BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:26 AM

Since the old thread has bitten the dust, I thought we should continue the theme with a new thread. I still think Bush is rather cute, how about you?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:48 AM

I have found the agenda in writing that John Bolton is to carry out.
At its heart there is extortion which suits John Bolton for the UN job above and beyond other candidates.

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst061305.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:52 AM

Nice thought

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:01 AM

The 50 Dumbest Things President Bush Said in His First Term
What's the dumbest thing President Bush has ever said?
'My answer is bring them on.' —on Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. forces

'Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.'

'Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.'

'There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'

'If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.'

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:05 AM

Part of the facts is understanding we have a problem, and part of the facts is what you're going to do about it." —George W. Bush, Kirtland, Ohio, April 15, 2005

"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me." —George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005

"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make — it would hope — put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 14, 2005

"I understand there's a suspicion that we—we're too security-conscience." —George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:09 AM

Bring them on will eventually become via propoganda as a valient hearalding cry of a great warrior but will resound like Remember the Alamo.

Here is my cinematic take on the supreme teen age immaturity and stupidity of fearless leader...

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/winds-of-war1.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 06:19 AM

One that should definitely be in the top ten dumbest answera.

In response to a question from a journalist, "Mr. President, do you really believe the Iraqi insurgents can be defeated?", he replied "They ARE being defeated, thats why they keep on fighting".

Hard to put that one down as a speech impediment, or lack of expertise in public speaking. Comes across more like a brain impediment.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:25 AM

good one.

the "We are winnin" picture http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/trainecon.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 11:58 AM

Yo Donuel,
          Have you got any NICE pictures of Mr Bush that I could use as a screensaver?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 12:09 PM

Bush's best

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 02:48 PM

Tell me it ain't so, Joe! No, no, a thousand times no! Amos lost his own personal thread to the gremlins? Shucks shoot, I'll bet Karl Rove ordered it done. Oh well, I'm sure with due diligence, Amos can get it back up to a thousand plus hits before too long. :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 03:25 PM

If your Bushwhacker wasn't such a moron, it would be alot harder than you imagine.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:11 PM

LOL.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bainbo
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 04:49 PM

I don't know. Do you think it bothers the guy that the words Reaganomics, Thatcherite and Blairism have all entered the language to refer to ideologes and economic policies, whereas Bushism is, according to my dictionary (Penguin): "A verbal slip or illogicality uttered by George W Bush, the 43rd president of the United States"?

Or hasn't it registered with him?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 05:03 PM

Nice (Mr. Bush picture) as in happy and laughing?


http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/bushlaughsa.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 07:47 PM

You know, Sttaw Legend, I always wondered where he got all that hot air from. Thanks for the answer.

LOLOL
Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 07:45 PM

Cheney calls the Downing St. memos the "so called Downing St. memo.

Do you think the memos will gather momentum against or for the Neo con regieme?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 08:16 PM

Bushism isn't the only one of those terms to an insult.

Blairism. Some Views...

Realists view:
Promising that you'll make everything better, doing very little, and hoping that whenever the people notice, they still hate the opposition.

The Lefts view:
Watered down Thatcherism betraying everything the Labour party has ever meant etc ad infinium

The Rights view:
Watered down Socialism taking the country back to bad old days of the 70's.

All:
Incompetently run, and full of bad ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 04:14 AM

Mudcatism:
Wishy washy ultra left wing views by old hippies with Fisher Price computers in thier retirement homes.

The French view:
Cheese eating surrender monkeys

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 07:33 PM

Geeze, Joe, do we really need TWO of these threads?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: jaze
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 10:09 PM

Why do you read them, Doug?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 11:49 PM

Hicks adrift in US terror debate: The Age; June 18, 2005

This weekend David Hicks is meeting his American and his new Australian lawyers at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, to prepare his defence against charges by a military commission.... A decision is due at the end of the month on a Federal Court appeal by the Administration against a ruling by a Federal Court judge, who found that the military commissions [at Guantanamo Bay] were unlawful. If the appeal fails, the Administration has signalled that it will take the case to the Supreme Court, which means Hicks could spend another 12 months waiting for his commission hearing.

It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity [said] MICHAEL WIGGINS, deputy associate Attorney-General

But the Guantanamo debate is becoming more and more heated and is part of a wider debate about the war in Iraq and the US war on terror.

In the past fortnight, a number of polls have shown that not only do most Americans now think the war in Iraq was a mistake, but that the war has made America less secure.

Crucially, only 50 per cent of Americans now believe Mr Bush is doing a good job on security.

This week, about 40 Republicans in the House of Representatives joined Democrats to vote down parts of the Patriot Act, which Mr Bush said gave the FBI and other security agencies the powers needed to track and apprehend terrorists.

Michael Wiggins, deputy associate Attorney-General, was asked for how long the detainees at Guantanamo, classified as enemy combatants, but not charged with any specific crimes, could be held.

"As long as we are at war," he said.

Had the Justice Department defined when there is the end of conflict? Democrat senator Joseph Biden asked.

"No sir," Mr Wiggins said.

"If there is no definition as to when the conflict ends, that means forever; forever these folks get held at Guantanamo Bay," Senator Biden said.

"It's our position that, legally, they can be held in perpetuity," Mr Wiggins said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 05 - 07:52 AM

New US move to spoil climate accord; Mark Townsend in New York
Sunday June 19, 2005; The Observer

Extraordinary efforts by the White House to scupper Britain's attempts to tackle global warming have been revealed in leaked US government documents obtained by The Observer. These papers - part of the Bush administration's submission to the G8 action plan for Gleneagles next month - show how the United States, over the past two months, has been secretly undermining Tony Blair's proposals to tackle climate change.

The documents obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

The documents show that Washington officials:

· Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

· Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

· Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'

Another section erased by the White House adds: 'Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that ... mankind's activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.' The government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has dismissed the leaking of draft communiques on the grounds that 'there is everything to play for at Gleneagles.' However, there is no doubt that many UK officials have become exasperated by the Bush administration's refusal to accept the basic principle that climate change is happening now and is due to man's activities.

more here

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jun 05 - 09:47 AM

Iraq prewar bombings were illegal

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 10:24 PM

One of the most articulate summaries of the path to our present bogwallow of failed
diplomacy can be found in this essay at Common Dreams.

It is called "The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War". Highly recommended.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 05:41 PM

The Washington Post makes an analysis of why Bush may be the worst President in history.

A short excerpt:

"Nixon considered himself above the law.

"Bush has taken this disdain for law even further. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them. In dozens of statements when signing legislation, he has asserted the right to ignore the parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has adopted policies regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that have disgraced the nation and alienated virtually the entire world.

"Usually, during wartime, the Supreme Court has refrained from passing judgment on presidential actions related to national defense. The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law."

The full story is on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:24 AM

The Times examines more of the same regarding the Bush Administration:

A Gag on Free Speech
   /h3>         


Published: December 15, 2006

The Bush administration is trampling on the First Amendment and well-established criminal law by trying to use a subpoena to force the American Civil Liberties Union to hand over a classified document in its possession. The dispute is shrouded in secrecy, and very little has been made public about the document, but we do not need to know what's in it to know what's at stake: if the government prevails, it will have engaged in prior restraint — almost always a serious infringement on free speech — and it could start using subpoenas to block reporting on matters of vital public concern.

Justice Department lawyers have issued a grand jury subpoena to the A.C.L.U. demanding that it hand over "any and all copies" of the three-and-a-half-page government document, which was recently leaked to the group. The A.C.L.U. is asking a Federal District Court judge in Manhattan to quash the subpoena.

There are at least two serious problems with the government's action. It goes far beyond what the law recognizes as the legitimate purpose of a subpoena. Subpoenas are supposed to assist an investigation, but the government does not need access to the A.C.L.U.'s document for an investigation since it already has its own copy. It is instead trying to confiscate every available copy of the document to keep its contents secret. The A.C.L.U. says it knows of no other case in which a grand jury subpoena has been used this way.

The subpoena is also a prior restraint because the government is trying to stop the A.C.L.U. in advance from speaking about the document's contents. The Supreme Court has held that prior restraints are almost always unconstitutional. The danger is too great that the government will overreach and use them to ban protected speech or interfere with free expression by forcing the media, and other speakers, to wait for their words to be cleared in advance. The correct way to deal with speech is to evaluate its legality after it has occurred.

The Supreme Court affirmed these vital principles in the Pentagon Papers case, when it rejected the Nixon administration's attempts to stop The Times and The Washington Post from publishing government documents that reflected badly on its prosecution of the Vietnam War. If the Nixon administration had been able to use the technique that the Bush administration is trying now, it could have blocked publication simply by ordering the newspapers to hand over every copy they had of the papers.

If the A.C.L.U.'s description of its secret document is correct, there is no legitimate national defense issue. The document does not contain anything like intelligence sources or troop movements, the group says. It is merely a general statement of policy whose release "might perhaps be mildly embarrassing to the government." ...

(snip)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 09:35 AM

"I am the decider"
"I will not be rushed into a decision on Iraq"
GWB


"The problems in Iraq are clearly because of the media."
Laura Bush

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 11:41 PM

A bold and heartfelt essay by a young Marine can be found on this page.

A short excerpt:

"A Young Marine Speaks Out


by Philip Martin



I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's power, and his ego. A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the result of forward thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow countrymen a better way of life.

When I joined I took an oath. In that oath I swore to protect the Constitution of the United States. I didn't swear to build democracies in countries on the other side of the world under the guise of "national security." I didn't join the military to be part of an Orwellian ("1984") war machine that is in an obligatory war against whoever the state deems the enemy to be so that the populace can be controlled and riled up in a pro-nationalistic frenzy to support any new and oppressive law that will be the key to destroying the enemy. Example given – the Patriot Act. So aptly named, and totally against all that the constitution stands for.

President Bush used the reactionary nature of our society to bring our country together and to infuse into the national psyche a need to give up their little-used rights in the hope to make our nation a little safer. The same scare tactics he used to win elections. He drones on and on about how America and the world would be a less safe place if we weren't killing Iraqis, and that we'd have to fight the terrorists at home if we weren't abroad. In our modern day emotive society this strategy (or strategery?) works, or had worked, up until last month's elections...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:38 PM

Ms Huffington opines:

"I have no doubt that when Bush presents his "surge" plan, or "New Way Forward," or whatever meaningless term he's going to call it, he'll present it in the most sugar-coated way possible.

Part of what has enabled this disastrous war from the beginning has been the willful delusion about who       George Bush is and how he operates. Harry Reid will go along with my plan if I tell him it's "temporary"? Fine, Harry, "the plan is temporary." But only someone with a surge of insanity would go along with this.

Which is why the public voted the way it did in November and why only 12% of Americans support this "surge." George Bush has no intention of pulling the troops out. The only thing this surge will accomplish is a surge of more death and destruction.

Harry Reid began his segment today by talking about the health of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson. We all of course wish Senator Johnson a speedy recovery, but one of the reasons why his health has been the subject of so much attention is because of the possibility of the Senate going back into Republican hands. If Senator Reid's idea of leadership is to trust       President Bush on yet another last ditch effort --however temporary-- to "fix" Iraq, it apparently doesn't matter which party controls the Senate.

As the old saying goes, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary solution. Except President Bush's incompetence, willful denial of reality and refusal to listen to the will of the American people. We don't need a surge of those any more than we need a surge of troops in Iraq.

Here's hoping Senator Reid comes to his senses."

Hear, hear...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 02:16 PM

Vt. woman is an unlikely peace activist
12/18/2006, 10:45 a.m. PT
By JOHN CURRAN
The Associated Press   

BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Meet the anti-war movement's newest folk hero: 69-year-old Rosemarie Jackowski, whose arrest during an anti-war protest has made her a cause celebre.

A prosecutor's plan to retry her for blocking traffic while protesting the Iraq war is turning the feisty 4-foot-10 inch former schoolteacher into a darling of the dove crowd.

Bloggers have rallied behind her, peace activists are deluging her with messages of support, and advocates have established a defense fund

Full story on this page.

Courage is a delight to discover, and it appears in the most unusual places. This lady is an example.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 04:12 PM

From the LA Times:

White House accused of censorship


WASHINGTON — A former National Security Council official said Monday that the White House tried to silence his criticism of its Middle East policies by ordering the CIA to censor an op-ed column he wrote.

Flynt Leverett, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, or NSC, and a former CIA analyst, said the White House told a CIA censor board to excise parts of a 1,000-word commentary on U.S. policy toward Iran that he had offered to the New York Times.

Leverett, who has criticized the administration for failing to deal directly with Tehran, said the board wanted to remove references to prior U.S. contacts with Iran.

Leverett said the events he wrote about were widely known.

He said the agency's action "was fabricated to silence an established critic of the administration's foreign policy incompetence at a moment when the White House is working hard to fend off political pressure to take a different approach." ...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 05:28 PM

Bush administration threatens writer with imprisonment for exercising basic freedom of opinion and speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfGINEWO_2I
don't like bush... go to jail.


Threatens Op Ed author with criminal prosecution...

Oy!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 05:59 PM

Analysis of Bush Admin financial record:

"The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our federal deficits alone now total more than 400% of GDP.

That is the conclusion of a recent Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government that was quietly slipped out on a Friday (12/15/06), deep in the holiday season, with little fanfare. Sometimes I wonder why the Treasury Department doesn't just pay somebody to come in at 4:30 am Christmas morning to release the report. Additionally, I've yet to read a single account of this report in any of the major news media outlets but that is another matter.

But, hey, I understand. A report this bad requires all the muffling it can get.

In his accompanying statement to the report, David Walker, Comptroller of the US, warmed up his audience by stating that the GAO had found so many significant material deficiencies in the government's accounting systems that the GAO was "unable to express an opinion" on the financial statements. Ha ha! He really knows how to play an audience!

In accounting parlance, that's the same as telling your spouse "Our checkbook is such an out of control mess I can't tell if we're broke or rich!" The next time you have an unexplained rash of checking withdrawals from that fishing trip with your buddies, just tell her that you are "unable to express an opinion" and see how that flies. Let us know how it goes!

Then Walker went on to deliver the really bad news:

Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government's total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation's total output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal year 2000.

As this long-term fiscal imbalance continues to grow, the retirement of the "baby boom" generation is closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers eligible for early retirement under Social Security in 2008.

Given these and other factors, it seems clear that the nation's current fiscal path is unsustainable and that tough choices by the President and the Congress are necessary in order to address the nation's large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance.

Wow! I know David Walker's been vocal lately about his concern over our economic future but it seems almost impossible to ignore the implications of his statements above. From $20 trillion in fiscal exposures in 2000 to over $50 trillion in only six years? What shall we do for an encore…shoot for $100 trillion?"

More at http://financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/martenson/2006/1217.html


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 11:42 AM

Thoughtful remarks from Timothy Garton Ash, writing for The Guardian:

...

Bush has created a comprehensive catastrophe across the Middle East

In every vital area, from Afghanistan to Egypt, his policies have made the situation worse than it was before

Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian


What an amazing bloody catastrophe. The Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East over the five years since 9/11 is culminating in a multiple train crash. Never in the field of human conflict was so little achieved by so great a country at such vast expense. In every vital area of the wider Middle East, American policy over the last five years has taken a bad situation and made it worse.

If the consequences were not so serious, one would have to laugh at a failure of such heroic proportions - rather in the spirit of Zorba the Greek who, contemplating the splintered ruins of his great project, memorably exclaimed: "Did you ever see a more splendiferous crash?" But the reckless incompetence of Zorba the Bush has resulted in the death, maiming, uprooting or impoverishment of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children - mainly Muslim Arabs but also Christian Lebanese, Israelis and American and British soldiers. By contributing to a broader alienation of Muslims it has also helped to make a world in which, as we walk the streets of London, Madrid, Jerusalem, New York or Sydney, we are all, each and every one of us, less safe. Laugh if you dare.

..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 06 - 02:09 PM

The Times details in this report a case of rampant, heavy-handed censorship of non-classified, publically discussed material regarding the Rubbish administration's relationship with Iran.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 06 - 03:02 PM

From OpEd News, a liberal website:

December 29, 2006

Bush's Wonderland and through the Looking Glass of Iraq

by Frank J. Ranelli






Seduced by a powerful cocktail of intoxicating hysteria, America tumbled down the rabbit hole of Bush's Wonderland only to discover the looking glass was a window in reverse with a frightening view.



In 1865, Lewis Carroll authored the famous children's storybook, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. A fairytale laden with satire and allusions, Alice in Wonderland tells the story of a little girl who follows a white rabbit down a hole into a bizarre underworld. Alice emerges into a netherworld beset with anthropomorphic characters that lead her on a series of misadventures in a chaotic society of unruliness, lunacy and utter mayhem. In a distorted and sometimes mockingly perverse way, Carroll endeavors to lampoon his childhood along with the lessons and perils of a careless adolescence in 19th century Britain.

Here in 21st century America, we too, have tumbled down an abysmal hole and materialized in an alternative dream world. For six years, we have been faltering through a mass hallucination of alarm and disbelief, apprehension and discord, addiction and disorder. Our delirium is the somber side-effect of a nation under sedation, induced by a heroin-like injected haze of obfuscation and trepid tentativeness to break free of our "pusher." Ironically, it turns out that in street slang, "white rabbit" is an urban idiom for heroin. A drug marked by paranoia, fear and anxiety.

Shortly after September 11, 2001, America begin to inhale the heavy vapors of Bush's "white rabbit" and we have been "chasing the dragon" ever since. The alleged alleviation, only by way of a Faustian Bargain, was to sell our national soul in exchange for the prevaricated promise that we would be unshackled and set free to awaken from another long, national nightmare. That was never the case. Instead, we were further seduced by a coterie of unsavory characters who suspiciously correlated two arch nemeses together – Saddam and Bin Laden – to formulate a "speedball" cocktail of intoxicating hysteria.

After a patriotic parade of propaganda and deception, the sentinels of our society – Congress – in a frenzy of panic, bequeathed their sole power to declare war to a boorish executive with a galloping case of megalomania and chest-thumping bravado. Thus began, like Alice, our own journey into madness, lawlessness and absolute chaos. We embarked on a war of aggression, under the ruse of seeding democracy and disarming dictators, while munitions manufacturers raked in the revenues and oil barons profited handsomely.

Fortunately, like most addictive drugs, a tolerance factor begins to takes hold. As we yearned and waited for our next fix of the latest formula of Bush's "white rabbit", naively accepting his next white lie, America began to sober up. We awoke from Bush's ghoulish nightmare and hellish war to find not patriots and heroes but pariahs and heretics feeding our addiction and feasting on our own national flesh and blood. "...

Rest of article here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 02:24 PM

See too: this site.

And listen to the insights under The Unfeeling President.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 04:41 PM

nane

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 07:41 PM

An excerpt from this charming piece:

"December 26, 2006 at 21:06:43

2006 DISASTER OF THE YEAR / GEORGE W BUSH

by Allen L Roland


" As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron:" H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

You can arguably call George W Bush Moron in Chief or an entitled brat ~ but he has most definitely been the disaster of the year for 2006.

Everything he has touched has become a disaster starting with his illegal war and occupation of Iraq ~ continuing through his promised rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing disintegration of America's moral standing in the world community.

This has to be a reflection on the character of George W Bush himself and how he conducts himself within the oval office.
..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 10:39 AM

An interesting essay (or rant) from Capitol Hill Blue on the notion that Bush should be stopped before he does more harm.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 12:46 PM

From Salon on-line, an essay by Garrison Keillor:

Daddy issues

Our president is resolving unconscious Oedipal obsessions by lashing out at foreign countries -- and it's time his father stepped in.

By Garrison Keillor

Jan. 3, 2007 | As the new Congress convenes this week and Speaker Pelosi ascends to the rostrum, you have to wish them all well. These are the kids who got up in school assembly and spoke on Armistice Day and were captains of teams and organized class projects to do good works, a different breed from us wise guys who lurked in the halls and made fun of them, and in the end you want them and not us running your government. Yes, they had serious brown-nose tendencies and a knack for mouthing pieties, but you could count on them to do what needed doing. They were leaders. They weren't going to swipe the lunch money and buy a keg of suds.

You wonder, however, what this earnest bunch can do when things are so far out of whack as they are in Iraq. The gangland-style execution of Saddam Hussein was visible reality, a token of the blood lust and violence that swirls around Iraq, where our forces are mired, sitting targets, aliens, fighting a colonial war in behalf of a Shiite majority that is as despotic and cruel as what came before, except messier.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the limousines come and go, memorandums are set out on long polished tables, men in crisp white shirts sit at meetings and discuss how to rationalize a war that was conceived by a handful of men in arrogant ignorance and that has descended over the past four years into sheer madness.

Military men know there is no military solution here, and the State Department knows that the policy was driven by domestic politics, but who is going to tell the Current Occupant? He is still talking about victory, or undefeat, like some frat boy on meth who thinks he can step off a roof and not get hurt. The word "surge" keeps cropping up, as if we were fighting the war with electricity and not human beings.


Rational analysis is not the way to approach this administration. Bob Woodward found that out. The Bush who burst into convulsive sobs after winning reelection when his chief of staff Andrew Card said, "You've given your dad a great gift," is so far from the Bush of the photo ops as to invite closer inspection, and for that you don't want David Broder, you need a good novelist.

Here we have a slacker son of a powerful patrician father who resolves unconscious Oedipal issues through inappropriate acting-out in foreign countries. Hello? All the king's task forces can gather together the shards of the policy, number them, arrange them, but it never made sense when it was whole and so it makes even less sense now.

American boys in armored jackets and night scopes patrolling the streets of Baghdad are not going to pacify this country, any more than they will convert it to Methodism. They are there to die so that a man in the White House doesn't have to admit that he, George W. Bush, the decider, the one in the cowboy boots, made grievous mistakes. He approved a series of steps that he himself had not the experience or acumen or simple curiosity to question and which had been dumbed down for his benefit, and then he doggedly stuck by them until his approval ratings sank into the swamp.

He was the Great Denier of 2006, waving the flag, questioning the patriotism of anyone who dared oppose him, until he took a thumpin' and now, we are told, he is reexamining the whole matter. Except he's not. To admit that he did wrong is to admit that he is not the man his daddy is, the one who fought in a war.

Hey, we've all had issues with our dads. But do we need this many people to die so that one dude can look like a leader?

...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 07:54 PM

Bush quietly authorizes opening of Americans' mail

By James Gordon Meek

New York Daily News

(MCT)

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the New York Daily News has learned.

The president asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

"Despite the president's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.

"The (Bush) signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.

"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."

A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."

Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.

Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."

---

From the Bill of Rights:

Amendment IV


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 11:41 PM

during WWII FDR gave the FBI complete authority to lntercept all transAtlantic cables and a virtual free hand when it came to domestic surveillance, wiretapping and opening mail.

A woman got a commendation and a special medal from the government for finding a bit of microfilm under the stamp of an inocuous domestic letter that sent six German spies to the gallows.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 07 - 05:01 PM

"United States Codes
Title 18 – Crimes and Criminal Procedure
Part 1 – Crimes
Chapter 83 – Postal Service

Section 1702
Obstruction of Correspondence

Whoever takes any letter, postal card, or package out of any post
office or any authorized depository for mail matter, or from any
letter or mail carrier, or which has been in any post office or
authorized depository, or in the custody of any letter or mail
carrier, before it has been delivered to the person to whom it was
directed, with design to obstruct the correspondence, or to pry into
the business or secrets of another, or opens, secretes, embezzles,
or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more that five years, or both."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jan 07 - 05:03 PM

Bush seems to be above the law in the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 07 - 11:02 AM

From Maureen Dowd's column in the New York Times, this gem:

"Despite all the talk back in the 2000 campaign about a robustly experienced foreign-policy dream team, it may have been destined that the Bush administration would be asleep in the run-up to the insurgency, just as it was asleep in the run-up to 9/11, to Katrina, to the occupation and to the refugee crisis in Iraq. Either all that was predetermined, or the administration was preternaturally negligent.

Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher who said a man can do what he wants but cannot will what he wants, would have understood W.'s nonsensical urge to Surge.

We don't know if human beings have free will. We just know that human beings in Washington appear not to."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 07 - 12:32 PM

"Bush speechwriter David Frum, who wrote a hagiography of Bush in 2003 called "The Right Man," sees the intellectual bankruptcy of proposing a line-item veto yet again. Said Frum on National Review magazine's Web site:

Never mind that the Supreme Court has found the line item veto unconstitutional.

Never mind that after six years of presidentially led overspending, it is a bit implausible for the president to try to present himself as the guardian of the public purse against rapacious congresspersons.

Consider only this: Republicans have been suggesting a federal line item veto as a talisman against big government since the middle 1980s. If twenty years later, the line item veto is the only domestic idea a Republican president has to offer — what more emphatic confession of mental exhaustion can an administration give? And if the administration confesses itself exhausted, why should not the Congress elbow it aside? Somebody has to govern after all. . . .

This president has always preferred to retire early for the night. I fear that the whole domestic policy staff seems now to be following the boss's example, settling in for bedtime two years ahead of schedule."

From a NY Times opinion piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 07 - 10:43 AM

The Times (New York) offers some thought in an editorial about "The Imperial Presidncy":

Observing President Bush in action lately, we have to wonder if he actually watched the election returns in November, or if he was just rerunning the 2002 vote on his TiVo.

That year, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare American voters into cementing the Republican domination of Congress. Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidential power chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances.

In 2006, the voters sent Mr. Bush a powerful message that it was time to rein in his imperial ambitions. But we have yet to see any sign that Mr. Bush understands that — or even realizes that the Democrats are now in control of the Congress. Indeed, he seems to have interpreted his party's drubbing as a mandate to keep pursuing his fantasy of victory in Iraq and to press ahead undaunted with his assault on civil liberties and the judicial system. Just before the Christmas break, the Justice Department served notice to Senator Patrick Leahy — the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee — that it intended to keep stonewalling Congressional inquiries into Mr. Bush's inhumane and unconstitutional treatment of prisoners taken in anti-terrorist campaigns. It refused to hand over two documents, including one in which Mr. Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to establish secret prisons beyond the reach of American law or international treaties. The other set forth the interrogation methods authorized in these prisons — which we now know ranged from abuse to outright torture.

Also last month, Mr. Bush issued another of his infamous "presidential signing statements," which he has used scores of times to make clear he does not intend to respect the requirements of a particular law — in this case a little-noticed Postal Service bill. The statement suggested that Mr. Bush does not believe the government must obtain a court order before opening Americans' first-class mail. It said the administration had the right to "conduct searches in exigent circumstances," which include not only protecting lives, but also unspecified "foreign intelligence collection."

The law is clear on this. A warrant is required to open Americans' mail under a statute that was passed to stop just this sort of abuse using just this sort of pretext. But then again, the law is also clear on the need to obtain a warrant before intercepting Americans' telephone calls and e-mail. Mr. Bush began openly defying that law after Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on calls and e-mail between the United States and other countries.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 07 - 01:42 AM

How many consecutive quarters of declining readership and revenues will it take before NY Times investors recognize that they are just not out of step with the nation, but with the NY metroplitan region as well. It would be sad to lose a newspaper like the NY Times, but they would only have themselves to blame.

New York Times imposes selective censorship on readers

According to an AP story picked up by the Wall Street Journal today, The New York Times has blocked access to a news story to all British visitors to its Web site. The story, which talks about a recent airline terror plot in England, apparently runs afoul of a UK law that "prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial."

Once information is posted on the Internet it can't effectively be blocked. The Times Web site is also not physically located in Britain, which means it is not technically under the jurisdiction of UK laws. In addition, that same information is already available from other Web sites and has also been published in Britain's Daily Mail. But these facts seem to have escaped the Times editors, who appear anxious to play ball and perform selective censorship of UK readers after being served notice by British government authorities.

It's also interesting to note how the Times repurposed existing techonology as a mechanism for selectively repressing the news in response to government pressure. The Times already uses "geotargeting" technology to place adds on a Web page based on the requesting user's location. It does so by checking the requester's IP address and the location of the ISP that issued it. This is the first time that the Times has used that technology to selectively block access to news content to a geographic subset of its readers, according to the story. So it sets a rather dismal new predecent for selective censorship. I think it also reflects poorly on the editorial judgement of the The Times.

For more, see the WSJ story, New York Times Blocks Web Story (requires WSJ subscription).