ctowngal's Blog

I am new to the area and recently saw a segment of the morning show called "That's Life". I was surprised that a show like this would get any airtime. The host, Robin Swoboda, was so annoying, loud and obnoxios. I could barely stand watching it, so I eventually turned it off. The camera work was sloppy and almost felt like someone's home movie. Overall, the show was AWFUL! The topics were boring. I think they talked about maple syrup for half of the show. I ended up turning it off, but was wondering do people in Cleveland actually watch this heinous show? How could anyone find it entertaining? Swoboda was the only one laughing at her jokes, and boy did she think she was funny. Cleveland deserves better!

AA Case Against Cheney

By Richard Cohen
Wednesday, May 2, 2007; A15

The resolution offered by the gentleman from Ohio reads sensibly. It alleges crimes high and low, misdemeanors galore -- all of them representing an effort to mislead the American people and take them into war. It is Dennis Kucinich's articles of impeachment directed at Dick Cheney. The vice president will, of course, deny being a liar. As long as Kucinich is at it, add that to the articles.

The congressman's case is persuasive, although his remedy may be too radical. He calls for Cheney to be impeached by the House and tried by the Senate, just as Bill Clinton was for what turned out to be neither a high crime nor much of a misdemeanor. What was it, anyway, compared with more than 3,300 American dead?

In his articles of impeachment, Kucinich details the many statements Cheney made that turned out to be factually wrong. For instance, he quotes Cheney as saying, "We know they [the Iraqis] have biological and chemical weapons," which of course, they didn't. Still, that was excusable, since it was early in the game and little contradictory evidence was being presented. As Condi Rice said Sunday, "When George [Tenet] said 'slam dunk,' everybody understood that he believed that the intelligence was strong. We all believed the intelligence was strong."

But in Cheney's case, the slam-dunking went on and on -- way past the point where it was possible anymore to believe him. He continued to insist that Saddam Hussein had high-level contacts with al-Qaeda -- " the evidence is overwhelming," he once said -- while others in the government not only knew that the evidence was not overwhelming but that it hardly existed. It was the same with Cheney's insistence-- not just wrong, but irrefutably so -- that Hussein "has weapons of mass destruction," and "[t]here is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us." The percussive march of these statements is so forceful, one after another after another, that it suggests Cheney wanted war no matter what. If he was lying to himself as well as to the rest of us, that is only a mitigating circumstance -- sort of an insanity defense.

Kucinich also alleges that Cheney "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress." That, as the expression goes, is the gravamen of the charge. Kucinich doesn't stand a ghost of a chance of making it stick because Congress is not about to vote impeachment. But no one who reads Kucinich's case against Cheney can fail to conclude that this is a rational, serious accusation. It's possible that each individual charge can be rebutted, but the essence of it is shockingly apparent: We were being manipulated.

It is something of a joke that Washington is now transfixed by l'affaire Wolfowitz. This is the contretemps at the World Bank in which an architect of this misbegotten war stands accused of favoring his girlfriend. Do not be concerned with the details -- this is a parody of a Washington scandal -- but concentrate instead on what else Wolfowitz has done in government and how, now, it is a salary increase awarded to a companion that might do him in. This is tantamount to getting Al Capone for tax evasion.

In the same vein, we tend to focus on single events or statements regarding Iraq (to slam dunk or not to slam dunk, that is the question) and how poor George Tenet, a self-deceived careerist, is misunderstood -- as if he had uttered a statement of principle dramatically resigning over the manipulation of intelligence and it is suspiciously missing from the record. In all this back-and-forth, what gets lost is the immensity of the outrage, the enormousness of the breach of trust, the naive faith some of us had that when it came to the making of war, we'd be told the truth. This was not the case. The harping on weapons of mass destruction was an attempt to scare the American people into supporting a war that need not have been fought.

Kucinich is an odd guy for whom the killer appellation "perennial presidential candidate" is lethally applied. But he is on to something here. It is easy enough to ad hominize him to the margins -- ya know, the skinny guy among the "real" presidential candidates -- but at a given moment, and this is one, he's the only one on that stage who articulates a genuine sense of betrayal. He is not out merely to win the nomination but to hold the Bush administration -- particularly Cheney -- accountable. In this he will fail. What Cheney has done is not impeachable. It is merely unforgivable.

nr@washpost.com

Why is it that those pointing the finger are usually doing the SAME thing that they are accusing someone else of? Gingrich led the Republican parties "witch hunt" to find fault with Clinton because they were threatened by Clinton's leadership abilities. I have lost all respect for Gingrich, not that I ever had much in the first place. What a hypocrite!

From the Associated Press this evening:

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group.

"The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards. There's certainly times when I've fallen short of God's standards."

Gingrich argued in the interview, however, that he should not be viewed as a hypocrite for pursuing Clinton's infidelity.

Anyone notice this?

Why can't Jimi's "character" just act like a normal person instead of being so flamboyant!?

I hate how it seems that the only way gay men are accepted is if they are completely stereotypical and, therefore, comical. Kinda like
Jack on "Will & Grace". Like, there's nooooo way a gay man could be a normal, manly dude. He has to be some caricature and then his "gay-ness" is okay.

Found this to be an interesting article that ran today. In particular, I wanted to note that it points out that "Of the $10 billion in overpriced contracts or undocumented costs, more than $2.7 billion were charged by Halliburton Co., the oil-field services firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney."

Does this disturb my fellow Americans??

Read on if you want:

Auditors: Billions wasted in Iraq
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

The U.S. government is at risk of squandering significantly more money in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has already wasted, overcharged or poorly tracked $10 billion in taxpayer money, federal investigators said Thursday.

The three top auditors overseeing contract work in Iraq told a House committee that Defense and State department officials condoned or otherwise allowed poor accounting, repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for work shoddily or never done by U.S. contractors.

That problem could worsen, the Government Accountability Office said, given limited improvement so far by the Department of Defense even as the Bush administration prepares to boost the U.S. presence in Iraq.

David M. Walker, comptroller general of the GAO, Congress' auditing arm, said his agency has been pointing out problems for years, only to be largely ignored or given lip service with little result.

"There is no accountability," Walker said. "Organizations charged with overseeing contracts are not held accountable. Contractors are not held accountable. The individuals responsible are not held accountable."

"People should be rewarded when they do a good job. But when things don't go right, there have to be consequences," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Army, which handles most of the Iraq contracting, did not have immediate comment.

Senate Democrats, calling recently cited cases of waste "outrageous rip-offs of the American taxpayer," quickly moved to introduce legislation Thursday to stiffen punishment for war profiteers and cut down on cronyism in contracting.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., and 22 other senators, would impose penalties of up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million for war profiteering and restore a rule that prohibits awarding federal contracts to companies exhibiting a pattern of breaking the law in performance of government contracts.

That rule, put in place by President Clinton, was dropped by the Bush administration upon taking office, Dorgan said.

The auditors' joint appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee comes as Congress is preparing for a showdown with President Bush next month over his budget request of nearly $100 billion to pay for more U.S. troops in Iraq.

Also testifying Thursday were Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and William Reed, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the panel, has pledged scores of investigations of fraud, waste and abuse — with subpoenas if necessary — on the Bush administration's watch. He decried the overpricing identified by the DCAA, a figure that has tripled since last fall.

Of the $10 billion in overpriced contracts or undocumented costs, more than $2.7 billion were charged by Halliburton Co., the oil-field services firm once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney.

"According to the Pentagon auditors, more than one in six dollars they have audited in Iraq is suspect," Waxman said.

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the top Republican on the panel, pointed to ongoing, "systemic" problems in Iraq contracting.

"This much is clear: Poor security, an arcane, ill-suited management structure, and frequent management changes have produced a succession of troubled acquisitions," he said.

Let's see how long it takes to try and erase this blog too...
-----------------
From CoolCleveland.com
Main: Signs Of Life Not Sure Where To Turn

Robin, If ‘That’s Life,’ I’m Not Sure Where To Turn

I’m not a TV critic – I mean, outside of my home – but I was in a room
where there was a TV at the time of day when Robin Swoboda’s new show,
That’s Life, was on, so I decided to check it out. Even if I were a TV
critic, I would never criticize a show based on watching only 10
minutes of it; that would be extremely unfair. Luckily, for me, I am
not a TV critic.

I know that Robin used to be really popular as the anchor for WJW’s
news. I rarely saw her in that capacity, though, because I rarely
watched that station’s news when she was on. At the time I found it a
little “lite,” if you know what I mean; it didn’t exactly seem like a
newscast. Of course, that was before Channels 19 and 43 changed the
direction of their “news” programs. Now, after seeing 19 & 43’s news,
practically everyone else’s newscasts look like Pulitzer Prize winners
to me.

I feel the same way about 19 and 43 newscasts as I do about Rush
Limbaugh’s radio show and a few others of his ilk. It’s like this:
Years ago I was watching that show That’s Incredible when they did a
bit on this Air Force experiment in which a guy got into a small room
that was heated to 400 degrees to see how long a person could last in
what was essentially an oven. The people running the experiment watched
him through a window and communicated with him audibly as well.

After a few seconds they asked him how he was doing. He said, “I’ll try
to do it for a few more seconds.” A few seconds later they asked him
again. He said, “I’ll try to do it for a few more seconds.” That went
on for a short time until he suddenly burst through the door. He
withstood it for as long as he could, then he just couldn’t take it for
one more second.

That’s the way I feel when I try to watch19 and 43 newscasts or listen
to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. I really kind of want to know what
they’re saying and doing, but after a little while, I just can’t hit
the button fast enough. They make me want to hear something much more
pleasant-sounding – like death metal music, or gangsta rap, or Yoko
Ono’s singing.

To be fair, I give Channels 19 and 43 credit for at least trying
something different. Now if they could only come up with something that
wasn’t disgusting.

In retrospect Robin’s version of the news looks much better to me now.
It was just a bit chatty and goofy for a news show (which is more the
norm now, almost everywhere). And she was always laughing during the
news – and she seemed to be laughing at things that I believe only she
found funny.

But she was certainly always kind and pleasant – unlike almost everyone
on 19 and 43. And she spoke the news, she didn’t shout it at the top of
her lungs. (Why do they do that, anyway? You know, in the classic
first-season Saturday Night Live bit, where fake newscaster Chevy Chase
says, “And now here are tonight’s headlines for the hearing-impaired,”
and Garrett Morris, in an inset up in the corner, shouts everything
that Chase says, I don’t think he yelled as loudly as some of the 19
and 43 anchors do.)

And I don’t think Robin called people in the news names, or gave her
personal opinions of people in the news, or told us what we should
think about the news stories. Of course, almost all news anchors today,
at every station, give us their opinions when it’s pretty safe to do
that. Like, say, when a baby dies, apparently it’s written into their
contracts that they have to say, “That’s so sad.” Ironically, that
makes me laugh every time. There are stories that really are sad enough
that they literally bring tears to my eyes – until they say, “That’s so
sad.” That always cracks me up.

They do that to make sure we know they’re nice folks; that even though
they’re tough, hard-boiled newspeople, they’re really human, just like
you and me, and that they really understand when something is sad; and
if they didn’t let us know that they really know when something is sad,
we would think they were mean, and that would make us sad.

But newscasters at most channels obviously don’t seem to know when, for
instance, someone is a pervert, because they don’t tell us that, like
the newscasters at 19 and 43 do – even the newscasters’ definition of a
pervert, or whatever they’re calling someone, isn’t necessarily the
same as yours or mine.

Come to think of it, Carl Monday, WKYC-TV3’s investigative
reporter (sort of a sad and ironic designation, don’t you think? I
mean, what are their other reporters?) does call people names, like,
maybe, “pervert.” Last year, Monday ambushed a guy who was found
looking at porn on a computer in a corner of a public library and
masturbating. Kind of weird, to be sure. The guy wasn’t exactly doing
it publicly – in other words, he didn’t seem to be an exhibitionist –
so why didn’t he just do it at home? So, yeah, it was kind of creepy.
But the amazing thing is that Monday managed to do a piece – actually a
series – on the guy in which he somehow managed to make himself look
creepier than the guy, and, as is often the case with these
“investigative TV reporter” techniques, a greater menace to society.

Carl, here’s a real topic: There are literally hundreds of thousands of
Internet porn sites. As with any business, they would not survive if
they were not being used. More than half the population of this country
looks at Internet porn, including millions of kids whose parents don’t
or can’t monitor their activities. There are porn producers right here
in Cleveland. Why don’t you go after the people who produce the porn?

Is it because that’s not the way bullies operate? Everyone who has had
a kid – or has been a kid – knows that bullies only go after the
smallest and weakest; those who are least able to defend themselves.

Okay, if you can’t do that, then why not do something that in the long
run might prove far more beneficial to society? Sneak up behind people
in restaurants who are dumping ounces of sugar in their ice tea. Then
stalk them and chase them and accost them in their driveways until they
say, “Yes, I know I have a problem … .”

But Robin never did that. She probably did tell us when things were
sad, but not who was a pervert. And she certainly never told us who was
a pervert when she left WJW TV in 1998 and went to work in radio at
WFHM 95.5FM, known as “the Fish.” Words like that don’t exist at the
Fish, they don’t need to. It’s “music that’s safe for the whole
family,” they say, which means mostly Christian Rock. There’s no news
and no talk of issues, so there’s no need to call anyone a pervert,
which really is refreshing these days.

I listen to the Fish. Well, it’s one of the stations I listen to.
Whenever someone asks me what my favorite radio station is, I say
S-C-A-N. I just put the radio on scan and stop it when it hits
something that either I know I like or that sounds interesting, which
could be an oldie on WMJI or an experimental-rock song on WCSB (CSU) or
a new acoustic singer-songwriter on WRUW (CWRU) or WKSU (Kent). But I
listen to the Fish because the records they play tend to be some of the
best-written and best-produced on the air, and whether or not I get
anything from their messages, I can appreciate and enjoy their craft.
And the Fish is where Robin could be heard until a couple of years ago.

So I tuned in to Robin’s new TV show last Wednesday. The first thing I
saw was a filmed bit about Robin and some other women testing
mattresses at a mattress store by having a sleepover in the store in
their pajamas. It was kind of cute, but in a sort of sickening way that
had no point to make and was actually a huge waste of time and, I’m
sure, money.

Robin also had four women on to discuss gossip. And whom did they
choose to talk about? Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Why would they
do that? There can’t be a single human in Cleveland, or anywhere
outside of a few sections of Los Angeles, who (A) care anything at all
about those two any more or (B) haven’t already heard the three or four
same old stories about them many times.

I’m certainly not above listening to gossip; in fact, I welcome it at
times. But it seems that if you’re trying to make an impression with
your brand-new TV show, you would want to at least try to be a little
bit interesting?

But by far the most offensive piece I saw was a taped bit about Robin
going to meet her idol, the so-called “conservative” radio and TV host
Glenn Beck. I put “conservative” in quotes because I think – or I
thought – conservatives were supposed to be about decency and morality
and some kind of values.

In the piece, Robin spends the entire time fawning and gushing over him
and telling him how much she loves him and telling him how cute he is
and touching him all over the place and sitting next o him and putting
her head on his shoulder. I think it was meant to be funny. But besides
being over the top, it was difficult to reconcile Robin – who has made
herself a symbol of niceness and family values – and this monster
lunatic.

Here are just a few examples of the kind of things Beck says, as
reported in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Discussing disclosures from a caller who claimed to have tortured
prisoners in U.S. custody: "I've got to tell you, I appreciate your
service. ... Good for you. Good for -- I mean, good for you. Is it
because you did it for the country? ... I have to tell you, when all is
said and done, I'm glad people like you are on our side."

On families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks: "[T]his is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this
-- you know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims'
families? Took me about a year."

On Hurricane Katrina survivors who remained in New Orleans: "And that's
all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the
only ones that we're seeing on television are the scumbags – and again,
it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New
Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in
New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting
all the attention."

On filmmaker Michael Moore: "Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm
thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering
if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do
it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you
know, and I could just be choking the life out – is this wrong?"

On the father of Nick Berg, the American civilian executed in Iraq:
"The want to be a better person today than I was yesterday says he's a
dad, he's grieving; but I don't buy that. I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I
think he is grieving, but I think he's a scumbag as well. I don't like
this guy at all."

A few more (of many) recent examples, as reported on the MediaMatters
for America Web site:

During a November 14, 2006, interview with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN),
who recently became the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Beck
said: "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what
I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with
our enemies.' "

Beck called antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute."
He later described her as a "tragedy pimp."

After airing a clip from the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth in
which former Vice President Al Gore states that global warming could
cause many highly populated coastal areas to be submerged by seawater
-- including the entire city of Shanghai – Beck responded: "This is
what would happen to Shanghai. Does anybody really care? I mean, come
on. Shanghai is under water. Oh, no! Who's gonna make those little
umbrellas for those tropical drinks?"

Beck claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant
"comes across the border in the middle of the night": "One, they're
terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry.
They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."

During a discussion of the "politically correct world we live in," Beck
claimed that Braille on walls (used to identify rooms for blind people)
"drives me out of my mind." He then said, "Just to piss them [blind
people] off, I'm going to put in Braille on the coffee pot: 'Pot is
hot.' "

Okay, that’s enough. That’s way more than enough.

One definition of the word pervert is: A person whose behavior deviates
from what is acceptable. See, now … Glenn Beck – that’s whom I would
call a pervert. He doesn’t sound “conservative” to me; he sounds
radical, evil and inhuman.

Robin seems like a nice person, the kind of person everyone would like
to know, which is obviously why she has a TV show. Her idolization of
someone like Glenn Beck makes me wonder, though.

And the producers of her show at WJW … well, as I said, I’m not a TV
critic, and I know the show is brand-new – but maybe they should think
some of this stuff through before flinging it at us.

House Democrats are set to finish six bills on terrorism, the minimum wage, drug prices and other issues are well ahead of the 100-hour deadline they gave themselves to do it. It has taken just over 34 hours to pass the first five bills, including a measure Wednesday to lower interest rates on some student loans.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! I AM SO PROUD TO BE BLUE!!!!!

The others passed so far would:

-Make the government negotiate for lower Medicare prescription drug prices. It passed last Friday.

-Expand federally funded stem cell research. It passed Jan. 11.

-Raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over 26 months. It passed Jan. 10.

-Bolster terrorism-fighting efforts with more cargo inspections. It passed Jan. 9.

- Democrats also won approval of internal House rule changes dealing with ethics, lobbying and budgeting. They were passed on Jan. 4-5, the first two days of the new Congress.