Hypocrite of the Day

On a recent episode of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart interviewed Christopher Horner, a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism".

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is an organization dedicated to, among other things, supposedly waging a battle against global warming alarmism. CEI is also an organization which has accepted large donations from such environment friendly companies as Amoco, CSX, Philip Morris and Texaco. In addition to those companies, ExxonMobil has donated a total of more than $2 million to CEI. Myron Ebell, the organization's Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy, has asserted that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the European Union and the rest of the world in order to harm the U.S. economy. Possibly even more unbelievable than Ebell is Steven Milloy, an Adjunct Scholar at CEI. Aside from being an advocate for Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, Milloy has served as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, Dow Chemical and FMC. (And those are just 2 members of CEI.) Last but certainly not least, CEI claims that the Wall Street Journal has referred to the organization as "the best environmental think tank in the country". However, I have scoured the Internet and have been unable to find any article where that statement is made.

Important Web Site of the Day

On tonight's episode of "60 Minutes", the lead story focused on the numerous U.S. military personnel who have signed a petition called the Appeal for Redress. This petition provides individual service members with the ability to appeal to their Congressional Representatives and Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. To learn more about the Appeal for Redress, please visit http://www.appealforredress.org/.

Obvious Statement of the Day

During a speech today in South Carolina, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) provided his opinion on former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: "I think that [Rumsfeld] will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history."

Although I wholeheartedly agree with his statement, the fact that McCain also stated "We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war" makes me wonder why he is not laying the numerous failures of the Iraq War at the feet of Mr. Bush. After all, Mr. Bush is supposedly the commander-in-chief or, as he so eloquently puts it: "the decider". Even though McCain delivered these comments, he never once called for Rumsfeld's resignation. In fact, McCain once explained that "the President picks his team and the President has the right to stay with that team if he wants to".

Discouraging Statistics of the Week

With the proposed 2008 federal budget recently sent to Congress, Mr. Bush has once again emphasized the mindset and attitude of his administration and the Republican Party. The following is only a short list of the various changes in the new budget:

• Agriculture: Subsidies for farmers earning more than $200,000 annually would be eliminated. However, a total of $5.4 billion is designated for food stamps. In addition, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides food to more than 500,000 low income senior citizens, would also be eliminated.
• Education: Mr. Bush plans on increasing the spending for the No Child Left Behind Act but, by doing so, would eliminate 42 other programs. (It is an absolute shame that any program is affected by No Child Left Behind, a program filled with corruption, inequality and inaccuracies.
• NASA: The planned spending for NASA would increase by $1.1 billion from the $16.2 billion in Mr. Bush's proposed budget for 2007. Included in the $17.3 billion in spending are funds to send astronauts to the moon by 2020. (I am not sure if Mr. Bush is aware of this fact or not but the U.S. has already been to the moon. What's next? Appropriating billions of dollars to explore the area west of the Mississippi River? How about we just focus on more important topics, such as affordable health care or improving our educational system?)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Funding in this area would decrease by $500 million, including grants to states for bioterrorism preparations.

Frustrating Evidence of the Week

During recent testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the former U.S. Administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, discussed the billions of dollars irresponsibly spent by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Bremer served as the head of the CPA during the organization's "rule" of Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004.

Please keep in mind the various accomplishments of Bremer in his tenure as the U.S. Administrator of Iraq, including completely disbanding the Iraqi military (more than 300,000 individuals) and removing approximately 50,000 Baath Party members from government ministries, schools and universities. Aside from those excellent decisions, audits by both the United Nations and Stuart Bowen, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, concluded that Bremer and CPA could not account for the $12 billion allocated. One primary reason is that the CPA never released spending guidelines. In fact, Bowen reported that virtually no evidence was available to verify the funds were spent on legitimate projects. At the same time, when any evidence was actually provided, the information clearly showed a complete mismanagement of the appropriated money due to waste and corruption, including funds for a Baghdad police academy with severe construction defects and a $48 million police training camp (which was never used but still contained an Olympic size swimming pool).