BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 10:06 PM

What would YOU do with three trillion dollars?


Grim.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 06:21 PM

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday.

The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment. But researchers could not say how many of those cases were serious or required treatment.

Billed as the first large-scale nongovernmental survey of its kind, the study found that stress disorder and depression afflict 18.5 percent of the more than 1.5 million U.S. forces who have deployed to the two war zones.

The numbers are roughly in line with previous studies. A February assessment by the U.S. Army that showed 17.9 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from acute stress, depression or anxiety in 2007, down from 19.1 percent in 2006.

But the 500-page RAND study, based in part on interviews with more than 1,900 soldiers, sailors and Marines, also said that only half of troops suffering debilities receive care. And in half of those cases, the care is only minimally adequate.

"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a RAND researcher who helped head the study.

"Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation."

---

I made the point repeatedly in earlier threads relating to the Bush War that this huge cost to our national human resource was never predicted byany of the men who should have known better, and they left this tragic aftermath to be cared for by the careless winds of chance. This is cruelty unbecoming a dictator.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:30 AM

MEanwhile, up Sonoma way, there's humor in the vineyard yet:

"Congressional candidate asks for papal exorcism of Bush, Cheney
Thadeus Greenson/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 04/17/2008 01:15:20 AM PDT




Just hours after Pope Benedict XVI arrived at the White House on Wednesday, North Coast congressional hopeful Mitch Clogg pleaded for his help.

"Your Holiness," Clogg wrote on his blog, "please exorcise the president."

Clogg, who also called for a papal exorcism on Vice President Dick Cheney, is challenging Congressman Mike Thompson for his seat representing the North Coast in the Capitol.

On Wednesday, Clogg elaborated on his papal plea from his Mendocino office, talked about why at 69 he's throwing his cap into the congressional ring and why he feels Thompson is unfit to represent his district.

Identified on the June primary ballot as a public interest journalist, Clogg said he's had too many jobs to name: White collar jobs, blue collar jobs and government jobs, but he's always enjoyed researching and writing. The recent note on his blog, he said, wasn't meant too seriously and was aimed in part to highlight a piece of his district integrally involved in the papal White House visit.

"That was a wise crack, but the fact of the matter is that it is a wine produced in this district that is getting poured in honor of the pope," Clogg said, adding that the wine is Sonoma's Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery's 2005 Dutton Ranch Chardonnay.

While he labeled the post as a wise crack, Clogg didn't entirely dismiss it.

"These men are evil," he said of Bush and Cheney. "It's not just a
bad president and vice president, we've never had anything like this where the country is being run by a criminal syndicate. It seems like these guys ought to be tarred and feathered, literally, on their way to prison."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 09:43 AM

"In the name of fighting terrorism — and with a clear goal of avoiding accountability — the Bush administration has imposed a level of secrecy on its operations that has no place in a democracy.

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One of its most disturbing tactics has been seeking early dismissal of lawsuits alleging serious government misconduct, claiming they would reveal national security secrets. The Senate is now considering a good bill that would rein in this misuse of the state secrets privilege and give victims fair access to the courts and the public a fuller understanding of their government's actions.

In recent years, a number of important lawsuits have raised credible allegations of government abuses including torture, kidnapping, rendition and domestic eavesdropping. All too often, judges have blocked these suits without examining how and why going forward would compromise the nation's security.

Congress has also been far too acquiescent, standing aside as the administration undermined individual rights and the constitutional system of checks and balances. It may finally be ready to act.

Next week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the State Secrets Protection Act. Introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, it would make it harder for this or future administrations to use a flimsy state secrets claim to avoid exposure of illegal or embarrassing conduct.

Legitimate secrets need to be protected, and the bill includes important safeguards. But before judges rule on a state secrets claim, the bill would require them to first review the documents or evidence for which the privilege is invoked — rather than rely on government affidavits asserting that the evidence is too sensitive to be disclosed. ...

" NY Times

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 11:31 AM

I remember as little as eight years back, a certain sense of respect I held for the need to keep things secret in Gummint work; especially intel, and perhaps more important, the means of acquiring intel, especially in hostile dealings.

Remember the boy who cried "Wolf!!"? That feelilng is long gone, as a result of a string of egregious abuses, to the point where I am not sure there is any rationale of weight for keeping critical information from the public. If there is, though, and maybe certain key processes, sources, agents, and data might qualify, is there any legitimate reason to keep the same information from a qualified and proven judge? If we can't trust a cArefully chosen representative of the judiciary, why should we be able to trust a military officer?
God knows, we can't trust the current President, Vice-President, SecState, the past SecDef. the SecInt, or the Motherland Fatherland Homeland Security buffoons.

From today's NY Times:

"...Congress has also been far too acquiescent, standing aside as the administration undermined individual rights and the constitutional system of checks and balances. It may finally be ready to act.

Next week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the State Secrets Protection Act. Introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, it would make it harder for this or future administrations to use a flimsy state secrets claim to avoid exposure of illegal or embarrassing conduct.

Legitimate secrets need to be protected, and the bill includes important safeguards. But before judges rule on a state secrets claim, the bill would require them to first review the documents or evidence for which the privilege is invoked — rather than rely on government affidavits asserting that the evidence is too sensitive to be disclosed.

To allow cases to go forward, judges would also be given authority to order the government to produce unclassified or redacted versions of the evidence.

Not surprisingly, the administration is trying to defeat this essential reform. In a recent letter to the Senate, Attorney General Michael Mukasey raised the prospect of a veto and insisted that the president — and not the courts — must have the final say over when and whether the privilege applies. Incredibly, and with no legal basis, he also expressed doubt that Congress has the power to mandate closer review of state secrets claims. "

Oh, maybe we should add the present AG and past AG to those listed.

Ya gotta wonder what the hell is the matter with these people.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 12:46 PM

Oh, and speaking of trusating military representativves:

"Posted Sunday, April 20, 2008, at 5:33 AM ET

The New York Times leads with a 7,500-word expose of the Pentagon "message machine," a concerted effort by the Department of Defense to spread the Bush administration's Iraq talking points by briefing supposedly independent retired commanders for network and cable television appearances.

The NYT successfully sued the Department of Defense to gain access to thousands of emails and internal documents relating to its posse of military T.V. commentators. The 8,000 pages of information "reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated." These "military experts" often communicated with the Pentagon to receive the latest agenda before going on camera, and some used the inside information to assist private companies in obtaining military contracts. More unfortunately, "members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access." Several of the purported military experts express regret over their actions, while the Pentagon defends the operation as a genuine effort to inform the American people. The networks, with the sole exception of CNN, refused to comment."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 06:44 PM

Pelosi Plans $178 Billion Blank Check for Iraq

"Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle."

That's not from the peace movement - it's from the NationalÊDefense University, written by a senior Pentagon official who served under Donald Rumsfeld.

Yet despite the overwhelming opposition of the American people, Speaker Pelosi plans to rush a vote through Congress for anotherÊ$178 billion blank check.

We must stop this madness. Tell Congress: No More Funds for Iraq
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/124?ad=d1

Activists around the country are organizing Iraq Town Halls so we can speak directly

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:52 AM

"White House aides had billed President BushÕs Rose Garden speech last week as a major turning point at which the president would unveil an ambitious set of proposals to address the problem of global warming Ñ a late-breaking act of atonement, as it were, for seven years of doing nothing.

Sadly, Mr. BushÕs ideas amounted to the same old stuff, gussied up to look new. Instead of trying to make up for years of denial and neglect, his speech seemed cynically designed to prevent others from showing the leadership he refuses to provide Ñ to derail Congress from imposing a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and the states from regulating emissions on their own." NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 10:23 AM

From The New Yorker:

"A young friend recently served fifteen months as a combat infantryman at an isolated patrol base in the nasty farmlands south of Baghdad. One day, he was enjoying a hot meal in the chow hall at a nearby forwarding operating base, when Condoleezza Rice appeared on the TV screen saying that the violence in Iraq hadn't reached the point at which random bodies were turning up in the streets. The noise of dozens of hungry soldiers eating came to a stop. Some of them exchanged glances, but no one said a word. Since my friend, while out on patrol, regularly came across the corpses of tortured and murdered Iraqi civilians, he wondered if the Secretary of State was dissembling or deluded. It was, he let me know, a bad moment for him and his buddies.

I thought of this story when I read the transcript of an interview last Friday with President Bush by Martha Raddatz, of ABC. Bush, under the kind of questioning he rarely gets, admitted that in 2006, with violence soaring, he worried that the mission in Iraq might be headed for failure. But, in order to keep up morale among the troops, he kept insisting at the time that we were "winning." Phillip Carter (whose excellent blog Intel Dump has just been picked up by the Washington Post) was serving as an Army adviser to the Iraqi courts during those grim months; I spent a few days at his compound in downtown Baquba in early 2006. He writes that he isn't cheered to learn of the President's solicitousness for his state of mind:

All through this period, I remember the President, his senior aides and senior military commanders toeing the party line that things were going swimmingly. The dissonance between the rhetoric from Washington and our experience in Iraq was stark. We knew the ground truth. Being deceived by our senior political leaders certainly didn't change that, nor did it help morale at all. If anything, it hurt morale by undermining confidence in the chain of command. Put bluntly, if you can't trust your generals and political leaders to tell you and your families the truth, how can you trust them at all?

I would argue that the morale-boosting the President now credits himself with did even more harm than that. It wasn't as though the White House was feverishly correcting in private the problems that it refused to acknowledge publicly for fear of crushing the spirit of Captain Phillip Carter. Instead, while Iraq descended into a death spiral, Bush continued for months, even years, to pursue the bankrupt strategy of handing over responsibility from an undermanned American military to an Iraqi army that was incapable of holding ground. I've been told by a former White House official that the President had misgivings but remained confident in the strategy's author, Donald Rumsfeld. When I interviewed Rice in early 2006 and asked her whether the strategy might be headed for failure, she dismissed the possibility: "Even though there is violence, there is a process that is moving, I think rather inexorably, actually, toward an outcome that will one day bring a stable Iraq."

This wasn't morale-boosting. It was what the Administration calls strategic communications, otherwise known as political propaganda. And, in the end, it became self-delusion. You can't keep lying to the troops and the public without eventually believing your own words. This, in turn, makes it impossible to analyze and correct mistakes. It ensures failure, and failure kills morale...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 08 - 01:55 PM

An excellent discussion of Pentagon Psy-Ops in America by Chuck Spinney. He examines the long term PR and black PR operations used by the Pentagon to meddle with the Fourth Estate and the US citizen's world-view to gain popular support for war -- a most insidious and evil program, but well established practice.

"Add 9-11 to the the hi-tech art of spin control, together with unscrupulous political leaders like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and a self-organizing neo-Hitlerian brew of fear reinforced by hi-tech propaganda was probably inevitable. That this short sighted mixture of policies shaping the domestic dimensions of our grand strategy is now clearly a central theme in the so-called long war on terror is now beyond doubt. It virtually guarantees an eventual breakdown in cohesion at home... the beginnings of which are already becoming evident.

A grand strategy that pumps up internal cohesion through lies and deception is always a loser over the long term, because as Lincoln reportedly said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." On the other hand, in a culture dumbed down by the sound byte mentality of the mainstream media, it may take a long time and a huge waste of blood and treasure to reach Lincoln's end state, particularly when the propaganda machine hosing the American people is run by a voluntary, not to mention enthusiastic, cooperation by the majority of the fourth estate establishment, with only a few exceptions, like the McClatchey newspapers...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 08 - 10:15 AM

"...Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That's how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

"It's a disaster," says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. "Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take 'Congressional risk.' They say if you don't get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects."

It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point "where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics" that it would turn its back on the next great global industry — clean power — "but that's exactly what is happening." If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won't be made.

...

New York TImes editorial

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 May 08 - 12:36 PM

A compelling summary of the Bush administration's Mesopotamian failures and current lack of action.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 May 08 - 02:09 PM

The Progress Report analyzes the failing state and the problematic war that are the popular image of Iraq.

Beginning with the invasion and the Mission Accomplished gaffe, the Bush administration has badly bungled one after another aspects of the nation's strategies vis-a-vis Iraq. Where Iraq is capable of going and under what conditions is a thorny problem.

I would hate to be the Democratic president to inherit this quagmire. One heck of a job, Georgie.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:36 AM

Listen to almost any politician, President Bush included, and youÕll hear that the fight against global warming cannot be won without cleaner technologies that will ease dependence on fossil fuels. Yet these same politicians are on the verge of allowing modest but vital tax credits to expire that are crucial to the future of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

These credits are necessary to attract new investment in renewable sources until they become competitive with cheaper, dirtier fuels like coal. When the credits disappear, investments shrivel. The production tax credit for wind energy has been allowed to expire three times. In each case, new investment dropped by more than 70 percent. The credits for wind and solar expire at the end of this year, so action now is important.

Though there is plenty of blame to go around, Mr. Bush and Senate Republicans bear a heavy burden. The House approved, as part of last yearÕs energy bill, a multiyear extension of the credits, while insisting Ñ under its pay-as-you-go rules Ñ that they be offset by rescinding an equivalent amount in tax credits for the oil companies. The oil companies (though rolling in profits) screamed, Mr. Bush lofted veto threats, and the Senate, by a one-vote margin, refused to go along. (NYT Editorial, 5-5-08)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:12 PM

I think the argument you select out is irresponsible.

It is purely speculation, and is based on a putative danger which is unsupported by facts, forwarding a reaction which in turn is based on somewhat hysterical media angles.

Furthermore, Bush himself has said he had no current intentions to attack Iran.

So I think this is a pig in a poke.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 05 May 08 - 07:22 PM

I think I can end this one,
The most popular view of the Bush administration will be their backsides as they leave town in Jan '09!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 08 - 08:25 PM

"Over a week ago, the New York Times published a major investigative article, detailing a secret Pentagon program the Times said was designed to recruit and cultivate the "military analysts" you see on the major news networks in an attempt to create coverage favorable to the Bush Administration's policy in Iraq.

The Times described an extensive program, with dozens of television analysts involved, some of whom had extensive business ties to the Defense DepartmentÊ-- in fact they called it "an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horseÊ-- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks."
Since that story ran, there's been a virtual news blackout, and we haven't gotten any closer to finding out the real story.

You can change that. I sent a letter to the Government Accounting Organization requesting an investigation, and I'd like you to show your support by virtually "co-signing" the letter with me. Only with an overwhelming display of grassroots energy can we put this story in the spotlight and press for answers.

Click here to co-sign the letter with me:
http://www.johnkerry.com/pentagonpundits

The Pentagon quickly issued a statement that they've ended the program, but I still believe that we need to have a complete accounting of exactly what was happening, who was involved, and what it accomplished. I don't think that's too much to askÊ-- do you?


If you believe,Êas I do, that we as citizens have a right to know the real story, please co-sign the letter demanding answers:

http://www.johnkerry.com/pentagonpundits

We know the life-or-death consequences of policy decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and we know that these policies should be debated and defended without secret programs designed to tailor the news for the Administration's goals. This is too important to brush aside.




We must demand answers."

John Kerry, U.S. Congress

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Chief Chaos
Date: 05 May 08 - 09:16 PM

Why does that not come as a surprise to me?
After paying media people to support the No Child Left Behind Act?
I wonder how much tax payer money gets funneled secretly to the Fox network.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 08 - 02:32 PM

"Eight months before the end of his second term, President Bush is forgotten but not gone. Power has shifted to Congress, attention has moved to the campaign trail, and the White House seems at times to be just going through the motions. For many reporters who remain on the White House beat, it has become a time to phone it in -- literally.

Four minutes after the scheduled start time for yesterday's White House briefing, only 14 of the 49 seats were occupied -- and the 14 included flamboyant radio host Lester Kinsolving, who sat in the Bloomberg News seat; Raghubir Goyal of an obscure Indian American publication, who occupied the New York Times chair; and a foreign journalist in the back row, perusing the White House's Cinco de Mayo dinner menu. Though attendance eventually swelled to 28, many of the nation's leading news outlets left their chairs empty, among them National Public Radio, the Washington Times, the New York Daily News, the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune and the Politico. "

WaPo, 5-6-08

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 May 08 - 05:33 PM

Joy of enlightenment, Bush administration style, from the Progress Report:

"With the help of the Defense Department, the Los Angeles-based company C3 is "developing the Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum" and "is being designed by the firm that developed Disneyland." More than that though, the Pentagon is also backing a $5 billion plan to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. embassy that will include luxury hotels, a shopping center, and condos in an effort to "transform" the Green Zone into a "centerpiece for Baghdad's future." This isn't the first time the Pentagon has turned to Disney for solutions. One year after theÊscandal erupted over the long-term treatment of soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army introduced the "Service, Disney Style" programÊthat is now required for all military and other government employees at the hospital in an effort to "revamp attitudes"Êand instill a sense that "poor service equals frustration."

With violence escalating in Iraq, the Pentagon is again looking to the Disney model for a way out.

'ANYBODY EVER BEEN TO DISNEYLAND?': The Disneyland-style amusement park in the heart of Iraq will cost nearly $500 million.ÊLlewellyn Werner, chairman of C3, said of the idea, "[T]he people need this kind of positive influence. It's going to have a huge psychological impact."

But make no mistake, Werner also sees dollar signs. "I'm a businessman. I'm not here because I think you're nice people," Werner said, adding, "I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't making money." Trying to sell the idea to Baghdad's skeptical deputy mayor, Werner explained the significance of waterpark lagoons: they're "very important to the sex appeal, the sizzle. Anybody ever been to Disneyland?" Werner's sentiment is shared by John March, executive vice president of the firm contracted to design the park. March recently downplayed any safety concerns associated with creating a massive entertainment complex in the heart of Baghdad. "Well, you live here in Southern California and there's drive-bys and everything else. So there's danger everywhere," he proclaimed. But Werner has an idea on how to bridge the sectarian divide in Baghdad: skateboarding. He said Iraqis will see the park as "an opportunity for their children regardless if they're Shia or Sunni." Speaking in deliberately slow English, Werner told the Iraqis, "One of the fastest growing sports in the world is skateÉboarding." Indeed, the skateboarding park, part of the first phase, is set to open this summer. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:01 AM

A fortuitous combination of technical incompetence, political dildoing, and the usual cloud of confusion enables the Bush administration to lose critical emails. The detailed story can be found here at ArsTechnica. Excerpt:

"The case of the missing e-mail
A federal magistrate judge on Thursday chastised the Bush administration for failing to fully answer questions related to a long-running dispute over missing White House emails. The White House is facing lawsuits from two public interest groups, Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive at George Washington University, demanding that the White House restore the missing e-mails and put in place systems to prevent further e-mail losses. Administration officials were ordered to provide detailed information about the burdens involved in taking immediate actions to preserve copies of hard drive, tapes, and other media that may contain copies of the missing e-mails. ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 08 - 11:43 AM

At the top of the list of no-brainers in Washington should be Senator Jim Webb's proposed expansion of education benefits for the men and women who have served in the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001.

It's awfully hard to make the case that these young people who have sacrificed so much don't deserve a shot at a better future once their wartime service has ended.

Senator Webb, a Virginia Democrat, has been the guiding force behind this legislation, which has been dubbed the new G.I. bill. The measure is decidedly bipartisan. Mr. Webb's principal co-sponsors include Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Warner of Virginia, and Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.

(All four senators are veterans of wartime service — Senators Webb and Hagel in Vietnam, Warner in World War II and Korea and Lautenberg in World War II.)

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are on board, as are Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House.

Who wouldn't support an effort to pay for college for G.I.'s who have willingly suited up and put their lives on the line, who in many cases have served multiple tours in combat zones and in some cases have been wounded?

We did it for those who served in World War II. Why not now?

Well, you might be surprised at who is not supporting this effort. The Bush administration opposes it, and so does Senator John McCain.

Reinvigorating the G.I. bill is one of the best things this nation could do. The original G.I. Bill of Rights, signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, paid the full load of a returning veteran's education at a college or technical school and provided a monthly stipend. It was an investment that paid astounding dividends. Millions of veterans benefited, and they helped transform the nation. College would no longer be the exclusive preserve of the wealthy and those who crowned themselves the intellectual elite. ...
(NY Times columnist, 5-6-08)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 08 - 12:05 PM

A good essay on the Imperial presidency as it evolved in the years between Truman and Bush, and why it is illegal.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 08 - 11:42 AM

Here's a touching story about some intelligence, compassion and goodwill being applied to the post-Katrina mess and how effective it is.

Why a small-time organizer from Puget Sound can succeed where the entire HSA and the President have only failed is a bit of mystery to me. But I don't think it reflects well on the administration's standards or priorities. I know they have a lot of killing to do as well, but still...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 May 08 - 09:31 AM

Most egregious, Mr. Bush has resisted efforts to allow bankrupt homeowners to have their mortgages modified under court protection, parroting the mortgage industry's overwrought objections to what is arguably the best way to avoid preventable foreclosures. Letting homeowners have the loans modified in court would keep them in their homes, helping to stabilize the housing market while inflicting the considerable pain of bankruptcy on both lender and borrower.

When Mr. Bush hasn't been busy saying no to worthy efforts, he has been endorsing Orwellian-named programs that have failed to address the problem effectively. Hope Now, the mortgage industry alliance that pledged a big effort five months ago to modify subprime loans, has barely made a dent. Project Lifeline, announced last February, has yet to release any results. The Times reported last month that another program much touted by Mr. Bush, FHA Secure, has helped fewer than 2,000 homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

Meanwhile, defaults, the first link in the foreclosure chain, are running at an annual pace of 2.2 million so far this year.

But the Bush administration's free-market biases have apparently convinced officials that bold action would impede a necessary economic correction. That is misguided. The housing bust is at the root of the economy's problems, and foreclosures are its most serious manifestation. House prices have collapsed to a point where they are creating a negative spiral: price drops provoke foreclosures, which in turn provoke even lower prices, and so on. The danger now is not too much government intervention but too little.

The House is to be commended for defying Mr. Bush's veto threat, especially the 39 Republicans who joined all the House Democrats. When the Senate considers a similar measure, Republicans there are likely to face pressure, too. At least the Senate bill will probably not be considered until after Memorial Day. While home for the holiday, senators are sure to hear from constituents about the need for mortgage relief. That might inspire lawmakers to do what Mr. Bush is unwilling to do.

NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 May 08 - 07:02 PM

More criminal coverup and crony highjinks:

(from Progress Report

"The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency meant to protect federal employees from "prohibited personnel practices." Since President Bush's nominee Scott Bloch took over in 2004, however, this refuge has become a nightmare for government workers. LGBT employees have to fight an anti-gay bias, workers who disagree with Bloch's policies face retaliation, and politically-sensitive whistleblower cases are dismissed. The Office of Personnel Management's Inspector General (OPM IG) has been investigating these allegations against Bloch. On May 6, FBI agents raided Bloch's home and office, focusing on whether he obstructed the federal investigation against him by erasing computer files in 2006. NPR reports that a grand jury in Washington issued 17 subpoenas overall, including for several other OSC staffers. The first employees are scheduled to testify about the allegations to a grand jury on Tuesday. Last week, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) called on Bloch to step down, stating that "it's hard to believe he can continue to operate effectively."

POLITICAL PROBES: In February 2005, critics accused OSC of "improperly dismissing hundreds of whistleblower cases that had been pending when Bloch took over," in order to simply decrease the backlog. At other times, Bloch seems to have gone after cases for political gain. In April 2005, government watchdogs complained that he allowed his office to "sit on" a complaint that Condoleezza Rice, then-National Security Adviser, had "used government funds to travel in support of President Bush's re-election bid." By contrast, Bloch had ordered an immediate investigation into whether Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had "improperly campaigned in a government workplace," even though the complaints had been filed around the same time. Last September, career OSC investigators began looking into whether partisan politics were a factor in the prosecution of former Democratic Alabama governor Don Siegelman. But on Oct. 11, Bloch "ordered the case file be closed immediately, saying that he had not authorized it." Bloch also stopped career investigators from opening a broad probe into whether Justice Department officials "considered political affiliation in their hiring and promotion decisions."

THE 'HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA': When Bloch took over OSC, he quickly appointed a deputy who had publicly spoken out against the "homosexual agenda." Bloch also "hired young lawyers from Ave Maria Law School, the conservative Catholic school founded by Domino's Pizza billionaire Tom Monaghan." More significantly, Bloch angered employees when, in 2004, he said that it may not be illegal for the government to discriminate against workers based on their sexual orientation. Without notifying other OSC staffers, he also removed all information on the subject from the agency's website and internal documents. The Washington Blade notes, "Information classifying sexual orientation discrimination as a 'prohibited personnel practice' had been included in various OSC documents and brochures since 1995." An embarrassed White House eventually subtly rebuked Bloch by issuing a "statement reaffirming a long-standing federal prohibition against sexual-orientation discrimination, and noting that the president 'expects federal agencies to enforce this policy.'"

'GEEKS' TO THE RESCUE: Bloch has swiftly punished employees who have criticized him on his choice of cases and discriminatory policies, an example of the Bush administration's disdain for disagreement. "The Bush administration has absolutely not endorsed the concept of whistleblowing -- they see it as disloyalty," said one OSC employee. In January 2005, Bloch suddenly issued an order forcing 12 career OSC employees to accept reassignment within 10 days or face dismissal. Lawyers for the employees said that the reassigned were "those perceived to be loyal to his [Bloch's] predecessor, and those seen to have a 'homosexual agenda.'" In addition to this retaliation, the OPM IG is looking into whether Bloch violated federal laws that "guarantee federal employees the right to communicate with Congress." In early 2007, Bloch's deputy "sent staffers a memo asking them to inform OSC higher-ups when investigators contact them. Further, the memo read, employees should meet with investigators in the office, in a special conference room." Some employees raised intimidation questions, "saying the recommendations made them afraid to be interviewed in the probe." In 2006, Bloch also "erased all the files on his office personal computer," potentially as part of a cover-up. To do so, he bypassed the Office of Special Counsel's technicians and phoned Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 May 08 - 09:28 AM

Insight into Furless Liter's true mindset:

""Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

--George W. Bush, during a White House videoconference about the first battle for Fallujah

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:20 AM

May 15, 2008, 00:12



"A senior legal adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection campaign is working behind the scenes to help enact a Missouri state constitutional amendment that critics say would suppress the vote in the key battleground state this November by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship.

Mark "Thor" Hearne, Bush-Cheney's national counsel in 2004 and now a partner in the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of Lathrop & Gage, has been collaborating with Missouri's Republican state Rep. Stanley Cox, the sponsor of the constitutional amendment, Cox's office confirmed this week.

For years, Hearne has been a leading Republican figure demanding stricter voter identification laws and popularizing claims about widespread voter fraud, although many election experts dismiss such alarms as hyperbole.

During the 2004 campaign, Hearne reportedly worked with White House political adviser Karl Rove on "voter fraud" issues and spearheaded GOP efforts to challenge voter registration drives by pro-Democratic groups.

According to a posting at his law firm's Web site, "Hearne traveled to every battleground state and oversaw more than 65 different lawsuits that concerned the conduct of the election."

Hearne also has shown up as a background figure in the Bush administration's scandal that erupted over the firing of nine federal prosecutors, some of whom came under White House criticism for not seeking pre-election voter fraud indictments in 2006.

More recently, Hearne has been instrumental in pushing state lawmakers to pass strict voter identification laws in Missouri, New Mexico, Indiana and other states. The Indiana voter ID law recently was upheld by a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 08 - 12:13 PM

A large number of Environmental Protection Agency scientists report intimidation by higher ups in their agency. Many also charge that their superiors have asked them to alter either research findings or their interpretation of data. At least a few claim their managers have at times prohibited them from publishing findings in peer-reviewed journals or temporarily sat on data so that research findings would not be released in a timely fashion.



Such reports suggest a systematic attack on scientific integrity in an agency charged with protecting human health and the environment, Francesca T. Grifo testified yesterday. A senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, she shared survey results at a hearing convened by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The situations she described summarize questionnaire responses – and in some instances, essays or in-depth interview – obtained from 1,586 EPA scientists last summer.



UCS is a public-interest advocacy group best known for promoting causes like sustainable energy and social policies that would limit the release of greenhouse-gas emissions. But lately, this group has also been investigating the extent to which the Bush White House has attempted to muzzle scientists whose findings don't support administration policies.



A few high-profile cases came to light in the past few years. Probably the most notable: NASA's attempt to keep climate scientist James Hansen at its Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City from mouthing off about society's need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Once Hansen spilled the beans about his refusal to submit to his agency's attempt to review any lectures, papers, federal-website postings, or interviews with reporters to New York Time reporter Andrew C. Revkin, Hansen became a cause célèbre

(See whole article at Science News.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 08 - 05:34 PM

From The Progress Report:

Last month, in a major exposŽ, the New York TimesÊreported that the Pentagon had created aÊdomestic propaganda program that made use of more than 75 "military analysts" toÊdisseminate favorable coverage of the Bush administration's war efforts. The program included, for example, private briefings with former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials, commercial airfare, and the distribution of favorable "talking points" to analysts prior to media appearances. Virtually all of the major networks were involved in the program, includingÊABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR. The retired military officials serving as media analysts often had contracting ties with the government but pushed the Pentagon line on air without revealing the conflict of interest.Ê Earlier this month, the Pentagon released a major document collection in response to the Times's article, shining even more light on the magnitude of theÊoperation.ÊIn a recent letter, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a "full investigation of this program and report its findings." Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) also wrote to the GAO, observing: "Allegedly, the Pentagon discouraged the analysts from publicly describing the nature of their relationship with the Pentagon. This clearly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law."

PRO-BUSH SPIN OPERATION: An examination of the Pentagon's internal conversationsÊconfirms that the Pentagon createdÊ"a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage," as the Times put it. A July 6, 2006 e-mail from Pentagon official Jeffrey GordonÊcirculated "thoughtful" words by right-wing talkers Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin on Guantanamo Bay. In the Malkin column, she decried the "unseriousness and hypocrisy of the terrorist-abetting left" on Guantanamo. O'Reilly said there were only "minor cases of abuse" at the prison. A "talking points" document from the summer of 2003 pushed the infamous words "dead-enders" and "bitter-enders" to referÊto Iraqis whoÊattacked American troops. A later memo reiterated that "the dead-enders are not driving us out of anywhere." Other e-mails reveal a deliberate attempt by the Pentagon to cover up its heavy hand. In a Feb.16, 2006Êexchange, Pentagon media staffers discussed coordinating with the Heritage Foundation for a speaker on Guantanamo. An anonymous staffer suggested retired Army Sergeant Major Steve Short because "he seems to be on message and very articulate." "Important to remember that heritage can invite anyone to present and that we don't really have an opinion on anyone," responded Allison Barber of the Pentagon. "[G]asp. are you telling me to tell a lie???? surely not ;)," the anonymous staffer responded.

WHITE HOUSE INVOLVEMENT?: Last month, reporter Eric Brewer asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino about whether the White House was involved in theÊmilitary analyst program. Perino responded, "I just said, no." But the Pentagon's document collection raises questions about the White House's role. A March 16, 2006 e-mail from Pentagon official Dallas Lawrence referencedÊ"a closed call opened only to our retired military analysts...to get them on message heading into the weekend on Iraqi troop strength, advances, etc." A follow-up from an anonymous e-mailer said he or she was "hoping to have Hadley brief these guys next week," referring to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Responding to this e-mail, Lawrence added, "Id love to see if we ocould [could] get them in with potus [President Bush] as well. (I think that was submitted to karl and company...last week)." A May 23, 2006 from Lawrence also references "karl." As Salon's Glenn Greenwald noted, the "karl" references strongly suggest that at least former Bush political adviser Karl Rove was involved.

MEDIA STILL QUIET: The media has been curiously silent on the Times's exposŽ, despiteÊclear involvement in the program. "Did we drink the government kool-aid? -- of course," said CNN military analyst Don Sheppard in a June 23, 2006 e-mail about his government-sponsored trip to Guantanamo. In the week after the story broke, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that out of roughly 1,300 news stories, "only two touched on the Pentagon analysts scoop,"Êboth airing on PBS. "I can only conclude that the networks are staying away...because they are embarrassed about what some of their military analysts did or don't want to give the controversy more prominence," said Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. As Media Matters reported, theÊmilitary analysts cited in the Times article have been quotedÊmore than 4,500 times by a range of news outlets since Jan. 1, 2002. On April 24, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) wrote letters to the heads of the major networks on the "specifics about each outlet's policies surrounding the hiring and vetting of military analysts reporting on the Iraq War."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 May 08 - 09:16 AM

time for someone other than Amos...


"Congress won't even act on a common-sense proposal from the Bush administration that food aid be reformed. If the United States bought some of the food that it donates from other countries, it could get aid to the needy faster and more cheaply. But that would upset American farmers and shipping interests, as a new Council on Foreign Relations paper emphasizes. The president's proposal has few takers on the Hill. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/18/AR2008051801917.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 08 - 11:12 AM

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."—GW Bush, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

Subject: RE: BS: Eugenics and the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 08 - 11:56 PM

An excerpt from a much longer article reviewing the history of the American Eugenics movement , one of the really shameful episodes of American pig-headedness.

"Stephen Grey, Amnesty International's Award-Winning Journalist for Excellence in Human Rights Reporting, in his book 'Ghost Planet', meticulously documents the illegal and horrendous system of torture and other human rights abuses that George Bush has perpetrated upon the world as part of his so-called "War on Terror". Here are excerpts of the U.S. torture program from the introduction to Grey's book:

While the president spoke of spreading liberty across the world, CIA insiders spoke of a return to the old days of working hand in glove with some of the most repressive secret police in the world.

Much later, when more pieces of the puzzle were in place, I thought of the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the dissident writer. When he described the Soviet Union's network of prison camps as a Gulag Archipelago.

After years of persecution, Solzhenitsyn described a jail system that he knew from firsthand experience had swallowed millions of citizens into its entrails. At least a tenth never emerged alive.

The modern world of prisons run by the United States and its allies in the war on terror is far less extensive. Its inmates number thousands not millions. And yet there are eerie parallels between what the Soviet Union created and what we, in the West, are now constructing. How much more than surreal, more apart from normal existence, was the network of prisons run after 9/11 by the United States and its allies? How much easier too was the denial and the double-think when those who disappeared into the modern gulag were, being mainly swarthy skinned Arabs with a different culture, so different from most of us in the West? How much more reassuring were the words from our politicians that all was well?

How many prisoners do we have? Estimates of how many prisoners have disappeared into the Bush administration's Gulag system cannot be precise because of the secrecy. Estimates have varied from 8,500 to 35,000. An AP story estimated around 14,000:"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 08 - 09:36 AM

I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said in a bizarre interview with Politico last week. "And I think playing golf during a war sends the wrong signal."
He then went on, in the same interview, to do his imitation of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. No wrong signal there.
In every way, this president has tried to hide the war. The press chafes because photos of flag-draped coffins are forbidden. But that's nothing compared to how this administration is trying to turn the public's eyes away from the pain of the people who feel it most directly, the soldiers and their families.
Suicide rates among returning veterans are soaring. And the administration's response? Cover up the data. An e-mail titled "Shh!" surfaced earlier this month from Dr. Ira Katz, a top official at the V.A. The note indicated that far more veterans were trying to kill themselves than the administration had let on. It speaks for itself.
"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see," Katz wrote, in a note not meant for the general public. "Is this something we should address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles upon it?"
Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, who has made veterans affairs her specialty, was furious. "They lied about these numbers," Murray told me. "It breaks my heart. Soldiers tell us that they were taught how to go to war, but not how to come home. You hear about divorces, binge-drinking, post-traumatic stress, suicide. And the reaction from the president is part of a pattern from the very beginning to show that this war is not costly or consequential."
Murray is the daughter of a disabled World War II veteran. During her college years, while other students were protesting, she volunteered at a veterans hospital. The odds are, she said, at least one of those five soldiers we applauded on my return plane will suffer severe mental trauma from the war. A recent Rand Corporation study said as much, noting that that 300,000 veterans who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan are plagued by major depression or stress disorder.
"Look what we do when there's a natural disaster — we show the pictures of the victims and open our hearts," said Murray. "President Bush should do the same thing with the war."
But that would require bringing out in the open something that has been hidden since the start of this long war — the truth.
(NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 08 - 09:55 AM

...It is clear from the inspector general's report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials. The report shows what happens when an American president, his secretary of defense, his Justice Department and other top officials corrupt American law to rationalize and authorize the abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners:

— Four F.B.I. agents saw an interrogator cuff two detainees and force water down their throats.

— Prisoners at Guantánamo were shackled hand-to-foot for prolonged periods and subjected to extreme heat and cold.

— At least one detainee at Guantánamo was kept in an isolation cell for at least two months, a practice the military considers to be torture when applied to American soldiers.

The study said F.B.I. agents reported this illegal behavior to Washington. They were told not to take part, but the bureau appears to have done nothing to end the abuse. It certainly never told Congress or the American people. The inspector general said the agents' concerns were conveyed to the National Security Council, but he found no evidence that it acted on them.

Mr. Bush claims harsh interrogations produced invaluable intelligence, but the F.B.I. agents said the abuse was ineffective. They also predicted, accurately, that it would be impossible to prosecute abused prisoners.

For years, Mr. Bush has refused to tell the truth about his administration's inhuman policy on prisoners, and the Republican-controlled Congress eagerly acquiesced to his stonewalling. Now, the Democrats in charge of Congress must press for full disclosure.

Representative John Conyers, who leads the House Judiciary Committee, said he would focus on the F.B.I. report at upcoming hearings. Witnesses are to include John C. Yoo, who wrote the infamous torture memos, and the committee has subpoenaed David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Mr. Conyers also wants to question F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, both of whom should be subpoenaed if they do not come voluntarily.

That is just the first step toward uncovering the extent of President Bush's disregard for the law and the Geneva Conventions. It will be a painful process to learn how so many people were abused and how America's most basic values were betrayed. But it is the only way to get this country back to being a defender, not a violator, of human rights.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 01:56 AM

Karl Rove, the former trusted adviser to President George Bush, will be compelled to testify on Capitol Hill in a high-profile investigation of alleged political meddling by the White House in decisions made by the US Justice Department.

John Conyers, the chairman of the House judiciary committee, yesterday took the unusual step of issuing a subpoena compelling Mr Rove to testify in a case that threatens to disgrace the Bush government. He had tried in vain for a year to persuade Mr Rove to come forward voluntarily.

The committee is looking into what role the White House may have played in the sacking of nine US attorneys during 2006 Ð an affair which eventually led to the resignation of Mr Bush's last attorney general, Alberto Gonzalez. Also under scrutiny are the circumstances of the prosecution and subsequent imprisonment of the former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman.

"This will make Watergate look like child's play when it is fully investigated," Mr Siegelman told an Alabama newspaper last week, referring to his case and the dismissal of the prosecutors. He has repeatedly insisted that the White House, and Mr Rove in particular, was behind his legal woes.

Mr Conyers said he had no choice but to order Mr Rove to appear on Capitol Hill and testify under oath on 10 July. The scandal could prove embarrassing for media organisations who have recently hired Mr Rove as a political commentator, including Fox News and Newsweek.

"It is unfortunate that Mr Rove has failed to co-operate with our requests," Mr Conyers said. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 09:56 AM

"..When he lashes out, as he did in Israel, Mr. Bush makes it harder for reasonable people to pursue diplomacy. And it is hypocritical. His administration has negotiated successfully with Libya (formerly on the terrorism list) and North Korea (still on the terrorism list) and has had limited, largely unsuccessful, contacts with Iran over its support for insurgents in Iraq. Israel is indirectly negotiating a cease-fire in Gaza with Hamas with the help of Egypt.

Mr. Bush's approach is increasingly undermining American interests and causing Washington to be sidelined. To wit: an Arab-brokered political settlement on Lebanon reached Wednesday strengthened Hezbollah by giving it a veto over cabinet decisions.

Like Mr. Obama (and many others), we strongly encourage diplomacy, including contacts with adversaries. If Mr. Bush cannot use his remaining months in office to do the same, he can at least get out of the way."

NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 10:01 AM

How George Bush's Administration Caused the Housing and Credit Crisis

Excerpt from a NYT Editorial on the decline of State's Rights.

"In February, the day after his infamous encounter at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, Eliot Spitzer, then the governor of New York, published a remarkable opinion piece in The Washington Post.

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

Go to The Board » He wrote that several years earlier, state attorneys general noticed a spike in predatory lending that the federal government was doing nothing about. When the states tried to rein in abusive mortgage lenders, the Bush administration finally did something. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued rules nullifying state predatory lending laws over the objection of all 50 state banking superintendents. (Emphasis added)

The clampdown, which paved the way for the subprime mortgage crisis, was done by "pre-emption," a little-understood doctrine that allows the federal government to wipe away state laws. The Constitution's supremacy clause says federal law can trump state law. But the federal rule should be a floor, not a ceiling. It should set a minimum level of rights, not stop states from doing more to protect their citizens.

For years, the federal government used pre-emption in this way. Civil rights acts swept away discrimination at the state level, and workplace safety laws upgraded conditions in factories and mines. Conservatives opposed many of these federal laws on the principle that they were trampling on "states' rights."

Since the conservative ascendancy in Washington, many of these same people have stopped praising states' rights and have begun burying them — not to protect citizens' rights, but to take them away. The Bush administration and its Congressional allies have helped their friends in industry by enacting weak environmental, health and consumer regulations — and arguing that they wipe out more robust state protections. ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 01:40 PM

Here is a link to a very interesting study of the impact on corporate taxes of Bush administration actions since 2001. It is a PDF file. An interesting study in what changes have occurred and what corporations are paying more or less in taxes.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 08 - 01:34 AM

In case you were wondering whether the detrustion of Habea Corpus was a liberal fantasy:

"To justify holding him, the government claimed a broad interpretation of the president's wartime powers, one that goes beyond warrantless wiretapping or monitoring banking transactions. Government lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely."


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/24/national/main4125235.shtml

This a very touchy area--an American citizen, not native, with apparently dead-to-rights evidence connecting him to bin Laden and terrorist plans. At the same time, he has had all rights normally considered natural to American citizens suspended, by being declared an enemy combatant. He is held in the US without those rights.

A very tough call. By starting down the slippery slope of compromising in the face of extreme necessity, Congress has now sent us directly down the path toward a military dictatorship.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 08 - 02:17 AM

This is a short but interesting excerpt from a long, detailed and very interesting analysis in the New Yorker called The Fall of Conservatism:

"...The phrase that signalled Bush's approach was "compassionate conservatism," but it never amounted to a policy program. Within hours of the Supreme Court decision that ended the disputed Florida recount, Dick Cheney met with a group of moderate Republican senators, including Lincoln Chafee, of Rhode Island. According to Chafee's new book, "Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President" (Thomas Dunne), the Vice-President-elect gave the new order of battle: "We would seek confrontation on every front... . The new Administration would divide Americans into red and blue, and divide nations into those who stand with us or against us." Cheney's combative instincts and belief in an unfettered and secretive executive proved far more influential at the White House than Bush's campaign promise to be "a uniter, not a divider." Cheney behaved as if, notwithstanding the loss of the popular vote, conservative Republican domination could continue by sheer force of will. On domestic policy, the Administration made tax cuts and privatization its highest priority; and its conduct of the war on terror broke with sixty years of relatively bipartisan and multilateralist foreign policy.

    The Administration's political operatives were moving in the same direction. The Republican strategist Matthew Dowd studied the 2000 results and concluded that the proportion of swing voters in America had declined from twenty-two to seven per cent over the previous two decades, which meant that mobilizing the Party's base would be more important in 2004 than attracting independents. The strategist Karl Rove's polarizing political tactics (which brought a new level of demographic sophistication to the old formula) buried any hope of a centrist Presidency before Bush's first term was half finished.

    Ed Rollins said, "Rove knew his voters, he stuck to the message with consistency, he drove that base hard - and there's nothing left of it. Today, if you're not rich or Southern or born again, the chances of your being a Republican are not great." As long as Bush and his party kept winning elections, however slim the margins, Rove's declared ambition to create a "permanent majority" seemed like the vision of a tactical genius. But it was built on two illusions: that the conservative era would stretch on indefinitely, and that politics matters more than governing. The first illusion defied history; the second was blown up in Iraq and drowned in New Orleans. David Brooks argues that these disasters discredited both neo- and compassionate conservatism in the eyes of many Republicans. "You've got to learn from the failures," Brooks told me. "But Republicans have rejected the entire attempt. For example, after Katrina, House Republicans wanted nothing to do with New Orleans. They were, like, 'We don't care about those people.' ""

---

The rest of the article is one anyone trying to understand the swing from Nixon and Reagan to Bush should read.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 08 - 11:50 PM

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The spokesman who defended President Bush's policies through Hurricane Katrina and the early years of the Iraq war is now blasting his former employers, saying the Bush administration became mired in propaganda and political spin and at times played loose with the truth.


Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan blasts President Bush and advisers in a new book.

In excerpts from a 341-page book to be released Monday, Scott McClellan writes on Iraq that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."

"[I]n this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security," McClellan wrote.

McClellan also sharply criticizes the administration on its handling of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

"One of the worst disasters in our nation's history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency," he wrote. "Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush's second term."

Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said the White House would not comment Tuesday because they haven't seen the book.

Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to Bush, said advisers to the president should speak up when they have policy concerns.

"Scott never did that on any of these issues as best I can remember or as best as I know from any of my White House colleagues," said Townsend, now a CNN contributor. "For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional."

---

Well, disloyal, sure, and self-serving in the sense that wanting to distance yourself from a catastrophe and not go down with the ship, and salvage what you can of your reputation, is self-serving.

Under the circumstances one could hardly expect Scott to serve the Administration.

Ya don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 08 - 11:54 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) Ñ Nearly 40,000 military personnel have been given diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder since 2003, Pentagon records show.

Officials say they believe that many other cases exist and have been encouraging service members to obtain help, even if they go to private therapists and do not report it to the military. The 40,000 cases are those tracked by the military.

Officials have also estimated that half the military personnel with mental problems do not receive treatment because they are embarrassed or fear that it might hurt their careers.

A report on diagnosed cases released on Tuesday by the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, showed that the hardest-hit services last year were the Marines and Army, the two forces bearing the brunt of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Army reported more than 10,000 new cases last year, up from more than 6,800 the previous year. More than 28,000 soldiers have been diagnosed with the disorder over the last five years.

The Marines had more than 2,100 cases in 2007, compared with 1,366 in 2006. They had more than 5,000 cases diagnosed since 2003.

---

I guess W never knew that mental illness was a normal byproduct of surviving war close up. How could he? They didn't put it in any of the John Waymne movies he grew up on.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 08 - 12:08 AM

Senator Barack Obama, inching closer to the Democratic nomination, seized on the occasion while speaking about the mortgage crisis in Nevada.

ÒJohn McCain is having a different kind of meeting,Ó Mr. Obama said after meeting a family in Las Vegas on the verge of losing its house to foreclosure. ÒHeÕs holding a fund-raiser with George Bush behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras, no reporters. And we all know why.

ÒSenator McCain doesnÕt want to be seen, hat in hand, with the president whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years.Ó

The politicking seemed far removed from the sunny day at the White House in March when Mr. McCain, still flush from his triumph over a crowded primary field, and Mr. Bush appeared like two old friends. Despite a bitterness attached to the 2000 primaries, Mr. McCain promised Òto have as much possible campaigning events together.Ó

More than once, though, he alluded to Mr. BushÕs ÒheavyÓ or ÒbusyÓ schedule, which in hindsight perhaps had more significance than it might have seemed.

Mr. Bush made an early fund-raising stop in New Mexico on Tuesday, but his Òheavy scheduleÓ otherwise included a visit to Silverado Cable, a company in Mesa, Ariz., that makes electrical wiring for aircraft.

He did not mention Mr. McCain, nor did Mr. McCain mention him in Denver.

For Mr. Bush, with seemingly irreversible public disapproval in the polls, the start of his campaign to help elect a Republican successor could hardly have seemed more humbling, though the White House maintained its typical enthusiasm and optimism.

ÒHeÕs not bothered in the slightest,Ó the White House press secretary, Dana M. Perino, said. ÒHe fully understands how campaigns for presidents work, and heÕs comfortable in his own skin.Ó

Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist who wrote ÒImpostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,Ó said core supporters possessed a hardened realism about Mr. McCainÕs prospects, understanding the challenges but not yielding to them.

ÒEven diehard Bush supporters know heÕs an albatross around the neck of the nominee,Ó Mr. Bartlett said in an interview.

At the same time, he noted the presidentÕs fund-raising prowess. Despite the efforts by the McCain camp to keep at armÕs length a president with an approval rating stalled at 28 percent, it is worth remembering that that 28 percent can be fiercely loyal and often wealthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 08 - 09:34 AM

ANother snippet from Scott McLellan, who decided to speak his own mind for a change:

"The president's real motivation for the war, he says, was to transform the Middle East to ensure an enduring peace in the region. But the White House effort to sell the war as necessary due to the stated threat posed by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was necessary because "Bush and his advisers knew that the American people would almost certainly not support a war launched primarily for the ambitions purpose of transforming the Middle East.

"Rather than open this Pandora's Box, the administration chose a different path -- not employing out-and-out deception, but shading the truth," he writes of the effort to convince the world that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

"President Bush managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option," McClellan concludes, noting, "The lack of candor underlying the campaign for war would severely undermine the president's entire second term in office."

Bush's national security advisers failed to "help him fully understand the tinderbox he was opening," McClellan recalls.

"I know the president pretty well,'' McClellan writes in a personal note. "I believe that, if he had been given a crystal ball in which he could have foreseen the costs of war -- more than 4,000 American troops killed, 30,000 injured and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis dead -- he would never have made the decision to invade, despite what he might say or feel he has to say publicly today.''"

---

While this may speak well for Mister Bush's sensitivities, the question arises where he has been keeping his head over the years. He was alive and well during the Vietnam years. How could he forget the costs of war? The same costs from WW II and even WW I and the American Civil War are widely documented. History was all the crystal ball he could have needed if he had had enough brain cells in operation to learn from it. Others saw the horrible consequences of his decision with nothing more than the balls God gave them, crystal or other wise.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 08 - 11:26 AM

"Ironically, much of Bush's campaign rhetoric (in 1999-200) had been aimed at distancing himself from the excesses of Clinton's permanent campaign style of governing. The implicit meaning of Bush's words was that he would bring an end to the perpetual politicking and deep partisan divisions it created. Although Washington could not get enough of the permanent campaign, voters were seemingly eager to move beyond it.

Bush emphasized this sentiment during the campaign. He would "change the tone in Washington." He would be "a uniter, not a divider." He would "restore honor and dignity to the White House." He would govern based on what was right, not what the polls said. He would, in short, replace the cynicism of the 1990s with a new era of civility, decency, and hope. There would be no more permanent campaign, or at least its excesses would be wiped away for good.

But the reality proved to be something quite different. Instead, the Bush team imitated some of the worst qualities of the Clinton White House and even took them to new depths.

Bush did not emulate Clinton on the policy front. Just the opposite – the mantra of the new administration was "anything but Clinton" when it came to policies. The Bush administration prided itself in focusing on big ideas, not playing small ball with worthy but essentially trivial policy ideas for a White House, like introducing school uniforms or going after deadbeat dads.

But a significant aspect of the Clinton presidency that George W. Bush and his advisers did embrace was the unprecedented pervasiveness of the permanent campaign and all its tactics. In hindsight, it is clear that the Bush White House was actually structured to emulate and extend this method of governing, albeit in its own way."

Scott McLellan, from his new book, "What Happened".

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 29 May 08 - 02:17 PM

The only popular view of the Bush Administration:- From behind, as they trudge off into obscurity, preferably VERY soon.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:22 PM

How about into a courtroom in an orange jumpsuit?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 08 - 07:14 PM

"Here are 10 other things we know for sure following the release of McClellanÕs harsh new tell-all, ÒWhat Happened: Inside the Bush White House And Washington's Culture of Deception.Ó

¥ Bush is toxic. The consistently unpopular president says history will judge him kindly, which may be the case. But McClellanÕs book diminishes any prospect that Americans will view Bush favorably before Jan. 20, 2009. The more relevant, immediate impact of BushÕs low poll numbers and lack of credibility will be felt by John McCain and other Republicans on the ballot this fall.

¥ So is Rove. Former Bush adviser Karl Rove has drawn rave reviews as a post-Bush commentator on FOX News. But according to McClellan, Rove was one of the major sources of turmoil in BushÕs second term. McClellan writes, for example, that the White House spent most of the first week after Hurricane Katrina Òin a state of denial.Ó Specifically, he blames Rove for suggesting that Bush pose for cameras while monitoring the wreckage of New Orleans from the comforts of Air Force One. McClellan wrote that he and White House counselor Dan Bartlett opposed the idea, but he was later told that ÒKarl was convinced we needed to do it, and the president agreed.Ó

This White House placed little importance on press relations and day-to-day messaging. In response to McClellanÕs book, Rove said, ÒIt goes to show how out of the loop he was.Ó The comment says more about Rove than it does about McClellan; why would a White House intentionally leave its press secretary Òout of the loopÓ? And why would Rove amplify this point, even after the fact?

¥ Timing hurts McCain most. McClellanÕs book is being released at perhaps the worst possible moment for McCain, as he holds a series of low-profile fundraisers with Bush this week. More importantly, the book comes out as McCain emerges from the shadows next week in a full-fledged general-election campaign after largely squandering a two-month window of Democratic infighting when he had an unobstructed bullhorn. This book helps Obama attack Bush, McCain and the Iraq war. ItÕs also harder for McCain now to make the case that the GOP is the party of ÒchangeÓ. ÒWe got caught up in playing the Washington game the way itÕs being played today,Ó McClellan said on NBC.

¥ The case for Iraq is an even harder sell. While already a steep climb, McCainÕs efforts to win this campaignÕs debate over Iraq just got harder. McClellan writes that Bush was not Òopen and forthright on Iraq,Ó and that he sold the war through a Òpolitical propaganda campaign.Ó Democrats will point out that McCain supported and defended that Òcampaign.Ó

¥ Bushies arenÕt forever. Perhaps the most shocking part about McClellanÕs book is that itÕs hard to find a Bushie who owes more to this president than he does. HeÕs the first one to leave the camp (Matthew Dowd was never really part of the Austin clique). Will he be the last?

¥ The White House is no longer the center of the universe. In a statement she fired off Wednesday morning, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino described McClellanÕs book as a ÒsadÓ effort by a ÒdisgruntledÓ former employee whoÕs now Ònot the Scott we knew.Ó But PerinoÕs statement was met with... silence. Or something close to it. More reports rolled in during the day of reaction from people running for president or their surrogates than anyone connected to the current president. Even though the book is a direct attack on this White House, the press is now past the point of focusing any level of coverage on its current occupants.

¥ Media feels vindicated. While McClellan writes that the media was too lenient on the Bush administration, his book this week prompted a round of ÒI-told-you-soÕsÓ from White House reporters, who frequently charged that the press secretary was being less than direct with them in part because he was receiving mixed messages from within the White House...."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 09:57 PM

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Friday that he would be willing to comply with a possible congressional subpoena to discuss the administration's handling of prewar intelligence, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer he'd be "glad to share my views" if asked to testify.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed McClellan Friday.

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, said Friday that McClellan, who left the White House in 2006, would be able to provide valuable insight into a number of issues under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee is looking into the use of prewar intelligence, whether politics was behind the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity, Wexler, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said.

In the book, McClellan says President Bush told him he had authorized the leaking of Plame Wilson's identity to the press. Watch Wexler call for McClellan to testify È

Facing a firestorm over his book, McClellan also confirmed reports Friday that he apologized to Richard Clarke for questioning his honesty after the former counterterrorism official published his own book critical of the White House. Read excerpts from the book È

His new book is a bombshell ... one the White House would rather you not see. Anderson goes knee-to-knee with former press secretary Scott McClellan about his time with the Bush administration.

"I had not read his book; I was just reading talking points," McClellan admitted Friday. "It was a very tough process to come to these conclusions. It was vital to write these things in order to get them out." Watch the full McClellen interview È

"I think that anyone who is objective who reads the book will see that it was a very tough process to come to these conclusions. It wasn't easy to write these things."

Former colleagues and top Republicans have been blasting McClellan since his book was announced this week. "...(CNN)

---

Looks like John Dean's spirit is moving on troubled waters over at Bushville.

I'd like to hear Bush make a "Checkers" speech.


A