BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Feb 08 - 09:57 AM

Lame-Duck Budget


Published: February 5, 2008
(NY Times editorial)


President Bush's 2009 budget is a grim guided tour through his misplaced priorities, failed fiscal policies and the disastrous legacy that he will leave for the next president. And even that requires you to accept the White House's optimistic accounting, which seven years of experience tells us would be foolish in the extreme.

With Mr. Bush on his way out the door and the Democrats in charge of Congress, it is not clear how many of the president's priorities, unveiled on Monday, will survive. Among its many wrongheaded ideas, the budget includes some $2 billion to ratchet up enforcement-heavy immigration policies and billions more for a defense against ballistic missiles that show no signs of working.

What will definitely outlast Mr. Bush for years to come are big deficits, a military so battered by the Iraq war that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to repair it and stunted social programs that have been squeezed to pay for Mr. Bush's misguided military adventure and his misguided tax cuts for the wealthy.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 04:13 PM

GENEVA: The United Nations' torture investigator blasted the White House for defending the use of waterboarding on Wednesday, and urged the U.S. government to give up its defense of "unjustifiable" interrogation methods.

"This is absolutely unacceptable under international human rights law," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. "Time has come that the government will actually acknowledge that they did something wrong and not continue trying to justify what is unjustifiable."

On Tuesday, the Bush administration acknowledged publicly for the first time that waterboarding was used by U.S. government questioners on three terror suspects. Testifying before Congress, CIA Director Michael Hayden said the suspects were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003.

Nowak, who has clashed with the U.S. over his failed efforts to investigate at Guantanamo Bay, said he has received more allegations of waterboarding. But he said he did not have proof to back up those allegations, partly because the U.S. will not allow him to speak with high-level terror detainees who were previously held in CIA-run secret prisons.

"If it concerns secret places of detention, it is very difficult to prove," Nowak told The Associated Press by telephone from Vienna, Austria. He added that all allegations of waterboarding were from the "early years" of the war on terror, consistent with Hayden's testimony.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Feb 08 - 02:09 PM

Book: 9/11 panel exec had close ties to Rice
February 4, 2008
BY HOPE YEN

WASHINGTON -- The Sept. 11 commission's executive director had closer ties with the White House than publicly disclosed and tried to influence the final report in ways that the staff often perceived as limiting the Bush administration's responsibility, a new book says.

Philip Zelikow, a friend of then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, spoke with her several times during the 20-month investigation. He also exchanged frequent calls with the White House, including at least four from Bush's chief political adviser at the time, Karl Rove.

Zelikow once tried to push through wording in a draft report that suggested a greater tie between Osama bin Laden and Iraq, in line with White House claims but not with the commission staff's viewpoint, according to Philip Shenon's The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation.

Shenon, a New York Times reporter, says Zelikow sought to intimidate staff to avoid damaging findings for President Bush, who at the time was running for re-election, and Rice. Zelikow and Rice had written a book together in 1995 and he would later work for her.

Reached by the AP, Zelikow provided a 131-page statement with information he said was provided for the book. In it, Zelikow acknowledges talking to Rove and Rice during the course of the commission's work. But he said the conversations never dealt with politics.

The White House had no immediate comment Sunday.

The book seeks to raise new questions about the independence of the bipartisan commission. Initially opposed by the White House, the panel issued a unanimous final report that did not blame Bush or former President Clinton for the attacks but did say they each failed to make anti-terrorism a priority. AP

Chicago Sun-Times

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 02:44 PM

Old news, but interesting:

"The following exchange took place at the Chicago airport between Robert I. Sherman of American Atheist Press">American Atheist Press and George Bush, on August 27 1987. Sherman is a fully accredited reporter, and was present by invitation as a member of the press corps. The Republican presidential nominee was there to announce federal disaster relief for Illinois. The discussion turned to the presidential primary:

RS: "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"

GB: "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me."

RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?"

GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."

RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?"

GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists."

"


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 10:25 AM

As George W. Bush entered the final year of his presidency, it was widely speculated that he would hand out a big bunch of pardons before bowing out — albeit, it was hoped, far more carefully than Mr. Clinton did. But saying no is as much an exercise of the pardon power as saying yes, and it is here that President Bush stands out in comparison with his predecessors. He has already denied more pardon and clemency petitions than any post-World War II president. In his first seven years in office, he rejected 5,966 requests, almost twice as many as Bill Clinton did in eight years, five times more than his father did in four years, and almost five times as many as Ronald Reagan did in eight years.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration's pardon program is in complete disarray. According to the pardon attorney's official reports, there is still a huge backlog of clemency petitions in the bureaucratic mill, a total of 2,501 requests "pending" as of Jan. 1.

Just where each one is in the process is never officially disclosed. More than 800 are apparently sitting at the White House waiting a final decision; but the bigger logjam is at the Justice Department, primarily at the Office of the United States Pardon Attorney. Yet nobody there seems to feel much pressure to change things. The five staff lawyers in the office have no deadlines, and in the past they have been allowed to work about half of the time out of their homes. It can take months for a petition to get any attention even thought it's been logged in as "pending."

"The wheels are coming off the cart," one Justice Department official told me the other day. Yet no one up the chain of command seems to be worried. Margaret Colgate Love, who was the pardon attorney from 1991 to 1997 and now represents people seeking pardons, says of her former co-workers, "It's hard to run an operation when you genuinely feel that what you're doing doesn't mean anything to anybody."

The sorry state of the system became apparent last month with the abrupt resignation of the pardon attorney, Roger Adams, who had succeeded Ms. Love. His departure came on the heels of a seven-month investigation of alleged mismanagement by the Justice Department's inspector general. While Mr. Adams has disputed the findings, a heavily censored report of the investigation, provided to me on Friday under the Freedom of Information Act, found that he made "highly inappropriate" racial remarks concerning a Nigerian petitioner and threatened retaliation against employees who dared complain about other aspects of his work....


(From here).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 10:12 AM

Late and Lame on Warming

Published: February 4, 2008 NYT (Excerpt)
...Even allowing for the low expectations we bring to any lame-duck president's final State of the Union address, President Bush's brief discussion of climate change seemed especially disconnected from reality: from the seriousness and urgency of the problem and from his own responsibility for obstructing progress.

His call for a new international agreement to address global warming was disingenuous, coming as it did from a president who rejected the Kyoto Protocol as soon as he moved into the White House. His promise to work with other nations on new, low-carbon technologies is one he has been unveiling for the last seven years.

We were told that Mr. Bush's thinking on global warming had evolved. So there were slim hopes that, after years of stonewalling, he might agree to work with Congress on a mandatory program of capping carbon emissions. That would begin to address the problem at home and give the United States the credibility it needs to press other major emitters like China to act. No such luck. Mr. Bush remains wedded to a voluntary approach that has not inspired industry to take aggressive action. ...

Meanwhile, the stonewalling continues. Despite heavy pressure from Congress and many state governors, the Environmental Protection Agency shows no sign of reversing its decision to prohibit California and more than a dozen other states from moving forward with aggressive measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 11:13 AM

An interesting "collateral" impact of Bush's decision to invade five years ago is documented on CNN today:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day.

The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007.

"Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist.

Concern over the rate of suicide attempts prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to introduce legislation Thursday to improve the military's suicide-prevention programs.

"Our troops and their families are under unprecedented levels of stress due to the pace and frequency of more than five years of deployments," Webb said in a written statement. Watch CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre on the reasons for the increase in suicides È

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, took to the Senate floor Thursday, urging more help for military members, especially for those returning from war.

"Our brave service members who face deployment after deployment without the rest, recovery and treatment they need are at the breaking point," Murray said.

She said Congress has given "hundreds of millions of dollars" to the military to improve its ability to provide mental health treatment, but said it will take more than money to resolve the problem.

"It takes leadership and it takes a change in the culture of war," she said. She said some soldiers had reported receiving nothing more than an 800 number to call for help.

"Many soldiers need a real person to talk to," she said. "And they need psychiatrists and they need psychologists."

According to Army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war.

Last year's 2,100 attempted suicides -- an average of more than 5 per day -- compares with about 350 suicide attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began, according to the Army."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 08 - 09:44 AM

he more than $3 trillion federal budget for 2009 that Bush will unveil is his final opportunity to shape the priorities of the government before leaving office a year from now. Lawmakers and their aides say Bush has little leverage left to force his proposals on a recalcitrant Congress.

But even in the unlikely event that he were to get his way, the budget deficit would jump sharply, from $163 billion in 2007 to about $400 billion in 2008 and 2009 -- partly the result of the new economic stimulus plan. Such deficits would rival the record deficit of $412 billion of 2004, though administration allies argue that shortfalls of that size now represent a smaller share of the overall economy and are thus more manageable.

Still, the new budget underscores Bush's inability to get control of spending over the course of his seven-year tenure, a failure that has concerned even his conservatives allies. The problem is projected to get worse in coming years with the retirements of the baby-boom generation, a big obstacle to the ambitious tax-cutting or spending plans of the leading presidential contenders.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 09:24 AM

btw the troops that got the (now denied) extra help were in upstate NY.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 09:23 AM

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

Well, the Veterans administration DID by counseling our wounded troops back home from Iraq in how to fill out the forms regarding their battle injuries. When the figures came in the veterans who got the counseling got more benefits than those who were not taught how to fill out the forms.

SO,, the Pentagon ordered the Veterans Adminstration to cease and desist from supporting our troops in filling out wound reports.

The non govermental Veterans agency said they were sorry and stopped helping the troops with paperwork.



Way to go YAHOO support our troops support our troops, YAAAAY
Chalk up another victory for the military.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Feb 08 - 08:46 AM

"President BushÕs excesses in the name of fighting terrorism are legion. To avoid accountability, his administration has repeatedly sought early dismissal of lawsuits that might finally expose government misconduct, brandishing flimsy claims that going forward would put national security secrets at risk.

The courts have been far too willing to go along. In cases involving serious allegations of kidnapping, torture and unlawful domestic eavesdropping, judges have blocked plaintiffs from pursuing their claims without taking a hard look at the governmentÕs basis for invoking the so-called state secrets privilege: its insistence that revealing certain documents or other evidence would endanger the nationÕs security.

As a result, victims of serious abuse have been denied justice, fundamental rights have been violated and the constitutional system of checks and balances has been grievously undermined.

Congress Ñ which has allowed itself to be bullied on national security issues for far too long Ñ may now be ready to push back. The House and Senate are developing legislation that would give victims fair access to the courts and make it harder for the government to hide illegal or embarrassing conduct behind such unsupported claims.

Last week, Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, jointly introduced the State Secrets Protection Act. The measure would require judges to examine the actual documents or other evidence for which the state secrets privilege is invoked, rather than relying on government affidavits asserting that the evidence is too sensitive to be publicly disclosed. Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an important supporter of the reform, has scheduled a hearing on the bill for Feb. 13. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, expects to introduce a similar measure in the House. ..."

(New York Times editorial)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 11:42 PM

Scientists Say Bush Stifles Science and Lets Global Leadership Slip

By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 30 January 2008 12:52 pm ET

In his final State of the Union address, President George W. Bush devoted several lines to science and technology topics. He called for research and funding to reduce oil dependency and reverse the growth of greenhouse gases.

"To keep America competitive into the future, we must trust in the skill of our scientists and engineers and empower them to pursue the breakthroughs of tomorrow," Bush said.

But several scientists around the country aren't buying what they see as rhetoric not backed by funding. And they are frustrated by what they view as the White House's morality-based politics that they say ignores scientific evidence, distorts facts and leads to outright censorship of reports and scientists. The White House responded to the criticisms point-by-point.

In email interviews this week with 21 researchers in various fields of study, LiveScience and SPACE.com found widespread criticism for Bush's "retardation of research," as one scientist put it, that threatens to knock the country out of its global leadership role in science and technology.

"Science has been seriously undermined by the censorship and alteration of testimony and news releases," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "Science and facts are not a factor in decisions, and ideology dominates."

(A Democratic congressional report in December stated: "The Bush administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.")

Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at John Moores University in the UK, holds a more favorable view of the president.

"Bush has been as supportive and as reluctant as one would expect from a very conservative president," Peiser said.

And Peiser disagreed with the perception that America's heydays are over.

"Scientific research and exploration have continued to advance during Bush's presidency," Peiser said. "The United States remains the top country in the world on every aspect of science and research and it is still the most popular destination for international scientists looking for a better career and future."

Broad criticisms

Trenberth's criticisms, however, were echoed by several researchers.

"Science establishes facts but facts can unmask bad policy," said Ken Caldeira, a climate and ecology researcher at Stanford University. "Thus good science has been seen as a threat by the Bush administration."

Subject: RE: BS: More Antics of a Slimeball
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jan 08 - 10:16 AM

"Just before Monday night's State of the Union speech, in which Mr. Bush extolled bipartisanship, railed against government excesses and promised to bring the troops home as soon as it's safe to withdraw, the White House undermined all of those sentiments with the latest of the president's infamous signing statements.

The signing statements are documents that earlier presidents generally used to trumpet their pleasure at signing a law, or to explain how it would be enforced. More than any of his predecessors, the current chief executive has used the pronouncements in a passive-aggressive way to undermine the power of Congress.

Over the last seven years, Mr. Bush has issued hundreds of these insidious documents declaring that he had no intention of obeying a law that he had just signed. This is not just constitutional theory. Remember the detainee treatment act, which Mr. Bush signed and then proceeded to ignore, as he told C.I.A. interrogators that they could go on mistreating detainees?

This week's statement was attached to the military budget bill, which covers everything except the direct cost of the war. The bill included four important provisions that Mr. Bush decided he will enforce only if he wants to.

The president said they impinged on his constitutional powers. We asked the White House to explain that claim, but got no answer, so we'll do our best to figure it out.

The first provision created a commission to determine how reliant the government is on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, how much waste, fraud and abuse has occurred and what has been done to hold accountable those who are responsible. Congress authorized the commission to compel government officials to testify.

Perhaps this violated Mr. Bush's sense of his power to dole out contracts as he sees fit and to hold contractors harmless. The same theory applies to the second provision that Mr. Bush said he would not obey: a new law providing protection against reprisal to those who expose waste, fraud or abuse in wartime contracts.

The third measure Mr. Bush rejected requires intelligence officials to respond to a request for documents from the Armed Services Committees of Congress within 45 days, either by producing the documents or explaining why they are being withheld. Clearly, this violates the power that Mr. Bush has given himself to cover up an array of illegal and improper actions, like his decisions to spy on Americans without a warrant, to torture prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and to fire United States attorneys apparently for political reasons.

It's glaringly obvious why Mr. Bush rejected the fourth provision, which states that none of the money authorized for military purposes may be used to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.

It is more evidence, as if any were needed, that Mr. Bush never intended to end this war, and that he still views it as the prelude to an unceasing American military presence in Iraq."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 09:35 PM

I would expect better things of you Richard !!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 08:57 PM

1,000!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 08:56 PM

I can't resist it.....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 09:33 AM

The nation is splintered over the war in Iraq, cleaved by ruthless partisan politics, bubbling with economic fear and mired in debate over virtually all of the issues Mr. Bush faced in 2002. And the best Mr. Bush could offer was a call to individual empowerment — a noble idea, but in Mr. Bush's hands just another excuse to abdicate government responsibility.

Monday night's address made us think what a different speech it might have been if Mr. Bush had capitalized on the unity that followed the 9/11 attacks to draw the nation together, rather than to arrogate ever more power and launch his misadventure in Iraq. How different it might have been if Mr. Bush meant what he said about compassionate conservatism or even followed the fiscal discipline of old-fashioned conservatism. How different if he had made a real effort to reach for the bipartisanship he promised in 2002 and so many times since.

Then he could have used last night's speech to celebrate a balanced budget, one in which taxes produce enough money to pay for the nation's genuine needs, including health care for poor children and a rebuilt New Orleans. Instead, Mr. Bush called — again — for his tax cuts to be permanent and threatened to veto bills that contained excessive pork-barrel spending, an idea absent from his agenda when Republicans held Congress...

(Excerpted from the NY TImes on the State of the Union Address of Jan 2008).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:58 PM

Democrats don't want to appear soft on anti terrorist actions. If there is even one large terrorist act they know that the Republicans will say it was because the Democrats wouldn't let us: suspend the Constitution, throw darker people in camps, tap all phones 24-7 etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:41 PM

The people are about to throw in the towel. How much more of a beating can we take?

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 09:56 AM

From the NY Times:

The FISA Follies, Redux

Published: January 26, 2008

The Senate (reportedly still under Democratic control) seems determined to help President Bush violate Americans' civil liberties and undermine the constitutional separation of powers. Majority Leader Harry Reid is supporting White House-backed legislation that would expand the administration's ability to spy on Americans without court supervision and ensure that the country never learns the full extent of Mr. Bush's illegal wiretapping program.

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — which Mr. Bush decided to ignore after 9/11 — requires a warrant to intercept telephone calls and e-mail messages between people in the United States and people abroad.

It needed updating to keep pace with technology, and the technical fixes were included in a bill that Congress passed last summer. The problem was that Mr. Bush managed to add measures that sharply undercut the court's role in monitoring eavesdropping. Fortunately, lawmakers gave them an expiration date of Feb. 1.

The House has passed a reasonable new bill — fixing FISA without further endangering civil liberties. But Mr. Bush wants to weaken FISA as much as he can. And the Senate leadership has been only too happy to oblige.

With the help of Republican senators and the misguided chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, the White House got a bill that, once again, reduces court supervision of wiretapping. It also adds immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the illegal spying.

Mr. Bush says without amnesty, the government won't get cooperation in the future. We don't buy it. The real aim is to make sure the full story of the illegal wiretapping never comes out in court.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 08 - 07:20 PM

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND - FOOTBALL VERSION


--- [e-mail] wrote:

> For all educators in and out of the education system:
>
> 1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST
>   win the championship. If a team does not win the
> championship, they will be on probation until they are
>   the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
>   If after two years they have not won the championship
>   their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL
> they do win the championship.
>
> 2. All kids will be expected to have the same football
>   skills at the same time, even if they do not have the
>   same conditions or opportunities to practice on their
> own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest
>   in football, a desire to perform athletically, or
>   genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or
>   their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A
> PROFICIENT LEVEL!
>
> 3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their
>   own, without instruction. This is because the coaches
>   will be using all their instructional time with the
>   athletes who aren't interested in football, have
>   limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like
>   football.
>
> 4. Games will be played year round, but statistics
>   will only be kept in the 5th, 8th, and 11th game. This
> will create a New Age of Sports where every school is
>   expected to have the same level of talent and all
>   teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child
>   gets ahead, then no child gets left behind. If parents
> do not like this new law, they are encouraged to vote
>   for vouchers and support private schools that can
>   screen out the non-athletes and prevent their children
>   from having to go to school with bad football players.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 08 - 10:58 AM

NY Times commentary:

"The Senate (reportedly still under Democratic control) seems determined to help President Bush violate AmericansÕ civil liberties and undermine the constitutional separation of powers. Majority Leader Harry Reid is supporting White House-backed legislation that would expand the administrationÕs ability to spy on Americans without court supervision and ensure that the country never learns the full extent of Mr. BushÕs illegal wiretapping program.

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA Ñ which Mr. Bush decided to ignore after 9/11 Ñ requires a warrant to intercept telephone calls and e-mail messages between people in the United States and people abroad.

It needed updating to keep pace with technology, and the technical fixes were included in a bill that Congress passed last summer. The problem was that Mr. Bush managed to add measures that sharply undercut the courtÕs role in monitoring eavesdropping. Fortunately, lawmakers gave them an expiration date of Feb. 1.

The House has passed a reasonable new bill Ñ fixing FISA without further endangering civil liberties. But Mr. Bush wants to weaken FISA as much as he can. And the Senate leadership has been only too happy to oblige.

With the help of Republican senators and the misguided chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, the White House got a bill that, once again, reduces court supervision of wiretapping. It also adds immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the illegal spying.

Mr. Bush says without amnesty, the government wonÕt get cooperation in the future. We donÕt buy it. The real aim is to make sure the full story of the illegal wiretapping never comes out in court."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 01:47 PM

From Alternet:

After a January 24 debate in the Senate on amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Senate appears ready to capitulate once again to the Bush administration's agenda of sacrificing liberty for questionable security.

On the day before Congress was slated to take up this issue, Dick Cheney addressed the Heritage Foundation, the most influential right-wing think tank. He was given a thunderous reception, to which he quipped, "I hold an office that has only one constitutional duty - presiding over the Senate and casting tie-breaking votes." But the most powerful vice president in this nation's history was about to strong-arm Congress into doing the administrations' bidding.

Invoking the memory of September 11, 2001 twelve times, Cheney said it was "urgent" that Congress update the FISA law immediately and permanently. Notwithstanding the administration's well-known violations of FISA months before 9/11, Cheney claimed they had used "every legitimate tool at our command to protect the American people against another attack." He omitted the illegal tools the administration has admitted using, that is, Bush's so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and a massive data mining program. FISA makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, for the executive to conduct a wiretap without statutory authorization. The TSP has been used to target not just the terrorists, but also critics of administration policies, particularly the war in Iraq.

Although Cheney repeatedly linked amending FISA with protecting America, there is no evidence Bush's secret spying program has made us any safer. Indeed, in 2006, the Washington Post reported that nearly all of the thousands of Americans' calls that had been intercepted revealed nothing pertinent to terrorism. About the same time, the New York Times quoted a former senior federal prosecutor, who described tips from intelligence officials involved in the surveillance. "The information was so thin and the connections were so remote, that they never led to anything, and I never heard any follow-up," he said.

In his speech to the Heritage Foundation, Cheney aimed to bully Congress into making the so-called "Protect America Act of 2007" permanent. On the eve of Congress's Labor Day recess last year, the Bush administration had rammed that act through a Congress still fearful of appearing soft on terror. It was a 6-month fix to the 1978 FISA, which didn't anticipate that foreign intelligence communications would one day run through Internet providers in the United States. But the temporary law, which expires February 1, went further than simply fixing that glitch in FISA; it granted immunity to telecommunications companies that turned over our telephone and Internet communications to the government. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 12:13 PM

Last month,ÊEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson said he would deny an EPA waiver to California that would have allowed the state -- and 15 others -- to implement tougher standards on greenhouse gas emissions from cars. Even as the White House lauded the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, signed into law the same day, as a means to "add to the President's ongoing efforts to enhance conservation and efficiency," it refused to support California's efforts to "impose what would have been the country's toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles."

The state's proposed rule would have required car companies to achieve a 30 percent reduction of emissions by 2016, as distinct from raising fuel efficiency standards in cars, the tactic employed in the federal energy bill. But Johnson hasÊargued "that the newly revised federal standard for vehicle fuel efficiency...was a better approach to reducing auto emissions because it was more uniform." In early January,Êthe 16 statesÊsued the agency over its decision. "Who does the Administrator think he and the EPA work for?" Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) asked. "The EPA Administrator needs to be reminded that he works for the American people." She added,Ê"The Bush EPA can run, but they can't hide." Yesterday, Boxer introduced legislation that would reverse the EPA's decision and allow California and the other states to impose the emissions standard law.

JOHNSON WHITEWASHESÊREPORTS: When Boxer requested to see agency documents that indicated how the EPA made its decision, the agency instead cited executive privilege. EPA Associate Administrator Christopher Bliley wrote to Boxer, "The EPA is concerned about the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting." Just three days later, the Los Angeles Times reported that Johnson had denied the waiver over the advice of EPA staffers. The report quoted an EPA staffer who said that "we all told" Johnson that "California met every criteria" for the waiver request. At a Senate hearing yesterday, Boxer slammed Johnson for his agency's obstruction. "Colleagues, this is the tape," Boxer said, holding up a bowl of white duct tape scraps the EPA had used to redact parts of documents it sent to Boxer's office. "This administration, this is what they did to us. They put this white tape over the documents. ...This isn't national security. This isn't classified information, colleagues. This is information the people deserve to have. And this is not the way we should run the greatest government in the world. It does not befit us."

JOHNSON OVERRULES STAFF: The EPA's reluctance to disclose its decision-making process likely stems from the fact that Johnson overruled the consensus of his staff in denying California's waiver, as the Los Angeles Times had suggested in December. This week, the EPA finally relented and allowed Boxer and her staff to examine -- but not photocopy -- documents relating to the waiver decision, including a staff-prepared slideshow that predicted the EPA was "likely to lose [a] suit" if it denied California's waiver and faced a lawsuit from the states. The documents also showed that EPA staff argued that California had "compelling and extraordinary conditions" -- including conditions making the state "vulnerable to climate change" -- that warranted its tougher emissions standards. Ignoring the clear consensus of his staff, however, Johnson explicitly stated in his denial that California did not possess "compelling and extraordinary conditions" that would justify its stringent emissions-reduction policies.

JOHNSON MISSES THE POINT: Besides denying California's waiver, Johnson also seems to be in denial about the seriousness of climate change. He hedged when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) asked him whether global warming was "a major crisis" facing the world. "I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson said, to which Sanders countered, "The usual definition of the term 'major crisis' would be fine." Johnson would admit only that it was "a serious issue." Sanders also asked if Johnson agreed that "bold action" was needed, to which Johnson agreed that "action" was required. Johnson's constant hedging frustrated Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), whom could not get a straight answer regarding the agency's regular process for reviewing waiver requests. "It's a serious matter," Whitehouse pressed Johnson. "So I will hope you will give me a real answer to it and not just lots of gobbledygook about administrative law, which I'm pretty familiar with." Yesterday, 13 governors, includingÊArnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), wrote to Johnson expressing their frustration with his decision and voicing objections to his declaration that the new energy bill's fuel economy standards rendered the states' efforts moot. "Fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards are not the same. Although both are laudable, they achieve distinctly different goals," the governors wrote. "The federal government, with this unprecedented action, is ignoring the rights of states, as well as the will of more than one hundred million people across the U.S. We stand by our commitment to bring cleaner cars to our states." ...


Sigh...plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 08:05 PM

Lou Dobbs' take on the economic crisis and stimulus talk from Bush and Co can be found here. A good read.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 03:54 PM

Excerpted from an article by Russ Baker in The Nation dating from 2004, but of relevance to some aspects of todays ongoing disputes about the ornery polecat:

"...Questions have been raised about the authenticity of those memos, but the criticism of them appears at this time speculative and inconclusive, while their substance is consistent with a growing body of documentation and analysis.

If it is demonstrated that profound behavioral problems marred Bush's wartime performance and even cut short his service, it could seriously challenge Bush's essential appeal as a military steward and guardian of societal values. It could also explain the incomplete, contradictory and shifting explanations provided by the Bush camp for the President's striking invisibility from the military during the final two years of his six-year military obligation. And it would explain the savagery and rapidity of the attack on the CBS documents.

In 1972 Bush's unit activities underwent a change that could point to a degradation of his ability to fly a fighter jet. Last week, in response to a lawsuit, the White House released to the Associated Press Bush's flight logs, which show that he abruptly shifted his emphasis in February and March 1972 from his assigned F-102A fighter jet to a two-seat T-33 training jet, from which he had graduated several years earlier, and was put back onto a flight simulator. The logs also show that on two occasions he required multiple attempts to land a one-seat fighter and a fighter simulator. This after Bush had already logged more than 200 hours in the one-seat F-102A.

Military experts say that his new, apparently downgraded and accompanied training mode, which included Bush's sometimes moving into the co-pilot's seat, can, in theory, be explained a variety of ways. He could, for example, have been training for a new position that might involve carrying student pilots. But the reality is that Bush himself has never mentioned this chapter in his life, nor has he provided a credible explanation. In addition, Bush's highly detailed Officer Effectiveness Reports make no mention of this rather dramatic change.

A White House spokesman explained to AP that the heavy training in this more elementary capacity came at a time when Bush was trying to generate more hours in anticipation of a six-month leave to work on a political campaign. But, in fact, this scenario is implausible. For one thing, Guard regulations did not permit him to log additional hours in that manner as a substitute for missing six months of duty later on. As significantly, there is no sign that Bush even considered going to work on that campaign until shortly before he departed--nor that campaign officials had any inkling at all that Bush might join them in several months' time.

Bush told his commanding officers that he was going to Alabama for an opportunity with a political campaign. (His Texas Air National Guard supervisors--presumably relying on what Bush told them--would write in a report the following year, "A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Alabama.") But the timing of Bush's decision to leave and his departure--about the same time that he failed to take a mandatory annual physical exam--indicate that the two may have been related.

Campaign staff members say they knew nothing of Bush's interest in participating until days before he arrived in Montgomery. Indeed, not one of numerous Bush friends from those days even recalls Bush talking about going to Alabama at any point before he took off.

Bush's behavior in Alabama suggests that he viewed Alabama not as an important career opportunity but as a kind of necessary evil.

Although his role in the campaign has been represented as substantial (in some newspaper accounts, he has been described as the assistant campaign manager), numerous campaign staffers say Bush's role was negligible, low level and that he routinely arrived at the campaign offices in the afternoon hours, bragging of drinking feats from the night before.

According to friends of his, he kept his Houston apartment during this period and, based on their recollections, may have been coming back into town repeatedly during the time he was supposedly working full-time on the Alabama campaign. Absences from the campaign have been explained as due to his responsibilities to travel to the further reaches of Alabama, but several staffers told me that organizing those counties was not Bush's de facto responsibility.

Even more significantly, in a July interview, Linda Allison, the widow of Jimmy Allison, the Alabama campaign manager and a close friend of Bush's father, revealed to me for the first time that Bush had come to Alabama not because the job had appeal or because his presence was required but because he needed to get out of Texas. "Well, you have to know Georgie," Allison said. "He really was a totally irresponsible person. Big George [George H.W. Bush] called Jimmy, and said, he's killing us in Houston, take him down there and let him work on that campaign.... The tenor of that was, Georgie is in and out of trouble seven days a week down here, and would you take him up there with you."

Allison said that the younger Bush's drinking problem was apparent. She also said that her husband, a circumspect man who did not gossip and held his cards closely, indicated to her that some use of drugs was involved. "I had the impression that he knew that Georgie was using pot, certainly, and perhaps cocaine," she said.

Now-prominent, established Texas figures in the military, arts, business and political worlds, some of them Republicans and Bush supporters, talk about Bush's alleged use of marijuana and cocaine based on what they say they have heard from trusted friends. One middle-aged woman whose general veracity could be confirmed told me that she met Bush in 1968 at Hemisfair 68, a fair in San Antonio, at which he tried to pick her up and offered her a white powder he was inhaling. She was then a teenager; Bush would have just graduated from Yale and have been starting the National Guard then. "He was getting really aggressive with me," she said. "I told him I'd call a policeman, and he laughed, and asked who would believe me." (Although cocaine was not a widespread phenomenon until the 1970s, US authorities were struggling more than a decade earlier to stanch the flow from Latin America; in 1967 border seizures amounted to twenty-six pounds.)

Bush himself has publicly admitted to being somewhat wild in his younger years, without offering any details. He has not explicitly denied charges of drug use; generally he has hedged. He has said that he could have passed the same security screening his father underwent upon his inauguration in 1989, which certifies no illegal drug use during the fifteen preceding years. In other words, George W. Bush seemed to be saying that if he had used drugs, that was before 1974 or during the period in which he left his Guard unit.

The family that rented Bush a house in Montgomery, Alabama, during that period told me that Bush did extensive, inexplicable damage to their property, including smashing a chandelier, and that they unsuccessfully billed him twice for the damage--which amounted to approximately $900, a considerable sum in 1972. Two unconnected close friends and acquaintances of a well-known Montgomery socialite, now deceased, told me that the socialite in question told them that he and Bush had been partying that evening at the Montgomery Country Club, combining drinking with use of illicit drugs, and that Bush, complaining about the brightness, had climbed on a table and smashed the chandelier when the duo stopped at his home briefly so Bush could change clothes before they headed out again.

It is notable that in 1972, the military was in the process of introducing widespread drug testing as part of the annual physical exams that pilots would undergo.

For years, military buffs and retired officers have speculated about the real reasons that Bush left his unit two years before his flying obligation was up. Bush and his staff have muddied the issue by not providing a clear, comprehensive and consistent explanation of his departure from the unit. And, peculiarly, the President has not made himself available to describe in detail what did take place at that time. Instead, the White House has adopted a policy of offering obscure explanations by officials who clearly do not know the specifics of what went on, and the periodic release of large numbers of confusing or inconclusive documents--particularly at the start of weekends and holiday periods, when attention is elsewhere.

In addition, the Bush camp has offered over the past few years a shifting panoply of explanations that subsequently failed to pass muster. One was that Bush had stopped flying his F-102A jet because it was being phased out (the plane continued to be used for at least another year). Another explanation was that he failed to take his physical exam in 1972 because his family doctor was unavailable. (Guard regulations require that physicals be conducted by doctors on the base, and would have been easily arranged either on a base in Texas or, after he left the state, in Alabama.)

One of the difficulties in getting to the truth about what really took place during this period is the frequently expressed fear of retribution from the Bush organization. Many sources refuse to speak on the record, or even to have their knowledge communicated publicly in any way. One source who did publicly evince doubts about Bush's activities in 1972 was Dean Roome, who flew formations often with Bush and was his roommate for a time. "You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome told USA Today in a little-appreciated interview back in 2002. "I think he digressed after awhile," he said. "In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life." Yet in subsequent years, Roome has revised his comments to a firm insistence that nothing out of the ordinary took place at that time, and after one interview he e-mailed me material raising questions about John Kerry's military career. Roome, who operates a curio shop in a Texas hamlet, told me that Bush aides, including communications adviser Karen Hughes, and even the President himself stay in touch with him.

Several Bush associates from that period say that the Bush camp has argued strenuously about the importance of sources backing the President up on his military service, citing patriotism, personal loyalty and even the claim that he lacks friends in Washington and must count on those from early in his life.

In 1971 Bush took his annual physical exam in May. It's reasonable to conclude that he would also take his 1972 physical in the same month. Yet according to official Guard documents, Bush "cleared the base" on May 15 without doing so. Fellow Guard members uniformly agree that Bush should and could have easily taken the exam with unit doctors at Ellington Air Force Base before leaving town. (It is interesting to note that if the Killian memos released by CBS do hold up, one of them, dated May 4, 1972, orders Bush to report for his physical by May 14--one day before he took off.) ..."

Apologies for the long excerpt.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 11:52 AM

Environmental Protection Agency staff warned the agency's chief last year that the state of California has a strong legal case for regulating vehicle emissions, according to documents reviewed and described by Senate staff.

Senate Democrats are expected to use the finding to confront the Bush administration at a hearing today that will focus on the administration's decision last month to deny California permission to regulate automobile carbon-dioxide emissions.

The evidence of conflict between the agency's staff and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson will intensify a debate over the administrator's decision late last year to block the state from going forward with the nation's first vehicle carbon-dioxide-emissions rules. The issue is of critical importance to the auto industry, which doesn't want to face what is sees as a patchwork of carbon-dioxide restrictions. The industry has argued that climate change is a problem that should be handled at the federal level.

Mr. Johnson is scheduled to testify today before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, led by California Democrat Barbara Boxer, who suggested yesterday that Mr. Johnson should be dismissed.

"He needs to be held accountable," Sen. Boxer said. She said she is seeking to reverse Mr. Johnson's decision, and that "the president could fire him, if he felt as I do."

Subject: Don't Taze Me, Bro! Repression under Bush
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 05:04 PM

Repress U

by MICHAEL GOULD-WARTOFSKY

[from the January 28, 2008 issue of The Nation]

Free-speech zones. Taser guns. Hidden cameras. Data mining. A new
security curriculum. Private security contractors. Welcome to the
homeland security campus.

From Harvard to UCLA, the ivory tower is fast becoming the latest
watchtower in Fortress America. The terror warriors, having turned
their attention to "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism
prevention"--as it was recently dubbed in a House of Representatives
bill of the same name--have set out to reconquer that traditional
hotbed of radicalization, the university.

Building a homeland security campus and bringing the university to
heel is a seven-step mission:

(Details of the article can be found at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080128/gould-wartofsky

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:17 PM

From: the Center for Biological Diversity
Published January 18, 2008 10:33 AM


Bush Administration Abandons Recovery of Jaguar


SILVER CITY, N.M — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced January 17 that it will not prepare a recovery plan for the endangered jaguar and will not attempt to recover the species in the United States or throughout its range in North and South America. The decision was signed by Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall on January 7, 2008.



The decision is an attempt to moot an active lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity seeking a recovery plan and designation of protected critical habitat areas for the New World's largest cat. The decision also seeks to circumvent the Endangered Species Act from slowing Bush administration plans to build thousands of miles of wall on the U.S.-Mexico border without environmental review. The wall will short-circuit current efforts by jaguars to recolonize the United States.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 01:14 PM

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney prodded Congress on Wednesday to extend and broaden an expiring surveillance law, saying "fighting the war on terror is a long-term enterprise" that should not come with an expiration date.

ADVERTISEMENT

"We're reminding Congress that they must act now," Cheney told the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The law, which authorizes the administration to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls to and from suspected terrorists, expires on Feb. 1. Congress is bickering over terms of its extension.

On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to extend the stopgap Protect America Act without expanding it, raising stakes for an expected showdown in the Senate later this week on a new version of the law.

"This cause is bigger than the quarrels of party and the agendas of politicians," Cheney said. "And if we in Washington, all of us, can only see our way clear to work together, then the outcome should not be in doubt."

Congress hastily adopted the stopgap act last summer in the face of warnings from the administration about dangerous gaps in the government's ability to gather intelligence in the Internet age.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 01:08 PM

From this Yahoo news site, the following:

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

"The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

"Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

---

The report itself can be found here and is well worth reviewing.

A
___

On the Net:

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

Fund For Independence in Journalism: http://www.tfij.org/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 05:58 PM

ETHICS
Lost And Gone Forever

With less than a year remaining in President Bush's term, the public is finally beginning to crack open the administration's secrets. Last month, a federal judge ruled that a list of presidential visitors kept secret by the White House is actually a public record. On New Year's Eve, Bush "bowed to lawmakers in his own party and signed a bill speeding the release of millions of government documents requested by Americans under the Freedom of Information Act." More recently, a federal court order forced the White House to reveal its extensive destruction of presidential records. Officials acknowledged recycling backup computer tapes of e-mail before Oct. 2003, raising the possibility that these messages "are gone forever." Perhaps not coincidentally, many of these days with missing e-mails correspond to important dates in the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal and decisions on the Iraq war.

'WE SCREWED UP': The Presidential Records Act requires that the president "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure" that the activities of the White House "are adequately documented." Under the Clinton administration, the White House adopted a custom archiving system known as the Automated Records Management System (ARMS). But shortly after taking office, the Bush administration scrapped ARMS, claiming the system was "flawed." Despite proposing two other records-management systems in 2003 and 2004, neither was ever adopted. The White House "would not comment on why ARMS was eliminated." Not only was the White House recording over "computer backup tapes that provided a last line of defense for preserving e-mails" between 2001 and 2003, but Press Secretary Dana Perino has admitted that between 2003 and 2005, five million e-mails were potentially lost. "We screwed up, and we're trying to fix it," Perino told reporters in April.

SIGNIFICANT E-MAILS MISSING: A newly released White House study from 2005 reveals that "no e-mail was archived on 473 days for various units of the Executive Office of the President" (EOP). Ann Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Wasington, has also learned that on average, the e-mail volume for the EOP is 60,000 to 100,000 per day. Yet under the Bush administration, "there are days for which the total volume was 'as low as five daily e-mails.'" More significantly, these missing e-mails have important information about both the CIA leak scandal and the Iraq war. For example, in presidential offices, "not a single e-mail was archived on Dec. 17, 20, or 21 in 2003 -- the week after the capture of Saddam Hussein." Additionally, e-mails "were not archived for Vice President Cheney's office on four days in early October 2003, coinciding with the start of a Justice Department probe into the leak of a CIA officer's identity." Also missing are e-mails from Cheney's office on Sept. 20, 2003, the day on which then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered the President and Vice President's staff to "preserve all materials that might be relevant" to a Justice Department probe on the Plame leak.

WHITE HOUSE DISSEMBLING: Last week, White House spokesman Tony Fratto inexplicably tried to claim that the White House has "absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing." In response, House Oversight Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has scheduled a Feb. 15 hearing on these missing e-mails. In a letter requesting the testimony of White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Waxman wrote that Fratto's comments "added to the considerable confusion that exists regarding the status of White House efforts to preserve e-mails." The White House has also disavowed the 2005 study showing the missing e-mails, claiming that it "came from outside the White House." The report, however, was produced by Alan R. Swendiman, the politically appointed director of the Office of Administration.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 11:45 AM

The fight over how humans should, and should not, interact with whales has moved from the waters off Antarctica, where environmental campaigners have been harassing Japanese whalers, to the White House.

While traveling in the Middle East on Tuesday, President Bush issued an exemption to the Navy from environmental laws that would otherwise limit its ability to use certain kinds of sonar used in anti-submarine warfare training, the Associated Press said. [

Last August, the Natural Resources Defense Council persuaded a federal judge in Los Angeles to order a stop to Navy training exercises off Southern California using medium-range sonar. The judge said that the Navy's own assessments predicted that dozens of marine mammals, particularly deep-diving whales, could be harmed by the intense sound waves. In January, a fresh injunction was issued by the court requiring the Navy to establish a 12-nautical-mile, no-sonar zone along the coast and to post lookouts for marine mammals.

The A.P. quoted a White House memorandum as saying, "The Navy training exercises, including the use of sonar, are in the paramount interest of the United States…. This exemption will enable the Navy to train effectively and to certify carrier and expeditionary strike groups for deployment in support of worldwide operational and combat activities, which are essential to national security."

Environmental campaigners and California officials sharply attacked the decision in a joint news release today.

"There is absolutely no justification for this," said California Coastal Commissioner Sara Wan. "Both the court and the Coastal Commission have said that the Navy can carry out its mission as well as protect the whales. This is a slap in the face to Californians who care about the oceans." ... (NY Times)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:11 PM

A refreshing difference from Donald the F**k Rumsfeld, Sec Gates discusses facts with the Marines at Camp Prndleton.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 09:14 PM

Just in case GWB staff are monitoring this site, here is one that George needs to look into

http://www.brain-rehab.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:23 PM

refuse to admitt... no such thing, but there is not much to brag about either.

The US Army is curently paying Sunnis to not shoot our soldiers. Its only 10 dollars a day but General Gates says we can afford to do that for 10 years if we have to.
The populace is tired of the violence and are working together with Shittes.

The highest US casualty figure were last summer and have continued to come down.

Is it all surge? Of course not. Gates admits this. (On C span today) Not any more than Its all nature or all nurture.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:01 PM

Washington Post

See No Good
Why do the Democratic candidates refuse to acknowledge progress in Iraq?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008; Page A18

AT SATURDAY'S New Hampshire debate, Democratic candidates were confronted with a question that they have been ducking for some time: Can they concede that the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq has worked? All of them vehemently opposed the troop increase when President Bush proposed it a year ago; both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama introduced legislation to reverse it. Now it's indisputable that the surge has drastically reduced violence. Attacks have fallen by more than 60 percent, al-Qaeda has been dealt a major blow, and the threat of sectarian civil war that seemed imminent a year ago has receded. The monthly total of U.S. fatalities in December was the second-lowest of the war.

A reasonable response to these facts might involve an acknowledgment of the remarkable military progress, coupled with a reminder that the final goal of the surge set out by President Bush -- political accords among Iraq's competing factions -- has not been reached. (That happens to be our reaction to a campaign that we greeted with skepticism a year ago.) It also would involve a willingness by the candidates to reconsider their long-standing plans to carry out a rapid withdrawal of remaining U.S. forces in Iraq as soon as they become president -- a step that would almost certainly reverse the progress that has been made.

What Ms. Clinton, Mr. Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson instead offered was an exclusive focus on the Iraqi political failures -- coupled with a blizzard of assertions about the war that were at best unfounded and in several cases simply false. Mr. Obama led the way, claiming that Sunni tribes in Anbar province joined forces with U.S. troops against al-Qaeda in response to the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections -- a far-fetched assertion for which he offered no evidence.

Mr. Obama acknowledged some reduction of violence, but said he had predicted that adding troops would have that effect. In fact, on Jan. 8, 2007, he said that in the absence of political progress, "I don't think 15,000 or 20,000 more troops is going to make a difference in Iraq and in Baghdad." He also said he saw "no evidence that additional American troops would change the behavior of Iraqi sectarian politicians and make them start reining in violence by members of their religious groups." Ms. Clinton, for her part, refused to retract a statement she made in September, when she said it would require "a suspension of disbelief" to believe that the surge was working.

Even more disturbing was the refusal of the Democrats to adjust their policies to the changed situation. Ms. Clinton said she didn't "see any reason why [U.S. troops] should remain beyond, you know, today" and outlined a withdrawal plan premised on a defeat comparable to Vietnam ("We have to figure out what we're going to do with the 100,000-plus American civilians who are there" and "all the Iraqis who sided with us. . . . Are we going to leave them?"). Mr. Obama stuck to his plan for "a phased redeployment"; if his scheme of a year ago had been followed, almost all American troops would be out by this March.

Ms. Clinton made one strong point: Even the relatively low number of "23 Americans dying in December is . . . unacceptable" if there is no clear prospect of eventual success. So far, the Bush administration has been slow and feckless in pressing for the national political accords it says are required for a winning outcome. If these are unachievable in the near term, the administration owes the country a revised strategy. But any U.S. policy ought to be aimed at consolidating the gains of the past year and ensuring that neither al-Qaeda nor sectarian war make a comeback. So far, the Democratic candidates have refused even to consider that challenge.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:23 PM

and another:

Outside the Echo Chamber

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, January 4, 2008; Page A21

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: People in Washington really should get out more.

By "Washington," I mean not just the city but the state of mind, and by "get out," I mean spend time surrounded not just by a different geography but by a different demography as well. If we did, the high-blown debates we have here -- and by "we," I mean politicians, lobbyists, advocates, bureaucrats, scholars, journalists and all the rest trapped in the Washington echo chamber -- might bear more relation to what people who live outside our bubble think of as reality.

Case in point: When former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last week, Washington tied itself in knots trying to figure out which presidential candidates on the Democratic and Republican sides would benefit in the Iowa caucuses. This was the kind of shocking event that could prove pivotal, said the conventional wisdom in Washington -- with pro forma apologies, of course, for implying that Bhutto's death would actually be "good," in terms of political advantage, for one campaign or another.

But when I was in Iowa last weekend, I failed to find Iowans for whom the tragic events in Rawalpindi were a political issue. It's not that Iowans don't recognize why instability in Pakistan is important or why it might affect their lives. It's just that they had put the shocking murder in what they considered its proper context.

Another example: In Washington, it is conventionally wise to think of government gridlock as basically a good thing, even something that most Americans approve of. To have a president from one party and a Congress controlled -- or at least reined in -- by the other, we tell ourselves, prevents too-abrupt shifts in policy. Gridlock is supposed to force bipartisan consensus, which is held as a kind of Holy Grail, the only way to tackle the nation's biggest problems.

But tell that to Iowans -- or residents of most states, for that matter -- who either don't have health insurance or can't get insurance companies to pay their medical bills. Tell it to Arizonans who have pressed their state government to implement its own immigration policy -- shouldering what is clearly a federal responsibility -- because Washington can't get its act together. Tell it to military families, some in favor of the war in Iraq and some against, whose lives have been turned upside down by extended deployments with no end in sight.

There aren't many people in Washington (the state of mind) who spend sleepless nights worrying about sons, daughters or other loved ones serving in Iraq. Even though there are suburbs within 20 miles of the Capitol where illegal immigration is a passionate, hot-button issue, most in Washington think of the problem in academic terms. And just about everyone in state-of-mind Washington has top-notch health insurance; members of Congress enjoy a comprehensive plan that one might be tempted to call "socialized medicine," since a large portion of the costs are borne by taxpayers.

We in Washington are increasingly isolated from the people in whose interest we claim to labor. The economic gap between us and most of the country is widening to a chasm. In most American cities, a $600,000 house in a leafy neighborhood would be considered an extravagance reserved for the wealthy. Here, we'd call it a bargain.

The word "change" had great resonance in the Iowa campaign. In part, the yearning for change arose because George W. Bush has led the nation down so many dead-end paths. But from the conversations I had with Iowans, it seemed clear to me that change is also shorthand for the disconnect between the Washington state of mind and the widespread expectation, hardly unreasonable, that this city ought to actually get something done every once in a while.

Whether it gets done after a bare-knuckle brawl or a chorus of "Kumbaya" really doesn't matter.

In Iowa, it felt weird to be part of an alien invasion of know-it-alls from Washington who descended to examine the locals as if they were specimens in a laboratory. But we should do it more often, even when there isn't a presidential campaign going on -- as long as we stop listening exclusively to one another, and hear other voices as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:22 PM

Another from the Post:

Democrats in Denial

By Michael Gerson
Friday, January 4, 2008; Page A21

If 2006 was a year of denial for the Bush administration -- demonstrating that patience in pursuit of a failing military strategy is not a virtue -- 2007 was a period of awakening. Like Abraham Lincoln before him, the president discovered the cathartic pleasure of replacing generals. In Petraeus, Bush found his Grant. He also found that war, like politics, is the art of adjustment.

As the political blitzkrieg of 2008 begins in earnest, it is the Democrats who, on a number of key issues, are living in a state of denial.

In Iraq, coalition casualties are down significantly, along with Iraqi civilian casualties, roadside bombings and suicide attacks. Large sections of Baghdad have been pacified, and the military rolls toward Mosul. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is in reeling retreat. And, most impressive, we have seen the first example of a large-scale Sunni Arab uprising against Islamic extremism. By one estimate, 30,000 former insurgents and tribal leaders are now fighting the enemy in Iraq, adding their surge to our own.

This progress is reversible, especially while Moqtada al-Sadr's militias maintain the capability to mount their own mini-Tet Offensive. But Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy has succeeded with disorienting speed. Its combination of vision and competence will fill chapters in military textbooks.

In spite of these gains, Democratic presidential candidates still insist on reckless timetables for withdrawal -- the surest way to rescue defeat from the jaws of victory. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- who declared that the surge had "failed" even before it was fully implemented -- now contends that "the surge hasn't accomplished its goals."

Bush was hurt by his late and grudging acknowledgment of military failure. Democrats deserve to be hurt by their late and grudging acknowledgment of military success.

Democratic rhetoric on education is also an assault on reality. Attacking No Child Left Behind is a reliable campaign applause line -- Hillary Clinton promises to "end" the law, because it is "just not working." Actually, the imposition of educational standards and testing has improved math and reading scores and begun narrowing the gap between disadvantaged and affluent students.

There is an angry backlash against NCLB among some Democratic interest groups. Suburban districts resent being labeled as failures just because some minority and disabled children aren't making progress. But that is the whole purpose of the law -- to prevent districts from hiding the poor performance of minorities behind the success of other students. Such districts should feel less resentment and more shame.

Teachers unions object to standardized tests, preferring more subjective, nonacademic measures of school success. And that, from one perspective, is understandable. Failing corporations do not like accurate financial disclosures. Slow runners resent those pesky stopwatches. The unions want underperforming schools and ineffective teachers to be shielded from objective scrutiny. But testing is the only way to determine when disadvantaged students are being betrayed -- and by whom.

Democratic candidates attack the Bush tax cuts as a fiscal disaster -- just as a growing economy has boosted tax revenue to its highest level in history, halving the federal deficit in three years.

In 2008, Democrats are convinced that their time has come. But elections are not won by appealing to the clock. Political vacuums are filled by ideas. And Democrats in denial require some adjustments of their own.

Instead of criticizing an increasingly successful Iraq strategy, it would be helpful to hear some realistic proposals to improve American prospects in Afghanistan, where violence has reached its highest level in four years. NATO's military efforts in that country are uncoordinated, even incoherent -- demonstrating the risks of multilateralism. The resolve of some European nations is wavering. An al-Qaeda ministate is developing across the Pakistan border. How would a Democratic response differ from the current one?

Instead of attacking a successful education reform, it would be helpful to hear some practical ideas for improving teacher quality. In the real world of failing schools, the main problem is not too much accountability; it is too few effective instructors. Why should teacher pay be determined by collective bargaining instead of teacher competence, especially in low-income schools that need to reward and retain good teachers? Why not give districts more flexibility to fire teachers who would serve children better by changing professions?

Taking a distasteful dose of reality is one of the most difficult things in politics. Clearly it was hard for the president on Iraq -- but it was good for the country. And it would be good for America if Democrats opened wide for a dose of their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Jan 08 - 05:20 PM

From the Washington Post:

Waiting for Mr. Kim
The Bush administration shows an abundance of patience with a regime it once deemed 'evil.'

WHEN NORTH Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline for disclosing all of its nuclear weapons programs and disabling its Yongbyon reactor, the Bush administration completed a 360-degree turn from where it began in 2001. Then, President Bush broke off negotiations with the North opened by President Bill Clinton's administration, which had left office waiting for a serious response to its proposals to dismantle Pyongyang's missile program. Now, as 2008 begins, Mr. Bush finds himself where Mr. Clinton was, waiting and hoping that dictator Kim Jong Il will deliver -- and choosing to overlook the signs that he won't.

Mr. Kim's negotiators promised first in February and then in October that a full disclosure would be made of nuclear programs. That could be an important step beyond North Korea's previous deals with the West. It could answer both old and new questions, ranging from how many nuclear bombs the country has stockpiled to what deals it made with Pakistan (from which it imported centrifuge equipment) and Syria (to which it may have shipped material for a Yongbyon-like reactor). Such a disclosure would be a positive, though not definitive, sign that Mr. Kim's regime was seriously contemplating disarmament in exchange for aid and security guarantees from the West.

But there's been scant evidence that Mr. Kim is preparing his country for such a momentous decision, and numerous observers -- including several former Bush administration officials -- have suggested that Pyongyang is trying to extract the maximum economic benefit from the West without seriously compromising its arsenal. That theory got a big boost in December when U.S. officials learned that North Korea was preparing a declaration that would fall well short of full disclosure, even as work to "disable" Yongbyon slowed to a crawl. Word was sent to Pyongyang that an incomplete statement would not yield the favors the North seeks, including its removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Since then, administration officials have been waiting to see what move, if any, North Korea will make.

Once eager to deep-six talks with a regime that it deemed evil, the administration is now a model of patience. Officials say calmly that a couple more months may well pass before North Korea's disclosure is obtained and Yongbyon shut down. During that time supplies of fuel oil that were promised in exchange for North Korea's actions presumably will continue to flow. Officials seem to hope that China and a new, more hawkish South Korean government will apply pressure. There doesn't seem to be a plan beyond continuing to hope that Pyongyang will deliver, enabling a still-larger deal on nuclear disarmament to be struck. Would it have made sense for the Bush administration to invest so much in diplomacy seven years ago? Soon the answer to that much-debated question may become clearer.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 09:59 AM

"...The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked Ñ how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.

Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered AmericaÕs position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied AmericaÕs global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the worldÕs anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.

In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.

We have read accounts of how the governmentÕs top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions Ñ and both American and international law Ñ to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.

Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didnÕt go just a bit too far and actually kill them.

The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat Ñ and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.

Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guant‡namo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.

In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where Òhigh-value detaineesÓ were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that ÒexpertsÓ could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.

The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners Ñ some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports Ñ to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.

These are not the only shocking abuses of President BushÕs two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more Ñ so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.

We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America."

New York Times editorial, December 31, 2007

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Dec 07 - 11:49 AM

It was 25 years ago when a young CIA recruiting agent, a few years younger than I and really just a kid told me, "if you don't join the team you will be on the low road for the rest of your life while I will take the high road and assure you stay on the low road!".

I wonder if he is still alive and prosperous and if alive how much damage he has done to our country for his prosperity. I wonder if travel has broadened his mind beyond mine without as much travel.
I wonder if I could have made any difference with internal dissent to insane policies based on perception is the only reality. When our CIA gives money and weapons to a young OBL and even now gives billions to a Pakistan military dictatorship and over a billion dollars to Iranian officials who are in Iraq clothing you should be able to see how fucked up they are. These are the same guys who just happened to miss the fact that the Soviet Union had passed on. The CIA needed a new cold war and got one while they missed the golden chance to cement relations with Russia. Now Russia has half of oil in the world along with their neighbor Iran and can step all over a USA now devoid of its treasury wasted in a 18 year war in Iraq and recently Afghanistan
I wonder if there are any good shepards on the high road who have any humanity or compassion for the sheeple they believe need tending.

Mr. X if you can hear me anymore, I put it to you that your high road was cocaine for money and for a few dollars left over you bought weapons for Iran. You blew up a dozen Mosques killing 800 people and missed your singular target each time. You helped support a regime that bankrupt this country. I tell you now that hiring a bad guy to catch or kill a bad guy just made bad situations worse.
You were a hired killer for a handful of banking families and not your country or Constitution.

I put it to you that you took the lowest road of all
even if your unknown name is just a star on the wall.
Perhaps you are merely a disillusioned cubicle jockey who was sidelined for being a boy scout and speaking the truth.
Here is looking down at you kid.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Dec 07 - 02:27 PM

From the Washington Post:

The Speaker's Grand Illusion
Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats Need to Get Real About What They've Accomplished

After one year of Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, public approval ratings for Congress have sunk below their level when Republicans were still in control. A Post poll this month put the approval score at 32 percent, the disapproval at 60.

In the last such survey during Republican control, congressional approval was 36 percent. So what are the Democrats to make of that? They could be using this interregnum before the start of their second year to evaluate their strategy and improve their standing. But if Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House and leader of their new majority, is to be believed, they are, instead, going to brag about their achievements.

In a year-end "fact sheet," her office proclaimed that "the Democratic-led House is listening to the American people and providing the New Direction the people voted for in November. The House has passed a wide range of measures to make America safer, restore the American dream and restore accountability. We are proud of the progress made this session and recognize that more needs to be done."

While surveys by The Post and other news organizations show that the public believes little or nothing of value has been accomplished in a year of bitter partisan wrangling on Capitol Hill, Pelosi claims that "the House has had a remarkable level of achievement over the first year, passing 130 key measures -- with nearly 70 percent passing with significant bipartisan support."


That figure is achieved by setting the bar conveniently low -- measuring as bipartisan any issue in which even 50 House Republicans broke ranks to vote with the Democrats. Thus, a party-line vote in which Democrats supported but most Republicans opposed criminal penalties for price-gouging on gasoline was converted, in Pelosi's accounting, into a "bipartisan" vote because it was backed by 56 Republicans.

There is more sleight of hand in her figures. Among the "key measures" counted in the news release are voice votes to protect infants from unsafe cribs and high chairs, and votes to require drain covers in pools and spas. Such wins bulk up the statistics. Many other "victories" credited to the House were later undone by the Senate, including all the restrictions on the deployment of troops in Iraq. And on 46 of the measures passed by the House, more than one-third of the total, the notation is added, "The president has threatened to veto," or has already vetoed, the bill.

One would think that this high level of institutional warfare would be of concern to the Democrats. But there is no suggestion in this recital that any adjustment to the nation's priorities may be required. If Pelosi is to be believed, the Democrats will keep challenging the Bush veto strategy for the remaining 12 months of his term -- and leave it up to him to make any compromises.

An honest assessment of the year would credit the Democrats with some achievements. They passed an overdue increase in the minimum wage and wrote some useful ethics legislation. They finally took the first steps to increase the pressure on Detroit to improve auto mileage efficiency.

But much of the year's political energy was squandered on futile efforts to micromanage the strategy in Iraq, and in the end, the Democrats yielded every point to the president. That left their presidential candidates arguing for measures in Iraq that have limited relevance to events on the ground -- a potential weak point in the coming election.

The major Democratic presidential hopefuls all have their political careers rooted in Congress, and the vulnerabilities of that Congress will in time come home to roost with them. Today, Democrats take some comfort from the fact that their approval ratings in Congress look marginally better than the Republicans'. In the most recent Post poll, Democrats are at 40 percent approval; Republicans, at 32 percent. But more disapprove than approve of both parties.

That is another reason it behooves the Democrats to get real about their own record on Capitol Hill. It needs improvement. And in less than a year, the voters will deliver their own verdict.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 01:55 PM

BRATTLEBORO - He's got waterproof, size-11EEEE New Balance sneakers, a bright yellow poncho, and a plan. He's got outrage in his heart, a website in his name, and much of his retirement savings sunk into his cause.

John Nirenberg, a 60-year-old PhD., author, and academic, plans to walk from Boston to Washington, D.C., to confront House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in hopes of persuading Congress to take up the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

He's no activist, he says. He's not sure he'll make a difference, but he's going to try.

Today he'll hit the road from Faneuil Hall, walking 15 miles a day until he gets to Capitol Hill, making symbolic stops at the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and in Trenton, N.J., as he makes his way to the US Capitol.

Wearing a "Save the Constitution, Impeach Bush and Cheney," sandwich board-style sign, he hopes to rally support for an issue Pelosi has said is no longer on the table.

"This is about satisfying my conscience. I just don't want to be the guy who says in five years that I regret not having stood up and said something," he said.

Nirenberg, a New York native who was a member of the Civil Air Patrol as a youth and who later served in the US Air Force, spent his career as a social studies teacher, college professor, and organizational consultant.

A former dean at the School for International Training, in Brattleboro, he has written three books.

The impeachment chapter began in October, when he - frustrated by what he sees as constitutional abuses by the Bush administration - decided to "activate my citizenship" and do something about it.

He settled on marching as the way, established a website - www.marchinmyname.org - and began making cards, pencils, and literature in support of his cause.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 01:18 PM

How in hell can we expect China & India or the rest of the world for that matter, to respect the eviorment & comply with world climate control & clean enviorment policies when the US, who's the number 1 polluter & the one nation most capable of cleaning up it's act doesn't give it a thought when it sides with big business every step of the way. Why not past a "waste act" & through out all who are presently occupying space in congress.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 07 - 10:14 AM

The WaPo opines:

...:The Clean Air Act allows the Golden State to craft its own air-quality rules and allows other states to adopt them, as long as they are not arbitrary and capricious and are at least as tough as the federal standards. All that's needed for the regulations to take effect is an EPA waiver. But the EPA has discretion to deny a waiver if it finds that California doesn't face a "need to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions." So the administration may defend its decision on the grounds that the threat to California is no greater than to the rest of the country. Still, Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin reported, the EPA's lawyers and policy staff warned that if the waiver were denied, the agency would lose a Schwarzenegger lawsuit. We hope that they're right.

The larger point is the irrationality of blocking an initiative that would help slow climate change. Global warming is a compelling and extraordinary condition that demands both federal and state action. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that if action is not taken within the next decade the effects may be irreversible. The United States has been the largest emitter of greenhouse gases with a strong assist from California, which would be among the top 10 economies of the world were it a separate nation.

In its "U.S. Climate Action Report -- 2006," when the administration was doing its annual airbrushing of its own inaction, the State Department actually listed the California initiative as one of the "key activities conducted by the U.S." Talk about nerve. This is one more example of Mr. Bush's say-one-thing-do-another brand of environmentalism:...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 07 - 09:17 AM

On state's rights and the arrogance of the usual:

"Arrogance and Warming"

Published: December 21, 2007 (NY Times)

The Bush administration's decision to deny California permission to regulate and reduce global warming emissions from cars and trucks is an indefensible act of executive arrogance that can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness and as a political payoff to the automobile industry.

Stephen Johnson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, overrode the advice of his legal and technical staffs, misconstrued the law and defied both Congress and the federal courts. It also stuck a thumb in the eyes of 17 other state governors who have grown impatient with the federal government's failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and wanted to move aggressively on their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:34 AM

Seems Mister Bush has deep-seated beliefs in the propriety of rigging the electoral process, without regard to principles. The TImes opines:

"The Senate is ducking its responsibility to keep the Federal Election Commission stocked with qualified appointees to police the already booming election season. If a nasty partisan standoff is not soon resolved, the six-member regulatory panel could be left with just two commissioners remaining and unable to work. This is a ridiculous prospect — and an invitation to even more scheming and corner-cutting — in what is sure to be a multibillion-dollar campaign.

Skip to next paragraph
The Board Blog
Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers.

Go to The Board » At the heart of the problem is President Bush's misbegotten choice for the commission of Hans von Spakovsky, a fiercely partisan Republican, notorious for his anti-voting-rights bias as a Justice Department appointee. Mr. Spakovsky supported Republican initiatives gerrymandering the Texas Legislature and mandating photo IDs in a Georgia law transparently aimed at disenfranchising minority voters. Career Justice lawyers resigned in protest of his extremism.

President Bush circumvented the Senate confirmation process, using a recess appointment to force Mr. Spakovsky temporarily onto the F.E.C. this year. His appointment and two other recess appointments lapse with the new year. Joined with an additional vacancy, the commission will not have a quorum. Meanwhile, the Democratic and Republican leaders are deadlocked, holding up each other's appointees to a panel that is required to be evenly bipartisan, three to three.

If merit or sense carried the day, the president would scratch Mr. Spakovsky, who is not the right choice for the job. He hasn't, and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is standing by the White House's man. If Mr. McConnell and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, can't negotiate a solution, Mr. Reid should put the issue to a floor fight. This would spotlight what a party hack the Republicans want for a commission that is supposed to keep electoral politics clean and fair. ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:31 AM

I am getting pretty damn sick and tired of Fathead W and his crony politics, I don't mind telling you.

Witness today's installment, an effort to PREVENT improved emissions standards in automobiles:

"The Senate should ignore an incredibly mischievous last-minute veto threat from the White House and vote resoundingly in favor of an energy bill that could come before it as early as today. The bill represents a historic opportunity to ease America's dependence on foreign oil and to take steps in the battle against global warming, and its passage would send a message to the worlds' negotiators in Bali that Washington is at last getting serious about climate change.

Skip to next paragraph
The Board Blog
Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers.

Go to The Board » The centerpiece of the bill is the first meaningful increase in fuel efficiency standards in three decades — from today's fleetwide average of 25 miles per gallon to 35 m.p.g. by 2020. To win necessary Republican votes, the Senate leadership agreed to drop one valuable provision contained in a measure passed earlier by the House: a requirement that all utilities provide 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.

Even so, the bill, as it now stands, contains not only the new fuel standards, which is a huge step forward, but also generous incentives for energy efficiency, for cleaner alternative fuels and for the new technologies that will be required to reduce the country's output of greenhouse gases. By almost any measure, it is the most important energy bill that Congress has entertained in many years.

It is thus astonishing that President Bush would even think of vetoing it, especially since he called for much the same improvements in automobile mileage as those contained in the bill. In a statement Tuesday, however, the White House demanded that the bill be amended to make the industry-friendly Transportation Department solely responsible for regulating fuel economy as well as carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.

This would directly reverse the Supreme Court's historic decision in April declaring that greenhouses gases are air pollutants under the meaning of the Clean Air Act and giving the Environmental Protection Agency the power to regulate them. It would also have the effect of stripping California and other states of the power to impose their own automobile emissions standards."

---

And again flying directly in the teeth of law. Wodda maroon.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:53 AM

"...We know what is behind President Bush's sudden enthusiasm for fiscal discipline after years of running up deficits and debt: political posturing, just in time for the 2008 election. But one should not forget the damage that his administration has also inflicted by shortchanging important domestic programs in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy and his never-ending Iraq war.

A case in point is the worsening bureaucratic delays at the chronically underfunded Social Security Administration that have kept hundreds of thousands of disabled Americans from timely receipt of their Social Security disability benefits.

As laid out by Erik Eckholm in The Times on Monday, the backlog of applicants who are awaiting a decision after appealing an initial rejection has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000. The average wait for an appeals hearing now exceeds 500 days, twice as long as applicants had to wait in 2000.

Typically two-thirds of those who appeal eventually win their cases. But during the long wait, their conditions may worsen and their lives often fall apart. More and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing.

In one poignant case described by Mr. Eckholm, a North Carolina woman who is tethered to an oxygen tank 24 hours a day has been waiting three years for a decision. She finally got a hearing last month and is awaiting a final verdict, but, meanwhile, she has lost her apartment and alternates sleeping at her daughter's crowded house and a friend's place.

The cause of the bottlenecks is well known. There are simply too few administrative law judges — 1,025 at present — to keep up with the workload. The Social Security Administration is adopting automated tools and more efficient administrative practices, but virtually everyone agrees that no real dent will be made in the backlog until the agency can hire more judges and support staff.

The blame for this debacle lies mostly with the Republicans. For most of this decade, the administration has held the agency's budget requests down and Republican-dominated Congresses have appropriated less than the administration requested. Now the Democratic-led Congress wants to increase funding to the Social Security Administration, and the White House is resisting.

Last month, Congress passed a $151 billion health, education and labor spending bill that would have given the Social Security Administration $275 million more than the president requested, enough to hire a lot more judges and provide other vital services. But Mr. Bush vetoed that bill as profligate.

Democrats in Congress are working on a compromise to meet Mr. Bush half way on the whole range of domestic spending bills. The White House is not interested in compromise."