More Ranting Kossacks!

THIS was a rather unsettling claim. Someone did a study that supposedly proves that there is a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush. The link to the original article is HERE. I have no reason to dispute the actual data. However, given that the only people studied were mental patients, I think the conclusion is a bit out there. The Kos writer seems to think that makes all Bush supporters psychotic.
(…so now we are going to make personal and mental judgements official, based on politics…I wonder what a study would show of those who believe people who make up stories like…military members are dumb…or incompetent…hhhmmm…)

Another Kossack posted a list, copied from Think Progress, about how bad Congress has been. It’s amazing how anit-Conservatives blame the Republicans. The list is…well, maybe not…it is The Daily Kos. I’ll do just a couple of rebuttals from the ones at the top of the list, you can do your own from there:

2. The Senate voted down a measure that urged the administration to start a phased redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2006. Link. Let’s look at the article in the Link…hhhmmm…If the vote hadn’t been 60-39, I might believe it was an all Republican affair. Of course, given the left wing bent of the authors, I can believe they didn’t like the outcome of the vote.
3. Congress failed to raise the minimum wage, leaving it at its lowest inflation-adjusted level since 1955. Link Well, it’s a great link to a statistical analysis of showing a need for raising the minimum wage. That I will not doubt. There were actually two bills that came for vote in the Senate. And, a look at the votes shows that neither party really had backing for their proposals. With a required vote of 60 to pass, the Democratic one failed 51-47, probably along party lines, and the Republican one failed 57-42, indicating it had at least some Democratic support. Sounds like both sides are in the soup on this one.
4. Congress gave itself a two percent pay raise. Link. Quoting from the article here,

But by a 249-167 vote, the House rejected Matheson’s procedural attempt to get a direct vote on the pay raise.

Yep. Sounds like it was only the Republicans who did this, alright.
5. There were 15,832 earmarks totaling $71 billion in 2006. (In 1994, there were 4,155 earmarks totaling $29 billion.) Link. There have been a number of articles that have exposing the flagrancy of both sides to abuse the earmark system. The top two recipients are a Democrat and a Republican. See this NY Times article on the subject.
6. Congress turned the tragic Terri Schiavo affair into a national spectacle because, according to one memo, it was “a great political issue” that got “the pro-life base…excited.” Link. If I wasn’t so pro-life, I probably wouldn’t be too upset about this particular item on the list. We have people spending millions to save a single whale, but we will not put the same effort forth to save a human individual? In spite of the legal shenanigans that went on allowing the “husband” to get this judgment? And these people call themselves Liberals?

OK. That’s as far as I’m going to take the list here. You can follow it out for yourself.

Sen. Leahy is leading an investigation to stop illegal military surveillance of counter recruitment and anti-war groups. In searching the links, I found a coupe of claims that don’t wash out. For instance the link for ”over 180 violations” doesn’t even mention the number of violations. It also doesn’t mention the time frame of operations. 180 over the course of 2 months might be a lot. 180 over the course of a couple of years would not be that many. The link to a Military.com article mentions 260 instances of improper collection OR retention of data. However, it shows that the review began before the “media outbreak” of this event. For all the “illegal” and “unrighteous” claims of the left, it would seem that the established oversight is working properly. It also looks like Leahy is doing nothing more than simple political grandstanding, using peoples fears to advance his own career.
(…using the standards of the left…that would mean he qualifies as a Republican!...)