Tax Refunds

Its Sunday again and time to reflect on an active week. The "War for Gas", { I prefer this name as it more accurately describes this military action} wages on in Iraq. Gas prices continue to soar here in the United States. The economy, due to the extra spending by consumers for fuel, is on the upswing . Retail sales are down, { due to the extra spending by consumers on fuel}.People are readjusting their budgets just to be able to afford gas to get to work, and Vice President Dick Cheney & his wife Lynne got over 2 million dollars back from their income taxes. Yup, more then a $2,000,000.00 refund. And they deserve it.

Dick and Lynne have actually worked throughout their lives. Being from a different socio-economic class then a majority of the American population does not make them bad people. They put much more into the tax system then most people, & going by the rules which are established, they received the correct refund based on income vs. taxes paid.Nope, we really shouldn't have a problem with this multi-million dollar refund.

The problem we should have is with one of the sources of income for Dick. Dick Cheney is paid $205,031 per year to pretend that he isn't really the President of the United States.
Dick Cheney was paid $211,465 by his "former" employer, Halliburton in 2005. Ok, so, who does he work for? Supposedly, for us, the tax payer. Which is the main reason for my rant today. Halliburton has received numerous "no-bid" contracts to deliver fuel & repair oil equipment in Iraq. The initial contract , to the tune of 2.41 billion dollars ended up having major cost over-run issues & billing problems. But they still got paid. Heck, they even received performance bonuses on other contracts.
So, Mr Cheney, our VP, the man who helped make the decision to invade Iraq without evidence of WMD's, the man who helped plan our nations energy policies, is on Halliburtons payroll. Even if he didn't help to steer the no-bid contracts to them, even if he has no direct contact with any of the current executives, isn't there some sort of ethical conflict here? It doesn't appear that Mr Cheney thinks so. Do you?

Hawk :}
© Copyright TheHawksPlatform 2006 All rights reserved.

Economic Growth 2006 Version

According to leading experts , the American economy is in a growth pattern. Gross domestic product advanced at a 4.8% rate for the first quarter of the year. GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the best barometer of the economy's fitness. GW has this to say about this great trend. "This rapid growth is another sign that our economy is on the fast track," said President George W. Bush.
Aaaah yes, the fast track to a better economy where we all have more money to spend. On Gas.............. Are these experts paid for by the oil companies or the politicians? Who the hell thinks a 4.8% growth in the GDP actually indicates economic growth ? The only thing growing right now folks are the profit dollars that the big oil companies are making.Think about it.Our domestic cost for fuel is up over 22% verses last year. Increase affects ALL aspects of the spending economy. Everything from heating , to transportation, to trucking , distribution of all consumable goods. Everything. How much of the 4.8% growth that is being toted as the fastrack to recovery was due to the increase of fuel prices? Gee... maybe I need a degree in political economics so that I dont notice these obviously overlooked reality factors. If we dont do something about these fuel costs in the very near future, I guarantee that the economy will continue to freefall. They can only boost it up w/ these juggled figures for so long. Eventually, it will crash the rest of the way. The only people benefiting from this economic growth right now are Oil companies { see above and below charts} , and politicians. {see past blogs} .

Hawk :}
© Copyright TheHawksPlatform 2006 All rights reserved.

--------------Gasoline-------------------------Diesel Fuel----------
---cents/gallon------change from--cents/gallon-------change from-
-------------price..last week..last yr-----------------price------last week--last year.

Gasoline prices				Diesel Fuel Prices
cents per Gal		Change from		cents per Gal		Change from
	Price	last week	last year		Price	last week	last year
U.S.	291.4	13.1	67.8	U.S.	287.6	11.1	58.7
East Coast	294.2	14.1	73.9	East Coast	288.8	10.0	60.1
New England	292.3	16.7	71.1	New England	296.1	9.6	54.8
Central Atlantic	297.1	16.7	76.2	Central Atlantic	297.8	10.2	59.6
Lower Atlantic	292.6	11.3	72.9	Lower Atlantic	284.3	10.0	60.9
Midwest	287.0	11.5	70.5	Midwest	284.7	11.2	61.7
Gulf Coast	288.1	9.8	74.0	Gulf Coast	281.7	9.2	58.6
Rocky Mountain	271.0	14.5	45.8	Rocky Mountain	290.3	14.7	53.2
West Coast	300.9	16.6	49.1	West Coast	302.6	14.5	47.7
California	306.8	17.2	50.3	California	310.3	17.0	53.3

The many Faces of GW

G.W.Bush has presented many different faces to the American public over the last 6 years. Happy, angry, sad, you name it , its been shown. Most people have an inner ability to decide which face to use, but seeing that GW has been a very busy guy the last few years , he hasn't been able to focus enough to make these decisions on his own.
So , starting in December of 2000, it appears that the Republican party has been taking pictures of various primates making different facial expressions & basic hand gestures so that GW will have a study guide for this diffucult task. We all know how basic human emotions can be tough to express in a way that people understand them . Thats why Georgie felt it best to learn from someone who was his equal intellectually as well as emotionally. No sense setting the standard too high . From the looks of things, GW has done quite well in his mimic assignment. Uncle Dick who is an expert at this himself,would be proud.

Hawk :}
© Copyright TheHawksPlatform 2006 All rights reserved.

A new Spinner for Mr Bush

Just another day in politics. Tony Snow, a man w/ a syndicated conservative radio show of the same name,has been named as chief spin doctor for the Bush regime. Mr Snow will be replacing Scott McClellan, who personally, I thought did a fantastic job spinning the stories as best he could for the last 3 years. Mr McClellan ability to dance and talk at the same time will be sincerely missed by GW & Dick when it comes to discussing the scandals that have hit over the last few years.
Tony Snow comes to the administration with many years of experience of bashing liberals in general and distorting facts to fit whatever the situation might need. He also had the opportunity to work for GW's daddy as his head speech writer back in the early days of the Bush Regime. { damn.... another daddy connection for this administration} .

On another topic, John Kerry has hinted that he too will be hiring a new press secretary. Mr Kerry is planning a news conference for next week to announce that on August 1st, barring any contract conflicts, Howard Stern will take over the job of spin doctor for his camp. Upon hearing this news, Howard decided to challenge Tony Snow to a debate on the breast sizes of all the female interns who work at the white house. Howard is still waiting for a response, but decided to start the research on his own.
John Kerry couldn't be reached for comment, but Bill Clinton has offered his expertise on the topic free of charge.

Hawk :}

CLICK HERE FOR CARTOON INTERVIEW
P.S. above is a great link to a 2004 "interview" that Howard did with Mr Cheney. I found it to be entertaining.I hope you do too. Just to listen to a cartoon Cheney speak was worth it :}
© Copyright TheHawksPlatform 2006 All rights reserved.

Ideas

Do to the term "ideas", and a relative lack thereof on my part, along with other things going on in my real world, I almost didn't post anything here today. { as if anyone other then the CIA agent assigned to my case would have noticed }. Writing involve some level of thought & I just haven't had it for the last couple days. I'll refer to it as blogers block, although, if that were the case, I wouldn't even be posting this.
I figured that in tribute to the monies that have been donated to our political parties in return for specific favours, such as sweetheart deals for government contracts, no bid contracts for multi-million dollar pieces of business, and other assorted neat fringe benefits, that I would post some "corporate Bush pictures" . Not all of these companies are still in existance. 1 or 2 may have closed up shop after giving their donations to the Republicans & providing huge retirement packages for all their executives. Hopefully, we will all benefit from these generous contributions. And remember to patronize ALL of these sponsors in the future.... or at least remember who they are & what they were trying to accomplish with their tax deductable donation. Money corrupts power. Power doesn't corrupt money. We need to start looking beyond the surface of these donations & see exactly "who" is benefiting. Or at least verify.. LOL... I'll end here. Have a great evening & a better tomorrow, unless you choose to do otherwise.

Hawk :}

A Mission from God

We're 106 miles from Bagdad,
we've got another 4 years,
less then 35% of the country behind us,
And there were no WMD's........
Level IT!!


Gotta Love those DC boys. Always looking for a photo opportunity. I just wish they could get the lines right, especially since it is one of my favorite movies of ALL TIME..
Jake and Elwood do a much better pose in a shot from the origional below. No one will ever top the comic presence of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd .
At least Jake and Elwood had an admirable mission from God.
Here's hoping that GW & Dick can pretend that they do for the next couple years.


The origional lines for those who are intrested were,,,

" We're 106 miles from Chicago,
We've got a full tank of gas,
half pack of cigarettes,
it's dark , and we're wearing
sunglasses .... HIT IT "

Hawk :}