Virginia Postrel and Steve Forbes are worried about Bush LEGAL Immigration policy.
First, the Instapundit:
VIRGINIA POSTREL points to this editorial by Steve Forbes on immigration policy. Forbes is right: It’s asinine.
We have the worst of all worlds in our current immigration system — it’s demeaning, unpredictable, and contemptuous toward would-be legal immigrants, while being porous toward illegals. And it’s the main experience most foreigners have of dealing with the United States government. When my Nigerian sister-in-law, before she married my brother, passed her citizenship test, my brother said he was glad that the person who swore her in was so nice, because it was the first time in the entire process that the process wasn’t run by a jerk.
This is a mess, and the Bush Administration isn’t fixing it. It should.
And, Glenn what do you propose? Kindness classes for government bureaucrats? Please!
I agree it is porous for illegal immigration and that will be changed with the next President, but not before.
Steve Forbes has tough words for the Bush administration’s post-9/11 visa policies, which are hurting business (the Forbes concern) and alienating otherwise pro-American foreigners. Here’s a bit of the editorial:
The Bush administration is doing the economy long term harm by not reforming our post-9/11 immigration and visa policies. Since the terrorist attacks, foreigners have had to go through considerably more hassle to enter this country. No one is arguing about the mortal necessity of tightening our screening procedures. But it defies belief that this, the most technologically advanced of nations, can’t come up with software and hardware to expeditiously assist in determining who should and should not gain entrée.
Despite the weak dollar, the number of visitors from overseas during the past three years is down 23%. International conventions and seminars are not taking place in the U.S. because organizers can’t be sure their delegates will be allowed into the country.
More alarmingly, foreign students are increasingly turning to non-U.S. universities. Australia, Canada and other nations have been effectively luring these students by assuring them that if they qualify, they won’t have to undergo repeated, humiliating hassles at their borders. By contrast, foreign students now in the U.S. know that when they go home for summer vacation or holidays, their probability of returning to school is no sure thing.
Read the rest here. The visa hassles are no small thing, even for permanent residents and foreign-born citizens whose families want to visit them. “For the first time, I feel like a foreigner in this country,” one of Professor Postrel’s Indian-born colleagues told us at at recent party. We are needlessly alienating people who enrich our country and culture–and who would otherwise spread pro-American sentiment to their home countries. Bravo to Steve Forbes, for raising an issue most politically active people would prefer to ignore.
Flap could care less about Professor Postrel’s Indian colleague. If he is already needlessly alienated then he should return to his country of origin.
Lastly, Steve Forbes:
Steve, Flap is more concerned with America being an insane asylum for terrorists than technology companies desiring cheap immigrant labor for their “code shops”. The solution here is obvious and the market will provide it without government subsidy of off-shore labor.
Or, for state supported college and universities giving away subsidized education to foreign nationals while native born Americans whose parents have paid taxes for years cannot afford such education (albeit they subsidize it with their very own tax dollars).
Steve, I really prefer to be safe from terrorism in the United States rather than worry about the number of foreign visitors to Disneyland or Las Vegas.
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Reid: Won’t block Bolton Confirmation?
Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has pledged not to block the nomination of United Nations nominee, John Bolton, if the White House supplies the Democrats all of the information it requested.
“If the President turns over the information … not part of it or a summary of it … but turns over all the information requested, the White House will get their up or down vote on Mr. Bolton,” Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said on the Senate floor.
Yeah right, then will come the request for additional information.
The President should bypass the Senate with a recess appointment and be done with it.
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California Special Election 2005: Field Poll
Newly released California Field Poll results are out and the MSM are already beating up on the Governor and the ballot measures:
California voters oppose two of three controversial ballot measures Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is backing in a special November election, according to a Field Poll released on Wednesday.
The Republican governor recently called a special election to put his policy priorities to voters as ballot measures after failing to persuade the state’s Democratic-led Legislature to support them.
Why Did Schwarzenegger Fall So Far So Fast?You have only to come to the Chinatown Health Center in San Francisco to get an earful about why Arnold Schwarzenegger has lost popularity.
A new Field Poll finds only 37% of the state’s registered voters approve of the governor’s performance, while 53% disapprove. That’s an 18% drop in the governor’s approval rating since February, and it makes Schwarzenegger one of the state’s least-like governors in recent history.
Martha Hawthorne, a public health nurse at the center, says the fall in fortune stems from Schwarzenegger’s choice of opponents.
“He’s chosen the wrong people to trash,” said Martha Hawthorne, a public health nurse. “He’s chosen nurses and teachers, who are the public workers most visible and most responsible for our immediate needs of our families in California.”
With polls showing tepid support for his performance and his agenda, a conciliatory Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger conceded Tuesday that he shares some of the blame for Californians’ discontent.
“I guarantee you that all of us in this building can share blame. All of us, including myself,” Schwarzenegger said at a Capitol event where he wanted to talk about the budget, but was peppered with questions about his lackluster poll numbers. “People make mistakes sometimes, and I think that we learn. These are very clear messages that we must work together. And so I am looking forward to that.”
Schwarzenegger’s comments came as the independent Field Poll found that about one in three Californians approve of his performance — sobering news for a governor accustomed to public adoration. Since embarking on a series of controversial government-overhaul efforts in January, the Republican governor’s numbers have plunged, even as he called a special election for Nov. 8.
Notice the Spin yet?
Notice the Made with a Union Label Commentary and the Democrat Talking Points!
Notice Arnold is an elitist and is picking on the little guy, notwithstanding California has major budgetary problems and just recently recalled a Governor who sold out to these special interests.
Protests Expected In Schwarzenegger Silicon Valley AppearanceThe opinion polls are wayearly and there are more folks in California planning their vacations than contemplating a November off-year election.
The races for each initiative, except teacher tenure (which will win handily) will tighten, millions will be spent on ad campaigns and the Governor is already a winner.
Cross-Posted to The Bear Flag League Special Election Page