BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 10 - 02:01 AM

WTF?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 11:34 PM

Obama's is the worst form of government, except for all others that have been tried in recent memory.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Stringsinger
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 08:35 PM

The NY Times has been wrong about many things including attempting to sell the Iraq
War. We will learn more in times to come thanks to whistle-blowers such as Julian Assange
and Bradley.

Bacevich, Paul Krugman and Frank Rich are brilliant and oases in a news-deprived desert.

Bush years were just a continuation of policies put in place by Nixon and Reagan with a little help from Clinton as well. (Repeal of Glass-Steagal for example).

The Bush years may turn out to show that Americans haven't learned much. Obama continues many of his policies.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 10:16 AM

"In recent polls, 60 percent of those surveyed thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, 70 percent thought it wasnÕt worth American lives, and only a quarter believed it made us safer from terrorism. This sour judgment is entirely reality-based. The war failed in all its stated missions except the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

While we were distracted searching for IraqÕs nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Iran began revving up its actual nuclear program and Osama bin Laden and his fanatics ran free to regroup in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We handed Al Qaeda a propaganda coup by sacrificing AmericaÕs signature values on the waterboard. We disseminated untold billions of taxpayersÕ dollars from BaghdadÕs Green Zone, much of it cycled corruptly through well-connected American companies on no-bid contracts, yet Iraq still doesnÕt have reliable electricity or trustworthy security. IraqÕs Òexample of freedom,Ó as President Bush referred to his project in nation building and democracy promotion, did not inspire other states in the Middle East to emulate it. It only perpetuated the Israeli-Palestinian logjam it was supposed to help relieve.

For this sad record, more than 4,400 Americans and some 100,000 Iraqis (a conservative estimate) paid with their lives. Some 32,000 Americans were wounded, and at least two million Iraqis, representing much of the nationÕs most valuable human capital, went into exile. The warÕs official cost to U.S. taxpayers is now at $750 billion.

Of all the commentators on the debacle, few speak with more eloquence or credibility than Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University who as a West Point-trained officer served in Vietnam and the first gulf war and whose son, also an Army officer, was killed in Iraq in 2007. Writing in The New Republic after ObamaÕs speech, he decimated many of the warÕs lingering myths, starting with the fallacy, reignited by the hawks taking a preposterous victory lap last week, that Òthe surgeÓ did anything other than stanch the bleeding from the catastrophic American blundering that preceded it. As Bacevich concluded: ÒThe surge, now remembered as an epic feat of arms, functions chiefly as a smokescreen, obscuring a vast panorama of recklessness, miscalculation and waste that politicians, generals, and sundry warmongers are keen to forget.Ó

Bacevich also wrote that Òcommon decency demands that we reflect on all that has occurred in bringing us to this moment.Ó AmericansÕ common future demands it too. The warÕs corrosive effect on the home front is no less egregious than its undermining of our image and national security interests abroad. As the Pentagon rebrands Operation Iraqi Freedom as Operation New Dawn Ñ a Òname suggesting a skin cream or dishwashing liquid,Ó Bacevich aptly writes Ñ the whitewashing of our recent history is well under way. The price will be to keep repeating it."


(NYT columnist Frank Rich

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 10:25 PM

Well, yeah, Amos...

For progressives everywhere we fully understand what the Repubs see as the answers to the nation's probels: tax cuts... Break yer leg??? Fix it with tax cuts... Yer dog died??? More tax buts... Yer wife just called an' someone backed into the car at the Farmers Grocery??? Tax cuts!!!

I mean, yeah, the Dems oughtta make the November election 100% about Bush;'s failed policies: the tax cuts the rich and Iraq should be enough to at least keep majorities in both houses... They just gotta pick the timing right and then...

...pounce on Bush!!!

It will work...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 09:35 AM

For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we're in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back. And many in the news media played along, acting as if it was somehow uncouth for Democrats even to mention the Bush era and its legacy.


Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman

Go to Columnist Page »Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal
Related
Times Topic: George W. BushReaders' Comments
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Read All Comments (28) »
The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating. They always loved his policies and his governing style — and they want them back. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They've even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits.

But they have a problem: how can they embrace President Bush's policies, given his record? After all, Mr. Bush's two signature initiatives were tax cuts and the invasion of Iraq; both, in the eyes of the public, were abject failures. Tax cuts never yielded the promised prosperity, but along with other policies — especially the unfunded war in Iraq — they converted a budget surplus into a persistent deficit. Meanwhile, the W.M.D. we invaded Iraq to eliminate turned out not to exist, and by 2008 a majority of the public believed not just that the invasion was a mistake but that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into war. What's a Republican to do?

You know the answer. There's now a concerted effort under way to rehabilitate Mr. Bush's image on at least three fronts: the economy, the deficit and the war.

On the economy: Last week Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, declared that "there's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy." So now the word is that the Bush-era economy was characterized by "vibrancy."

I guess it depends on the meaning of the word "vibrant." The actual record of the Bush years was (i) two and half years of declining employment, followed by (ii) four and a half years of modest job growth, at a pace significantly below the eight-year average under Bill Clinton, followed by (iii) a year of economic catastrophe. In 2007, at the height of the "Bush boom," such as it was, median household income, adjusted for inflation, was still lower than it had been in 2000.

But the Bush apologists hope that you won't remember all that. And they also have a theory, which I've been hearing more and more — namely, that President Obama, though not yet in office or even elected, caused the 2008 slump. You see, people were worried in advance about his future policies, and that's what caused the economy to tank. Seriously. ... (NYT)

More here. Good read.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 04:03 PM

200

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 11:42 AM

Looking at this description of Obama's Energy Secretary in action I am struck by the contrast in competency demonstrated compared to the Bush years, when a fawning ineptitude was the order of the day.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 08:27 AM

Me thinks that Rigs is turning into a very bitter Obama hater, Amos... Any meds for those symptoms???

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 10 - 12:45 AM

And check your meds, dude...

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 10:13 PM

Pee in the cup, Rigs...

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: GUEST,Riginslinger
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 10:05 PM

Two years ago I thought nothing could be worse than George W. Bush, and then we got Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: mousethief
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 05:45 PM

I wouldn't trust Karl Rove to give me the time if I had just told him the time.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 04:29 PM

Courage and Consequence," by Karl Rove... And it's a darn good read!

AND its also 100% 24-karat bullshit!

For good fantasy literature Lloyd Alexander is a much better bet.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 10 - 03:55 PM

"Can somebody remind me how my tax dollars wound up going to pay 12-year-old Somali boys to walk around with rifles and, when circumstances seem to warrant it, kill people?

Oh, wait, it's all coming back — which is good, because the lessons go well beyond Somalia, and help explain why the war on terrorism hasn't gone well lately.

A guy my tax dollars were devoted to killing, back in 2006, is now the guy my tax dollars are devoted to arming as he fights guys we inadvertently helped empower.

Back in 2006, President George W. Bush supported and helped finance Ethiopia's military intervention in Somalia. The idea was to prop up a faltering Somali government and fend off an insurgent force called the Islamic Courts Union — even though observers warned that a) the I.C.U., by bringing order to long-chaotic parts of Somalia, had become more popular than the government we were backing; b) there were I.C.U. leaders who, by local Islamist standards, were moderate, so maybe we should try to work with them instead of kill them; c) backing a Christian government's armed intervention in a Muslim country wasn't the best way to win hearts and minds in the war on terrorism, and indeed might weaken those moderates within the I.C.U. and empower their radical rivals.

Sure enough, the American-Ethiopian intervention backfired. It wound up strengthening a radical wing of the I.C.U., which, under the name al-Shabaab, became the dominant insurgent group. In retrospect, the moderates in the I.C.U. looked pretty good, and the United States helped one of them, Sharif Sheik Ahmed, become head of the government that we continued to try to resuscitate.

So a guy my tax dollars were devoted to killing, back in 2006, is now the guy my tax dollars are devoted to arming as he fights guys we inadvertently helped empower. (And his operations seem not to be going very well.)"

R. Wright, NYT

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 26 Mar 10 - 06:09 PM

George Bush Junior once said that Wiccans shouldn't have religious
status in the military. I was pretty angry when I read that on a
Wicca website. I'm a polytheist who incorporates some Wicca elements.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 08:05 PM

A completely first-rate work of fantasy and fiction rolled into self-serving polemic.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: DougR
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 06:00 PM

For the absolutely best retrospective of the Bush Years, I would suggest that Mudcatters read, "Courage and Consequence," by Karl Rove. He has a front row seat. And it's a darn good read!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 10 - 02:43 PM

One of the important things Bush ignored is what he was unleashing on the minds of American men. Anyone who understood history (his major) would have seen this kind of story coming and if decent and responsible acted to prevent or avoid it altogether. The link goes to a short photo essay on the life and death of hero Joe Dwyer.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Mar 10 - 09:17 PM

At this point, even if it turned out well it would seem like a mistake. Was the question ever answered satisfactoraly: why did he do it?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 19 Mar 10 - 09:10 PM

Today is the 7th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the Iraq War.

There's a temptation as we begin to end our combat presence in Iraq to search for a happy ending. But there has been no 'victory' in Iraq. We created this video as a reminder of the damage done to Iraq and to our country over the last seven years.

Moreover, we know that there will be no economic recovery here at home as long as we're spending $100 billion a year on another war that isn't making us any safer - the war in Afghanistan.

That's why we're asking everyone to report the Afghanistan War as an example of waste, fraud and abuse on the White House's official economic recovery website, Recovery.gov, today. Simply scroll down to the field marked "What" and paste this message into the text box:

"I'd like to report the waste of billions of dollars of our national wealth in Afghanistan on a war that doesn't make us safer. It's fraud to portray this as a war that increases our security, and it's abusive of U.S. troops and local civilians to drag out this war any longer. End the war so we can have real economic recovery."

Thanks to Bush, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a massive waste of human life and treasure. Let's not let the Obama administration make the same mistake again in Afghanistan.

Video here

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 09:04 PM

nvestigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions Ñ involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery Ñ made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program.


Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes.

There have already been dozens of indictments and convictions for corruption since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the new cases seem to confirm what investigators have long speculated: that the chaos, weak oversight and wide use of cash payments in the reconstruction program in Iraq allowed many more Americans who took bribes or stole money to get off scot-free.

ÒIÕve had a continuing sense that there is ongoing fraud that we have not been able to nail down,Ó said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who leads the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent oversight agency. ÒThis spate of new cases is evidence that that sense was reasonably well placed.Ó

The cases were uncovered during the first phase of a new, systematic inquiry into financial activities, which investigators said began in earnest last summer. A related investigation of rebuilding funds for Afghanistan began in February.

Mr. BowenÕs office agreed to answer general questions on the new inquiry but declined to divulge the names of the suspects, who include private contractors, military officers and civilian officials.

Developed in the Treasury Department, the financial monitoring effort goes by the generic name of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, which continually generates data on suspicious financial transactions in support of more than 275 federal and state law enforcement agencies, according to a December report by the Government Accountability Office.

Stephen Hudak, a spokesman at the Treasury Department for Fincen, said it generated 15 million to 16 million reports a year on suspicious financial activity or major currency transactions, including cash deposits of more than $10,000. He said that transactions in banks, check-cashing outlets, wire services, casinos, stockbrokersÕ offices and insurance companies were covered. (NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 08:21 PM

Rig:

Maybe, maybe not. Will we embrace the doctrine of unilateral judgement on and invasion of other nations based solely on our misunderstandings of their conditions? Is that what he will go down in history for?


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 07:54 PM

BTW, Karl Rove wants you to buy his book... Says that Bush never so much as passed gas, that's how perfect he was as president...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 07:37 PM

If they end up with a functioning democracy in Iraq, Bush is going to look like a hero to future historians.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 10 Mar 10 - 06:01 PM

Oh, and about that war thing...--this video really captures the spirit of the times.



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 12:51 PM

AMazon.com Review:The People V. Bush: One Lawyer's Campaign to Bring the President to Justice and the National Grassroots Movement She Encounters Along the Way


Charlotte Dennett (Author)




"Charlotte Dennett--one of the gutsiest women in America--has written an energized, no-holds-barred account of her efforts to hold our leaders criminally accountable for shredding the Constitution. This is a woman who is not scared to call illegality by its true name and who believes in the rule of law the way the Founders intended. The 'accountability' movement deserves broad attention and deep support from across the political spectrum and this book is an unmissable part of its story."--Naomi Wolf, bestselling author of The End of America and Give Me Liberty

"Dennett's book describes, from the inside, the birth of a movement to hold top US officials to the rule of law. The eventual success of that movement will be furthered by the success of this remarkable book. Dennett has done us a great service, first by her work and now by her chronicling of it."--David Swanson, cofounder of AfterDowningStreet.org and author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union

"In November 2008, after an 18-month study, the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded, without dissent, that President Bush's Executive Memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002 'opened the door' to the use of torture techniques--crimes under U.S. and international law. And the corporate media yawned. I, for one, am grateful that Charlotte Dennett is not yawning. Although it has become a benighted view in Washington that everyone is accountable under the law, Dennett is in hot pursuit of criminals-in-chief and their cronies to bring them to justice. You ought to read this book."--Ray McGovern, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)



George Bush took America to war in Iraq on a lie, causing incalcuable death, horror, and suffering.

In this very important and consequential book, Charlotte Dennett, a true American patriot who has been on the front lines of trying to bring Bush to justice, informs all who care deeply about this country what has to be done so that it never happens again.--Vince Bugliosi, bestselling author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
Product Description
When journalist-turned-lawyer Charlotte Dennett became outraged that Bush White House officials were acting above the law, she did something that surprised even herself. She ran for a state attorney general seat on a platform to prosecute George W. Bush for murder. She lost the race, but found a movement—one that continues its quest to hold leaders accountable to U.S. law and preserve a Constitutional presidency.

In The People v. Bush, Dennett recounts her seminal effort to prosecute the former president, introduces readers to a world where the actions of a few can indeed empower the many, and reports on the current state of the movement to hold Bush accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Dennett's wild ride through politics began when she read The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by lawyer Vincent Bugliosi (best known for his prosecution of Charles Manson). In it, Bugliosi stated that one path to prosecuting George W. Bush could be taken by a state attorney general—should one take up the cause. Soon after, Dennett launched her attorney-general race in Vermont—a state known as much for its progressive edge as its pioneering spirit—signed up Bugliosi as her special prosecutor in the event that she won, and together the two made headlines across Vermont and the nation for changing the face of American grassroots democracy.

Dennett's book also explores the political triumphs of other Vermonters such as Kurt Daims, who imagined, with two human rights lawyers, Bush's arrest should he enter the town of Brattleboro; Dan DeWalt, who launched a call for impeachment in thirty-six towns; and Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, who received wide support—but also criticism—for his 9/11 Truth Commission. With these stories and her own, Dennett shows that it's not just possible but necessary to hold higher-ups responsible for heinous acts—not out of revenge, but to preserve justice.

..."

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 12:47 PM

From "Counterpunch" in January 2009, just as the Administration was being transferred:

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonfarm payroll employment declined by 3,445,000 from December 2007 through December 2008.

The collapse in employment is across the board.

Construction lost 520,000 jobs. Manufacturing lost 806,000 jobs. Trade, transportation and utilities lost 1,495,000 jobs (retail trade accounted for 1,120,000 of this loss). Financial activities lost 145,000 jobs. Professional and business services lost 713,000 jobs. Even government lost 188,000 jobs.

Only in health care and social assistance has the economy been able to eke out a few new jobs.

Many analysts believe the job losses will be as great or greater during 2009.

Moreover, the reported job losses are likely understated. Noted statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that biases in measurement have understated the job loss over the last 12 months by 1,150,000 jobs. Williams reports the unemployment rate as it was measured prior to "reforms" designed to minimize the measured rate of unemployment. According to the methodology used in 1980, the US unemployment rate in December 2008 reached 17.5 percent.

Yes, "our" government lies to us about economic statistics, just as it lies to us about "terrorists," "weapons of mass destruction," "building freedom and democracy in the Middle East," and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

An objective person would be hard pressed to find any statement made by the US government that is reliable.

The collapse of the job market means even harder times for last year's and this year's crops of college graduates. The offshoring of professional jobs and the widespread use by US corporations of H-1b, L-1, and other work visa programs for foreigners have left many recent American university graduates without careers.

Recently, Bill Gates of Microsoft was pleading with Congress to allow even more foreigners in on work visas. According to Gates, there is a shortage of American workers despite a 17.5 percent unemployment rate. I personally know American computer engineers, both seasoned and recent graduates, who cannot find jobs.

What Gates and American corporations want is cheap labor, in effect indentured servants, unprotected people who don't demand an American standard of living and who have no student loans to repay.

If Congress expands the work visas as US unemployment mounts, we will have one more piece of evidence that "our" representatives have no sympathy for the American people.

Where were America's leaders while the economy slipped over the precipice?

Our leaders were telling us lies in behalf of special interests into whose pockets Washington was pouring the taxpayers' money. Our leaders engineered wars that put billions of dollars into such disreputable pockets as Halliburton's, the firm of the American outlaw, Dick Cheney, and into Blackwater, supplier of the overpaid mercenaries that the Bush Regime uses to beef up its military force in Iraq. Some of the taxpayers' billions, of course, recycled into "our" representatives reelection campaign funds. "

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 10 - 10:02 AM

The original investigation found that the lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had committed "professional misconduct" in a series of memos starting in August 2002. First, they defined torture so narrowly as to make it almost impossible to accuse a jailer of torturing a prisoner, and they finally concluded that President Bush was free to ignore any law on the conduct of war.

The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility said appropriate bar associations should be asked to look at the actions of Mr. Yoo, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mr. Bybee, who was rewarded for his political loyalty with a lifetime appointment to the federal bench. It was a credible accounting, especially since some former officials, like Attorney General John Ashcroft, refused to cooperate and e-mails from Mr. Yoo were mysteriously missing.

But the more senior official, David Margolis, decided that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee only had shown "poor judgment" and should not be disciplined. Mr. Margolis did not dispute that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee mangled legal reasoning and produced work that ultimately was repudiated by the Bush administration itself. He criticized the professional responsibility office's investigation on procedural grounds and excused Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee by noting that everyone was frightened after Sept. 11, 2001, and that they were in a hurry.

Americans were indeed frightened after Sept. 11, and the Bush administration was in a great rush to torture prisoners. Responsible lawyers would have responded with extra vigilance, especially if, like Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee, they worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. When that office renders an opinion, it has the force of law within the executive branch. Poor judgment is an absurdly dismissive way to describe giving the green light to policies that have badly soiled America's reputation and made it less safe.

As the dealings outlined in the original report underscore, the lawyers did not offer what most people think of as "legal advice." Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee were not acting as fair-minded analysts of the law but as facilitators of a scheme to evade it. The White House decision to brutalize detainees already had been made. Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee provided legal cover.

We were glad that the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, Representative John Conyers Jr. and Senator Patrick Leahy, committed to holding hearings after the release of the Justice Department documents.

The attorney general, Eric Holder Jr., should expand the investigation into "rogue" interrogators he initiated last year to include officials responsible for facilitating torture. While he is at it, Mr. Holder should assign someone to look into the disappearance of Mr. Yoo's e-mails.

The American Bar Association should decide whether its rules are adequate for deterring and punishing ethical failures by government lawyers.

The quest for real accountability must continue. The alternative is to leave torture open as a policy option for future administrations.

NYT 2-25-10

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 11:15 AM

BERLIN — Two human rights groups released government flight logs Monday that showed aircraft linked to the Central Intelligence Agency's program for secretly detaining, moving and housing terrorism suspects had landed in Poland.


Polish authorities have long denied that the country hosted one of the "black sites," part of a network of clandestine overseas prisons where suspected prisoners from Al Qaeda were subjected to brutal interrogation methods under the C.I.A.'s so-called rendition program. Prosecutors in Poland are investigating the country's possible participation in the program.

The Polish Air Navigation Services Agency confirmed that it provided the flight logs to the two rights groups, the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. The logs showed six flights in 2003 by two aircraft, a Gulfstream V and a Boeing 737, five of which originated in Kabul, Afghanistan, and one in Rabat, Morocco, before landing at Szymany airport.

Former American intelligence officials have said that the chief plotter of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was interrogated at the secret base near Szymany airport after his capture in 2003, but the agency has refused confirm that. "The agency does not discuss publicly where facilities related to its past detention program may, or may not, have been located," said a C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano.

Adam Bodnar, head of the legal division at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, based in Warsaw, said that after years of anonymous reports, the flight records were the first official confirmation of the C.I.A. flights to Poland. "We are getting closer to the truth," he said.

"Of course Polish authorities may help the C.I.A. in the fight against terrorism, but they are bound by the Polish Constitution, which prohibits torture," Mr. Bodnar said.

The Polish government declined to comment on the contents of the rights groups' report. "The prosecutor's office is investigating the reports about the alleged use of the Szymany airport," said Piotr Paszkowski, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Robert Majewski, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation, told the Polish news agency PAP on Monday that he did not expect the investigation "to end soon."

C.I.A. officials have said that fewer than 100 prisoners were kept in the secret prisons between the creation of the program in 2002 and the transfer of the remaining 14 prisoners to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba in 2006.

Maciej Rodak, vice president of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency, confirmed that the agency had sent the records to the human rights groups. He said that the agency could not provide passenger lists, which the groups had also requested.

"The thing that is quite shocking is that the European investigations requested these specific flight records some four years ago," said Darian Pavli, a lawyer with the Open Society Justice Initiative, a human rights group in New York. "The Poles all these years said they could not locate them, the flights didn't exist."

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 10 - 07:08 PM

Wall Street's Bailout Hustle Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren't
just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy -
they're re-creating the conditions for another crash

Rolling Stone report

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 11:41 AM

Well, I have said before that you are ignoring the differences. Bush was a cartoon, militaristic adventurer who ran up huge debts and sought no means of confronting them except undermining Social Security while enabling the very people who would doom his privitization efforts to failure. He was an anti-constitutionalist and an anti-intellectual, anti-science dry-alky dumkopf. Obama is none of these, for whatever faults he may have.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 10:58 AM

" The guy trying to take responsibility for the tough issues is SUCH an easy target for nabobs and natterers"

And when the guy was Bush, and YOU the nabob/natterer?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 10:44 AM

All this shamecasting is silly, anyway. The White House does not "keep saying it is doing what BUsh did". Apparently some of Bush's policies are being continued, but I haven't seen the WH say it is doing what Bush did. And it really requires specifics to be able to even think about what you might be trying to say instead of the frenetic assertions about general conditions with no granularity to them.

If some conservatives criticize a policy that is a continuation of what Bush did, when they did not criticize it coming from Bush, the question deserves to be asked why it seems different now. The obvious conclusion is they are motivated not by what they see, but by their political ambitions.

As for me being hypocritical, the number of times I did NOT comment on some stupidity by the Bush administration exceeds by orders of magnitude the number of times I did. Obama hasn't gotten a tenth of the passes I gave those guys. Give Obama eight years and THEN count them up, eh?

Finally, in case you haven't noticed, things are gradually getting better under Obama's guidance despite the chaos that was left at his doorstep a year ago.

Chill out. Be easy. Heal.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 10:23 AM

Bruce, you better leave my damn D-35 out of this, is all I can say.

The notion that a certain per cent of an ill-defined wad of folks have a bad opinion about Obama is scarcely news.

I'd like to see more positive suggestions from you and Sawz. The guy trying to take responsibility for the tough issues is SUCH an easy target for nabobs and natterers.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 10:14 AM

"The CNN poll, conducted Feb. 12-15, has a three percent margin of error."

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/16/rel4a.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 09:56 AM

Amos,

I posted this:

CNN poll: 52% say Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012

By Michael O'Brien - 02/16/10 01:35 PM ET

52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.

44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.

Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.

The reelection numbers are slightly more sour than Obama's approval ratings, which are basically tied. 49 percent of people told CNN that they approve of the way Obama is handling his job, while 50 percent disapprove.



If you think CNN is dubious, yet accept the NYT as gospel, I have to wonder if it is safe for you to have a D-35- it deserves better.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 09:31 AM

My bitterness at the obvious bigotry here that applies one standard to a conservative, and another, different one to a liberal.

The present White House keeps saying that the conservatives are unfair to critisize Obama, since he is doing what Bush did- YET the Left is silent. So, Obama is saying he is acting as Bush did, and YOU keep silent.

Shame, shame, shame.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 09:27 AM

Your bitterness is showing, Bruce.

Sawz' statistics are unatrributed and IMO very dubious. There's no indication how many people from where were asked what. Without atttribution he could have pulled them out of his ass. HE ignores the fact that 97% of the people in a recent poll felt Obama was "doing better than Bush at leading the country."

The facts are that Bush's eight years left this country on the brink of ruin. Obama's year so far as seen it come back from that brink, though not out of the woods.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 08:08 AM

Or is that only when they disagree with you, Herr Ubermensch?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 08:07 AM

Bobert,

"Garbage in, garbage out... "


Obviously. Just look at whom those voters put in office this last presidential election. If you want to call them all stupid and racist, there is the proof.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 07:51 AM

Garbage in, garbage out...

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Sawzaw
Date: 17 Feb 10 - 12:34 AM

62% blamed Obama, Wall Street & Congress.

31% blamed GWB The Jury is 1 to 2 in favor of Bush.

Feb. 12-15, 2010
Do you think Barack Obama deserves to be reelected, or not?

                                   All    Registered
                                Americans   Voters
  Yes, deserves reelection         44%       44%
  No, does not deserve reelection  52%       52%
  
  

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Charley Noble
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 08:19 PM

The best thing about this thread is its title.

The "Bush Years" are in retrospect.

Someone probably has already pointed that out.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 03:48 PM

Many Americans understand that former President George W. Bush and his Republican administration played a major role in creating the nation's current financial mess..,. 31 percent faulted the Bush administration.

31%??? Gimmie a fu$king break. Who do they think is responsible? The Klingons?

Oh ye generation of morons. Abandon hope all ye who enter here

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 08:06 AM

I am not surprised that there are so many defections from Congress a year after Bush... He played class warfare for 8 years pitting stupid people against educated and intellegent people... It has really set into the culture in Congress... It's no wonder that so many people have had enough...

I mean, whereever you look there is wreckage from the Bush administration but perhaps none worse, other than his dumbass wars, that has been so damaging to the country as Bush's massive efforts to be the "Divider"... I mean, every time he was given a chance to be the "Uniter" he passed and went straight ot "Divider"... That will a good portion of his legacy... He broke the governemnt in more ways than one...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 03:11 AM

Demagoguery seems to be the right word.

By the way, you need to update your figures.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Sawzaw
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 01:05 AM

So that means only 31% blame Bush and 62% did not blame Bush.

I guess this means Bush is off the hook.

Is this why Obama's job approval is at 46%?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 01:54 PM

Americans point finger of shame at George W. Bush
By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist

Here's some encouraging news: Many Americans understand that former President George W. Bush and his Republican administration played a major role in creating the nation's current financial mess.

In fact, a new poll shows the Obama administration is held far less responsible by the American people -- despite months of demagoguery by the GOP.

As part of a longer series of questions, The New York Times/CBS News poll asked this:

"Who do you blame most for the economy?"

-- 31 percent faulted the Bush administration.

-- only 7 percent faulted Obama and his administration.

The other causes lined up pretty much as you would think, with Wall Street being blamed by 23 percent of respondents, Congress by 13 percent and all of them by 19 percent.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bush Years In Retrospect
From: mousethief
Date: 20 Jan 10 - 09:27 PM

If you can't answer a man's argument, make fun of his spelling and pretend that's the same thing.

O..O
=o=