For those who weren’t listening to Rush Limbaugh Thursday and missed my call, the plan is to incoporate the audio of it into the podcast that will be coming out this Monday.
Also this next week, I have a great IMW boiling in my head and a new Hate-Filled Lefty comic (sure been a while since I’ve honored you all with my art).
Honored?
Interesting choice of words.
I would have thought inflicted a better choice.
š
First?
Anyway, I was hoping I’d be able to hear you on Rush, but I’m worried that Frank J and Rush together will be too much awesome for me to handle.
Oh, and if in case you ever wondered what the Hate-Filled Lefty would be like if instead of being a leftist he was just a pissed off guy who cusses a lot, check out my own Angry Stick-figure Man cartoons.
Well, almost first.
I also have a Ted Rall parody, in case anyone liked my other comics.
So frank when are you going to make the move to the big screen or t.v. Seeing as how you already gotten into the internet and radio market, it just seems like the ext logical step.
Freedom Fries Part Deux
By VALERIE BAUERLEIN, Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON — The words “freedom fries” are still on the menu in the U.S. House cafeteria, and are likely to appear in the first line of Walter Jones’ obituary, perhaps with their lesser-known cousin, freedom toast. The words came to Jones, as so many things do, by a combination of God’s hand and a constituent’s request. They made him famous, for a moment, after 10 years in the U.S. House. Jones led the fight to rename fries and toast at the Capitol in protest of the French leading opposition to the war in Iraq.
Ask him about it now, and he lays his cheek in his left hand, a habit he repeats dozens of times a day when lost in thought or sadness.
“I wish it had never happened,” Jones said.
Like many things about Jones, freedom fries lend themselves to caricature. They are an emotional response to a complex problem, easily reduced to a ticker line on CNN.
But Jones now says we went to war “with no justification.” He has challenged the Bush administration, quizzing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other presidential advisers in public hearings. He has lined the hallway outside his office with “the faces of the fallen.”
Jones represents the state’s most military congressional district, running from Camp Lejeune along the coast through Cherry Point, up to the Outer Banks.
“If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong,” Jones said. “Congress must be told the truth.”
Jones is no favorite of the White House these days, or of his fellow Republicans, particularly those in leadership roles. The same impulse that prompted him to get mad at the French now makes Jones criticize the war and, lately, House ethics rules. Jones accepts that his emotions cost him influence, but he insists he can live with the consequences.
Jones essentially inherited his seat from his father, Walter B. Jones Sr., who held it for 26 years and who campaigned for his son before he died. His dad was an old-school Democrat known for his sense of humor and ability to use his committee chairmanship to steer projects to his district.
The son is a different man, a conservative Republican who disavows pork projects, tours churches more than social clubs, is quicker to tears than to laughter.
The younger Jones is a position-taker rather than a policy-writer or deal-maker.
Jones shared the stage recently with the Minutemen, the volunteer militia that recently conducted patrols along the Arizona-Mexico border in response to illegal immigration. Some criticized the Minutemen as out for publicity, but Jones describes them as heroes. Jones is a member of the Immigration Caucus opposing illegal immigrants, but has not been involved in legislation to curb immigration. He accepts that farmers back home — and his father was one — rely heavily on immigrant labor.
He is a founding member of a congressional caucus that opposes the Central American Free Trade Agreement, but does little to affect trade policy. His choices reflect his personality: Jones sees what comes across his desk or through his door as indicators of God’s will.
Unusual battles Jones has picked unusual battles lately. Or, he says, unusual battles have picked him — championing an accused murderer and, separately, challenging House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
First, Ilario Pantano, the so-called preppy Marine lieutenant charged with shooting and killing two Iraqis during a search operation. Jones has said he’d be proud to call Pantano his son, even though the two hadn’t met until April, when they shared double billing at a Wilmington fish fry. Their goal: to raise money for Pantano’s defense on charges of premeditated murder.
Pantano has been the subject of a preliminary hearing that could have led to a court-martial at Camp Lejeune. However, the officer presiding over the hearing recommended Friday that all charges against Pantano be dismissed.
Early this year, Jones heard Pantano’s mother interviewed on the radio. He asked his staff to find her. He talked with her, thought she sounded like a sweet person and agreed to call Pantano’s attorneys.
“God just put it in my heart,” Jones said. “I told her, if I believe your son is innocent, I will do everything that I can to make sure the people of this country know about your son.”
He never called the Marines. He never called Pantano. He just took up his cause, introducing legislation whereby Congress would exonerate the lieutenant.
Jones has made speeches on the House floor every week for a month on behalf of Pantano. He speaks after Congress’ day is done, at 7:30 p.m. or so, to an often-empty chamber. But he points out that as many as 2 million people may flip by C-SPAN in that five minutes.
Out of step with GOP. Jones has often put himself at odds with the Republican leadership of the House.Jones has challenged DeLay, as a lonely Republican co-sponsor of a Democratic bill asking the House to undo a rules change. The change was enacted in January to protect DeLay as he faced ethics questions about accepting trips and gifts from lobbyists. Jones voted against the House budget because it contained cuts in veterans’ benefits. The compromise version of the budget now has more money, but Jones was reluctant to sign on.
He votes “no” more often than just about anyone, especially on programs he sees as unwarranted increases in federal spending, such as No Child Left Behind and last year’s prescription-drug benefit bill.
Republicans do not usually need his vote. Their margin in the House (231 votes to Democrats’ 202) is comfortable; but they say his contrariness marginalizes him.
“His father was more of a bargainer,” said former U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger, a Hickory Republican. “Walter may bargain, but I’ve never run into it.”
Jones is a member of the big class of Republicans first elected to the House in the 1994 GOP sweep; five are now in the Senate, including North Carolina’s Richard Burr. Other Tar Heel Republicans, such as Charlotte’s Sue Myrick and Asheville’s Charlie Taylor, lead key House committees.
Jones does not aspire to be a chairman. “I have goals, but I don’t have any burning desire for this or that,” he said.
Jones hates to be rude, hates to appear hurried, says, “God bless you” to the elevator operators and security guards. In an annual survey by the Washingtonian magazine, Hill staffers voted him the kindest of the 435 House members.
“I work in a city of arrogance,” Jones said, “Yet Christ is a man of humility.”
Jones, a Catholic, anticipates a “time of purification” in Washington. He hopes it comes soon.
“The money up here is power,” Jones said. “Power is money. It’s true for both sides. That’s what creates problems.”
Washington unshaken
Jones, 62, came to Congress as an eager cop in Newt Gingrich’s force bringing order to the ways of Washington.He remains close to some members of his 1994 class, particularly Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, a fellow contrarian who said recently that Bush had no credibility on Social Security. As they hurried to the Senate floor last week, Gutknecht slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Walter and I came here to shake up Washington,” Gutknecht said. “Washington has proved more resilient than we thought.”
Jones was not always a Republican. He was a Democratic state legislator noted for his advocacy of campaign finance and lobbying reform. In Washington, he has championed no such single issue. It’s harder here, he said, because everything’s so much bigger and more complicated.
Jones has carved out two niches — constituent service and issues important to conservative.Christians. Jones grew up Southern Baptist, but converted to Catholicism 32 years ago. He has introduced legislation twice to allow preachers to endorse candidates from the pulpit.
This session, he has the support of black ministers and the interest of powerful Republican senators, such as Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sam Brownback of Kansas, both peers from Jones’ early House days.
Jones’ bill is the subject of a book, “Gag Order,” by Gary Cass. Jones went on a book tour of sorts, signing hundreds of copies at Christian conferences. He delivered a petition with 60,000 signatures supporting his proposal to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Jones is also working on a bill prompted by his discovery of “King & King,” a Norwegian children’s book that tells the story of two kings who fall in love, marry and live happily ever after. Jones carries a copy checked out from the Library of Congress.
The book is not in any school in his district; he does not know whether it’s in any school in the state. Nonetheless he wants parents to monitor the kinds of books their children might be reading, and he proposes creating local boards to review books in school and public libraries.
Jones conducts as many meetings with constituents as he can, choosing to spend time with them over committee meetings or social functions. Jones sits in front of the desk, beneath a picture of himself and his father, beside a silver bust of Mother Teresa.Each group wants to tell him something. Before they leave he always tells them something as well, whatever his passion of the moment happens to be: a handout on foreign debt; a reading from a letter he sends to the families of all fallen soldiers; excerpts from the book “A Pretext for War,” which alleges an administration conspiracy behind the war in Iraq.
Jones tells one group how he’s trying to find a piece of land in Washington for a memorial to war dogs. He flips through a book dog handlers gave him, leafing past stylized drawings of animals leading their masters through danger. He starts to read, then catches himself. “I better not read this now,” he says. “I never get through it without crying.”
Jones is pushing legislation that would raise the threshold of Shackleford horses permitted to run wild on an island near Cape Lookout from 110 to as many as 130. Jones testified recently in the Senate, a courtesy afforded the sponsor of legislation. It was a courtesy Jones had so rarely used that he got lost in the hallway on the way.
He won’t sell his soul. Jones says he is like his mother, an animal lover who would rather give credit than take it. His father had power, but when he joined the House leadership, he lost some of his independence. He said he remembers the worst day of his father’s career, when he had to vote for a financial bailout of New York City in the 1970s.
“He had to vote it that way,” Jones said. “I would rather do what I think is right than to sell my political soul.”Even if it costs his district and constituents, Jones said the people he represents know him and how he operates; they have elected him repeatedly, by 61 percent in 2000, his last competitive race.
Jones came to Washington with a generation that embraced term limits. Now he has become what he once demonized, a career politician.
The first question of politics — Why did you run?– stumps Jones. His cheek disappears again into his hand. He grimaces, the press-release regular who does not enjoy interviews, who is hurt, really, that his hometown paper, The Daily Reflector of Greenville, never endorses him, especially by the charge that his religious advocacy gets in the way of his work.
He ran, in part, because his name is Walter B. Jones Jr., a name with a long history.
He continues to run, in part, because an object in motion tends to stay in motion, a little disillusionment notwithstanding.
“We were going to do all these things to empower the people,” he said of the Class of ’94. “Too many times, we have expanded the government.”Yes, Washington tires him. Yes, he feels pain in his heart for the soldiers who have died, who have lost legs and arms. Yes, he knows some of his peers, especially Republicans, question his choices. He points upward with one hand, and outward with another. “I’ve tried to do the best for Him,” he says, “and the best for them.”(News researchers Denise Jones and Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report.)
The Jones saga is put forth to prove that as long as your breathing it’s never too late to pull your head out of your patriotic bowels and breath the fresh air of reality.
Thanks, Human, but is a short synopsis available?
i’ts sort of pointless to post a comment after the epic whis is Human, seeing as everyone would probably die of old age befor they scrolled down far enough to see it.
I hate it when I get all slack jawed like that. I think it makes me look stupid, but it’s really not my fault.
Dang you for making me scroll far to get to the rest of the comments Human!
I got the synopsis, Frank, caught my eye as I scrolled endlessly:
“Jones was not always a Republican. He was a Democratic—-he knows some of his peers, especially Republicans, question his choices”
Heh, you’re an uber goober.
That article wasn’t even 1500 words, to start, and I’m glad that he recapitulated. Not only was it stupid and hurtful to rename anything French to freedom, but it harks back to a time when propaganda reached every level and facet of culture to persuade a populace to support a common cause, like changing sauerkraut to freedom cabbage during WWI.
If you don’t like anything French, you’re welcome to return the Statue of Liberty, you kneejerk f***s.
AHHH a refreshing drink at the Oasis after trudging in a desert of in-depth comments on the article. Yes it was a lot of words for flash card mentality. The typical people who support Bush. 1) The people at the top 1% of wealth which of course includes the MIC elite.
2) Religious fanatics who actually believe that Bush has been chosen by God and has been ordained to prepare the ground for Revelation.
These I call Temple builders. For revelation to stand true the AL-Asqa mosque which Judeo-Christians call the Temple Mount must be destroyed by 2006 for the end time by Judaic calendar is 2012 Dec.21(Also Mayan Calendar end time). This will either be done by very old fashioned mining. That is the current excavation under the Mosque where Solomon’s 2nd Temple is supposedly is will cause a fall in. The foundation beneath the Mosque has already been weakened.Or a group like the one who on June 6th and previous occasions attempted publicly and covertly destroy the Mosque.Or it will receive a tone from HAARP.
The 3rd group are actually more dangerous for without this group the 1st 2 could not receive enough support with which to be a threat and they do not know their own power. These respond to the Hate and Fear that have been instilled in from birth. The fight or flight response is all they know for they have not been aware of examples of others. This is the group of people represented on this site. Like Bush a 1500 word report is probably to much to read. A few have read the article but would not want to admit it for that gives the excuse not to think about it. This is the flight response.
As for returning the Statue of Liberty the Constitution formulated after a French aided War of Independence should also be retur— oh yeah I forgot the Constitution was also turned to dust on 9-1-1.
I do have 1 thing good to say about the Bush regime, Laura seems like a good person. I only wish shrub had met her earlier. Of course to do that he would have had to actually enter a library. Man what different world it might have been. He might have actually read something like a 1500 word article on a question of War. I come in Peace I leave in Peace. Your fellow Human
All day yesterday I thought of how I might request more from the Hate Filled Lefty (not seen for so long). It’s Sunday morning when I checked your blog, and apparently, a prayer has been answered!! Thank you Frank. HFL is SO much fun!
Gotta love the acceptance and tolerance show by those Libs. Way to go Human and Oasis.
Is a huge increase in the amount of troll activity a sign of the impending apocolypse?
(Here and elsewhere, lately).
Nice argument guys, the old “if you don’t agree with me you are stupid, ignorant, etc.”
Wow, I don’t want to be stupid. I’ll guess I’ll just turn over a whole new leaf now… Naaaahhhhh!
Your contempt for us is quite evident, Oasis and Human (if you really are an oasis and a human; I doubt it.
Stoopid pod-people!). Thank you for sharing your hate.
You think that trolling is making fun of people who can’t be bothered to read an article? I wasn’t aware that trolling involved bringing forth logical, concise arguments occasionally peppered with a curse or sly insight. Whatever.
i thin it’s funny that people always assume that if we’re not democrats, we’re
a) wealthy beyond belief
b) people that believe republicans have been blessed by God or
c) ignorant
It cracks me up, because they say it all the time. I’m a very un-wealthy (supporting a family of 3 on less than 20k a year refusing any government help), college going man (almost done with my degree in mechanical engineering from an ABIT accredited school. I’m making my own way, without my parents help. I grew up in those so called ‘under-priveledged’ school districts that was in a not-so-great area, and had about 80% black population (who conspicuously get FAR more help on their schooling costs than I, because apparently they had fewer opportunities than I did in the exact same schools, classes, and teachers. I’m the kind of guy who actually reads what people write, I analyze what they say, and then I make judgments based on what I think, not based on what other people have said they think it means.
But I’m called an ignorant rich man who’s on a holy war…
If we want to talk ignorant, I’ve got pages and pages of rebukes to dems during the election season, refuting every single pile of crap they threw my way, from ‘Those tax breaks were only for the rich, and only benefited the rich!’ to ‘We have no right to be in Iraq! Bush Lied – People Died!’ to ‘Kerry wouldn’t have put us in Iraq!’.
But alas, I never hear any original arguments… they’re al the same, because they’re the arguments that they’ve been taught to use, all the while calling republicans foolish, and saying that we’ll eat any crap that we’re fed…
Ohhh the irony of it all…
normally I ignore flame bait, but I couldn’t pass this up…
“That article wasn’t even 1500 words, to start, and I’m glad that he recapitulated. Not only was it stupid and hurtful to rename anything French to freedom, but it harks back to a time when propaganda reached every level and facet of culture to persuade a populace to support a common cause, like changing sauerkraut to freedom cabbage during WWI.
If you don’t like anything French, you’re welcome to return the Statue of Liberty, you kneejerk f***s.”
If you want to talk about propaganda, talk to the news outlets that said that the tax breaks put a higher burden on the lower and middle class. we live in a world of propaganda, sorry if you’re not smart enough to see/realize that.
And I think it’s hillarious that you use the term “kneejerk f***s”… I mean, it’s really really funny. You’re so wound up over the comments on what you posted that you have a kneejerk reaction, calling people you’ve never met, never talked to, and know nothing about “kneejerk f***s”. Where’s the kneejerk reaction? What?
Soooooo freakin funny. I hope that some day the dems can take a look at their party, and see the humor in it that the rest of us see… they’ll either get a good laugh out of it, or just be in shock for the rest of their lives…
I’m not a Democrat. They’re too conservative.
matt – I’m not a Democrat either. You imply that I’ am. The threat is from the Corporation of Govt. Since you seem to take pride in pulling your own load (a hearty good for you, and no I’m not patronizing) could you ask your Glorious Leader (patronizing) to stop bailing out his Corporate friends? With traditional values like yours I wonder what you are doing in the Republican Party?
lol… maybe i’ll join the party that thinks i’m evil for making money…
i’d spend more time explaining why i’m a righty, but i just don’t have that time to spend right now… my apologies…