BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 11:44 AM

"This administration has never hesitated to play on fear for political gain, starting with the first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, and his Popsicle-coded threat charts. It is a breathtakingly cynical ploy, but in the past it has worked to cow Democrats into silence, if not always submission, and herd Republicans back onto the party line.

That must not happen this time. By now, Congress surely can see through the president's fear-mongering and show Mr. Bush the exit from Iraq that he refuses to find for himself."

From this stinging editorial on the politics of fear and fear-mongering.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 12:19 PM

Do you have your stockpile of duct tape and plastic?

I watched a Sundance film on bomb shelters that middle America is building to thwart Al Quada.

I hope they use them in tornado weather.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 02:37 PM

Why Bush Will Be A Winner by William Kristol, Sunday, July 15, 2007; Page B01 of the Washington Post, is a meretricious piece of mental acrobatics from a deep-dyed-in-the-wool-over-the-eyes Bush supporter.

Fortunately for rational discourse, Why Bush Is A Loser,By David Corn, in today's edition, makes mincemeat out of Kristol, his track record, and the jejeune partisan slant of his pseudo-analyses.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 05:08 PM

It took Nixon to open China so shy not Bush to close America?


7-18-7


BAGHDAD -- "Yesterday, one of my good friends from another office was telling me they were going to start issuing armored vests to us office types because of the growing danger from mortars. We are being shelled daily and, like everything else, casualties are way underreported . But more important than the flak vests was a file he had copied out and which he gave to me to smuggle out of the country. As I have said, we have strict censorship here on all incoming and outgoing snail mail, email, phone calls and so on. This report is so serious I am making a précis of it and am even now sending it around to various news outlets, both Stateside and elsewhere. I have my sources and believe me, the CIC people here are so stupid they couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were on the bottom.

It states that because of "growing popular unrest in the United States, caused by the prolonged war in Iraq .coupled with obvious Congressional inaction," the U.S. military has drawn up plans for combating domestic U.S. civil insurrections. This is not a theoretical study but a very specific one. Units to be used domestically are listed in detail as are detention centers, etc.

As a result of this, plans are now in train to segregate, retrain and reequip certain anti-insurgent U.S. military units now serving in Iraq and to prepare them for quick transfer back to the United States for use "as needed" The Pentagon command believes that such civil insurrections are not only a possibility but a very real probability in the event that the President and his advisors maintain their present course vis a vis the Iraqi war.

It is interesting to note that "foreign intelligence representatives, now active in the United States" (read Mossad) are to be subject to "arrest, confinement and eventual deportation to their country of origin."

The report and several attached ones, run to almost 900 pages and cannot be put up in their current form. However, I will list some of the more important data here:

Classification: Top Secret-Noforn as of 1 June 2007

Distribution Restriction: Distribution authorized to the DOD and DOD contractors only to maintain operations security. This determination was made on 1 June 2007. Other requests for this document must be referred to (redacted)

Destruction Notice: Destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document. .

This publication uses the term insurgent to describe those taking part in any activity designed to undermine or to overthrow the established authorities

Counterinsurgency is those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civicactions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1-02). It is an offensive approach involving all elements of national power; it can take place across the range of operations and spectrum of conflict

In dealing with the local populace, the primary aims must be to:

·Protect the population.

·Establish local political institutions.

·Reinforce local governments.

·Eliminate insurgent capabilities.

·Exploit information from local sources.

An insurgency is organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict (JP 1-02). It is a protracted politico-military struggle designed to weaken government control and legitimacy while increasing insurgent control. Political power is the central issue in an insurgency.

An insurgent organization normally consists of four elements:

Leadership.

Combatants (main forces, regional forces, local forces).

Cadre (local political leaders that are also called the militants).

Mass base (the bulk of the membership).



A perceived serious potential of dissident American groups rising up against constituted authority has been clearly identified by counter-intelligence agencies.. The stated cause for such an uprising appear to be growing dissatisfaction with the course and conduct of the war in Iraq, the chronic inability of Congress to deal with various pressing issues and the perception of widespread corruption and indifference to public needs.

The support of the people, passive or active then, is the center of gravity. It must be gained in whatever proportion is necessary to sustain the insurgent movement (or, contrariwise, to defeat it). As in any political campaign, all levels of support are relative.

Insurgent movements begin as "fire in the minds of men." Insurgent leaders commit themselves to building a new world. They construct the organization to carry through this desire. Generally, popular grievances become insurgent causes when interpreted and shaped by the insurgent leadership. The insurgency grows if the cadre that is local insurgent leaders and representatives can establish a link between the insurgent movement and the desire for solutions to grievances sought by the local population

Insurgent leaders will exploit opportunities created by government security force actions. The behavior of security forces is critical. Lack of security force discipline leads to alienation, and security force abuse of the populace is a very effective insurgent recruiting tool. Consequently, specific insurgent tactical actions are often planned to frequently elicit overreaction from security force individuals and units.

Insurgencies are dynamic political movements, resulting from real or perceived grievance or neglect that leads to alienation from an established government.

A successful counterinsurgency will result in the neutralization by the state of the insurgency and its effort to form a counterstate. While many abortive insurgencies are defeated by military and police actions alone, if an insurgency has tapped into serious grievances and has mobilized a significant portion of the population, simply returning to the status quo may not be an option. Reform may be necessary, but reform is a matter for the state, using all of its human and material resources. Security forces are only one such resource. The response must be multifaceted and coordinated, yet states typically charge their security forces with "waging counterinsurgency." This the security forces cannot do alone.

These imperatives are-

· Facilitate establishment or reestablishment of a 'legitimate government'.

· Counterinsurgency requires perseverance.

· Foster popular support for the incumbent US government.

· Prepare to perform functions and conduct operations that are outside normal scope of training.

· Coordinate with US governmental departments and agencies, and with vital non-governmental, agencies.

Urban operations.

· Protection of government facilities.

· Protection of infrastructure.

· Protection of commercial enterprises vital to the HN economy.

· Protection of cultural facilities.

· Prevention of looting.

· Military police functions.

· Close interaction with civilians.

· Assistance with reconstruction projects.

· Securing the national borders.

· Training or retraining a national military police and security force.

Establishing and maintaining local government credibility.

· Contributing local government is both tangible and psychological. Local security forces must reinforce and be integrated into the plan at every stage.

· Facilitate and use information and intelligence obtained from local sources to gain access to the insurgent's economic and social base of support, order of battle, tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Army forces help local pro-government police, paramilitary, and military forces perform counterinsurgency, area security, or local security operations. They advise and assist in finding, dispersing, capturing, and destroying the insurgent force.

US forces may conduct offensive operations to disrupt and destroy insurgent combat formations. These operations prevent the insurgents from attacking government-controlled areas.

There are many organizations and extensive resources available to aid counterinsurgent forces.

Commanders should not overlook the aid these organizations may provide. All forces assigned an AO or function should determine which departments and agencies are assisting in that AO and coordinate actions so that there is no duplication of effort. Such departments,

councils and agencies include-

· National Security Council.

· Department of Defense.

· Department of State.

· Department of Justice.

· Department of the Treasury.

· Department of Homeland Security.

· Department of Agriculture.

· Department of Commerce.

· Central Intelligence Agency.

· Department of Transportation

Various governmental departments directly administer or support other governmental agencies. Examples of these US agencies are-

· The US Coast Guard (under Department of Homeland Security).

· The Federal Bureau of Investigation (under Department of Justice).

· Immigration Customs Enforcement (under Department of Homeland Security).

· Federal Communications Commission

. The proper application of force is a critical component to any successful counterinsurgency operation. In a counterinsurgency, the center of gravity is public support. In order to defeat an insurgent force, US forces must be able to separate insurgents from the population. At the same time, US forces must conduct themselves in a manner that enables them to maintain popular domestic support. Excessive or indiscriminant use of force is likely to alienate the local populace, thereby increasing support for insurgent forces. Insufficient use of force results in increased risks to US forces and perceived weaknesses that can jeopardize the mission by emboldening insurgents and undermining domestic popular support. Achieving the appropriate balance requires a thorough understanding of the nature and causes of the insurgency, the end state, and the military's role in a counterinsurgency operation. Nevertheless, US forces always retain the right to use necessary and proportional force for individual and unit self-defense in response to a hostile act or demonstrated hostile intent.

The media, print and broadcast (radio, television and the Internet), play a vital role in societies involved in a counterinsurgency. Members of the media have a significant influence and shaping impact on political direction, national security objectives, and policy and national will. The media is a factor in military operations. It is their right and obligation to report to their respective audiences on the use of military force. They demand logistic support and access to military operations while refusing to be controlled. Their desire for immediate footage and on-the-spot coverage of events, and the increasing contact with units and Soldiers (for example, with embedded reporters) require commanders and public affairs officers to provide guidance to leaders and Soldiers on media relations. However, military planners must provide and enforce ground rules to the media to ensure operations security. Public affairs offices plan for daily briefings and a special briefing after each significant event because the media affect and influence each potential target audience external and internal to the AO. Speaking with the media in a forward-deployed area is an opportunity to explain what our organizations and efforts have accomplished.

Continuous PSYOP are mounted to-

· Counter the effects of insurgent propaganda.

· Relate controls to the security and well-being of the population.

· Portray a favorable governmental image.

.Control measures must-

· Be authorized by national laws and regulations (counterparts should be trained not to improvise unauthorized measures).

· Be tailored to fit the situation (apply the minimum force required to achieve the de-sired result).

· Be supported by effective local intelligence.

· Be instituted in as wide an area as possible to prevent bypass or evasion.

· Be supported by good communications.

· Be enforceable.

· Be lifted as the need diminishes.

· Be compatible, where possible, with local customs and traditions.

· Establish and maintain credibility of local government.

A control program may be developed in five phases:

· Securing and defending the area internally and externally.

· Organizing for law enforcement.

· Executing cordon and search operations.

· Screening and documenting the population (performing a detailed census).

· Performing public administration, to include resource control.

Support to the judiciary may be limited to providing security to the existing courts or may lead to more comprehensive actions to build local, regional, and national courts and the required support apparatus. To avoid overcrowding in police jails, the courts must have an efficient and timely magistrate capability, ideally co-located with police stations and police jails, to review cases for trial.

Cordon and search is a technique used by military and police forces in both urban and rural environments. It is frequently used by counterinsurgency forces conducting a population and resource control mission against small centers of population or subdivisions of a larger community. To be effective, cordon and search operations must have sufficient forces to effectively cordon off and thoroughly search target areas, to include subsurface areas.

PSYOP, civil affairs, and specialist interrogation teams should augment cordon and search orces to increase the effectiveness of operations. Consider the following when conducting cordon and search operations:

Cordon and search operations may be conducted as follows:

Disposition of troops should-

· Facilitate visual contact between posts within the cordon.

· Provide for adequate patrolling and immediate deployment of an effective re-serve force.

Priority should be given to-

· Sealing the administrative center of the community.

· Occupying all critical facilities.

· Detaining personnel in place.

· Preserving and securing all records, files, and other archives.

Key facilities include-

· Administrative buildings.

· Police stations.

· News media facilities.

· Post offices.

· Communications centers.

· Transportation offices and motor pools.

· Prisons and other places of detention.

· Schools.

· Medical facilities.

Search Techniques include-

· Search teams of squad size organized in assault, support, and security elements.

One target is assigned per team.

· Room searches are conducted by two-person teams.

· Room search teams are armed with pistols, assault weapons, and automatic weapons.

· Providing security for search teams screening operations and facilities.

Pre-search coordination includes-

· Between control personnel and screening team leaders.

· Study of layout plans.

· Communications, that is, radio, whistle, and hand signals.

· Disposition of suspects.

· On-site security.

· Guard entrances, exits (to include the roof), halls, corridors, and tunnels.

· Assign contingency tasks for reserve.

· Room searches conducted by two- or three-person teams.

· Immobilize occupants with one team member.

· Search room with other team member.

· Search all occupants. When available, a third team member should be the re-corder.

· Place documents in a numbered envelope and tag the associated individual with a corresponding number.

SCREENING AND DOCUMENTING THE POPULATION

Screening and documentation include following:

· Systematic identification and registration.

· Issuance of individual identification cards containing-

A unique number.

Picture of individual.

Personal identification data.

Fingerprints.

An official stamp (use different colors for each administration region).

Family group census cards, an official copy of which is retained at the local po-lice agency. These must include a picture and appropriate personal data.

Frequent use of mobile and fixed checkpoints for inspection, identification, and reg-istration of documents.

Preventing counterfeiting of identification and registration documents by laminat-ing and embossing.

Programs to inform the population of the need for identification and registration.

Covert surveillance is a collection effort with the responsibility fixed at the intelligence/security division or detective division of the police department. Covert techniques, ranging from application of sophisticated electronics systems to informants, should include-

Informant nets. Reliability of informants should be verified. Protection of identity is a must.

Block control. Dividing a community or populated area into zones where a trusted resident reports on the activities of the population. If the loyalty of block leaders is questionable, an informant net can be established to verify questionable areas.

Units designated for counterinsurgency operations

· 115th MIB, Schofield, HI

· 704th MIB, Fort Made, MD, Collaboration with NSA

· 513st MIB, Fort Gordon, GA in Collaboration with NSA

· Arlington Hall Station, VA

· Aberdeen Proving Ground (Maryland)

· US Army Intelligence and Security Command ­ INSCOM- Huachuca ( Arizona )

· INTELLIGENCE THREAT and ANALYSIS CENTER ( Center Analysis for threat and Intelligence )

· 501st Military Intelligence Brigade EAC

· 3rd Military Intelligence Battalion Exploitation Area
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2720.htm#004

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 05:10 PM

...why not Bush to close America.

(I power stapled my little finger a couple weeks ago so my typing is still iffy.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Jul 07 - 09:39 AM

From the Washington Post:

Facing al-Qaeda

With the terrorists growing stronger, their sanctuary in Pakistan must be eliminated.
Thursday, July 19, 2007; Page A18


HOMELAND Security Secretary Michael Chertoff makes a good point: No one who has been following the news should have been surprised by the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that al-Qaeda is growing stronger and that the threat that it will stage another major attack against the U.S. homeland is a serious one. That al-Qaeda has established a sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal areas -- cited as among "key elements" in the regeneration of "its homeland attack ability" by the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- has been known and discussed since last year. The "leverage" provided by a thriving affiliate organization in Iraq is all too obvious. What's missing in Washington is not information about al-Qaeda, Mr. Chertoff says, but a readiness to make hard decisions about how to protect the country.

The Homeland Security chief has some choices he'd like Congress to make, including modifications to visa-free travel to the United States and the installation of technology allowing for tighter screening of air travelers. The issues he raises are important, and we will return to them. Yet, if there is one decision that seems most urgent in light of the intelligence reports, it is what to do about the al-Qaeda base in Pakistan, which is allowing the group's senior leadership to coordinate with what the NIE calls "operational lieutenants" and to train militants for operations in Europe and the United States.

The Bush administration has been ducking this critical problem for too long, despite the clear lesson of Afghanistan. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that tolerance of al-Qaeda's sanctuary there was of "direct and indirect value . . . to al-Qaeda in preparing the 9/11 attack." The commission said the U.S. government must disrupt such bases in the future "using all elements of national power." Senior administration officials have publicly acknowledged since early this year that an al-Qaeda sanctuary exists in Pakistan. But they have rigidly stuck to a strategy of depending on Pakistan's autocratic president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to take that disruptive action -- even while Mr. Musharraf has pursued a contrary policy of appeasing the Pakistani tribesmen who are harboring the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Administration officials say they believe Mr. Musharraf will resume military operations in the tribal areas after a 10-month suspension -- if only because the militants broke a truce last week and attacked government forces. But earlier operations by the Pakistani army failed; government forces may be too weak to break up the sanctuary. Mr. Musharraf himself is preoccupied with preserving his own regime. If the militants offer him a separate peace, he may well accept it.

The administration says it has a comprehensive strategy that involves funneling $750 million over five years into development programs in the impoverished tribal areas and beefing up the Pakistani forces that patrol the frontier with Afghanistan. The State Department says it is also pressing for democratic elections in Pakistan this year, though it has ignored Mr. Musharraf's blatant preparations to manipulate the process. If it really were to focus on economic development and democracy rather than propping up the tottering general, the United States might contribute to stabilizing, over a period of years, one of the world's wildest territories.

Yet that won't address the imminent threat of a revived al-Qaeda organization able to strike the United States from a secure base. If Pakistani forces cannot -- or will not -- eliminate the sanctuary, President Bush must order targeted strikes or covert actions by American forces, as he has done several times in recent years. Such actions run the risk of further destabilizing Pakistan. Yet those risks must be weighed against the consequences of another large-scale attack on U.S. soil. "Direct intervention against the sanctuary in Afghanistan apparently must have seemed . . . disproportionate to the threat," the Sept. 11 commission noted. The United States must not repeat that tragic misjudgment.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:14 AM

The NY Times comments on the Administration's abuse of trust as governors:

""Our hard work is noticed," e-mailed a pleased official of the nation's anti-drug abuse agency after helping the White House bolster vulnerable G.O.P. members of Congress with district visits and federal grants from anti-drug officials in the months before the 2006 elections. The e-mailer apologized that leaders from the supposedly politics-free agency were dispatched to "god awful places" on the taxpayers' tab, but took comfort in the word that, yes, Karl Rove, President Bush's political guru, was pleased with the agency's campaign to help more than a dozen shaky candidates.

This latest episode of the administration's treatment of incumbency as a 24/7 campaign machine is properly under investigation by Congress. The White House's partisan paw print is already all over the firings of nine United States attorneys in an increasingly obvious political purge. And investigators have found that the Hatch Act law barring politicking on the job was violated by a G.O.P. loyalist who ran the General Services Administration, the government's contract-rich, housekeeping monolith.

"Help our candidates," Lurita Doan, the G.S.A. administrator, was widely quoted, instructing underlings to sit through a PowerPoint lecture by Mr. Rove's operatives. The brazen topic was the use of agency clout to undermine the top 20 "House targets" next year among incumbent Congressional Democrats.

Taxpayers must wonder what happened to the notion of governance. The White House nonchalantly insists both parties have laced the duties of federal office with partisanship. Up to a point, perhaps. But the increasingly relevant question as more abuses are disclosed is just how far the Bush administration has gone in mocking the legal distinction between running government and running for office."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:18 AM

"..(P)olitical courage was nowhere in evidence when Senate Democrats tried to get a vote on a measure that would have forced a course change in Iraq, and Republicans responded by threatening a filibuster. Mr. Lugar, along with several other Republicans who have expressed doubts about the war, voted against cutting off debate, thereby helping ensure that the folly he described so accurately in his Iraq speech will go on.

Thanks to that vote, nothing will happen until Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, delivers his report in September. But don't expect too much even then. I hope he proves me wrong, but the general's history suggests that he's another smart, sensible enabler.

I don't know why the op-ed article that General Petraeus published in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2004, hasn't gotten more attention. After all, it puts to rest any notion that the general stands above politics: I don't think it's standard practice for serving military officers to publish opinion pieces that are strikingly helpful to an incumbent, six weeks before a national election.

In the article, General Petraeus told us that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously." And those security forces were doing just fine: their leaders "are displaying courage and resilience" and "momentum has gathered in recent months."

In other words, General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner. And the best guess has to be that he'll do the same thing three years later.

You know, at this point I think we need to stop blaming Mr. Bush for the mess we're in. He is what he always was, and everyone except a hard core of equally delusional loyalists knows it.

Yet Mr. Bush keeps doing damage because many people who understand how his folly is endangering the nation's security still refuse, out of political caution and careerism, to do anything about it. "

From Paul Krugman of the NY Times, 7-20-07

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 11:34 AM

All the President's Enablers
            
Published: July 20, 2007

In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits — amazingly, they still exist — to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever. It might even be true.

What I don't understand is why we're supposed to consider Mr. Bush's continuing confidence a good thing.

Remember, Mr. Bush was confident six years ago when he promised to bring in Osama, dead or alive. He was confident four years ago, when he told the insurgents to bring it on. He was confident two years ago, when he told Brownie that he was doing a heckuva job.

Now Iraq is a bloody quagmire, Afghanistan is deteriorating and the Bush administration's own National Intelligence Estimate admits, in effect, that thanks to Mr. Bush's poor leadership America is losing the struggle with Al Qaeda. Yet Mr. Bush remains confident.

Sorry, but that's not reassuring; it's terrifying. It doesn't demonstrate Mr. Bush's strength of character; it shows that he has lost touch with reality.

Actually, it's not clear that he ever was in touch with reality. I wrote about the Bush administration's "infallibility complex," its inability to admit mistakes or face up to real problems it didn't want to deal with, in June 2002. Around the same time Ron Suskind, the investigative journalist, had a conversation with a senior Bush adviser who mocked the "reality-based community," asserting that "when we act, we create our own reality."

People who worried that the administration was living in a fantasy world used to be dismissed as victims of "Bush derangement syndrome," liberals driven mad by Mr. Bush's success. Now, however, it's a syndrome that has spread even to former loyal Bushies.

Yet while Mr. Bush no longer has many true believers, he still has plenty of enablers — people who understand the folly of his actions, but refuse to do anything to stop him. ...

---

Also Paul Krugman.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 12:27 PM

What happened to the George Bush who insisted on honest government?

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thu, July 5, 2007

Why is it that the Bush administration, in its dying throes, looks remarkably more like an organized crime ring than one of the arms of the American government? A poorly organized and run crime ring, truly, but a crime ring nonetheless.

Why do I keep remembering the George Bush that I actually once voted for when he first ran for president — the one who talked of bringing in an administration that would look more like the face of America and of giving us a government whose appointees would be honest, upright, fair and moral.

Yes, that's the one. What happened to him? Where did that George Bush go? When did he go over to The Dark Side? What enticements did Vice President Darth Cheney offer him? Was it the vision of unlimited, unchecked power over the world?

How can it be that this man from Texas presides over a White House that shelters and provides cover for men like Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who clearly believe that the laws of our country are only meant to be imposed on lesser beings, the man in the street?

Remember the George Bush who declared that anyone who violated the law and participated in the leaking of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame would be fired on the spot?

What about Karl Rove who works beside President Bush and is his Mr. Fixit and Mr. Fix Them? Was it just my imagination or did I not hear sworn testimony and see documents indicating that he was up to his pudgy little neck in the whole deal?

Can we not suppose that Mr. Rove was, in fact, at the root of the 51 White House employees whose e-mails miraculously vanished from all those e-mail accounts that executive-branch employees maintained through a cut-out: the Republican National Committee? How many laws governing the preservation of White House records, passed by Congress after the sorry spectacle of Richard Nixon and the vanishing 18.5 minutes of taped chit-chat in the Oval Office, have Mr. Rove and his hench-people broken? What ARE they hiding?

What about the lies and lame excuses put forward to hide their actions in the case of the missing federal prosecutors by the chief law enforcement officer of our country, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and his sophomoric young assistant attorneys general with their degrees from universities where only one book is on the reading list?

Does anyone doubt that Karl Rove personally drew up the list of those prosecutors who were to be executed because they did not enthusiastically go after people who were likely to vote for the Democrats in any election?

The good attorney general should be fired if he didn't know where that list came from and he should also be fired if he did know and denied it under oath before Congress. It was his department, the one that is supposedly dedicated to upholding the laws of our nation fairly and with an even hand, and he damned well should have known and damned well should have told the simple truth.

Where is it written in either the federal statutes or the Constitution of the United States that our laws against criminal acts apply to everyone but nice, meek, small-statured Republican political operatives who have a wonderful wife and children? Our prisons are full of nice, meek white-collar criminals who cheated a bit on their taxes or back-dated their bountiful option awards or raped and looted the coffers of corporations and beggared the poor fools who trusted them and bought stock in their criminal enterprises.

The estimable Scooter Libby repeatedly lied under oath to investigators of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a sitting federal grand jury. Last time I looked that is a felony offense punishable by fine and imprisonment.

There are two former agents of the U.S. Border Patrol sitting in a federal prison for shooting a fleeing dope smuggler and then lying in their reports in an attempt to cover their butts with their bosses. Where is their commutation of sentences? Where is their pardon?

Instead of firing federal prosecutors who didn't go after illegal immigrants and voter registration fraud like pit bulls, why isn't our president demanding the dismissal of prosecutors and appointed regulators who turn a blind eye while the National Treasury is looted of billions by big corporations whose bosses write very large checks to Republican candidates?

What we have here, at the very heart of our own government, is a morass of criminal behavior unlike anything seen in recent American history.

It is past time to throw the rascals out of office, and I mean ALL the rascals of whatever party or political persuasion. If they didn't participate then they closed their eyes to the rot, and by this I cheerfully include the Democrats in Congress who now control Congress and haven't done anything but talk about doing something.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 12:58 PM

General Pleads for Time to Secure Iraq

AP - Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:27:26 -0400 (EDT)
By ROBERT BURNS

If the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq is reversed before the summer of 2008, the military will risk giving up the security gains it has achieved at a cost of hundreds of American lives over the past six months, the commander of U.S. forces south of Baghdad said Friday.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, mentioned none of the proposals in Congress for beginning to withdraw U.S. troops as soon as this fall. But he made clear in an interview that in his area of responsibility south of Baghdad, it will take many more months to consolidate recent gains.

"It's going to take through (this) summer, into the fall, to defeat the extremists in my battle space, and it's going to take me into next spring and summer to generate this sustained
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security presence," he said, referring to an Iraqi capability to hold gains made by U.S. forces.

Lynch said he had projected in March, when he arrived as part of the troop buildup, that it would take him about 15 months to accomplish his mission, which would be summer 2008.

He expressed concern at the growing pressure in Washington to decide by September whether the troop buildup is working and to plan for an early start to withdrawing all combat troops.

Under Lynch's command are two of the five Army brigades that President Bush ordered to the Baghdad area in January as part of a revised counterinsurgency strategy. As part of that "surge" of forces, Lynch's command was created in order to put added focus on stopping the flow of weaponry and insurgents into the capital from contentious areas to the south.

The three other brigades are in Baghdad and a volatile province northeast of the capital with the purpose of securing the civilian population in hopes that reduced levels of sectarian violence will give Sunni and Shiite leaders an opportunity to create a government of true national unity and to pass legislation designed to promote reconciliation.

Lynch said that Iraqi security forces are not close to being ready to take over for the American troops. So if the extra troops that were brought in this year are to be sent home in coming months, the insurgents - both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups - will regain control, he said.

"To me, it would be wrong to take ground from the enemy at a cost - I've lost 80 soldiers under my command -- 56 of those since the fourth of April - it would be wrong to have fought and won that terrain, only to turn around and give it back," he said in an interview with two reporters who traveled with him by helicopter to visit troops south and west of Baghdad.


He said there is a substantial risk that al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly Iraqi Sunni extremist group, will try to launch a mass-casualty attack on one of the 29 small U.S. patrol bases south of Baghdad in hopes of influencing the political debate in Washington on ending the war.

Lynch visited one of those outposts Friday, near the village of Jurfassakhar along the Euphrates River. He was told by the officer in charge, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage, that the camp was in "the deepest bad-guy country around," with threats from multiple insurgent groups.

Near Jurfassakhar, just west of the larger town of Iskandariyah, al-Qaida elements have recently been fighting another Sunni extremist group but could be preparing to resume attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

"And that's why we've got to continue offensive operations," he said. "I worry about this talk about reducing or terminating the surge," using the military's term of deploying the five extra combat brigades to the Baghdad area, as well as extra Marines to Anbar province west of the capital.

"We've got him on the run," Lynch said, referring to the insurgents. "Some people say we've got him on the ropes. I don't believe that. But I believe we've got him on the run."

Lynch said he thinks too much focus is being placed on the military part of the solution to Iraq's problems and too little on the need to promote progress toward a functional central government.

Lynch said he thinks too much focus in being placed on the military part of the solution to Iraq's problems and too little on the need to promote progress toward a functional central government.

"We can continue to secure the population here and secure terrain, but until you get a government (that) is of the people, for the people and by the people, and you have an economy where people actually have employment, this place is going to continue to struggle," he said.

Lynch also said the Iraqi government needs to put about seven more Iraqi army battalions and about five more Iraqi police battalions in his area in order to provide the security now provided by U.S. forces.

In a reference to the sectarian tensions that have stalled progress toward stability in Iraq, the general said he has submitted to the Shiite-dominated national government a list of about 3,000 names of Sunnis who have volunteered to join the government security forces south of Baghdad. None of the 3,000 has been approved for addition to the government payroll.

"If they (the central government) just say `No, we ain't gonna do it,' then we've got a problem because (then) we've got nothing but locals who want to secure their area," he said, adding later that this would amount to a "Band-aid" fix rather than a lasting solution.

Ultimately, Lynch said, success or failure will be determined by the Iraqis themselves, and the outcome will not come quickly.

"This is Iraq. Everything takes time," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 01:05 PM

From the washington Post

Trouble With the Neighbors

By Michael Gerson
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A19

One of the most infuriating problems in Iraq seems to generate precious little fury.

In a kind of malicious chemistry experiment, hostile powers are adding accelerants to Iraq's frothing chaos. Iran smuggles in the advanced explosive devices that kill and maim American soldiers. Syria allows the transit of suicide bombers who kill Iraqis at markets and mosques, feeding sectarian rage.

This is not a complete explanation for the difficulties in Iraq. Poor governance and political paralysis would exist whether Iran and Syria meddled or not. But without these outside influences, Tony Blair told me recently, the situation in Iraq would be "very nearly manageable."

America does not merely have challenges in the Middle East; we have enemies who contribute to the deaths of our troops. Yet Americans have shown little outrage, and the military reaction has been muted.

A stronger response would be justified, but the choices are neither obvious nor easy.

Iran, the main strategic threat, has two conflicting tendencies: It doesn't want long-term chaos in neighboring Iraq, but it wants America to fail decisively there. The second tendency is currently ascendant because the Iranians are hopeful that America is on the verge of a humiliating collapse of will -- for them an irresistible source of immediate pleasure. So Iranian paramilitary groups train and arm radical Shiite militias and provide explosive devices that also find their way to radical Sunni groups.

Engagement and deft diplomacy are not likely to change the Iranian interest in American defeat. Iran would require an unacceptable inducement to bail out American interests in Iraq: permission to proceed with its nuclear program. America would purchase tactical advantages in Iraq at a tremendous price -- a strategic nightmare in the entire Middle East.

Additional economic pressures on Iran and its proxies would increase the cost of its current course. This week, President Bush issued an executive order financially targeting groups and individuals who recruit and send terrorists to Iraq. But any real leverage in this area will require the Europeans to take actions of their own.

There are also more straightforward approaches. Earlier this year, Bush announced a dragnet directed at Iranian paramilitary activity in Iraq, and the troop surge has taken on the radical militias more directly. Further action might involve stepping up raids against Iranians in Iraq who use legitimate jobs as cover.

Beyond Iraq's borders, the options become difficult: engaging in hot pursuit against weapon supply lines over the Iranian border or striking explosives factories and staging areas within Iran. This sort of escalation is opposed by the Iraqi government and American military leaders. The Defense Department fears what is called "escalation dominance" -- meaning that in a broadened conflict, the Iranians could complicate our lives in Iraq and the region more than we complicate theirs.

Syria, however, is what one former administration official calls "lower-hanging fruit." The provocations are nearly as severe. Syria's Baathist regime provides a base of operations for its Iraqi Baathist comrades involved in the Sunni insurgency. Suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia and North Africa arrive by plane in Damascus, and, with the help of facilitators, some 50 to 80 cross into Iraq each month. The Syrians say they lack the ability to stop them; what they lack is the intention.

Pressuring Syria is not without its own complications. The regime can cause more suffering for its hostage Lebanon or increase tensions with Israel. And our European allies are less willing to support robust sanctions against Syria than against Iran, because Syria is not a nuclear threat.

But here the forceful options are more serious. Recent successful operations in Anbar province were undertaken, in part, to disrupt the trail of suicide bombers passing through Syria. It might also make sense to pursue targets into Syria on this theory: The Syrians say they are powerless to stop the flow of murderers killing innocent Iraqis, so we should try.

Increasing pressure of all types on Syria would demonstrate that being part of an anti-American alliance with Iran brings unpleasant consequences. And when that pressure builds sufficiently, it becomes possible to offer Syria a way out that separates it from Iran.

These are realistic responses to the serious provocations of Iran and Syria: ramping up economic pressure on both regimes; intensifying operations within Iraq against foreign influence; and taking limited but forceful action against Syria's Ho Chi Minh Trail of terrorists.

In combination with the strategy of commander David Petraeus, these measures hold out the promise of something unthinkable a few months ago: America, once again, on the strategic offensive.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 01:09 PM

From the Washington Post

The 20 Percent Solution

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A19

Amid the Senate's all-night pillow fight and other Iraq grandstanding, real things are happening on the ground in Iraq. They consist of more than just a surge of U.S. troop levels. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have engaged us in a far-reaching and fundamental political shift. Call it the 20 percent solution.

Ever since the December 2005 Iraqi elections, the United States has been waiting for the central government in Baghdad to pass grand national accords on oil, federalism and de-Baathification to unify and pacify the country. The Maliki government has proved too sectarian, too weak and perhaps too disposed to Iranian interests to rise to the task.

The Democrats cite this incapacity as a reason to give up and get out. A tempting thought, but ultimately self-destructive to our interests. Accordingly, Petraeus and Crocker have found a Plan B: pacify the country region by region, principally by getting Sunnis to join the fight against al-Qaeda.

This has begun to happen in Anbar and Diyala. First, because al-Qaeda are foreigners. So are we, but -- reason No. 2 -- unlike them, we are not barbarous. We don't amputate fingers for smoking, decapitate with pleasure and kill Shiites for sport.

Third, al-Qaeda's objectives are not the Sunnis'. Al-Qaeda adherents live for endless war and a reborn caliphate. Ultimately, they live to die. Iraqi Sunnis are not looking for a heavenly date with 72 virgins. They are looking for a deal, and perhaps just survival after U.S. troops are gone.

That's why so many Sunnis have accepted Petraeus's bargain -- they join our fight against al-Qaeda, and we give them weaponry and military support. With that, they can rid themselves of the al-Qaeda cancer now. And later, when the Americans inevitably leave, they'll be better positioned to defend themselves against the 80 percent Shiite-Kurd majority they are beginning to realize they may have unwisely taken on.

The bargain is certainly working for us. The recent capture of the leading Iraqi in al-Qaeda's Iraq affiliate is no accident, comrade. You capture such people only when you have good intelligence, and you have good intelligence only when the locals have turned against the terrorists.

The place of his capture -- Mosul -- is also telling. Mosul is where you go if you've been driven out of Anbar and Diyala and have no other good place to go. You don't venture into the Shiite south or the purely Kurdish north where the locals will kill you.

The charge against our previous war strategy was that we were playing whack-a-mole: They escape from here, they reestablish there. Petraeus's plan is to eliminate all al-Qaeda sanctuaries.

You hardly hear about that from the antiwar Democrats in the Senate. But you did hear it from someone closer to the scene: Shiite lawmaker and close Maliki adviser Hassan al-Suneid. He is none too happy with the new American strategy. He complained bitterly about the overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala. "These are gangs of killers," he told the Associated Press. Petraeus is following a plan according to a "purely American vision."

How very true and very refreshing. We had been vainly pursuing an Iraqi vision that depended on people such as Suneid and Maliki to make the grand bargain. So now, the American vision. "The strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaeda in the early period, but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias," said Suneid.

Again, he is precisely right. His coalition would not or could not disarm the militias. So Petraeus has taken on the two extremes: (a) the Shiite militias and their Iranian Revolutionary Guard enablers, and (b) al-Qaeda, with the help of local Sunnis.

For an interminable 18 months we waited for the 80 percent solution -- for Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-Kurdish coalition to reach out to the Sunnis. The Petraeus-Crocker plan is the 20 percent solution: peel the Sunnis away from the insurgency by giving them the security and weaponry to fight the new common enemy -- al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Maliki & Co. are afraid we are arming Sunnis for the civil war to come. On the other hand, we might be creating a rough balance of forces that would act as a deterrent to all-out civil war and encourage a relatively peaceful accommodation.

In either case, that will be Iraq's problem after we leave. For now, our problem is al-Qaeda on the Sunni side and the extremist militias on the Shiite side. And we are making enough headway to worry people such as Suneid. The Democrats might listen to him to understand how profoundly the situation is changing on the ground -- and think twice before they pull the plug on this complicated, ruthless, hopeful "purely American vision."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jul 07 - 02:24 PM

David Halberstam writes in Vanity Fair:

"The History Boys

In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush and his inner circle have been feeding the press with historical parallels: he is Harry Truman—unpopular, besieged, yet ultimately to be vindicated—while Iraq under Saddam was Europe held by Hitler. To a serious student of the past, that's preposterous. Writing just before his untimely death, David Halberstam asserts that Bush's "history," like his war, is based on wishful thinking, arrogance, and a total disdain for the facts.


We are a long way from the glory days of Mission Accomplished, when the Iraq war was over before it was over—indeed before it really began—and the president could dress up like a fighter pilot and land on an aircraft carrier, and the nation, led by a pliable media, would applaud. Now, late in this sad, terribly diminished presidency, mired in an unwinnable war of their own making, and increasingly on the defensive about events which, to their surprise, they do not control, the president and his men have turned, with some degree of desperation, to history. In their view Iraq under Saddam was like Europe dominated by Hitler, and the Democrats and critics in the media are likened to the appeasers of the 1930s. The Iraqi people, shorn of their immensely complicated history, become either the people of Europe eager to be liberated from the Germans, or a little nation that great powerful nations ought to protect. Most recently in this history rummage sale—and perhaps most surprisingly—Bush has become Harry Truman.


We have lately been getting so many history lessons from the White House that I have come to think of Bush, Cheney, Rice, and the late, unlamented Rumsfeld as the History Boys. They are people groping for rationales for their failed policy, and as the criticism becomes ever harsher, they cling to the idea that a true judgment will come only in the future, and history will save them.

Ironically, it is the president himself, a man notoriously careless about, indeed almost indifferent to, the intellectual underpinnings of his actions, who has come to trumpet loudest his close scrutiny of the lessons of the past. Though, before, he tended to boast about making critical decisions based on instinct and religious faith, he now talks more and more about historical mandates. Usually he does this in the broadest—and vaguest—sense: History teaches us … We know from history … History shows us. In one of his speaking appearances in March 2006, in Cleveland, I counted four references to history, and what it meant for today, as if he had had dinner the night before with Arnold Toynbee, or at the very least Barbara Tuchman, and then gone home for a few hours to read his Gibbon.

I am deeply suspicious of these presidential seminars. We have, after all, come to know George Bush fairly well by now, and many of us have come to feel—not only because of what he says, but also because of the sheer cockiness in how he says it—that he has a tendency to decide what he wants to do first, and only then leaves it to his staff to look for intellectual justification. Many of us have always sensed a deep and visceral anti-intellectual streak in the president, that there was a great chip on his shoulder, and that the burden of the fancy schools he attended—Andover and Yale—and even simply being a member of the Bush family were too much for him. It was as if he needed not only to escape but also to put down those of his peers who had been more successful. From that mind-set, I think, came his rather unattractive habit of bestowing nicknames, most of them unflattering, on the people around him, to remind them that he was in charge, that despite their greater achievements they still worked for him.

He is infinitely more comfortable with the cowboy persona he has adopted, the Texas transplant who has learned to speak the down-home vernacular. "Country boy," as Johnny Cash once sang, "I wish I was you, and you were me." Bush's accent, not always there in public appearances when he was younger, tends to thicken these days, the final g's consistently dropped so that doing becomes doin', going becomes goin', and making, makin'. In this lexicon al-Qaeda becomes "the folks" who did 9/11. Unfortunately, it is not just the speech that got dumbed down—so also were the ideas at play. The president's world, unlike the one we live in, is dangerously simple, full of traps, not just for him but, sadly, for us as well. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jul 07 - 09:09 PM

Vetoing Children's Health
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Published: July 22, 2007
President Bush is threatening to veto any substantial increase in spending for a highly successful children's health program on the bizarre theory that expanding it would be the "beginning salvo" in establishing a government-run health care system. His shortsighted ideological opposition would leave millions of children without health insurance at a time when medical costs are soaring.

The president's ire was provoked by a bipartisan bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee last week that would expand the so-called State Children's Health Insurance Program, a joint federal-state effort that, over the last decade, has substantially reduced the number of uninsured children in the country. The program, known as S-chip, seeks to cover children whose family income is too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford costly private coverage. It is due to expire on Sept. 30 unless Congress reauthorizes it.

The program now gets $5 billion a year in federal money to match state contributions, and the Bush administration has proposed a meager increase of $5 billion spread over the next five years. With health care costs escalating, that would not even be enough to cover all of the 6.6 million children who were enrolled at some time during the last year. Hundreds of thousands of children would likely fall off the rolls. And there would be no help for some eight to nine million children who now have no health coverage at all.

The Finance Committee rightly rejected that false economy. By a hefty 17-to-4 margin, it voted to authorize a $35 billion increase for S-chip spread over five years. Instead of reducing the number of children enrolled, the Senate bill would provide coverage for an additional 3.2 million children who are uninsured now. And in another boon for American health, the costs would be paid for by a steep increase in taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products — a further disincentive for smokers.

Mr. Bush's objections are primarily philosophical: that the bill would move more people into a government-run program while he would prefer to entice them into buying private insurance with the help of tax deductions, his favored approach for all uninsured Americans. Tax deductions will not make much of a dent in the ranks of the uninsured. And it seems wrongheaded to impose collateral damage on a successful children's health insurance program while waging that broader ideological battle.

The administration argues that S-chip should be mainly for children in families with incomes no higher than twice the poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four. But that hardly suffices in states where medical costs are high and private policies can cost the average family $10,000 to $12,000 a year. At least 18 states now cover children in families with higher incomes, and some also cover pregnant women, parents and some childless adults.

Now the administration wants to reduce matching money for these added categories and push more of the burden onto financially strapped states. It worries that any more generous coverage would lead many families or small employers to drop private policies. That is bound to happen, but it would seem a plus if those families could get better or cheaper coverage through S-chip.

The Senate would still leave millions of children uninsured and would discourage any additional states from covering low-income parents — reducing the likelihood that they would enroll their children. Senate Democrats believe this is the best that could be achieved. Now it will be up to the full Senate to approve the bill by a veto-proof margin. Meanwhile, House Democrats have their sights on a bigger increase — some $50 billion over five years to cover even more uninsured children.

...


(Editorial, NY Times, 7-22-07)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Jul 07 - 08:46 AM

From the Washington Post:


Reid's Anti-Reform Maneuvers

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, July 23, 2007; Page A17

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid picked up his ball and went home after his staged all-night session last week, he saved from possible embarrassment one of the least regular members of his Democratic caucus: Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Reform Republican Tom Coburn had ready an amendment to the defense authorization bill removing Nelson's earmark funding a Nebraska-based company whose officials include Nelson's son. Such an effort became impossible when Reid pulled the bill.

That Reid's action had this effect was mere coincidence. He knew that Sen. Carl Levin's amendment to the defense bill mandating a troop withdrawal from Iraq would fall short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate, and Reid planned from the start to pull the bill after the all-night session, designed to satisfy antiwar zealots, was completed. But Reid is also working behind the scenes with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to undermine earmark transparency and prevent open debate on spending proposals such as Nelson's.

These antics fit the continuing decline of the Senate, including an unwritten rules change requiring 60 votes to pass any meaningful bill. When I arrived on Capitol Hill 50 years ago, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (like Reid today) had a slim Democratic majority and faced a Republican president, but he was not burdened with the 60-vote rule. While Johnson did use chicanery, Reid resorts to brute force that shatters the Senate's facade of civilized discourse. Reid is plotting to strip anti-earmark transparency from the final version of ethics legislation passed by the Senate and House, with tacit support from Republican senators and the GOP leadership.

At stake is the fate of Coburn's "Reid amendment," previously passed by the Senate and so called because it would bar earmarks benefiting a senator's family members such as Reid's four lobbyist sons and son-in-law. Nelson's current $7.5 million earmark for software helps 21st Century Systems Inc. (21CSI), which employs the senator's son, Patrick Nelson, as its marketing director. The company gets 80 percent of its funds from federal grants, mostly through earmarks. With nine offices scattered among states represented by appropriators in Congress, the company has in recent years spent $1.1 million to lobby Congress and $160,000 in congressional campaign contributions. "As of April," the Omaha World-Herald reported, "only one piece of [the company's] software has been used -- to help guard a single Marine camp in Iraq -- and it was no longer in use."

In requesting the 21CSI earmark, Nelson did not disclose his son's employment. "There's no requirement that he disclose that," a Nelson spokesman told this column. "But frankly, in this case, we didn't disclose it because it's so public." An April 24 letter from Levin giving senators instructions on how to request an earmark made no mention of the "Reid amendment" that had been passed by the Senate three months earlier but that required only certification that no senator's spouse would benefit from an earmark. Inclusion of Nelson's son, however, would be required if the ethics bill provision passes.

When the defense authorization bill came up last week, Coburn prepared amendments to eliminate the Nelson earmark and the most notorious earmark pending in Congress: Democratic Rep. John Murtha's proposed $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center in his Pennsylvania district. Reid's plan to satisfy antiwar activists with an all-night debate averted debate, for now, on those two earmarks.

Reid, the soft-spoken trial lawyer from Searchlight, Nev., has tended to suppress free expression in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body in his tumultuous 6 1/2 months as majority leader. Last week, he cut off an attempt by Sen. Arlen Specter, the veteran moderate Republican, to respond to him with an abruptness that I had not witnessed in a half-century of Senate watching. When Specter finally got the floor, he declared: "Nothing is done here until the majority leader decides to exercise his power to keep the Senate in all night on a meaningless, insulting session. . . . Last night's performance made us the laughingstock of the world." It may get worse if plans to eviscerate ethics legislation are pursued.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jul 07 - 10:05 AM

...Alexander Hamilton emphasized in Federalist No. 69 that the president would be "nothing more" than "first general and admiral," responsible for "command and direction" of military forces.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush's assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly. Madison described Congress's control over spending as "the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure."

The framers expected Congress to keep the president on an especially short leash on military matters. The Constitution authorizes Congress to appropriate money for an army, but prohibits appropriations for longer than two years. Hamilton explained that the limitation prevented Congress from vesting "in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence."

As opinion turns more decisively against the war, the administration is becoming ever more dismissive of Congress's role. Last week, Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman brusquely turned away Senator Hillary Clinton's questions about how the Pentagon intended to plan for withdrawal from Iraq. "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq," he wrote. Mr. Edelman's response showed contempt not merely for Congress, but for the system of government the founders carefully created.

The Constitution cannot enforce itself. It is, as the constitutional scholar Edwin Corwin famously observed, an "invitation to struggle" among the branches, but the founders wisely bequeathed to Congress some powerful tools for engaging in the struggle. It is no surprise that the current debate over a deeply unpopular war is arising in the context of a Congressional spending bill. That is precisely what the founders intended.

Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.

...

(Times Op-Ed, 7-23-07)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jul 07 - 09:16 PM

July 23, 2007, 3:05 pm
Poll: U.S. Support for Iraq Invasion Inches Up
By Megan Thee (NY Times back pages)

American support for the initial invasion of Iraq has risen somewhat as the White House has continued to ask the public to reserve judgment about the war until General David Petraeus files his report in the fall.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted over the weekend, 42 percent of Americans said that taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, while 51 percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq.

Support had been at all time low in May, when only 35 percent of Americans said the United States' invasion of Iraq was the right thing and 61 percent said the United States should have stayed out.


Still, the latest poll made clear that a two-thirds majority of Americans continue to say the war is going badly. But the number of people who say the war is going "very badly" has fallen from 45 percent earlier in July to a current reading of 35 percent, and of those who say it is going well, 29 percent now describe it as "somewhat well" compared to 23 percent just last week.

At the end of a week that included a contentious Senate debate leading to an all-night session, Americans have a low opinion of Congress. Six in 10 Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing in general. When asked specifically about their opinions of how the Democrats and Republicans in Congress are handling the war, disapproval ratings are similar — 65 percent disapprove of the way the Republicans have handled it, and 59 percent disapprove of the Democrats.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Friday through Sunday with 889 adults. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus 3 percentage points and larger for subgroups.

The modest gains in support for the invasion of Iraq come at a time when there are new warnings from the Bush Administration about heightened terrorist activity. A majority of Americans say that in the long run, the United States will be safer from terrorism if it stays out of the affairs of countries in the Middle East. But there is a sharp party divide on the issue — 73 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents and 28 percent of Republicans agree.

Americans are divided over whether the Bush administration's discussion of terrorism is out of a genuine concern or if it is a political tool. Half of those polled say members of the Bush Administration talk about the threat of terrorism to gain a political advantage, while 39 percent consider the threat a genuine issue.   ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 24 Jul 07 - 08:20 AM

Odds are, Bush will be a winner By WILLIAM KRISTOL Houston Chronicle July 21, 2007

I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one.

Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil — not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy — also something that wasn't inevitable.

And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where — despite some confusion engendered by an almost meaningless "benchmark" report last week this month — we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.

The economy first: After the bursting of the dot-com bubble, followed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we've had more than five years of steady growth, low unemployment and a stock market recovery. Did this just happen? No. Bush pushed through the tax cuts of 2001 and especially 2003 by arguing that they would produce growth. His opponents predicted dire consequences. But the president was overwhelmingly right. Even the budget deficit, the most universally criticized consequence of the tax cuts, is coming down and is lower than it was when the 2003 supply-side tax cuts were passed.

Bush has also (on the whole) resisted domestic protectionist pressures (remember the Democratic presidential candidates in 2004 complaining about outsourcing?), thereby helping sustain global economic growth.

The year 2003 also featured a close congressional vote on Bush's other major first-term initiative, the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Liberals denounced it as doing nothing for the elderly; conservatives worried that it would bust the budget. Experts of all stripes foresaw great challenges in its implementation. In fact, it has all gone surprisingly smoothly, providing broad and welcome coverage for seniors and coming in under projected costs.

So on the two biggest pieces of domestic legislation the president has gotten passed, he has been vindicated. And with respect to the two second-term proposals that failed — private Social Security accounts and immigration — I suspect that something similar to what Bush proposed will end up as law over the next several years.

Meanwhile, 2005-06 saw the confirmation of two Supreme Court nominees, John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel Alito. Your judgment of these two appointments will depend on your general view of the courts and the Constitution. But even if you're a judicial progressive, you have to admit that Roberts and Alito are impressive judges (well, you don't have to admit it — but deep down, you know it). And if you're a conservative constitutionalist, putting Roberts and Alito on the court constitutes a huge accomplishment.

What about terrorism? Apart from Iraq, there has been less of it, here and abroad, than many experts predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. So Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney probably are doing some important things right. The war in Afghanistan has gone reasonably well.

Western Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf's deals with the Taliban are apparently creating something like havens for terrorists, is an increasing problem. That's why our intelligence agencies are worried about a resurgent al-Qaida — because al-Qaida may once again have a place where it can plan, organize and train. These Waziristan havens may well have to be dealt with in the near future. I assume Bush will deal with them, using some combination of air strikes and special operations.

As for foreign policy in general, it has mostly been the usual mixed bag. We've deepened our friendships with Japan and India; we've had better outcomes than expected in the two largest Latin American countries, Mexico and Brazil; and we've gotten friendlier governments than expected in France and Germany. China is stable. There has been slippage in Russia. The situation with North Korea is bad but containable.

But wait, wait, wait: What about Iraq? It's Iraq, stupid — you (and 65 percent of your fellow Americans) say — that makes Bush an unsuccessful president.

Not necessarily. First of all, we would have to compare the situation in Iraq now, with all its difficulties and all the administration's mistakes, with what it would be if we hadn't gone in. Saddam Hussein would be alive and in power and, I dare say, victorious, with the United States (and the United Nations) by now having backed off sanctions and the no-fly zone. He might well have restarted his nuclear program, and his connections with al-Qaida and other terrorist groups would be intact or revived and even strengthened.

Still, that's speculative, and the losses and costs of the war are real. Bush is a war president, and war presidents are judged by whether they win or lose their war. So to be a successful president, Bush has to win in Iraq.

Which I now think we can. Indeed, I think we will. In late 2006, I didn't think we would win, as Bush stuck with the failed Rumsfeld-Abizaid-Casey strategy of "standing down" as the Iraqis were able to "stand up," based on the mistaken theory that if we had a "small footprint" in Iraq, we'd be more successful. With the new counterinsurgency strategy announced on Jan. 10, backed up by the troop "surge," I think the odds are finally better than 50-50 that we will prevail. We are routing al-Qaida in Iraq, we are beginning to curb the Iranian-backed sectarian Shiite militias and we are increasingly able to protect more of the Iraqi population.

If we sustain the surge for a year and continue to train Iraqi troops effectively, we can probably begin to draw down in mid- to late 2008. The fact is that military progress on the ground in Iraq in the past few months has been greater than even surge proponents like me expected, and political progress is beginning to follow. Iran is a problem, and we will have to do more to curb Tehran's meddling — but we can. So if we keep our nerve here at home, we have a good shot at achieving a real, though messy, victory in Iraq.

But can Bush maintain adequate support at home? Yes. It would help if the administration would make its case more effectively and less apologetically. It would help if Bush had more aides who believed in his policy, who understood that the war is winnable and who didn't desperately want to get back in (or stay in) the good graces of the foreign policy establishment.

But Bush has the good fortune of having finally found his Ulysses S. Grant, or his Creighton Abrams, in Gen. David Petraeus. If the president stands with Petraeus and progress continues on the ground, Bush will be able to prevent a sellout in Washington. And then he could leave office with the nation on course to a successful (though painful and difficult) outcome in Iraq. With that, the rest of the Middle East, where so much hangs in the balance, could start to tip in the direction of our friends and away from the jihadists, the mullahs and the dictators.

Following through to secure the victory in Iraq and to extend its benefits to neighboring countries will be the task of the next president. And that brings us to Bush's final test. The truly successful American presidents tend to find vindication in, and guarantee an extension of their policies through, the election of a successor from their own party. Can Bush hand the presidency off to a Republican who will (broadly) continue along the path of his post-9/11 foreign policy, nominate judges who solidify a Roberts-Alito court, make his tax cuts permanent and the like?

Sure. Even at Bush's current low point in popularity, the leading GOP presidential candidates are competitive in the polls with Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Furthermore, one great advantage of the current partisan squabbling in Washington is that while it hurts Bush, it also damages the popularity of the Democratic Congress— where both Clinton and Obama serve. A little mutual assured destruction between the Bush administration and Congress could leave the Republican nominee, who will most likely have no affiliation with either, in decent shape.

And what happens when voters realize in November 2008 that, if they choose a Democrat for president, they'll also get a Democratic Congress and therefore liberal Supreme Court justices? Many Americans will recoil from the prospect of being governed by an unchecked triumvirate of Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. So the chances of a Republican winning the presidency in 2008 aren't bad.

What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president.

I like the odds.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 12:06 PM

Disfavor for Bush Hits Rare Heights
In Modern Era, Only Nixon Scored Worse, And Only Truman Was Down for So Long

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; Page A03

President Bush is a competitive guy. But this is one contest he would rather lose. With 18 months left in office, he is in the running for most unpopular president in the history of modern polling.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News survey shows that 65 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, matching his all-time low. In polls conducted by The Post or Gallup going back to 1938, only once has a president exceeded that level of public animosity -- and that was Richard M. Nixon, who hit 66 percent four days before he resigned.

President Bush's disapproval rating in the polls has risen to within one digit of President Nixon's record high.

The historic depth of Bush's public standing has whipsawed his White House, sapped his clout, drained his advisers, encouraged his enemies and jeopardized his legacy. Around the White House, aides make gallows-humor jokes about how they can alienate their remaining supporters -- at least those aides not heading for the door. Outside the White House, many former aides privately express anger and bitterness at their erstwhile colleagues, Bush and the fate of his presidency.

Bush has been so down for so long that some advisers maintain it no longer bothers them much. It can even, they say, be liberating. Seeking the best interpretation for the president's predicament, they argue that Bush can do what he thinks is right without regard to political cost, pointing to decisions to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and to commute the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.

But the president's unpopularity has left the White House to play mostly defense for the remainder of his term. With his immigration overhaul proposal dead, Bush's principal legislative hopes are to save his No Child Left Behind education program and to fend off attempts to force him to change course in Iraq. The emerging strategy is to play off a Congress that is also deeply unpopular and to look strong by vetoing spending bills.

The president's low public standing has paralleled the disenchantment with the Iraq war, but some analysts said it goes beyond that, reflecting a broader unease with Bush's policies in a variety of areas. "It isn't just the Iraq war," said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College. "It's everything."

Some analysts believe that even many war supporters deserted him because of his plan to open the door to legal status for illegal immigrants. "You can do an unpopular war or you can do an unpopular immigration policy," said David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. "Not both."

Yet Bush's political troubles seem to go beyond particular policies. Many presidents over the past 70 years have faced greater or more immediate crises without falling as far in the public mind -- Vietnam claimed far more American lives than Iraq, the Iranian hostage crisis made the United States look impotent, race riots and desegregation tore the country apart, the oil embargo forced drivers to wait for hours to fill up, the Soviets seemed to threaten the nation's survival.

"It's astonishing," said Pat Caddell, who was President Jimmy Carter's pollster. "It's hard to look at the situation today and say the country is absolutely 15 miles down in the hole. The economy's not that bad -- for some people it is, but not overall. Iraq is terribly handled, but it's not Vietnam; we're not losing 250 people a week. . . . We don't have that immediate crisis, yet the anxiety about the future is palpable. And the feeling about him is he's irrelevant to that. I think they've basically given up on him."

That may stem in part from the changing nature of society. When Caddell's boss was president, there were three major broadcast networks. Today cable news, talk radio and the Internet have made information far more available, while providing easy outlets for rage and polarization. Public disapproval of Bush is not only broad but deep; 52 percent of Americans "strongly" disapprove of his performance and 28 percent describe themselves as "angry."

"A lot of the commentary that comes out of the Internet world is very harsh," said Frank J. Donatelli, White House political director for Ronald Reagan. "That has a tendency to reinforce people's opinions and harden people's opinions."

Carter and Reagan at their worst moments did not face a public as hostile as the one confronting Bush. Lyndon B. Johnson at the height of Vietnam had the disapproval of 52 percent of the public. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Gerald R. Ford never had disapproval ratings reach 50 percent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 12:09 PM


Fortunately for rational discourse, Why Bush Is A Loser,By David Corn
A

(Not to be redundant or unaware of earlier posts or anything...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 02:52 PM

"No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character."

                Ralph Waldo Emerson

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 07 - 08:24 PM

Here's an oddball pitch from the Fish and Wildlife people. They want to build a top-security room. Secret fish and bear stuff...

"Subject: Secret Squirrels?

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is commissioning construction of a
SCIF (Secure Compartmented Information Facility)?? Al Qaeda
recruiting racoons or something?

http://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOI/FWS/CGSWO/973107Q036/SynopsisP.html

"The US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Conservation Training
Center (NCTC), Shepherdstown, WV intends to convert a room at the
facility into a SCIF meeting space.    Potential Vendors are
required to provide a design and cost estimate based on information
provided with the solicitation and the scheduled walk through meeting
on August 8, 2007 at 10:00am.    The room upon completion will meet
all of the required National Security Agency SCIF standards."

I can imagine a number of scenarios, I guess, from leaching budget
from one agency to cover another, to "entrepreneurial" efforts to
make use of excess facilities by renting to other agencies, but I
can't imagine a lot of reasons for Fish & Wildlife to use a one itself.

As a metacomment, I'm seeing a lot of solicitations with very tight
deadlines, e.g., this one came out today, it's got a (presumably
necessary) meeting for vendors in two weeks, which doesn't much allow
for anyone who hasn't already got this on the radar to respond."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 10:02 AM

The administration's contemptuous attitude toward the constitutional role of Congress was on display again this week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He repeatedly refused to answer legitimate questions, and he contradicted himself so frequently that it is hard to believe he was even trying to tell the truth.

Congress must not capitulate in the White House's attempt to rob it of its constitutional powers. Now that the committee has acted, the whole House must vote to hold Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten in contempt. The administration has indicated that it is unlikely to allow the United States attorney for the District of Columbia to bring Congress's contempt charges before a grand jury. That would be a regrettable stance. But if the administration sticks to it, Congress can and should proceed against Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten on its own, using its inherent contempt powers.

It is not too late for President Bush to spare the country the trauma, and himself the disgrace, of this particular constitutional showdown. There is a simple way out. He should direct Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten to provide Congress with the information to which it is entitled.

(Times editorial)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 10:32 AM

Ideology is never a suitable premise for foreign policy.
Alfred Kayda PHD

$1.5 trillion is the estimated cost to keep the aging US infrastructure intact over the next 5 years.

This is about equal to the actual cost of the ongong Gulf Wars.

The US will pay for the diversion of these funds. Our bridges pipes tunnels and roads currently in need of repair will be futher stressed by an acellerated rate of natural disasters.

It is possible that Halliburton will have its cake and eat it too if called upon for additional Katrina like emergency repairs.








PS
there is no such thing as a stock tip: however to buy low and sell high check out

Texas Instruments.
Exon Mobil
GM (at junk bond status last year)
AG Edwards%Wacovia merger.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jul 07 - 03:38 PM

Rove Summoned as Democrats Escalate Fight With Bush on Firings

By James Rowley

July 26 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Democrats sought a special prosecutor to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied to lawmakers and subpoenaed President George W. Bush's top political aide Karl Rove to testify about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Charges by four Democratic senators that Gonzales repeatedly lied under oath, plus the latest subpoena, raised the stakes in the congressional fight with Bush over his refusal to allow aides to testify about the firing of nine prosecutors last year.

The new allegations against Gonzales came two days after the attorney general appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he faced expressions of incredulity and disdain from senators in both parties about his answers to questions on Bush's surveillance of suspected terrorists.

``The attorney general took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,'' New York Democrat Charles Schumer told reporters. ``Instead, he tells the half- truth, the partial truth and everything but the truth. And he does it not once, and not twice, but over and over and over again.''

In a letter to the Justice Department, the senators said a special counsel should ``determine whether Attorney General Gonzales may have misled Congress or perjured himself.'' Besides Schumer, it was signed by Democrats Dianne Feinstein of California, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. (...)

(From Bloomberg.com)

---

Going to the mat over Karl Rove is a tactical stroke of dramatic import. May it succeed.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 10:10 AM

US Senate breaks Bush's budget in homeland security bill, adds money for controlling border
AP July 26, 2007

WASHINGTON: The Senate passed the first of 12 spending bills, smashing President George W. Bush's budget for border control and other homeland security programs.

The $40.6 billion (€29.6 billion) measure passed by an overwhelming 89-4 vote Thursday, as Bush's Republican allies joined with Democrats to flout his veto threat.

The already popular bill became more so with the addition of $3 billion (€2.2 billion) above budget caps set by both Bush and Senate Democratic leaders to secure the U.S-Mexico border and seek out immigrants who have overstayed their visas.

The bill also greatly exceeds Bush's request for homeland security grants to state and local governments for improving disaster planning and training, interoperable radio equipment, and paying for new fire and rescue equipment.

Senate action came as Republicans and the White House stepped up attacks on Democrats for their handling of the must-pass appropriations work, warning that a stack of veto threats and a slow pace of work virtually guarantees a legislative mess in the fall.
Today in Americas
In the Amazon: conservation or colonialism?
FBI director disputes Gonzales testimony on classified intelligence program
Edwards proposes increase to capital gains tax

"Here we are almost in August and we've only passed one" appropriations bill, griped Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican. "We're looking at a potential train wreck in September."

In fact, Republicans brought only two spending bills to the floor all of last year when they controlled the Senate. Their performance two years ago was considerably better, however.

The border security money was broken out of Bush's immigration overhaul bill, which failed last month. The money would go toward seizing "operational control" over the U.S.-Mexico border with additional Border Patrol agents, vehicle barriers, border fencing and observation towers, plus a crackdown on people who overstay their visas.

But its addition to the bill seemed to guarantee that Bush will need to either drop his veto threat on the underlying bill — which already exceeded his budget by $2.3 billion (€1.7 billion) — or have his vetoes overturned.

Earlier, House lawmakers approved legislation to increase funding for space and science programs, local crime fighters and the FBI.

The $53.8 billion (€39.2 billion) measure funding the departments of Commerce and Justice passed the House by a 281-142 vote, just enough to sustain a veto.

But the tally belied the widespread support for programs financed by the sprawling measure, including anti-crime grants for states and local governments, the administration's "competitiveness initiative" boosting basic science research and teaching, as well as the FBI and anti-drug programs.

Bush has threatened vetoes or signaled veto threats against nine of the 12 annual spending bills for the budget year beginning Oct. 1; all but two of those threats involve spending levels that exceed the budget the administration proposed in February.

The differences between Bush and Congress involve $23 billion (€16.8 billion) in funding added by lawmakers to the president's $433 billion (€315.6 billion) request for non-defense programs — about a 5 percent increase — as well as $3.5 billion (€2.55 billion) shifted by Democrats from the Pentagon to domestic programs.

In many cases, the Democratic add-ons restore cuts Bush sought. In prior years, Republican-controlled congresses denied many of the same cuts.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/27/america/NA-GEN-US-Congress-Spending.php

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 03:20 PM

Bush Aide Blocked Report
Global Health Draft In 2006 Rejected for Not Being Political
By Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 29, 2007; Page A01


A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.



Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Richard H. Carmona, who commissioned the "Call to Action on Global Health" while serving as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, recently cited its suppression as an example of the Bush administration's frequent efforts during his tenure to give scientific documents a political twist. At a July 10 House committee hearing, Carmona did not cite Steiger by name or detail the report's contents and its implications for American public health.

Carmona told lawmakers that, as he fought to release the document, he was "called in and again admonished . . . via a senior official who said, 'You don't get it.' " He said a senior official told him that "this will be a political document, or it will not be released. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 03:24 PM

Walter Mondale on Cheney:

Answering to No One
By Walter F. Mondale
Sunday, July 29, 2007; Page B07


"The Post's recent series on Dick Cheney's vice presidency certainly got my attention. Having held that office myself over a quarter-century ago, I have more than a passing interest in its evolution from the backwater of American politics to the second most powerful position in our government. Almost all of that evolution, under presidents and vice presidents of both parties, has been positive -- until now. Under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it has gone seriously off track.

The Founders created the vice presidency as a constitutional afterthought, solely to provide a president-in-reserve should the need arise. The only duty they specified was that the vice president should preside over the Senate. The office languished in obscurity and irrelevance for more than 150 years until Richard Nixon saw it as a platform from which to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 1960. That worked, and the office has been an effective launching pad for aspiring candidates since.

But it wasn't until Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency that the vice presidency took on a substantive role. Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.

Our relationship depended on trust, mutual respect and an acknowledgement that there was only one agenda to be served -- the president's. Every Monday the two of us met privately for lunch; we could, and did, talk candidly about virtually anything. By the end of four years we had completed the "executivization" of the vice presidency, ending two centuries of confusion, derision and irrelevance surrounding the office.

Subsequent administrations followed this pattern. George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle and Al Gore built their vice presidencies after this model, allowing for their different interests, experiences and capabilities as well as the needs of the presidents they served.

This all changed in 2001, and especially after Sept. 11, when Cheney set out to create a largely independent power center in the office of the vice president. His was an unprecedented attempt not only to shape administration policy but, alarmingly, to limit the policy options sent to the president. It is essential that a president know all the relevant facts and viable options before making decisions, yet Cheney has discarded the "honest broker" role he played as President Gerald Ford's chief of staff.

Through his vast government experience, through the friends he had been able to place in key positions and through his considerable political skills, he has been increasingly able to determine the answers to questions put to the president -- because he has been able to determine the questions. It was Cheney who persuaded President Bush to sign an order that denied access to any court by foreign terrorism suspects and Cheney who determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Rather than subject his views to an established (and rational) vetting process, his practice has been to trust only his immediate staff before taking ideas directly to the president. Many of the ideas that Bush has subsequently bought into have proved offensive to the values of the Constitution and have been embarrassingly overturned by the courts.

The corollary to Cheney's zealous embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability. I've never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress -- even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying -- it's almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.

Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 05:51 PM

This is the War on Terror by the incomparable Roy Zimmerman.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 02:09 AM

WASHINGTON, July 30 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens on Monday in search of evidence about his relationship to a businessman who oversaw a remodeling project that almost doubled the size of the senator's house, federal law enforcement officials said.

The decision to raid the home suggests that the corruption investigation focused on Mr. Stevens, a long-serving Republican and former chairman, has taken on new urgency.

The businessman, Bill J. Allen, the founder of an oil fields service company that has won tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts with the senator's help, has pleaded guilty to bribing state legislators.

The F.B.I. confirmed that the raid on Mr. Stevens's home in the Alaskan ski resort city of Girdwood, about 40 miles south of Anchorage, began about 2:30 p.m. Alaska time, or about 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.

In Washington, Mr. Stevens issued a brief statement: "My attorneys were advised this morning that federal agents wished to search my home in Girdwood in connection with an ongoing investigation. I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence the outcome."

A spokesman for the Anchorage office of the F.B.I., David Heller, would not discuss details of what was being sought in the raid and referred calls to the Justice Department's public integrity division in Washington. The division handles major corruption cases involving public officials.

Mr. Stevens is one of more than a dozen current and former members of Congress who are known to be under scrutiny by the F.B.I.

His case may be the most politically consequential. He is the only senator known to be under criminal investigation, and he continues to wield power on the Appropriations Committee, which controls how the federal budget is distributed. Mr. Stevens, 83, is up for re-election next year and has suggested that he will seek another term.

Mr. Stevens has been caught up in a larger corruption investigation in Alaska that resulted in raids last year on the homes of six state lawmakers, including the senator's son, Ben, who was then president of State Senate. All of the state lawmakers are under scrutiny over their relationships with Mr. Allen and his company, VECO, and other large Alaska companies.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 12:13 PM

from the Washington Post

Short of Perjury

By Ruth Marcus
Tuesday, July 31, 2007; Page A19

I find myself in an unaccustomed and unexpected position: defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales fans, if there are Gonzales fans left, except for the only fan who counts: Don't take any comfort from my assessment.

In his Senate testimony last week, Gonzales once again dissembled and misled. He was too clever by seven-eighths. He employed his signature brand of inartful dodging -- linguistic evasion, poorly executed. The brutalizing he received from senators of both parties was abundantly deserved.

But I don't think he actually lied about his March 2004 hospital encounter with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. I certainly don't think he could be charged with -- much less convicted of -- perjury.

Go back to December 2005, when the New York Times reported on a secret program of warrantless wiretapping. President Bush acknowledged an effort "to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

Soon, the first stories about the hospital visit appeared.

In a Jan. 1, 2006, article, the Times reported then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey's refusal to approve continuation of the surveillance program and described "an emergency visit" to Ashcroft's hospital room by Gonzales and Andrew Card, then White House counsel and chief of staff, respectively.

Similarly, Newsweek reported how the White House aides "visited Ashcroft in the hospital to appeal Comey's refusal. In pain and on medication, Ashcroft stood by his No. 2."

It was in this context -- senators knew about the hospital visit well before Comey's riveting description in May -- that Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2006.

Asked about those reports, he said that "with respect to what the president has confirmed, I do not believe that these DOJ officials that you were identifying had concerns about this program." The disagreements, he said, "dealt with operational capabilities that we're not talking about today."

Flash-forward to last week, when Gonzales once again said: "The disagreement that occurred and the reason for the visit to the hospital . . . was about other intelligence activities. It was not about the Terrorist Surveillance Program that the president announced to the American people."

The emphasis is mine, and it matters. We know, from Comey's account, that the dispute was intense. We don't know precisely what the disagreement was about -- and it makes sense that we don't know: This was a classified program, and all the officials, current and former, who have testified about it have been deliberately and appropriately vague.

In his May testimony, Comey referred only to "a particular classified program." FBI Director Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee last week that the hospital-room encounter was about "an NSA program that has been much discussed."

Does this really contradict Gonzales or turn him into a perjurer? It's clear there was an argument over the warrantless wiretapping program. Comey refused to recertify it. In response, something about the program changed; Justice officials were willing to go along with the modified program.

The New York Times reported Sunday that the disagreement involved "computer searches through massive electronic databases" -- not necessarily the more-limited program the president acknowledged. As the Times put it, "If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales' defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct."

Congress deserves better than technically correct linguistic parsing. So the bipartisan fury at Gonzales is understandable. Lawmakers are in full Howard Beale mode, mad as hell at Gonzales and not wanting to take it anymore.

But perjury is a crime that demands parsing: To be convicted, the person must have "willfully" stated a "material matter which he does not believe to be true."

The Supreme Court could have been writing about Gonzales when it ruled that "the perjury statute is not to be loosely construed, nor the statute invoked simply because a wily witness succeeds in derailing the questioner -- so long as the witness speaks the literal truth" -- even if the answers "were not guileless but were shrewdly calculated to evade."

Consequently, the calls by some Democrats for a special prosecutor to consider whether Gonzales committed perjury have more than a hint of maneuvering for political advantage. What else is to be gained by engaging in endless Clintonian debates about what the meaning of "program" is?

Rather, lawmakers need to concentrate on determining what the administration did -- and under what claimed legal authority -- that produced the hospital room showdown. They need to satisfy themselves that the administration has since been operating within the law; to see what changes might guard against a repetition of the early, apparently unlawful activities; and to determine where the foreign intelligence wiretapping statute might need fixes.

That's where Congress's focus should be -- not on trying to incite criminal a prosecution that won't happen of an attorney general who should have been gone long ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 07 - 05:43 PM

Bush's Enablers

In the New York Times yesterday, Brookings Institution analysts Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack published an op-ed entitled A War We Just Might Win, in which they argue, "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." Billing themselves "as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq," the authors declare that "there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008." The Bush administration quickly latched onto the op-ed to support its failing Iraq strategy, e-mailing the editorial to every White House reporter yesterday morning with the subject line "In Case You Missed It." Peter Wehner, the White House's departing director of strategic communications, told the Politico that the op-ed was "possibly climate-changing." Predictably, the administration's dead-end pro-war supporters hastily followed suit. The piece was praised in nearly every corner of the right-wing blogosphere. National Review, the flagship magazine of the conservative movement, convened a symposium of eight prominent war-backers, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and another Brookings analyst Peter Rodman, to praise the editorial. In propagating the New York Times column, the White House placed O'Hanlon and Pollack back in the familiar roles they've played throughout the entire Iraq war: establishment left-of-center experts providing political cover for the administration's misguided war policies.

WRONG ABOUT THE INVASION: In the fall of 2002, Pollack published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, which warned that Saddam was extremely close to developing nuclear weapons. Slate's Chris Suellentrop described the book as turning "more doves into hawks than Richard Perle, Laurie Mylroie, and George W. Bush combined." In Oct. 2002, Pollack appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show to discuss Iraq for her massive audience, where he pushed the false, but frightening, claim "that Saddam Hussein is absolutely determined to acquire nuclear weapons and is building them as fast as he can." O'Hanlon participated in the pre-war fear-mongering as well. In a Dec. 31, 2002 op-ed, O'Hanlon argued that "Saddam Hussein may be poised to bring the battle to American cities via terrorism." "We've got to go to war by March, I think, if we're going to use the good weather," he told Fox News in Jan. 2003. Unfortunately, given the influence of the Brookings Institution, O'Hanlon and Pollack's support for the war helped push many skeptics towards supporting the folly of invading Iraq.

WRONG ABOUT THE SURGE: Though both scholars became more critical of the administration's handling of the war as the situation worsened over the years, both O'Hanlon and Pollack lent their intellectual and rhetorical support to Bush's push for escalation in Iraq in the winter of 2006. Pollack, who was consulted by the military about escalation plans, argued at the time, "[T]he president's plan is almost certainly the last chance to stabilize Iraq." On Jan. 14, 2007, O'Hanlon wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post entitled A Skeptic's Case For The Surge, arguing that though the "surge" may be "too little, way too late...for a skeptical Congress and nation, it is still the right thing to try." O'Hanlon argued again in March 2007 that "rather than force a showdown with Mr. Bush this winter and spring, Congress should give his surge strategy a chance."

WRONG ABOUT STAYING THE COURSE: In their op-ed, O'Hanlon and Pollack concede that the alleged success they are seeing is only "in military terms" and that "we still face huge hurdles on the political front." This concession undermines much of their case for "sustaining the effort at least into 2008." Since the "surge" began, even Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has admitted that "there is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq," only a political one. Additionally, O'Hanlon's own research in the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index contradicts his effort to portray the "surge" as successful. Just last week, on July 26, O'Hanlon's assessment argued that "violence nationwide has failed to improve measurably over the past 2-plus months, with a resilient enemy increasingly turning its focus to softer targets outside the scope of the surge." He also noted that "politically, there has yet to be significant progress in the legislation of any of the critical benchmark laws." When asked to respond to O'Hanlon's assertions of progress in Iraq, CNN Baghdad correspondent Arwa Damon replied that "most [Iraqis] that I've spoken to will not really say that they feel that the situation is getting better." By cherry-picking anecdotal signs of progress in order to justify continuing a war they supported from the beginning, O'Hanlon and Pollack overlook the fundamental problems of the continuing American presence in Iraq. Strategic Reset, a plan put forth by the Center for American Progress, addresses these fundamental flaws and calls for phased military redeployment from Iraq in one year. On MSNBC's Hardball yesterday, Strategic Reset co-author Brian Katulis called out O'Hanlon for writing a "propaganda piece" and "cherry-picking the facts on Iraq."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Aug 07 - 04:39 PM

The surge is so successful that the plan is to keep it up for another 2 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 03:35 PM

An acidic analysis of the mind-boggling stupidity behind the multi-billion Audi arms deal the Bush administration is pushing can be found here at The Nation. Highly recommended. A fine argument for impeachment (see other thread on this subject)on the grounds of betrayal of the national trust...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 07 - 09:32 PM

That should be SAUDI arms deal, not Audi. As far as I know the Bushies haven't started selling arms to car manufacturers yet--I think it is scheduled for 2010, in the middle of the third term.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 02:32 PM

Its Saudacious

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 02:53 PM

" Blame also belongs to the idiot politicians who decided 30 years ago to abandon the moon and send us on a pointless and endless journey into low Earth orbit. President Bush has sensibly called an end to this nonsense and committed us to going back to the moon and, ultimately, to Mars. If his successors don't screw it up, within 10 years NASA will have us back to where we belong -- on other worlds."

from the Washington Post,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202022.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 03:10 PM

If you are not a DC beaurocrat let me tell you the obvious.

The OMB Office of Management and Budget has become the department in which the White House uses to punish, block, defund and compromise every other department in the government.

It targets the EPA, NIH and has even attacked the GAO.

If you think the justice department is politicized the OMB is far worse.
It is staffed with lots of Regent college 20 year olds who assign entire Federal Departments with catch 22 projects of absolute waste and delay.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 03:11 PM

The Good Government

(A Fable by Ambrose Bierce)



"WHAT a happy land you are!" said a Republican Form of Government to a Sovereign State. "Be good enough to lie still while I walk upon you, singing the praises of universal suffrage and descanting upon the blessings of civil and religious liberty. In the meantime you can relieve your feelings by cursing the one-man power and the effete monarchies of Europe."

"My public servants have been fools and rogues from the date of your accession to power," replied the State; "my legislative bodies, both State and municipal, are bands of thieves; my taxes are insupportable; my courts are corrupt; my cities are a disgrace to civilisation; my corporations have their hands at the throats of every private interest - all my affairs are in disorder and criminal confusion."

"That is all very true," said the Republican Form of Government, putting on its hobnail shoes; "but consider how I thrill you every Fourth of July."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 04:57 PM

Amos while there will always be some rogue idiot public servants, it has always been the American Ruling class who ultimately buys the President, laws and new talent to further their ability to get more money for power and get more power to protect their money.

In a world collaterally damaged by the magic of money and the miracal of science, no question gets asked more often than the use of America's wealth and power.

To what ends do the wealth of the Wall Street Banks and the force of the Pentagon's collosal weapons. Where does America get its wisdom to play with its wonderful toys?

THe questions touch upon the nature of America's ruling class/
IF the question is too hard it is because we like to pretend there is no such thing as the American ruling class that has ever darkened an American shore or howled at the dark of an American moon.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 02:54 PM

From the Washington Post.



Our Chance to Capture the Center

By Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford Jr.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; Page A13

With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.

The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.

But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven't voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out. With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.

A majority comes hard for Democrats. In the past 150 years, only three Democrats, one of whom was Franklin Roosevelt, have won the White House with a majority of the popular vote.

What's more, political success built on the other party's failure is fleeting. Jimmy Carter won a majority in the wake of Watergate, but his own shortcomings on national security and the economy took him from majority victor to landslide loser in four years. Repudiating the other side's approach is only half the battle. Since neither side has a monopoly on truth, the hard part is knowing when to look beyond traditional orthodoxies to do what works.

Like FDR, we can build a lasting majority only by earning it -- with ideas that demonstrate to the American people that if they entrust us with national leadership, we can deal effectively with the challenges our country faces and the challenges they face in their everyday lives.

Over the past six years, we've seen what happens when an administration writes off the political center and manipulates every decision for partisan gain. Bush's failure to solve -- or even address -- America's great challenges has left our country dispirited, disillusioned and divided.

Contrast the collapse of a conservative president with the success of the last centrist president. Bill Clinton ran on an agenda of sensible ideas that brought America a decade of peace and prosperity. He was the only Democrat to be elected and reelected president in the past seven decades, and he left office more popular than almost any other president in recent memory.

Nearly seven years after Bush succeeded Clinton in the White House, America is facing challenges as great as we've ever seen -- a war against Islamist radicals who would destroy our way of life; global economic competition that demands we raise our game; and a quest for energy independence and efficiency that Al Gore has shown us could make or break our planet. To conquer such enduring problems, Democrats will need a broad, enduring majority -- and a centrist agenda that sustains it by making steady progress.

Most Americans don't care much about partisan politics; they just want practical answers to the problems they face every day. So far, our leading presidential candidates seem to understand that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That's why they have begun putting forward smart, New Democrat plans to cap and trade carbon emissions, give more Americans the chance to earn their way through college, achieve universal health care through shared responsibility, increase national security by rebuilding our embattled military and enable all Americans who work full time to lift themselves out of poverty.

As the caucuses and primaries approach, candidates will come under increasing pressure to ignore the broader electorate and appeal to the party faithful. But the opportunity to build a historic majority is too great -- and too rare -- to pass up.

A new Democratic president will have the chance to unite Americans around solutions that will make all Americans proud of their country again. For the sake of the hardworking Americans who are depending on us to fix Washington and put our country on the right track, we pray that Democrats set out to build a majority that can last.

Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, is governor of Maryland. Harold Ford Jr. is a former Democratic representative from Tennessee and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 02:58 PM

Not My Grandpa's Democrats

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; Page A13

As always, I was awakened by a sudden draft through the closed windows, saw the curtains ominously stirring and sensed instantly that someone was in my bedroom. Without even looking up, I knew it was my long-dead grandfather, an immigrant of socialist leanings and what he would call common sense. Wearily, I went through the drill.

"Grandpa, is that you?"

"You were expecting maybe Lucy Lohan?"

"Lindsay," I corrected.

" 'Scuse me. Where I am we don't get People magazine."

I tried to get to the point. "What brings you down this time?" I asked.

He was holding a newspaper, always a dangerous sign.

"What's happened to the Democratic Party?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? What do I mean? Listen, college boy, in my day, the Democrats stood for the little man. You know the little man, boychik?"

"Yes, Grandpa."

"He's the working stiff. He's the guy with a lunch pail. You think it's right he pays a higher rate of taxes than those hedge-fund managers?"

"Oh, Grandpa, you're talking about something called the 'Carry.' It stands for carried interest, and it means that these money managers and hedge-fund guys, wonderful risk-takers and builders of wonderful wealth, get taxed as if their income is capital gains -- 15 percent. The IRS says it's legal."

"Legal, shmegal! You think it's fair?"

"Fair?"

"Yeah, fair. You heard of fair, Mr. Famous Columnist?"

"This is not a matter of fairness, Grandpa. Believe me, there are vast issues of macroeconomics and tax policy here, which, if not handled properly, will sink the economy."

"Who are you?" my grandfather bellowed. "The poor pay more than the rich, and you give me this macaroni economics stuff. You should be ashamed of yourself." He paused.

"You know this Schumer?"

"Chuck? The senator? Yeah."

"He's opposed to this tax fairness. What kind of Democrat is this?"

"You have to understand," I explained, "Schumer represents Wall Street."

"What about Main Street?"

" Hillary supports your view."

"You think I was born yesterday? She's not going to campaign on that. She'll let this Chuck character take the heat, and she'll do nothing."

"Do you have two sources for that?"

"Oh, wake up! Don't you know nothing about bosses and workers and who controls politicians? Too much college made your brain soft." He paused again.

"You know any subprime people?" he said.

"What?"

"These people who got these lousy mortgages. They got this fancy word for these poor suckers. Subprime."

"These are wonderful financial instruments that have made us a great nation of homeowners."

"This is a Brooklyn Bridge for poor people to buy. This is a way of selling houses to people who can't afford them. It's a way for bankers to make money. They take the loans from these poor people, and then they put thousands of them in a Vegematic or something and then sell what comes out. The lenders don't lose nothing. They didn't warn people that interest rates would go up, and they would lose everything -- their house and everything they put in it. That's a crime in my book. Someone should be punished. Instead, the mortgage people make out like bandits."

"You have a point."

"Thank you. And where is the Democratic Party? Where is the party of the little man? Nowhere. Who's yelling and screaming about this or, God forbid, leading a march or holding a rally just like the old days? Who's organizing a boycott or maybe holding a show in a theater? Not the Democrats. Too afraid of Wall Street."

"Oh, Grandpa, that's so old-fashioned."

"You think so, smarty-pants? You think honesty and fairness is old-fashioned? You think it's right for the head of this Blackstone group to make hundreds of millions of dollars and pay almost no taxes? Virtually nothing! And he gives a party for himself in New York that costs millions. He has a 35-room apartment that once belonged to a Rockefeller and fancy art on the wall and has the chutzpah to buy lobbyists by the dozen so he don't pay his fair share in taxes. Is that right?"

"Maybe he should pay more."

"Maybe? Maybe you should write columns kicking the Democrats in the pants for forgetting who they represent. Maybe you should get angry yourself. Maybe you should remember who you are and where you come from?"

"Yes, Grandpa."

"Good. How's your mother?"

"Pretty good. She was 95 on July 4th."

"Tell her I love her."

"Yes, Grandpa."

"Go back to sleep, boychik."

And, like the rest of the country, I did.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 03:44 PM

My hat is off to Mister Cohen. May he continue to wake others up.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:05 AM

In the Times, an essay on the deeply flawed attitude of Bush's cronies toward the management of terrorism and the difference between combatants and common criminals. It was argued, by me among others, just after 9-11, that these acts should be prosecuted as crimes. Wesley Clark does a lucid job of unpacking the verygood reasons why Bush's policies of bitterness and militarism toward terrorist crimes is misguided and harmful.


"...If we are to defeat terrorists across the globe, we must do everything possible to deny legitimacy to their aims and means, and gain legitimacy for ourselves. As a result, terrorism should be fought first with information exchanges and law enforcement, then with more effective domestic security measures. Only as a last resort should we call on the military and label such activities "war." The formula for defeating terrorism is well known and time-proven.

Labeling terrorists as combatants also leads to this paradox: while the deliberate killing of civilians is never permitted in war, it is legal to target a military installation or asset. Thus the attack by Al Qaeda on the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000 would be allowed, as well as attacks on command and control centers like the Pentagon. For all these reasons, the more appropriate designation for terrorists is not "unlawful combatant" but the one long used by the United States: criminal.

The second major problem with the approach of the Bush administration is that it endangers our political traditions and our commitment to liberty, and further damages America's legitimacy in the eyes of others. Almost 50 years ago, at the height of the cold war, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the "deeply rooted and ancient opposition in this country to the extension of military control over civilians."

A great danger in treating operatives for Al Qaeda as combatants is precisely that its members are not easily distinguished from the population at large. The government wields frightening power when it can designate who is, and who is not, subject to indefinite military detention. The Marri case turned on this issue. Mr. Marri is a legal resident of the United States and a citizen of Qatar; the government contends that he is a sleeper agent of Al Qaeda. For the last four years he has been held as an enemy combatant at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C.

The federal court held that while the government can arrest and convict civilians, under current law the military cannot seize and detain Mr. Marri. Nor would it necessarily be constitutional to do so, even if Congress expressly authorized the military detention of civilians. At the core of the court's reasoning is the belief that civilians and combatants are distinct. Had Ali al-Marri fought for an enemy nation, military detention would clearly be proper. But because he is accused of being a member of Al Qaeda, and is a citizen of a friendly nation, he should not be treated as a warrior.

Cases like this illustrate that in the years since 9/11, the Bush administration's approach to terrorism has created more problems than it has solved. We need to recognize that terrorists, while dangerous, are more like modern-day pirates than warriors. They ought to be pursued, tried and convicted in the courts. At the extreme, yes, military force may be required. But the terrorists themselves are not "combatants." They are merely criminals, albeit criminals of an especially heinous type, and that label suggests the appropriate venue for dealing with the threats they pose.

We train our soldiers to respect the line between combatant and civilian. Our political leaders must also respect this distinction, lest we unwittingly endanger the values for which we are fighting, and further compromise our efforts to strengthen our security."

Wesley K. Clark, the former supreme commander of NATO

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:17 AM

"To their shame, 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House voted to hand the president monarchical powers that the signers of the Constitution had withheld. The Fourth Amendment has served to safeguard citizens against warrantless searches and seizures; this president says instead: Just trust me.

These Democrats will no doubt be astonished, but Republicans will not stop calling them weak on terrorism. The rest of us just think they're weak, period.

Fred Roberts

Decatur, Ga., Aug. 7, 2007"

Hmmmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 03:16 PM

David Swanson writes:

..."Failure to stop Bush is not a victimless crime
by David Swanson
August 8, 2007

If you support the ongoing occupation of Iraq, I'm sure you have your reasons and that they're based in hard scientific calculations. But please indulge me for a moment and help me do this little math problem:

All the benefits we've gotten out of invading and occupying Iraq (whatever they may be)…

Actually, let me stop right there. The benefits you have in mind for this calculation should not include the increased price of gas, the killed and wounded U.S. servicemen and women, or the creation of a breeding ground for terrorists in Iraq (that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have made us less safe is the consensus opinion of U.S. intelligence agencies, supported as well by a conservative British think tank). Oh, and please don't factor in the Iraqis' gratitude, since the majority of them believe the invasion and occupation have made them worse off, and they want the U.S. to leave.

As I was saying, all the benefits we've gotten out of invading and occupying Iraq (whatever in the world they may be) have come at a certain financial cost. U.S. taxpayers have shelled out $450 billion thus far. The Congressional Budget Office expects costs to end up over a trillion. And those calculations do not include the costs of providing health care for veterans and rebuilding the military, or the effects on the economy of removing workers to make them soldiers, of increasing the price of oil, of failing to spend the war money on domestic projects (such as infrastructure), etc. Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes estimate a total cost of at least $2 trillion.

The immediate impact of that expense on human lives has been the following: an estimated 995,320 Iraqis killed, many more severely injured, an estimated 2 million Iraqis displaced within Iraq, and another estimated 2 million Iraqis now living as refugees in surrounding nations. Add to this nearly 4,000 U.S. servicemen and women killed, and nearly 27,000 wounded in combat, and another 27,000 wounded in accidents or suffering illnesses requiring medical evaluation. As of the end of 2006, more than 180,000 U.S. military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan had filed disability claims. Contractors and mercenaries in Iraq outnumber U.S. troops, and according to Reuters had suffered 933 deaths as of June 30, and 10,569 wounded as of March 31. About 200 of those dead were Americans.

In very rough terms, then, we have chosen to shell out a trillion dollars to kill a million people. That's $1,000 for each death (plus, again, whatever the benefits have been).

Now, here comes the math problem. What if we had spent that trillion dollars saving lives that were at risk instead of taking away lives that were relatively safe? We know, for example, that tens of thousands of children die every year for lack of basic health care. A measles-mumps-rubella vaccination, including safe injection equipment, costs about $1.00. Thousands of children die every year for lack of drinkable water. You can find a lot of people clean water with a trillion dollars. According to UNESCO's 2007 Global Monitoring Report, we could provide primary education to every child in the world who lacks it for $11 billion a year.

And if we think in terms of just the United States, our needs shrink in the face of wealth as enormous as a trillion dollars. For that kind of money, we could provide health coverage to more people than we have in this country (a misleading statistic, since we already spend more than we need to for health coverage; we don't need to spend more – we need to establish single-payer coverage and spend less). Or we could provide tens of millions of four-year college scholarships (how many soldiers would choose a fourth tour of Iraq over a free college education?). Or we could create a jobs program working on infrastructure and green energy that would boost this economy and provide young people with choices other than the military.

So, this is the question for you to calculate: how would you spend a trillion dollars? If you could save a million lives and not kill the million people we've killed in Iraq, wouldn't that be a net gain of 2 million lives saved? Wouldn't you do it? This is not an academic exercise. The deaths in Iraq are continuing, and the death rate is increasing, not slowing down. After a month's vacation, Congress will vote another gargantuan pile of cash for the occupation of Iraq in September. Don't think for a minute that they won't do it….unless we stop them.
..."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 09:55 AM

Washington Post:

Admiral Scapegoat

By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, August 9, 2007; Page A17

A sadder but wiser Vice Admiral J.M. "Mike" McConnell, director of national intelligence (DNI), told a senior Republican House member last weekend that the next time he dealt with congressional Democrats he would make sure a Republican was in the room or on the phone. After a lifetime navigating the murky waters of intelligence, McConnell at age 64 was ill-prepared for the stormy seas of Capitol Hill.

Late Saturday, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a bill that is anathema to the party's base: authorization of eavesdropping on suspected terrorist conversations without a court warrant. It passed because Democrats could not take the political risk of going home for the August recess having shut down U.S. surveillance of threats to the country. But since they could not blame themselves, they blamed the nonpolitical DNI.

At issue is whether McConnell, in a closed-door meeting, accepted a Democratic plan sharply limiting warrantless eavesdropping and then reneged under White House pressure. The Democratic leadership hoped the admiral's approval would give enough Republicans and Democrats cover to vote for their bill. Instead, his disapproval produced a breakdown in Democratic discipline rare during this Congress.

McConnell, who spent 26 of his 29 active-duty Navy years in intelligence, is a gray spook not widely known on Capitol Hill until last week. After serving the last four years of his naval career as director of the National Security Agency under President Bill Clinton, he was not considered a Republican. That was before last week's meeting at Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office with other key House Democrats and with McConnell on the phone. As usual, no Republicans were invited, and the bill under discussion was not revealed to the GOP.

Hopes of passing the bill faded when McConnell issued a written statement saying, "I strongly oppose it," adding that it "would not allow me to carry out my responsibility to provide warning and to protect the nation." Nevertheless, Democratic leaders brought up their bill on Friday under a procedure requiring a two-thirds vote for passage to prevent the Republicans from offering a stronger substitute. The vote, 218 to 207, fell far short.

That left Democrats in a difficult position. Could they go home without having passed a surveillance bill and face Republican taunts that Congress was permitting terrorists to communicate freely? They had no choice but to permit the administration's bill to come to a vote Saturday night just before adjourning, without imposing party discipline. Not a single Democrat spoke in favor of the bill. No committee chairman voted for it. But 41 Democrats did -- mostly junior members, including 13 freshmen from competitive districts. The bill passed 227 to 183. It also passed easily in the Senate, where 16 Democrats supported it.

To explain this defeat, Democrats in floor debate added McConnell to their gallery of rogues, along with George W. Bush and Alberto Gonzales. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York suggested McConnell accepted the Democratic restrictions "until he spoke to the White House, and now he changes politically." Off the House floor, one prominent Democrat said -- not for attribution -- that McConnell "was less than truthful." On the record, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel told me: "He was not negotiating in good faith."

What did McConnell say in his conference with the Democrats? The usually prudent House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, was measured in floor debate, saying the DNI (in a "direct quote") informed the Democrats that their proposal "significantly enhances America's security." He added: "I do not imply that he said he supported it." McConnell, a reticent professional intelligence officer, declined to talk to me about his comments to Democrats. But Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, talked with McConnell on Saturday and Monday and told me: "He never had a deal with the Democrats."

In three decades of dealing with intelligence secrets, Mike McConnell was never subjected to the abuse he encountered in the two House sessions, during which he was called a cowardly liar. With the activist Democratic base bitterly opposed to eavesdropping but the party's leadership wary of challenging President Bush on protecting the country from terrorism, the admiral became the scapegoat.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 10:07 AM

BLOG | Posted 08/10/2007 @ 12:22am
Carl Bernstein: Bush More "Disastrous" Than Nixon

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Carl Bernstein will always be known as the journalist who brought down a president whose disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law disqualified the errant executive from completing a second term in the White House. And Bernstein still gets a round of applause when mention is made of the role he played, as part of a Washington Post investigative team that also included Bob Woodward, in exposing the high crimes and misdemeanors of a president named Nixon.

But 33 years after Nixon resigned in order to avoid an inevitable impeachment -- on August 9, 1974 -- Bernstein is more concerned about a president named Bush.

...But the Pulitzer Prize-winning author was under no illusions regarding the extent of Nixon's wrongdoing as compared with that of Bush and those around the current president.

Bernstein says that Bush's presidency has produced far more "disastrous consequences" for the country than did Nixon's.

Unlike the often crude and conniving but unquestionably intelligent and highly-engaged 37th president, Bernstein says of Bush: "He's lazy, arrogant and has little curiosity. He's a catastrophe..."

But that is not the worst part of the Bush era as compared to the Nixon era, explains Bernstein.

What has made this time dramatically more troubling, the 63-year-old journalist explains, is that "there is no oversight."

"The system worked in Watergate," Bernstein told the Denver Post.

...
The news media investigated Nixon, and editorialized boldly when the president's lawless behaviors were exposed.

The Congress responded to those revelations with hearings and demands for White House tapes and documents. ...Congress went to court to force Nixon and his aides to meet those demands.

The courts responded by aggressively and consistently upholding the authority of Congress to call the president to account.

And when it became clear that Nixon was governing in contradiction to the Constitution, the U.S. House took appropriate action, with Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voting for three articles of impeachment. Congressional Republicans, led by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, then went to the White House to inform their party's president that he stood little chance of thwarting an impeachment vote by the full House or surviving a trial in the Senate.

Nixon resigned and so ended a constitutional crisis created by a president's disregard for the rule of law -- a crisis that was cured by an impeachment move by House members who respected their oaths of office.

Today, says Bernstein, the system that worked in the 1970s is failing as the country witnesses presidential and vice presidential misdeeds that former White House counsel John Dean has correctly characterized as "worse than Watergate."

Referring to the media, congressional and judicial oversight that is essential to maintaining a republic, Bernstein says, "That hasn't happened here."

That failure of oversight, as opposed to any wrongdoing by George Bush or Dick Cheney, is the great tragedy of our time. But, as I reminded the crowd at the symposium during a discussion of Hunter Thompson's enthusiasm for Nixon's impeachment, it is never too late for the people to lead. Approval ratings for the current president and vice president are now below those for Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal. And more and more members of Congress are taking up the call for accountability -- boldly sponsoring and cosponsoring the impeachment resolutions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had tried to keep "off the table.".

Bernstein is right. The system has not worked up to now. But with 18 months to go, it is certainly not too late for Americans to demand that the medicine that cured the Constitutional crisis of 33 years ago should again be applied. ..."

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Perhaps Nixon's error was in not buying himself a Supreme Court first?


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Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 11:32 AM

And THAT, by the way, was Post 800 to this honorable thread.


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