Who wants to contribute to a little charity and fund-raising drive I call: "The Texas Democrats Fund".

It's goal is twofold.

1. We need to make sure that any and every Texas Democrat is immediately issued a bright, neon orange raincoat or hunting jacket. We also plan on embroidering the Campus Progress logo on top of this giant mobile reflector-suit. I think Mr. Hill--from Texas--would appreciate this.

2. We will then hand out bright orange jumpsuits to the Republicans without modifications. The reasoning here is simple: SOMEBODY needs to firmly explain to a number of Texas Republicans that sooner or later they will be forced to wear nothing BUT bright orange jumpsuits.

Has anyone heard of this yet?

Cheney

The following stats were chosen to give a clear indication of claim vs. fact as it relates to President Bush's "State of the Union" address.


"addicted to oil"

--percentage increase in the price of a gallon of gasoline since 2000. 51%

--percentage increase in the price of a gallon of home heating oil since 2000: 94%



Health Care:

percentage of companies that provided health care to their employees in 2000: 69%

percentage of companies that provided health care to their employees in 2005: 60%

Number of additional Americans w/o health insurance 2000: 6 million



College Costs:

Average cost of yearly tuition at a 4-year public university in 2000: $3,962 dollars

Average cost of yearly tuition at a 4-year public university 2005: $10,982 dollars


Amount of subsidies provided to the oil industry in 2005 energy bill: $6 BILLION


There are many more of course.

Looking for an absolutely superb analysis of Bush's State of the Union vs. Reality, look no further than Think Progress.

Not only did they offer a number of examples of the President's hypocrisy, they did so seemingly, before the speech was even over.

If you haven't check it out yet, here's the link.

http://www.thinkprogress.org/

The following is in response to a recent editorial in The Weekly Standard which suggest that liberal bias rules the planet while conservative bias simply does not exist. I emailed the following response to my local paper--the radically conservative Mobile Register--as well as to politicians from within the state.


In regards to the authors main point that there is such a great divide between fair and objective media, I asked him the following :


What's so outrageous about this?

If anyone--left or right will finally step backwards--after our very own president "admits" to being wrong, shouldn't we then abandon common revisionist theory, that not only has what the President said been fiercely disputed from the rest of the world but that hundreds of Intelligence employees that have worked more for Republican Presidents than Democrat ones, continue to take some responsibility for what occurred--that being, "trusting and listening to the President re-interprate, re-write and re-configure our democracy and Constitution.

This administration--and mainstream media pundits--were they interested in the truth, need to realize that they helped decieve America as well. Remarkably, there still remains a chorus of pundits who continue to re-broadcast Talking Points of the administration (payola)no matter how indisputably wrong they are and continue to be.

Fox News and MSNBC(not Olbermann's great show, Countdown"), have not only created a foundation that is too fragile, weak and illusory but continues to do so without correction. When ones foundations is itself fragile, weak and illusory, it's impossible for political policies to gain momentum when they are based on something that has been proven to be completely erroneous to begin with. In short: When the weight of truth does collapse due to pretentious and misleading assumptions--pundits will immediately look at the smoldering debris...and do what they always do....blame the Democrats for their very own hubris and ignorance.

Chris Matthews is dangerous because he is supposed to be objective and he is not. Even a cursory look at Media Matters for America will detail this without confliction. The amazing irony is that we have a President who has refused to meet with the media, to give them anything at all, to continually mislead them and manage them.

What's just as amazing is that given the effect of tax cuts upon less than 1% of the population, not the diminishing Middle Class, Bush offers this proposal at a time where foreign debt, trade debt, deficit, etc. has been so outrageously managed by the Republican Congress that there is no money left to even pretend with. These tax cuts will benefit some Americans no doubt. However, it is the upper 1% that benefits at the expense of the majority. Where do you think every single one of the mainstream media shareholders happen to be.

Given the uproar over CBS and Dan Rather, one would certainly be misled if they seriously believed that this criticism exists because Fox News is interested in and representative of anything approaching reality.

But the real danger is obvious. Look at what MSNBC is doing. Joe Scarborough, Rita Crosby, Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson vs. Keith Olbermann. On this point, Fox news is correct. MSNBC is Fox-lite. And without any integrity whatsoever, it's a fact that the only pundit with enough courage to actually respond to O'Reilly and others is precisely the one who stands alone in this battle because of partisanship from his "colleagues".

You say liberal bias, I say take up my challenge. For one week, I'll watch Fox News or MSNBC and report every single misconception they have, while I ask you to do the same.

In the end, let's put our money where our mouth is and instead of speculation, we'll be forced to provide clarity. Guess what. I'm not holding my breath.