BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:48 PM

A German Journalist named Dirk Laabs, writing for the Los Angeles Times in an editorial entitled "A Dwarf Known as Al Qaeda" suggests that the far-reaching and terrifying arm of organized militant Muslimism founded by Osama Bin Laden may be something of a bogeyman, or a paper tiger.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:53 PM

In spite of this so called mandate only 44% of the American people think we're on the right course with 52% saying the wrong course...

No, I ain't into polls all that much but lets just set this mandate crap aside fir now. Okay?....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:59 PM

Opie:

You're a piece of work, for sure. The title of the thread and my repeated posts over and over and over have made it clear what this thread is about. Read the title at the head of every post in it. And get yer darned ole meds adjusted, wouldja? Yer putting out slime again.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Calhoun
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:00 PM

Bush begins another push for intel reform

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Andy
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:19 PM

Bush's job approval rating has now inched up to 51 percent, the highest it has been since March, the New York Times/CBS poll found.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:27 PM

Yeah, but polls are also saying that 52% think America is on the wrong track??? Only 44% say it's on the right track...

Sooner or later, being liked will be trumped by policy...

Bush cannot continue to think that he can continue stupid policy can be covered by his life-of-the-frat-party-likabaility...

Remember that prior to 9/11 he had the lowest approval ratings in the last 50 years...

The American working class is getting a royal scrwing from Bush and will figure it out sometime in the nest 4 years and then it will be the end of Repub *rule*.....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:33 PM

Polling Data

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

        
          Nov. 2004 Oct. 2004

Approve      51%          45%

Disapprove   43%          47%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the economy?

           Nov. 2004 Oct. 2004

Approve      45%         40%

Disapprove   50%         53%

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:11 AM

Canadians Authorities Arrest U.S. President Bush On War Charges
By Paul K. J.
Nov 30, 2004, 19:22


(Excerpted from Axis of Logic)

Canadian authorities have arrested US president George W. Bush in Ottawa. He has been charged with several offences under Canada's War Crimes Act. Vice-President Dick Cheney has mobilized the American military and all border crossings between the two nations have closed. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has urged for calm in a short radio and television broadcast to the Canadian people immediately after the arrest. Part of the Prime Minister's broadcast is included here: 

"This decision was not made lightly. But, it was also a decision that was impossible not to make. The United States is not outside the rule of law, and cannot expect to get an unlimited "free pass". This decision puts a grave strain upon both our nations, and I urge calm and restraint from our American neighbours, as well as from Canadians. I have met with the cabinet, and with our colleagues in the House. This is a time of great crisis for us as a nation. But as people, we will survive this test. Earlier I enacted the Emergency War Powers Act. This is necessary to guarantee our domestic security. This is not a time for panic, for lawlessness, for anything other than a responsible and sobre focus on what lies immediately ahead." 

Prime Minister Martin also said, "President Bush has been arrested under the Canadian War Crimes Act and the charges against him are being processed. He is being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention and he will be treated fairly." 

(Click link for a picture of Dumbya in a penal jumpsuit!)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 01:09 AM

Ah Amos, if only.


..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 01:17 AM

Thought Wernher von Braun passed away in the late 1970s.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 08:22 AM

This guy has the same opinions as Amos:

"Despite entering the fourth year after September 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:15 PM

So, Bobert, you BELIEVE polls when they reflect what YOU believe. Interesting.

Werner: don't bother these folks with facts, they are followers of fantasy.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:16 PM

While we still can ....


1. Drink a nice clean glass of water.

2. Cash your social security check.

3. See a doctor of your own choosing.

4. Spend quality time with your draft age child/grandchild.

5. Visit Syria, or any foreign country for that matter.

6. Get that gas mask you've been putting off buying.

7. Hoard gasoline.

8. Borrow books from library before they're banned - Constitutional law
books, Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, Tropic of Cancer, etc.

9. If you have an idea for an art piece involving a crucifix - do it now.

10. Come out - then go back in - HURRY!

11. Jam in all the Alzheimer's stem cell research you can.

12. Stay out late before the curfews start.

13. Go see Bruce Springsteen before he has his "accident."

14. Go see Mount Rushmore before the Reagan addition.

15. Use the phrase -- "you can't do that -- this is America."

16. If you're white -- marry a black person, if you're black -- marry a
white person.

17. Take a walk in Yosemite, without being hit by a snowmobile or a
base-jumper.

18. Enroll your kid in an accelerated art or music class.

19. Start your school day without a prayer.

20. Pass on the secrets of evolution to future generations.

21. Learn French.

22. Attend a commitment ceremony with your gay friends.

23. Take a factory tour anywhere in the US.

24. Try to take photographs of animals on the endangered species list.

25. Visit Florida before the polar ice caps melt.

26. Visit Nevada before it becomes radioactive.

27. Visit Alaska before "The Big Spill."

28. Visit Massachusetts while it is still a State.

---

"It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely." H.L. Mencken

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:31 PM

Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo) argues that events in Iraq have violated all
international norms.

Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo) says the Japanese public wants its
troops removed from Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 06:44 PM

From the Seattle Times:

Bush to dramatically reduce areas protected for salmon

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter


Critical habitat for West Coast salmon and steelhead


The Bush administration plans to reduce by more than 80 percent the miles of rivers and streams it designates as critical to the recovery of troubled Northwest runs of salmon and steelhead, and plans to cut such habitat protections at the region's military bases.

The administration also will study whether it should scale back similar protections on thousands of additional miles of streams protected under the Northwest Forest Plan, which imposed logging restrictions on federal land to help bring back spotted owls.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 08:55 PM

The NY Times reports: Congress Trims Money for Science Agency

November 30, 2004
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - Congress has cut the budget for the
National Science Foundation, an engine for research in
science and technology, just two years after endorsing a
plan to double the amount given to the agency.
Supporters of scientific research, in government and at
universities, noted that the cut came as lawmakers
earmarked more money for local projects like the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Punxsutawney Weather
Museum in Pennsylvania.
David M. Stonner, director of Congressional affairs at the
science foundation, said on Monday that the reduction might
be just the beginning of a period of austerity. Congress,
Mr. Stonner said, told the agency to expect "a series of
flat or slightly declining budgets for the next several
years." (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:40 PM

From the New York Times opinions section:

To the Editor:

Re "Flush With Victory, Grass-Roots Crusader Against Same-Sex Marriage Thinks Big" (news article, Nov. 26):

Phil Burress, whose support is viewed as having been crucial to President Bush's narrow victory in Ohio, claims that he is "building an army" in his grass-roots crusade against same-sex marriages. Yet he clearly underestimates the millions upon millions of Americans who oppose his medieval, narrow-minded definition of morality.

As an American who cherishes the existence of individual rights, I would gladly sacrifice all I have to fight Mr. Burress's army every step of the way on principle alone.

Defeating such political campaigns is critical to America's sacraments of freedom of thought, choice and, yes, lifestyle.

Patrick Prince
Stratford, Conn., Nov. 27, 2004

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:53 PM

Nah, Dougie, I really don't put a lot of faith in polls but since folks seem so poll driven, I'll throw one into the mix now and then...But, nah, they don't mean a lot becuase they can be so skillfully manipulated...

But, not so skillfully manipulated, tomorrrow the United Nations is going to release a report that is the work of a 16 member panel that is very critical of the Bush invasion of Iraq saying that Bush didn't hold war as the last resort and rushed into the invasion wreaklessly....

Stay tuned for that report...

Oh, Btw, a British health orgainization, Medact, has alsoissues a report that states becuase of the invasion very serious health issues are now facing the Iraqi population... Ohter than bullets and depleted uranium...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Zack
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:24 PM

Bush Picks Up Minority Visibility

CBS NEWS NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2004

former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, D- Ill., the second of only three popularly elected black U.S. senators:

President Bush has empowered minorities as never before with his Cabinet picks.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:32 PM

A rose by any other name is still a rose... Not too sure who penned that but the converse is also true...

Picking minority folks who don't in anyway represent their minorities is a slap in the face to minorities...

Uncle Tom by any other name is still Uncle Tom...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Kingfish
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 10:55 PM

Jerusalem Post
Dec. 1, 2004 22:31

President Bush to meet King Abdullah in WashingtonBush will meet Jordan's King Abdullah on Monday in Washington to discuss Middle East developments and bilateral issues, the White House announced.

"The President looks forward to the opportunity to review regional and bilateral issues with the King of Jordan, who plays a key role in the search for stability in Iraq and for Middle East peace, and has been a staunch ally in the international fight against terrorism.

Da Kingfish

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:15 PM

An excerpt from the sloppy link above:

Continuing Republican efforts to reshape the face of the GOP, President Bush tapped the only Hispanic head of a Fortune 500 company on Monday as the new commerce secretary.

Mr. Bush is hoping to reach out to demographic groups long in the Democratic camp by appointing minorities to key Cabinet posts, according to political analysts.

So far, the three most visible vacancies in the administration have gone to non-whites. Kellogg Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carlos Gutierrez would join National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales in what is becoming a minority-led Cabinet.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would replace Colin Powell as America's chief diplomat. Gonzales would replace John Ashcroft as attorney general. And Gutierrez would replace Donald Evans in the Commerce Department.

---

I don't believe leopards change their spots; I am skeptical about stupid people suddenly getting smart, although they can get better managed. But regardless of those reservations, I am all in favor of having a Cabinet with a dominant portion of minorities in it. So well done on that token representation. Now if he could just stop killing Arabs at such a mad rate.....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Lightnin'
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:52 PM

Ise tryin' Amos

Bush Signs Bill for Nev. Wilderness Area

President Bush has signed into law a measure creating what conservationists say will be the largest piece of federally protected wilderness in Nevada - an area about half the size of the state of Delaware.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 07:14 PM

From the New York Review of Books:

The American Press and Iraq


By Michael Massing
Preface by Orville Schell



Michael Massing describes the American press coverage of the war in Iraq as "the unseen war," an ironic reference given the number of reporters in Iraq and in Doha, Qatar, the location of the Coalition Media Center with its $250,000 stage set. He argues that a combination of self-censorship, lack of real information given by the military at briefings, boosterism, and a small number of reporters familiar with Iraq and fluent in Arabic deprived the American public of reliable information while the war was going on.


Massing also is highly critical of American press coverage of the Bush administration's case for war prior to the invasion of Iraq:


US journalists were far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the administration. Those with dissenting views—and there were more than a few—were shut out. Reflecting this, the coverage was highly deferential to the White House. This was especially apparent on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction .... Despite abundant evidence of the administration's brazen misuse of intelligence in this matter, the press repeatedly let officials get away with it.


Once Iraq was occupied and no WMDs were found, the press was quick to report on the flaws of pre-war intelligence. But as Massing's detailed analysis demonstrates, pre-war journalism was also deeply flawed, as too many reporters failed to independently evaluate administration claims about Saddam's weapons programs or the inspection process. The press's postwar "feistiness" stands in sharp contrast to its "submissiveness" and "meekness" before the war—when it might have made a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 07:30 PM

From the New Tork Times Editorial Section:

This is a time when we really need a strong Treasury secretary capable of
speaking up for fiscal sanity. We are about to embark on a 10-year period in
which recent tax cuts and runaway spending are expected to add $5 trillion
to the cumulative deficit. In my lifetime we will have gone from the
Greatest Generation to the Profligate Generation to the Bankrupt Generation.
Yes, I'm talking to you 20-year-olds. President Bush has called for
sacrifice - but not by his generation. He's passing the bill onto your
generation.

"The 9/11 crisis has been used as a license to spend and cut taxes rather
than to set priorities and focus our resources on what is critically
important to our nation's security," said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of
Goldman Sachs International.

And Congress has played right along, as have people like Josh Bolton,
Stephen Friedman and Gregory Mankiw - Mr. Bush's key White House economic
advisers. "You know that all these guys know better," said Clyde Prestowicz,
head of the Economic Strategy Institute.

There have been lots of strong Republican and Democratic Treasury
secretaries in recent years: George Shultz, Nick Brady, Jim Baker, Bob
Rubin, Larry Summers. But right when we really need one with common sense
and the will to set priorities, all indications are that this White House is
looking for someone even weaker than Mr. Snow.

David Rothkopf, a former Clinton Commerce Department official who just wrote
a history of the National Security Council, said that President Bush is
obviously "seeking consensus and homogeneity. But the system works better
when the president gets choices. If everyone is on the same page and it
turns out to be the wrong page - you're really up a creek."

The very reason Mr. Bush had the luxury of launching a war of necessity in
Afghanistan and a war of choice in Iraq, without a second thought, was
because of the surpluses built up by the previous administration and
Congress. Since then, the Bush team has been slashing taxes in the middle of
two wars, weakening the dollar and amassing a huge debt burden - on the
implicit assumption that nothing will go wrong in the future.

But what if there is another 9/11 or war of necessity? We're cooked.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 07:31 PM

Letters to the Times:

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman is right that it is now "crunch time" in Iraq ("The Last
Mile," column, Nov. 28). Sadly, it's unlikely that the Bush administration
will undergo an 11th-hour humility transplant and finally get it.

President Bush's entire Iraq policy, such as it is, has been based on
wishful thinking at best, coupled with an utter inability to accept
responsibility for or even admit the most obvious mistakes.

Our credibility is well and truly shot in Iraq. Our soldiers are under
attack almost everywhere. American troops, brave and well meaning as most of
them are, contribute to the instability that they are seeking to reduce by
their very presence as unwelcome occupiers.

If we actually care about Iraq, we will approach the international community
and admit the obvious - we don't know what to do - and ask the United
Nations, as unappealing as that may be, to direct the security and
nation-building in Iraq. It's the only way out.

Ross Jennings
Redmond, Wash., Nov. 28, 2004

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 07:32 PM

Speaking of the Weimar Republic, here's a commenrtary from the Washington, D.C., depiddy bureau chief for Slate:

The question the Post asked in 1993-what in the world is political capital,
anyway?-still hasn't been answered satisfactorily. Why, for example, didn't
Bill Clinton have capital to spend on health care, in Bush's view, but he
had some to spend elsewhere, apparently? Does any other kind of capital have
restrictions on where and how it can be used? Edward J. López, an economist
at the University of North Texas, delineated two types of political capital
in a 2002 paper for the Review of Austrian Economics: "reputational"
capital, a politician's "standing with voters and other unorganized
interests," and "representative" capital, which includes the powers that
stem from a politician's office. But Bush doesn't mean anything that
rigorous. In fact, he'd probably scoff at the idea. He just uses it as a
substitute for the goodwill that an election gives an executive with the
legislature, and he probably likes the way it paints him as a CEO-president.

The president doesn't have any capital, and he knows it. Like a citizen of
Weimar Germany, he has a wheelbarrow full of hyper-inflating cash that has
to be spent before it becomes worthless. "Political Confederate dollars"
doesn't have quite the ring of "political capital," but it's a better
metaphor. Any takers?


Chris Suellentrop is Slate's deputy Washington bureau chief. You can e-mail
him at [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Homey
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 01:26 AM

Bush Picks Kerik for Homeland Security Job
Thu Dec 2, 2004 09:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has picked as his homeland security secretary former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who helped the city respond to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and trained Iraqi police, administration officials said.

HTC

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:25 AM

This is presented as a real story at this site:

Rumsfeld, et. al. Charged with War Crimes in Germany
By Special Report
Dec 1, 2004, 01:16

Rumsfeld Charged with War Crimes
by DowneastDem
Mon Nov 29th, 2004 at 11:48:53 PST

Reuters in Germany is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenant and eight other unnamed US officials will be charge with war crimes in connection with the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.  The charges are being filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

"German law in this area is leading the world," Peter Weiss, vice president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights group, was quoted as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper's Tuesday edition.

German law allows for individuals charged with war crimes to be investigated whereever they may be living.

Evidently the complaint is over 100 pages, and the Frankfuter Rundschau will be reporting on it in its Tuesday edition. More info should be available shortly.

Diaries :: DowneastDem's diary ::

Update: The newspaper has some documentation on the charges (for German Readers). Besides Rumsfeld the following individuals have been charged with war crimes: 1. George Tenant 2. Ricard Sanchez 3.Major General Walter Wojdakowski 4. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski 5. Lt. Jerry L. Phillabaum 6. Thomas Pappas 7. Stephen L. Jordan 8. Maj. General Geoffrey Miller 9. and Undersec'y of State Stephen Cambone (this last name is especially welcome).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/29/144853/38

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:28 AM

Nat Hentoff on the appointment of Alberto Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft:

Worse Than Ashcroft
By Nat Hentoff
Dec 1, 2004, 22:00




His sharp intellect and sound judgment have helped shape our policies on the war on terror, policies designed to protect the security of all Americans while protecting the rights of all Americans. —George W. Bush, announcing the appointment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, The New York Times, November 11






The American people expect and deserve a Department of Justice guided by the rule of law. —Alberto Gonzales, accepting the nomination, The New York Sun, November 11






When you encounter a person who is willing to twist the law . . . even though for perhaps good reasons, you have to say you're really undermining the law itself. —Jim Cullen, retired chief judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals, referring to Alberto Gonzales, National Public Radio, November 11






I do not approve of filibustering presidential nominees, no matter who is president, because the Constitution, along with the Federalist Papers, makes clear that the whole Senate is to give advice and consent to these presidential nominees. But if I were a senator, I would be sorely tempted to filibuster Alberto Gonzales. The Democrats, still shell-shocked by their second loss to Bush, and by the size of the Hispanic vote for the president, are not likely to filibuster Gonzales. But since Gonzales will be more dangerous to our liberties than Ashcroft, I will begin here to show how low the standards have become for the chief law enforcement officer of the nation. Maybe at least the American Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York will stand up against Gonzales.


I must credit National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg, an experienced analyst of constitutional law and a reporter who never stops digging to get to the core of Gonzales's ominous record as White House counsel. On November 11, she pointed out: "Gonzales was responsible for developing the administration's policies on the treatment of prisoners; for developing a new definition of torture to allow more aggressive questioning of prisoners. He developed the policy that allowed the indefinite detention of American citizens deemed to be enemy combatants without [being charged] or [having] access to counsel. . . . The Supreme Court, though, rejected that [Gonzales] theory . . .

"Top legal brass in the army, air force, and navy say that Gonzales deliberately left them out of developing policy on the treatment of prisoners because he knew they would oppose."

On November 10, Totenberg quoted retired general Jim Cullen of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals, who says Gonzales directly contradicted established military and international law. He added that Gonzales realized that "the Judge Advocate Generals Corps would never sanction departures from the Geneva Conventions or engaging in practices that the common man would regard as torture." (Emphasis added.)

Says the Senate Judiciary Committee's clueless attack dog in these matters, Charles Schumer, about Gonzales: "I can tell you already he's a better candidate than John Ashcroft."

There's a lot more about Alberto Gonzales that will prepare you for what to expect for the next four years from the Justice Department. In a January 2002 memorandum to George W. Bush, he emphasized that this new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Gonzales also told George W. Bush that in denying these "detainees"—many of them now held at Guantánamo for nearly three years without charges—prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions, the president didn't have to worry about being held accountable by the courts. As commander in chief, his actions were unreviewable.

Said the Supreme Court, in June, concerning the accuracy of the advice from the next attorney general of the United States about deep-sixing U.S. citizens, "We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of [American] citizens." And the Court also ruled he was wrong about the noncitizen prisoners at Guantánamo.

Alberto Gonzales, moreover, will not in the least disturb John Aschroft's beloved USA Patriot Act, because Gonzales helped write it, and he wholly agrees with his patron, the president, that nothing in it should be changed despite the act's "sunset clause" that allows Congress to review sections of the act by December 2005.

As the February 11 Financial Times reports, Gonzales, as counsel to the president, worked "to bar top White House officials from testifying before the commission that investigated the September 11 attacks." Nor has Gonzales shown any interest in an investigation of the accountability of leading administration officials, including their compliant lawyers, for the egregious abuses of the Abu Ghraib prisoners, to which Gonzales contributed.

Bluntly, an editorial in Financial Times (not a notably radical newspaper) says of Gonzales: "As well as being a longtime personal friend of the president, he is publicly associated with discussion within the administration of how to sidestep national as well as international constraints on the use of torture in interrogation in the prison camp at Guantánamo."

If there ever is an honest investigation of who is ultimately responsible for what happened there and at Abu Ghraib, Mr. Gonzales might well be in the dock, along with Donald Rumsfeld and a number of the defense secretary's closest aides.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:30 AM

Activists Crawl Through Web to Untangle US Secrecy
By William Fisher
Nov 30, 2004, 20:22

NEW YORK - To combat the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy, U.S. citizens have been forced to unearth new sources for information they once read in their daily newspapers. But thanks to a few dedicated individuals and not-for-profit groups – and the Internet – such material is easier to come by than ever before.

(Detailed story on this page


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:34 AM

From Robert Schier writing for the LA Times, some insight into our hypocritical couch-bound "moral values" as they are sometimes called:

Robert Scheer:
The Invisible Hand Holds the Remote


What does it mean that a whopping 70% of Americans, according to a recent New York Times-CBS News poll, believe that mass culture is responsible for debasing our moral values? It means, if the poll is accurate, that we are a nation of lascivious hypocrites. In fact, the lure of sin, as represented by Hollywood and the entertainment industry, is as tempting to Americans today as apples ever were to Adam and Eve.

Whether in Utah, Georgia or New York, the TV ratings show that we are choosing the equivalent of fast-food entertainment over quality programming. Sex and violence sell well everywhere; high culture does not. So the entertainment titans keep dishing up more of the same.

The top two shows in the nation right now are a grisly crime serial and a cynical and sex-soaked demolition of life in the suburbs, and both are beloved in both red states and blue.(...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:39 AM

Mister Scheer has a number of other lucid essays on file at the LA Times, including this one on the peculiar results the Bush policies in Afghanistan have achieved:

"The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is slowly becoming a reality," said the executive director of the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa. "Opium cultivation, which has spread like wildfire … could ultimately incinerate everything: democracy, reconstruction and stability."

Costa's office has just released a slew of discouraging numbers that lay out in numbing detail how Afghanistan's opium production has soared in the last year to an all-time high. The raw form of heroin is now the staple crop in every province, while in just one year the area under poppy cultivation has increased 64%. The country produces 87% of the world's opium, and one out of 10 Afghans is employed by the illicit industry, according to the alarming U.N. report.

Of course, brandishing quotes from the U.N. doesn't sit well with isolationist yahoos. So, for them, here are highlights from the White House's own Office of National Drug Control Policy report, which Friday painted an even darker picture: "Current [Afghan opium] cultivation levels equate to a … 239% increase in the poppy crop and a 73% increase in potential opium production over 2003 estimates" — a sixfold increase in the three years since the Taliban was driven from Kabul.

No matter whom you listen to, then, the drug war in Afghanistan is a bust. Unfortunately, both the U.N. and the White House have repeatedly said the drug war and the war on terror are nearly synonymous, especially in Afghanistan, where drug money has long directly and indirectly aided and abetted extremists such as Al Qaeda.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 08:22 AM

The Center for Constitutional Rights, based in NYC, is behind the filing of charges with the German government, against Donald Rumsfeld and five others for war crimes.

The CCR's website is here. An interesting group with a lot of courage.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 08:25 AM

In Response to Federal Judge's Hypothetical Questions U.S. Says Wide Range of
Innocents Could Be Enemy Combatants under Government's Definition



Washington, D.C. December 1, 2004 – In a remarkable and revealing answer to a hypothetical question from Federal District Court Judge Joyce H. Greene, a U.S. attorney today said that people ranging from a Swiss Grandmother who unknowingly gave funds to an Afghan charity that passed the money on to Al-Qaeda, to a man who thinks his brother might be associated with terrorists and doesn't' turn him in, could be jailed indefinitely as enemy combatants at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 

The question came in the context of today's arguments before Judge Greene on whether ten Habeas Corpus petitions brought on behalf of men detained at Guantánamo should be dismissed.  The U.S. argues that the Combatant Review Status Tribunals (CRST) initiated by the Government provide the detainees with sufficient due process to fulfill the mandate of the Supreme Court's ruling last spring. Lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) say that the Supreme Court made clear those detainees have a right to proper judicial review of their status and that the CRST do not even come close to meeting the standard set.

CCR Associate Legal Director for Litigation, Barbara Olshansky, who argued a portion of the case before Judge Greene said, "The Government showed its true colors today: if under this definition of enemy combatant a Swiss granny who gave money to charity can be detained indefinitely at Guantánamo, then anyone who unintentionally acts in a way the government finds suspicious is in danger of losing their freedom.  The Administration's position gives too much power to the government to lock people up without having to justify its actions.  It's an affront to a free and democratic society and another example of just how far they will try to overstep their authority. We sincerely hope their views do not prevail."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 11:27 AM

Just how bad is this going to get? And why wasn't I even shocked when I read this?


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20041203/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_detainees

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 04:35 PM

Also of note: Never seen such a dramatic ratio of resignations. WHat is really going
on???

Ashcroft (Justice) Resigned
Powell (State) Resigned
Veneman (Agriculture) Resigned
Don Evans (Commerce) Resigned
Paige (Education) Resigned
Spencer Abraham (Energy) Resigned
Ridge (Homeland Security) Resigned
Mel Martinez (HUD) Resigned last December
John Danforth, AMbassador to the UNited Nations Resigned
Tommy Thompson (Health and Human Services) Resigned.

That's a significant portion of the Bush cadre.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 05:48 PM

Anybody got a good recipe for Corn Pone? I know that's a bit off the subject of the thread, but since it appears Amos is bound and determined to dig up every negative item he can locate about Bush, and make that the centerpiece of the BS threads on Mudcat, it occurred to me that whilst not looking up refrences to cut and paste into the Mudcat, somebody might have a good recipe for Corn Porn.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 06:36 PM

"Corn Porn", Dougie???...

I've heard of kinky things some folks do with animinals but now the plant kingdom better beware...

Needl4ess to say, I can't help you with a recipe...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:05 PM

Gee, Doug, I had no idea anyone thought this thread was a centerpiece! Thanks so much for the honor--perhaps your conscience is more awake than I suspected, I apologize!

Mollie Ivins, who is syndcated among other places to the Scarament Bee writes in an article called"So Much for Moral Values", about the brave Republicans in our Congress:

AUSTIN, Texas -- My, my, gonna be a long four years.
House Republicans have rewritten the ethics rules so Tom DeLay won't have to
resign if indicted after all. Let's hear it for moral values. DeLay is one
of the leading forces in making "Republican ethics" into an oxymoron.


The rule was passed in 1993, when Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the
powerful Ways and Means Committee, was being investigated for ethics
violations. And who helped lead the floor fight to force him to resign his
powerful position? Why, Tom DeLay, of course. (Actually, it's sort of a
funny story. The D's already had a caucus rule that you had to resign from
any leadership position if indicted. The R's changed their rules to match
the D's, except they deliberately did not make their rule retroactive, so
the highly indicted Rep. Joseph McDade, senior Republican on the House
Appropriations Committee, could, unlike Rostenkowski, retain his seat.)
DeLay has already been admonished by the House ethics committee three times
on separate violations of ethics rules. Please note, that is the
Republican-dominated ethics committee. The hilarious rationale offered by
the R's for the new rule to exempt DeLay is that no one can accuse them of
taking the moral low road here because, "That line of reasoning accepts that
exercise of the prosecutor in Texas is legitimate."

Uh, that would Ronnie Earle of Austin, who is a known Democrat. One the
other hand, Earle is quite noted for having indicted more Democratic
officeholders than Republicans, so it's a little hard to argue that this is
a partisan political probe. Or it would be, if facts made any difference
these days to talk-show screamers.

Showing his usual keen sense of ethics, DeLay has already started a legal
defense fund and raised $310,000 since last summer. According to the Austin
American-Statesman, half the money has come from Republican House members,
who are all dependent on the Republican Steering Committee for their
committee assignments and chairmanships.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:09 PM

She (Molly Ivins) also has some very incisive and telling things to point out concerning the hypocrisy and general slime being practiced by our elected representatives, in this story also from the Bee.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:30 PM

"On January 20, thousands of people will be lining the inaugural parade route with signs and banners calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush. That is a fitting way to start the first day of the next term. Members of ImpeachBush.org/VoteToImpeach.org are supporting this effort by direct organizing or by helping defray the enormous expenses for the demonstration. But we don't have to wait to get the word out.

Many people are using the Impeach Bush Resource Center to give friends, families, neighbors, and loved ones socially meaningful holiday gifts while spreading the word about the growing impeachment movement. Click here to check out the Impeach Bush Resource Center site. By making your holiday selections at the Resource Center, you can know that your purchases go to support the impeachment movement.

Available are baseball caps, t-shirts, sweatshirts, bumper stickers and lawn signs calling to Impeach Bush and reading "Bush Lied. Thousands Died." "Save the Bill of Rights" and more."

http://www.ImpeachBush.org

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Kingfish
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 12:09 AM

Bush still tops Kerry in Ohio
John Seewer, Associated Press
December 4, 2004
"Bush's margin of victory in Ohio was about 2 percent; an automatic recount takes place only when the margin is 0.25 percent or less.

Bush beat Kerry nationally by 3 percentage points."


Da Kingfish

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 12:37 AM

Herr Amos: Did you go to a shrink or did you heal your self with Dianetics?

3 December 2004
Suffering the Democrat blues

"Within days, therapists and psychiatrists confirmed that in many areas of the country - in both red and blue states - there had been a surge in patients suffering from stress and depression.

Newspapers, radio stations and TV channels inundated us with reports of Kerry supporters rushing to the couch exhibiting signs of 'hopelessness' and 'helplessness'. As Susan Brooks, a clinical social worker in Wisconsin, explained: 'Patients who I've had for a long time have come in absolutely devastated over the fact that the election went the way it did. They were just terribly distraught and continue to be terribly distraught.'

Many long-time therapists say they have never seen anything like it, and it wasn't long before the disorder got a name. Kerry supporters are apparently suffering from Post-Election Selection Trauma - or PEST, an acronym coined by the Florida-based American Health Association, a charitable group that is now offering free counselling to PEST sufferers until the end of 2004."

Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 01:46 AM

Siggy:

Get off it.

The issues you are trying to bury will not go away.
No matter how much irrelevance you sling around.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 07:40 AM

A satirical article about Canada arresting US President George W. Bush in Ottawa and charging him with war crimes appeared as the top story on Google News without the editor's note that identified it as satire. The article was up on Google's US news page on November 30, according to Zone-H.org, a website that tracks web defacements.

The story, from a site called Axis of Logic, had a heading "Political Satire" plus this disclaimer: "Yes folks, this story is political satire, not fact." It was apparently inspired by a Reuters story that a group called Center for Constitutional Rights filing war crimes charges against Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenant and others in the Bush administration.

Google News appears to have missed the disclaimer while posting the site.

Canadian authorities arrest US president George W. Bush

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 09:33 AM

http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater269.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 09:39 AM

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To the Editor:

One wonders if President Bush has it in him to understand that an extravagant inaugural celebration ("Bush's Money Men Pass the Hats One More Time," White House Letter, Nov. 29) is not appropriate in 2005. For one thing, there's a war on and American soldiers are dying. Also, a large percentage of the population is suffering deprivation - worse now that winter is approaching.

The president could assert his authority and ask that the inauguration be scaled down, and that the money not spent be given to agencies trying to help the "other" Americans. Think how the image of "compassionate conservative" would be enhanced. This action could give him his first block in building the legacy he so wants to leave behind.

Jeanne B. Dillon
Summit, N.J., Nov. 29, 2004

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 01:56 PM

Amos refuses to answer because he has been traumatized because his Hero lost the election and his subconcious mind is blocking the memory.

Freud:
The Beginning

"Sigmund Freud more-or-less started the whole issue about repressed memories when his clinical case studies in the late nineteenth century inspired him to develop his psychological theories Sigmund Freud about the nature of unconscious mental processes. He used the term repression to describe the way emotionally painful events could be blocked out of conscious awareness so that their painful effects would not have to be experienced.

Note that this repression process is a completely automatic psychological defense against emotional trauma and does not involve conscious intent. In contrast, deliberately pushing something out of awareness because you want to avoid any responsibility for it is called suppression.

Freud's theories all came together in his technique and philosophy of psychoanalysis, and repression has been a key concept within that philosophy ever since."

Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 02:04 PM

In The Note: White House Rules MARK HALPERIN, MARY HOOD, and BROOKE BROWER discuss large factors in current politics and their relationship with the reigning Administration.

One excerpted quopte out of many of interest:

"This red-ink reality was one of the budgetary horror stories brandished at a conference Thursday sponsored by the Government Accountability Office. Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the GAO, assembled more than 60 experts (including former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, former Commerce secretary Pete Peterson and Josh Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget) for a discussion of the gathering threat caused by the government's fiscal irresponsibility."


"With the election over and no participant quoted without permission, this GAO forum featured a candid bipartisan dialogue that would be impossible in a more politicized environment. The dominant theme, expressed by Republicans and Democrats, was a sense of fatalism that the debt problem would grow much worse before politicians are galvanized to take action."


A