BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration

Subject: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 01:34 PM

Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German." -- Bill Maher, on Schwarzenegger running for Governor.

"President Bush is supporting Arnold but a lot of Republicans are not, because he is actually quite liberal. Karl Rove said if his father wasn't a Nazi, he wouldn't have any credibility with conservatives at all." -- Bill Maher

"They're saying Arnold will get 95% of the vote. At least according to his brother, Jeb Schwarzenegger." -- Craig Kilborn

"President Bush has been silent on Schwarzenegger. Of course, he can't pronounce Schwarzenegger." -- David Letterman

"Here's how bad California looks to the rest of the country. People in Florida are laughing at us." -- Jay Leno

"Well, we're all excited because President Bush has started his
35-day vacation. He's down there in Crawford, Texas and on the first day of his vacation he went fishing. He didn't find any fish but he believes they're there and that his intelligence is accurate." -- David Letterman

"President Bush held his first full press conference in over 5 months this week. He announced that the war on terrorism is continuing, much, much more work needs to be done on the economy, and Saddam Hussein has not yet been captured. And then he said, 'I'm going on vacation for a month.'" -- Jay Leno

"President Bush is leaving to go to Crawford, Texas, for a 35-day working vacation. This should go over big with all the people taking a can't-get-work vacation." -- David Letterman

"The White House says that the vacation in Texas will give President Bush the chance to unwind. My question is, when does the guy wind?" -- David Letterman

"President Bush's economic team is now on their jobs and growth bus tour all across America. I think the only job they created so far is for the guy driving the bus." -- Jay Leno

"President Bush has refused to declassify portions of the congressional 9/11 reports about the Saudis, because he says it will help the enemy. Not Al Qaeda, the Democrats." -- Jay Leno

"The United States is putting together a Constitution now for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It's served us well for 200 years, and we don't appear to be using it anymore, so what the hell?" -- Jay Leno

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 04:14 PM

Thanks, Amos. I once read that when a leader becomes a laughingstock he's on his way out. I only wish.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amergin
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 05:32 PM

the problem with bush he was never anything more than a laughingstock.....but then he never was a leader either....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 06:36 PM

Ebbie, let's make it so..I've decided I am going to make a bumper sticker that says Just say NO to 4 More Years!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 10:45 PM

Good one, kat. And maybe we could come up with one of his own 'wise sayings'? Like 'Make the pie higher'! You don't suppose they're copywrited, do you?! In today's climate I can imagine being cited for something or another.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 11:52 PM

How about a bumpersticker that says "No more years!"?

You CAN laugh him out of office. Laughing AT someone can ruin them politically. They all take themselves SOOOOOOOOO seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 12:04 AM

Just say no to Thugs!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:09 AM

"Well, we're all excited because President Bush has started his 35-day vacation. He's down there in Crawford, Texas and on the first day of his vacation he went fishing. He didn't find any fish but he believes they're there and that his intelligence is accurate." -- David Letterman

Intelligence in the meaning od mental capabilites or reports of CIA?
Both fit well from this side of the pond.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: C-flat
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:36 AM

This may have been doing the rounds for some time, if so I apologise, but I've just found it and it cracked me up so, whatever.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 06:02 PM

Hopefully, enough of the non-voting majority will get off their patoots and away from their boob-tubes long enough to cast their ballots in 2004. The current president didn't even get 25% of the registered voter's support. He sure got lots of support from big business though. And they certainly got a good return on their investment.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Gareth
Date: 14 Sep 03 - 07:13 PM

Yet again - don't weep, organize !!!!

Its the nity grity of politics, making sure your people are registered, that they know when and where to vote, that they know where your candidate is on the ballot paper, or computer screen, getting them to the polls, and checking that the count is fair and square.

Its sitting in the smoky back room, writing, and printing leaflets, addressing envelopes, filling in data bases, telephoning the undecided. Its standing in the rain outside a supermarket, or school handing out leaflets, and watching half of them go straight on to the floor.

It's missing a folk festival, or a weekends sailing, because XYZ want's an area lefleted that week end and it's "Gareth, can you produce one of your specials, please"

It poring over printouts trying to allocate scarce resourses. It's trying to raise the money for the next batch of ink and paper. It's driving a loudspeaker van, with the Tintinitus roaring in your ear knowing that you can't stop and give it up.

Its when your girl/boy friend gives you an ultimatum, the party or me.

Its walking out of the count, having taken a hammering and still smileing.

Hands up all those 'Catters who have taken part in that.

And a small bet says some of the more vocal Bush/Blair critics won't have bothered to give up thier time or get thier hands dirty.

Gareth - A qualified Election Agent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:46 AM

Let's make it a very large bet, shall we?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:37 AM

On another facet of the popular acceptance of GWB:

SEPTEMBER 12--North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading "We like ice cream" and "USA deserves a tax cut." The phony Bush bill--a copy of which you'll find below--was presented to a cashier at a Food Lion in Roanoke Rapids on September 6 by an unidentified male who was seeking to pay for $150 in groceries. Remarkably, the cashier accepted the counterfeit note and gave the man $50 change. In a separate incident involving a different perp, Roanoke Rapids cops Tuesday arrested Michael Harris, 24, for attempting last month to pass an identical $200 Bush bill at a convenience store.

For a picture of the bill that was passed see http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/bushbill1.html.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:46 AM

Aren't the terms "Popular" and "Views of the Bush Administration" a bit of a contradiction ?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:51 AM

To the great disgust of many, no.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:01 PM

The great shame of this nation is not so much that Bush's machinery managed to railroad the election, but that almost half the people in the country thought he was eligible material, and a lesser, but still highly significant number, have supported him in his insanities since then.

There are significant numbers of people who call him the leader of the free world, no less; and attribute high moral qualities to him including courage and integrity.

All of which strikes me as shamefully backwards-minded.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:30 PM

Yesterday I had an interesting two-hour conversation with a middle-aged, self-proclaimed conservative couple from Colorado. The name 'Bush' was never mentioned but it was implied in every facet of the conversation.

Their take on it:

The war should perhaps not have been begun "We'll never know", but now that we're there we must complete the process. We should "send the Iraqis back to the camel age". We should ("politically incorrect as it seems") obliterate North Korea NOW, so as to avoid inevitable war later. "China and South Korea are being blackmailed into sending millions of dollars in aid to North Korea." (Neither of them had a good answer as to why China would not instead send a vast army into North Korea NOW before North Korea has a working nuclear capability, rather than allowing itself to be extorted for years.)

"Why should we support those who don't work?" (Because, I quoted: A nation is judged by its treatment of the least among them.)

Lots more. They are a couple with a small business, and they seemed well informed on a great many issues. The conversation remained cordial throughout, but I'm beginning to understand why Bush's approval rating remains high, or at least where it's coming from.

I despair.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:04 PM

Well, lemme see. . . .

If these "significant numbers of people" are right, and Bush is truly the "leader of the free world" and actually does have "high moral qualities to him including courage and integrity," then I'm forced to the inevitable conclusion that God has a really atrocious sense of humor. . . .

It's gotta be some great, cosmic joke.

My first response to Amos's quote of Bill Maher's remark about Schwarzenegger running for California governor, "Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German." was to snicker and mutter "Right on!" My second response was "Uh-oh!" and a cold shudder. Too close.

I keep hearing about how popular Bush is in the polls (although lately, he seems to be slipping), and yet I don't actually know anybody who likes him or thinks he's doing a good job with much of anything. And not all the people I know are liberals. Where are all these people who think he's such a great president?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:30 PM

Well, fir those of you who think there isn't some serious grassroots organizing going on, one just need to look at what Howard Dean has done in a very short time with no real big money backers in his corner. Yeah, though I haven't beat on any doors for a Dem since McCarthey (no, not Joe)/Kennedy/Humphry in '68, I and many of my Green friends, are concerned enough about the dangerous folks who have highjacked the country that many of us are willing to do what it takes to get them out. And get America back from the Bushwackers... After that, we'll get back to pesterin' the Dems....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 02:38 PM

Good move, Bobert. I think that's the way to go, and I'm laible to join you once the job is done.

First priority: stop the country from circling the drain.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 06:34 PM

"From a pure-science point of view, embryonic stem cells are more powerful than the genome project," says Johns Hopkins pediatric oncologist Curt Civin. "They could tell us what each and every gene actually does. And they could be used to cure cancers, Parkinson's disease, diabetes." You name it. But by and large, American researchers must stop there—at the hopeful act of recognizing the potential. Their ability to study actual stem cells is hobbled by the federal regulation triggered in 2001 by President Bush's famously faux-Solomonic—tear the baby in half!—decision to limit the cells a federally funded researcher can study to those coming from the 78 cell lines cultured prior to the date of the regulation. In practice, though, only 11 approved lines have been made available to researchers. It's like handing an oceanographer a cup of salt water and saying, "Study only this."

In contrast, the sensible British have got it right, says Civin. Under strict regulation, and culling from IVF throwaways, doctors are allowed to create their own embryonic stem cell lines. "We're going to be trumped," says Civin. "I'd like to figure out everything there is about blood stem cells, but in all, the discovery is going to be slower, and as an American, I'm not going to be a part of it."

From a PopSci article on stem cell researcher's travails...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Alice
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 07:51 PM

Have you ever read www.bushwatch.com?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: NicoleC
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:01 PM

Well, Don, a lady I work with has a picture of GWB where most people keep family pictures. (And yes, she has a husband and several kids. No pictures of them.) She practically worships the guy. On the other hand, when pressed she doesn't much seem to agree with him on much of anything -- it's perplexing. But don't insult HER president! He's FLAWLESS!

Truth is, many people will worship almost anyone elevated to a leadership position regardless of merit or ability or what they actually do. And I'm not just talking about politics. (Many of the others will hate anyone elevated to a leadership position etc., etc. Any conversation about Bill Gates will troll up people who rapidly hate him, without having any good reasons why.) It's human mob mentality.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:19 PM

From a friend:

"It was recently mentioned that the Presidential Prayer Team is
currently urging us to: "Pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on
how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be
according to Biblical principles. With many forces insisting on variant
definitions of marriage, pray that God's Word and His standards will be
honored by our government."

I'm sure any good religious person believes prayer should be balanced
by action. So here, in support of the Prayer Team's admirable goals, is
a proposed Constitutional Amendment codifying marriage entirely on
biblical principles:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one
man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5.) Marriage
shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his
wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

B. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin.
If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed.(Deut 22:13-21)
Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen
24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

C. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the
constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be
construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

D. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the
widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does
not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise
punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut
25:5-10)

Yes, it is time to PRAY for divine intervention with our president...."

Big sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: curmudgeon
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:41 AM

For a different take on the Resident's campaign of mis-information, look here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:46 AM

And also here...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:52 AM

And here....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:43 AM

That boy has generated an awful lot of fertilizer, considering he isn't going to reap more than a whirlwind, hasn't he?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 05:43 PM

AND HERE

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 07:10 PM

That last one is really grim...the track record of interference with science.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Reiver 2
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 07:21 PM

Thanks for those Amos. Have you checked out the Bushisms on http://home.twcny.rr.com/felicity/bushisms.htm

The Bush Dyslexicon by Mark Crispin Miller, subtitle: Observations on a National Disorder, is good too.

Absolutely the worst president in the history of the U.S. You might enjoy some of the posts I've made on my blog site:
http://news-opinion.blog-city.com

Reiver 2

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:22 PM

Well, Amos, when you've got fundamentalist "Christianity"[sic] to explain everything for you, and to obviate the necessity of rational thought, who needs science? Not just Dumbya, but his whole crew.

THAT'S grim.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:41 PM

I read and recommended the Bush Dyslexicon earlier but let me repeat here that it is highly worth reading.

Greg -- I believe that people will grab any information in a storm as long as it will hold things still for a bit -- a religion, an authority, or some other conclusion, rational or not, as long as it fends off confusion. Perfectly workable as long as you don't mix it up with truth, eh?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: AliUK
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:44 PM

Here in Brazil they were a little bemused that Arnie was going in as a candidate for the Governership of California...they were under the impression that he was already the President of the US of A.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:51 PM

Depends what you mean by "workable" I suppose. ;>)

Queen of Fools, turn around, life will be your folly
Wave your wand at those who will waste away and worry
Play them for the fools they are, make their steps up for them
A clock that's shaken hard enough, it cannot stay in rhythm.
Pat Sky The Dance of Death

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:37 PM

And not one word on the practicalities !!!!!!!!

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:53 PM

These both made me laugh so hard, that that I broke my 'bummed out' 'lost it' card...


Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German." -- Bill Maher, on Schwarzenegger running for Governor...


"The United States is putting together a Constitution now for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It's served us well for 200 years, and we don't appear to be using it anymore, so what the hell?" -- Jay Leno ...
Thanks!, Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: toadfrog
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 09:31 PM

With all due respect, guys, there were a lot of Clinton jokes too. The only nationally known politician I can remember that there were no jokes about was Benson, the guy who was not elected Vice President in 1988. Who remembers Benson?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 09:07 PM

"...I knew Jack Kennedy, he was a friend of mine... and let me tell you, Mr Quale... You're no Jack Kennedy..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 09:26 PM

That one line nearly immortalized Benson in my mind. Benson signature is also still found on a lot of dollar bills out there. I thought he would have made an excellent VP...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 10:11 PM

My brother sent me this:

Bumper Sticker ideas for the GOP for 2004:
Bush/Cheney '04: Four More Wars!
Bush/Cheney '04: Assimilate. Resistance is Futile.
Bush/Cheney '04: Apocalypse Now!
Bush/Cheney '04: Because the truth just isn't good enough.
Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism
Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again!
Bush/Cheney '04: Don't Change Whores in Midstream
Bush/Cheney '04: Get used to it!
Bush/Cheney '04: In your heart, you know they're technically correct.
Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind
Bush/Cheney '04: Less CIA -- More CYA
Bush/Cheney '04: Lies and videotape but no sex!
Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a
time.
Bush/Cheney '04: Or else.
Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served.
Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism
Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention.
Bush/Cheney '04: The economy's stupid!
Bush/Cheney '04: The last vote you'll ever have to cast.
Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us!
Bush/Cheney '04: We're Gooder!
Bush/Cheney: Asses of Evil
Don't think. Vote Bush!
George W. Bush: A brainwave away from the presidency
George W. Bush: It takes a village idiot
George W. Bush: Leadership without a doubt
George W. Bush: The buck stops Over There
God Save the King!
Let them eat yellowcake! Vote Bush!
Peace & Prosperity Suck -- Big-Time
Vote Bush in '04: "Because every vote counts -- for me!"
Vote Bush in '04: "Because I'm the President, that's why!"
Vote Bush in '04: Because dictatorship is easier
Vote Bush in '04: It's a no-brainer!
Vote for Bush & You Get Dick!
Who would Jesus Bomb?
Vote Bush in '04: "I Has Incumbentory Advantitude"

My favorite is:
BU__SH__!

In summary, I can't stand the guy. I agree with what the Dixie Chicks said before they were forced into a retraction.
But most people I know think he's wonderful.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 10:49 PM

U S   U N D E R   A T T A C K

       WASHINGTON OBSERVED
       Blind fury that sparks bloodlust
       Sep 14 2001
       Peter Hartcher

Nine out of 10 Americans support armed retaliation against the forces that struck New York and Washington this week, even if it means getting into a war.

And a quarter of this group endorses launching military strikes immediately - without waiting to find out who is actually responsible.

In the absence of a known enemy, whom and where would the US attack? Should it be random, with a pin on a map directing a hail of missiles? Or should it be racially based?

Surely only an infuriated minority of rednecks would propose such blind bloodlust? Not at all.

Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli has an idea for dealing with the
absence of a known perpetrator. He proposed yesterday that Congress
authorise the President to open "general hostilities" and assault 10
terrorist organisations around the world immediately.

"Given the enormity of the attack against our country, I think we're
entitled to take action against each of them," he said.

This is despite the lessons of history.

The last time the US launched massive and hasty missile strikes against a terrorist, Osama bin Laden, in 1998, "all we managed to do was bounce some rubble around in Afghanistan and raise the level of anti-Americanism", in the words of Milt Bearden, a former CIA agent who worked in Afghanistan.

The missiles apparently killed six children, but missed bin Laden, who survived to become the prime suspect in this week's atrocities.

For many in the US, the fury is so deep that it is blind and irrational.

For most Americans, it is beyond the reach of civilised restraint. The Gallup poll found that 66 per cent of the US public favours armed action "even if it means that innocent people are killed".

For the US at war, this fury is normal. "Once wars begin, a significant element of American public opinion supports waging them at the highest possible level of intensity," writes the US scholar Walter Russell Mead in the journal The National Interest.

And the key to understanding this war frenzy, he argues, is the same key to grasping other aspects of the American popular psyche, such as the national fetish for guns.

And that key is Jacksonianism - the tradition named after the sixth US president. Andrew Jackson was a Scots-Irish immigrant who was orphaned on the frontier, fought in wars against American Indians and the British, and suffered as a prisoner of war - all by the age of 15.

He was an intense hater, with crazy blue eyes, fearless in battle and "mad upon his enemy", said his biographer Robert Remini.

He was poorly educated, but a brilliant strategist. At the Battle of New Orleans he shattered an invading British army of 5,000 men, dealing them a staggering 2,000 casualties, with the loss of only a dozen or so of his own troops.

Nicknamed Old Hickory for his wiry toughness and known by the Indians as Sharp Knife for his tactics, Jackson had no control over his temper.

One of his contemporaries, Thomas Jefferson, said of him: "When I was
president of the Senate, he was Senator, and he could never speak on
account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it
repeatedly, and as often choke with rage... He is a dangerous man." But as the country's foremost war hero, he could not be denied the presidency.

Jacksonianism is a populist folk culture that has its roots in the sense of identity among the Scots-Irish who settled much of the American West.

It distrusts elites, favours rugged individualism, loves guns, loathes multilateralism and prizes courage.

Ronald Reagan tapped it more successfully than any modern president.

Understanding Jacksonianism is to understand the American attitude to war. According to Mead, "the first Jacksonian rule of war is that wars must be fought with all available force. The use of limited force is deeply repugnant."

This school also draws sharp distinction between honourable and
dishonourable enemies. In the case of dishonourable enemies, "all rules are off". This was the fate of the Japanese. Jacksonian America had no compunction about using the atomic bomb against civilians.

Jackson's cultural heirs believe that the chief object of warfare was
breaking an enemy's spirit. "It was not enough to defeat a tribe in battle; one had to pacify the tribe.

"For this to happen, the war had to go to the enemy's home. The villages had to be burned, food supplies destroyed, civilians had to be killed. From the tiniest child to the most revered of the elderly sages, everyone in the enemy nation had to understand that further armed resistance to the will of the American people... was simply not an option."

Mead argues that this strand of public opinion determines how America
fights and wins wars, or, if it is denied, how it makes and breaks the presidents who defy it.

Truman, Johnson and George Bush senior all defied the Jacksonian code by trying to wage limited war, and none survived the decision.

The choking rage of Jacksonianism, now fully roused by a dishonourable enemy, will demand the ferocious and unrestrained prosecution of this next American war.

And George W. Bush will defy it at his peril.

As one of Jackson's intellectual heirs, General Curtis Le May, the man who dropped the atomic bomb, once said: "I'll tell you what war is. You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough, they stop fighting."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 12:08 AM

Here's a wonderful sport for those who have some time on their hands: sign in and review this colorful series of 30-second quick messages by a wide span of artistic talent found at "Bush in 30 Seconds". They are a puredee hoot.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 01:39 AM

Today I saw a bumper sticker on a parked car: RE-DEFEAT BUSH! Made me feel like hunting up the driver to make his/her acquaintance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: kendall
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 04:53 AM

Re elect Gore in 2004.

What scares me is that so many people now believe that it's ok to pull a "first strike" on a POTENTIAL enemy! And, they don't see the similarity between Iraq and Pearl Harbor.\They destroyed the towers, so, we get to destroy their whole country. The problem with that "logic" is; THEY didn't destroy the towers!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 10:43 AM

Here's a scary story from the Times documenting Rumsfeld's special envoy duties visiting Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war and letting him know we were against chem warfare in general but we weren't mad at him and didn't want to compromise our relationship, yadda yadda...the implication of which is that it was Bush Senior and Bush Junior between them, who managed things in such a way as to necessitate the Iraq war and all the deaths concomitant thereunto.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/23/international/middleeast/23RUMS.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 — As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show.


Mr. Rumsfeld, who ran a pharmaceutical company at the time, was tapped by Secretary of State George P. Shultz to reinforce a message that a recent move to condemn Iraq's use of chemical weapons was strictly in principle and that America's priority was to prevent an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq war and to improve bilateral ties...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Dec 03 - 11:11 AM

From Slate's "Today's Papers" site:

The Post's Style section profiles former Centcom commander General George Zinni, who endorsed Bush in 2000 and has become one of the fiercest critics of the invasion of Iraq. "I think the American people were conned into this," he says. "The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the neocons who didn't understand the region and were going to create havoc there. These were dilettantes from Washington think tanks who never had an idea that worked on the ground." Zinni says that after he oversaw the bombing of Baghdad in 1998, he thought Saddam was on the verge of falling, so he drew up a detailed plan for occupying Iraq, called Desert Crossing. Concerned that his plan wasn't being properly considered, before the war Zinni called a Centcom general, asking, "Are you guys looking at Desert Crossing?" The general responded, "What's that?"

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Ineptitude at the Top: Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 07:07 PM

From the N Y TIMES:

Former Official Describes Bush as ‘Disengaged’

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 03:46 AM

Ex-Treasury Chief Says He'll Probably Vote For Bush In '04

Not just the kind of witness a prosecutor would wish for.
But still the publication is quite damning at least for one aspect of the Bush government in my eyes. WMDs have never been the real motive for the war against Iraq. But at the time of the publication this didn't really come as a big surprise, but then, perhaps to some it did.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 09:13 AM

An interesting dissertation on "Bush As Ali Baba" can be found on this page which characterizes him as a thief.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 09:49 AM

Wait up a minute:

"...Zinni says that after he oversaw the bombing of Baghdad in 1998, he thought Saddam was on the verge of falling, so he drew up a detailed plan for occupying Iraq, called Desert Crossing."

So the "revelation" by Paul O'Neill that GWB had the invasion of Iraq on the table from day one (2000) is incorrect. Those plans, formulated by Centcom commander General George Zinni, had been made in 1998 while Bill Clinton was in office?

Hmmmmmmm as Bobert would say.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 11:16 AM

I think it is incumbent on us out of respect for the truth to see the whole descritpion by Zinni when he spoke out.

Here's an article that describes it.

Zinni's perspective is clearly that our resident Veep is just a liar, or a badly misled biped at best.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 11:31 AM

Thanks Amos.

Quoted from the above link:

[But Zinni vows that he has learned a lesson. Reminded that he endorsed Bush in 2000, he says, "I'm not going to do anything political again -- ever. I made that mistake one time." ]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 12:33 PM

Amos:

Are those biblical verses you quoted above about marriage really in the bible (don't have one handy to check the authenticity of those verses. Maybe a Mudcat biblical scholar can verify those).

The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 12:50 PM

Here are some interesting comments about Bush and Co: "The US is now in the hands of a group of extremists" - by George Soros, who isn't exactly a lefty. The link is to "an edited extract" pubished in today's Guardian, from "The Bubble of American Supremacy",a book by Soros published this week.

"We have fallen into a trap. The suicide bombers' motivation seemed incomprehensible at the time of the attack; now a light begins to dawn: they wanted us to react the way we did. Perhaps they understood us better than we understand ourselves.

"And we have been deceived. When he stood for election in 2000, President Bush promised a humble foreign policy. I contend that the Bush administration has deliberately exploited September 11 to pursue policies that the American public would not have otherwise tolerated."

I especially agree with his judgement that what has happened since Seoptemer 11th has been precisely what the people who organised it and took part in it wanted to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:12 PM

TBWOTFM:

I don't know. I don't consider it a reliable source of information.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:20 PM

"I don't consider it a reliable source of information"

Are you talking about your friends quote or the bible?

The B-I-B-L-E Was Once The Book For Me...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:22 PM

The Bible.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:31 PM

Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 02:53 PM

Hi Teribus,

Your question,

"Those plans, formulated by Centcom commander General George Zinni, had been made in 1998 while Bill Clinton was in office?"

is easilly answered. Obviously if plans had been made, they were rejected by the Clinton Administration and revived by the
Bush Administration.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 03:04 PM

"Popular."

"Popular" as defined by?

If the answer is liberals, I would say this thread is well named.

If the answer is the American people, I would say it is mis-titled. Fifty-four percent of Americans (according to the major polls) approve of the job the president is doing.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 04:14 PM

Most people don't see it that way, Doug, even if maybe most people in the USA do.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 04:29 PM

The word popular in this sense means views held among the population at large; it includes conservative, liberal, illiberal and reactionary.

Most of the Bush camp holds views in the latter two catego9ries.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 05:01 PM

Well, Dougie, you know how I distrust polls but since you've gone and thrown yers out, what do you think of Kerry 49 Bush 46 with 5 undecided? And that was on Fox news at noon today...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 07:19 PM

But don't forget, they'll have a lot of electronic voting systems this time, which should make it easier getting the desired result, when it comes to counting anyway..

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 07:36 PM

Reading all of this puts me in mind of what my mom said during the 2000 elections. She said that she thought that Bush was likeable, someone you would like to go to a football game with. But in her mind, that was it. Not someone to be our president.

Keep in mind that Pres. Bush was not elected the first time, he was appointed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 04 - 07:39 PM

An urgent appeal to those who are in a position to do anything with it, from Daniel Ellsburg, who demonstrated his own kind of courage, can be found in this article in the Guardian entitled "Leak Against This War".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 11:25 PM

From the New York Times:

Uses and Abuses of Science




Published: February 23, 2004


lthough the Bush administration is hardly the first to politicize science, no administration in recent memory has so shamelessly distorted scientific findings for policy reasons or suppressed them when they conflict with political goals. This is the nub of an indictment delivered last week by more than 60 prominent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. Their statement was accompanied by a report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, listing cases where the administration has manipulated science on environmental and other issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 11:27 PM

Correction to the link -- the original article can be found on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 12:08 AM

Gareth - Its also going door to door in you neighborhood to see if anyone needs a ride to the polling station, especially the elderly or offering to babysit for the single mom so she can run out and vote.

Put those SUV's to work!

d

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:12 PM

A very interesting discussion on Bush's worldview by one of his college professors can be found on this page.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Mar 04 - 08:40 PM

Well, gol danged, Amos! I thought I had a low opinion of the Bush administration. Geeze, compared to Bush's former Harvard professor, I'm closer to DougR.... Danged....

Jus' funnin...

But, boy oh boy...

McKinley/Rove? Well, ahhh, yeah. I was listening to this guy on NPR today who called in to talkabout his experiences in Haiti and what he described is what I fear will become of the US... It may be too late to turn it around now that Boss Hog is laying waste to the labor movement much like Sherman burned the South to the ground...

Just today the grocery workers out in your area settled on a "two tiered" program that will be a tamplate for other unions. In essence the "two tiered" program provides fir the current workers to be able to maintain their pay and health benefits (no increases) while allowing for new hires to work for less with less benefits... Think Social Security here. "We're not going to cut any current retirees or those getting ready to retire but................"

Now Boss Hog is going to drag out his anti-human, anti-God, anti-anti "Personal Responsibility" CRAP! Translated, "Personal Respnsibility" means "I'm rich and you ain't! Get over it!"...

Yeah, welcome to America. The world's next Third World nation with 1% controlling 99% of the wealth. Just like Haiti.

I wish some other country would just come and take Mr. Bush off to Africa so he could live out his days with the rest of the bad guys...

And take the rest of the ruling class wid him, thank you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 02:50 AM

I just know that Bush has started to piss off the hunting and fishing folks. That includes me. Everyone from the Izak Walton League to Trout and Ducks unlimited is starting to sqawk. Reason? Bushes hell bent for leather attempts to drill, mine, and log some of the nation's most productive breeding and spawning areas. In other words, places where the hunters and fishing folks go. Backwoods wilderness areas where hunting and fishing is allowed mostly because hunters and fishing folks have to backpack in for about two days before reaching these prime spots.

The heck with the second ammendment. Who is going to need hunting rifles if there is nothing to hunt.

Yeah, I'm a rifle totin' radically liberal Cherokee mama!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 08:11 AM

He has ruined more lives singlehanded than anyone since that AUstrian paperhanger fellow....Schickelgruber, I think it was. Anyway, it is high time someone stopped this fellow from messing things up even more.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 05:22 PM

Nice of you to include the "unbiased" comments of Bush's former college professor Amos.

Just tuned into this thread again to see if you folks were still having fun. Obviouvly you are! Does my old heart good.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 06:52 PM

Well, Doug, we're doing it for you, pal... We hate to do it but we know how much it means to ya'....

Hey, put Cindy on the board to give us a progress (pun iintended) report...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 10:30 PM

Marriage history of public figures who feel that gays will destroy the
institution of Marriage

Food for thought:

*Ronald Reagan - divorced the mother of two of his children to marry Nancy
Reagan who bore him a daughter only 7 months after the marriage.

*Bob Dole - divorced the mother of his child, who had nursed him through the
long recovery from his war wounds.

*Newt Gingrich - divorced his wife who was dying of cancer.

*Dick Armey - House Majority Leader - divorced

*Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas - divorced

*Gov. John Engler of Michigan - divorced

*Gov. Pete Wilson of California - divorced

*George Will - divorced

*Sen. Lauch Faircloth - divorced

*Rush Limbaugh - Rush and his current wife Marta have six marriages and
four divorces between them.

*Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia - Barr, not yet 50 years old, has been married
three times. Barr had the audacity to author and push the "Defense of
Marriage Act." The current joke making the rounds on Capitol Hill is "Bob
Barr...WHICH marriage are you defending?!?

*Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York - divorced

*Sen. John Warner of Virginia - divorced (once married to Liz Taylor.)

*Gov. George Allen of Virginia - divorced

*Henry Kissinger - divorced

*Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho - divorced

*Sen. John McCain of Arizonia - divorced

*Rep. John Kasich of Ohio - divorced

*Rep. Susan Molinari of New York - Republican National Convention Keynote
Speaker - divorced

Don't let homosexuals destroy the institution of marriage?!?! The
"Christian" "Do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do" Republicans are doing a fine job
without anyone's help!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 10:09 AM

I am pleased to see that the New York TImes, bastion of conservative thought, has begun to giove voice to critical thoughts about Bush and Co.

Today they offer a critique from Hans Blix on the duplicity behind the arms inspections.

It can be found here. Enjoy!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 11:01 AM

Amos - 02 Mar 04 - 10:30 PM

Oh St. Amos - would that we could all be as perfect as you.

Give you a tip - introduction to Scotland's national poet Robert Burns - first poem to read - Holly Wullies Prayer.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 11:08 AM

Teribus:

I think you're babbling.

What are you trying to say underneath all that sarcasm?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 11:51 AM

OK Amos,

Do you know the personal circumstances involved in the break-up of the marriages you thought fit to have a cheap shot with?

Rhetorical question because I don't for one second believe that you do.

The reasons and circumstances probably are many and varied, in most the decision to divorce was probably arrived at by mutual arrangement for the best as viewed by both partners. But you don't seem to be that prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt, particularly if you can manage to get in a snide dig at the same time - grow up you're old enough!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 12:17 PM

Well, maybe you're right that listing all those divorces was inappropriate -- and in all humility, T., I don't know the details. It is perhaps arrogant and wrong-headed to take it on myself to meddle in the private affairs of people who probably were dealing with difficult situations as well as anyone else could; I should trust our own citizens to manage their own lives without my interference and niggling about it. I apologize for the cheap shots by listing their failures in public. I was meddling in their private lives. And that is wrong.

It is possible the same policies apply to any citizens regardless of their sexual grain, I would add.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 12:19 PM

In other news, an editorial lambasting the Bush administrations coverup, misrepresentation and plain deceit on Medicare issues can be found on this page.

Enjoy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 12:55 PM

Amos: whatever would we do without your constantly posting articles from publications you discover on the Internet that support your POV? One would think we did not have access to the Internet, newspapers and none of us owned TV sets. I'm sure you don't believe such postings, particularly in publications that present views contrary to our own, will change minds do you?
:>)
DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 01:02 PM

In keeping with local policy I try to constrain myself to posting links and excerpts, Doug. Sure, I choose things that align with my POV -- why the hell would I do otherwise? But let me tell you what that point of view is. I think a lot of lies and manipulation have occurred under the direct or indirect control of the Bush machine; and I think by and large that those lies and manipulations have done more harm than good to the nation and the world. I think they have used perfectly sound ideals in false and hollow ways and done everything in their power to do what they want, rather than seek truth and right action. I am embarassed to be associated through citizenship with Rove, Bush, Cheny, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

So forgive me if I try to offset this little wave of evildoing in the world. We do what we can.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Deda
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 02:58 PM

Go, bro! Here are some reinforcements.
About truth and lies in the Pentagon. (Rather long but worth printing and reading.)
Lies about Medicare cost.

Actually, finding press report about Bush administration lies is like shooting fish in a barrel. There are so many, it's no sport at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 03:19 PM

Further on the Bush Machine's Lies About Medicare front:

Washington Times story

New York Times Story with the following awesome introductory lines:

"An Orwellian taint is emerging in the Bush administration's big victory last year in wringing the Medicare prescription drug subsidy from a balky Congress. The plan is being sold to the public through propagandistic ads disguised as TV news reports, and it turns out the government's top Medicare actuary was muzzled by superiors during the debate about the program's price tag."

Lies may be easy to find, but they are a royal pain to combat.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 03:40 PM

Here's a link to Holy Willie's Prayer, and also to its sequel Holy Willie's Epitaph.

I can't see that there's anything out-of-line in pointing a contradiction between sounding off too loudly about the overriding importance of the institution of marriage, and yet being somewhat flexible about it in private life.

It's the kind of thing that was just up Holy Willie's street. The point being, when we expect other people to accept our own failings, we should be willing to accept theirs as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Mar 04 - 05:32 PM

And another thread on another dimension of what can only be termed political fraud.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 12:42 AM

A presentation concerning the influence of Katherine Harris and the STate of FLorida shenanigans.

It would be highly entertaining except that it actually happened.

Maybe I am oldfashioned, but I believe sending one American to his death, or disenfranchising one human being unnecessarily, is anathema, hateful, to be avoided at all costs.. Mebbe that's just me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 05:57 PM

Nope, Amos, I wouldn't accuse you of being "old fashioned." Liberal, yes, but not necessarily old fashioned.

A lie is only a lie when it is PROVEN to be one. To date, the lies Bush is accused of are only lies because the accuser believes them to be.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:42 PM

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
Source: Interview of the President by TVP, Poland, White House (5/29/2003).

dougR, would you consider this annotated quote from GWB a lie? let me highlight the parts to especially consider...

..."We found the weapons of mass destruction"..."But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

waddaya think?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:50 PM

DougR:

I am sorry but I think a large number of lies have been proven. The first and foremost was the lies of the Florida election machine, and it declines from there.

Here is just one writeup out of many. Here's an excerpt:

"George W. Bush is a liar. He has lied large and small, directly and by omission. His Iraq lies have loomed largest. In the run-up to the invasion, Bush based his case for war on a variety of unfounded claims that extended far beyond his controversial uranium-from-Niger assertion. He maintained that Saddam Hussein possessed "a massive stockpile" of unconventional weapons and was directly "dealing" with Al Qaeda--two suppositions unsupported then (or now) by the available evidence. He said the International Atomic Energy Agency had produced a report in 1998 noting that Iraq was six months from developing a nuclear weapon; no such report existed (and the IAEA had actually reported then that there was no indication Iraq had the ability to produce weapons-grade material). Bush asserted that Iraq was "harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior Al Qaeda terrorist planner"; US intelligence officials told reporters this terrorist was operating ouside of Al Qaeda control. And two days before launching the war, Bush said, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Yet former deputy CIA director Richard Kerr, who is conducting a review of the prewar intelligence, has said that intelligence was full of qualifiers and caveats, and based on circumstantial and inferential evidence. That is, it was not no-doubt stuff. And after the major fighting was done, Bush declared, "We found the weapons of mass destruction." But he could only point to two tractor-trailers that the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded were mobile bioweapons labs. Other experts--including the DIA's own engineering experts--disagreed with this finding. "

Thos os just a small scraping from his foul deposits. His history is a carpet of large and small lies woven together in a comfortable web of convenient deception.

He has the moral fiber of a ringworm.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:02 AM

"A lie is only a lie when it is PROVEN to be one."

Wrong. A lie is a lie when you knowingly say something false.

If it's not proven, it just means you got away with the lie.

When it's proven to be a lie is when you got caught.

The latest Republican morality, is it? - it's only a lie if you get caught?

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:16 AM

Here an interesting analysis of why Bush's statements seem so out of touch with the facts over and over, by Wm Saletan writing for Salte magazine online.

From this perspective it is only a lie if you don't believe it!

It still adds up to "unqualified" in my opinion.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 05:42 PM

Amos: you offer David Corn and "The Nation" as proof that Bush is a liar? You're kidding, right?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 05:53 PM

Doug,

Your support of Bush is admirable. I wouldn't call him a liar; he simply has no commerce with truth as most people understand it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 05:59 PM

The article was " Bush's difficult relationship with reality" by William Saletan, Doug; and the magazine was of course Slate. As to the earlier post, I can't speak for the writer's background, but as he is expressing a popular view of Bush's credibility I thought it appropriate to include it here.   What is your problem with it exactly?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 09:20 AM

I got this humorous bit from an avid Bush supporter:

You know, they've released John Hinckley from prison for unsupervised visits to his parents’ home on weekends. This is such a nice letter from the President:

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON D.C.

Mr. John Hinckley
St. Elizabeth's Hospital
Washington, DC

Dear John:

Laura and I hope that you are continuing your excellent progress in recovery from your mental problems. We were pleased to hear that you are now able to have unsupervised visits with your parents. The staff at the hospital reports that you are doing fine.

I have decided to seek a second term in office as your president and I would appreciate your support and the support of your fine parents.

I would hope that if there is anything that you need at the hospital, you would let us know.

By the way, are you aware that John Kerry is screwing Jody Foster?!

Sincerely,

George W. Bush, President

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: el ted
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 11:52 AM

Brilliant! This is second 100th post today. Carry on with whatever it was you were talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 02:50 PM

Doug - Is it your assertion that GWB has been entirely truthful throughout his campaign for, and occupation of, the Presidency?

____yes

____no

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 08:52 AM

On the embarassment of the Bushies by Clarke's apology, see "Democracy's Revenge".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 11:23 AM

A short excerpt:

The commission is encouraging the country to consider questions the administration has never wanted asked. Why did these attacks happen on its watch? Could the government have done more to prevent them? Were intelligence warnings given short shrift? What was the administration thinking about on Sept. 10, 2001, and in the months before? And, yes, might the president not usefully express some remorse over any of these failures?

What's important is that the country is being pushed away from an empty debate over who is "tough" and who is "soft" to a substantive discussion of what our government might practically have done -- and can now do -- to stop terrorism.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 07:47 PM

hey, dougR, i cited an actual bush lie a few days ago. it's in print and on videotape. i stuck with just one lie to keep things simple. any comment on that?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 01:24 AM

dougR, i answered your query on the condi rice thread within hours. i cited a documented bush lie on march 22 after your statement on 22 Mar 04 - 05:57 PM and asked for your comment. does this staement count as a lie from your perspective? if not, why not?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 07:25 PM

The NEw York TImes is feeling the tug back from the brink of Neocon mania: see this article which is actually critical of the adminsitration's low regard ofr truth.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 07:58 PM

From Salon:

“We should have had orange or red-type of alert in June or July of 2001”

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 04 - 12:38 AM

A compelling description of the effect of Bushthink on the quality of life in Iraq can be found in this article from the New Statesman. Enjoy.

A

Subject: George and the Amazing Technicolor Dream-Tie
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 04 - 12:41 AM

A refreshing and sharp-witted article concerning George's press conference


A

Subject: North Korean Intelligence Gets it Right for Once..
From: Amos
Date: 19 Apr 04 - 11:20 PM

It seems the North Korean Intell is a little quicker than our own this time.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 20 Apr 04 - 06:34 AM

Thanks for the link Re: the North Korean Intell, that you find so believable Amos.

Does that include the following from that article?

Statement 1:
Pyongyang insists it will freeze its nuclear weapons drive only in return for rewards from the United States.

Statement 2:
North Korea "has no idea of dealing with the US any longer if the latter insists on the disgusting CVID (complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantling)," he said.

Both indicate the extent of the "midget's turd" (KIJ's own description of himself by the way) threat posture to the world. Statement 1 summed up in one word - BLACKMAIL.

Everybody quite happy and content about that - I certainly wouldn't be - Statement 2 summed up in an old saying, "Pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane". What CVID, of our nuclear programme - don't be ridiculous! we might want to Blackmail you some more at some time in the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 04 - 09:15 AM

T:

My remarks were limited to the observation about Cheney's mental state.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 20 Apr 04 - 10:22 AM

That would tend to explain a great deal.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 04 - 11:22 AM

But let me add thta many poeple would like to know more about their so-called President and often ask what he is really like. For those who really care, bo0rrowed from another thread and quoting Wm Shaxpere of ENgland, no less -- here is what he is really like, this aloof and secretive Mister Bush:

       MIster Bush is a knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
       base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
       hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
       lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
       glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
       one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
       bawd, in way of good service, and is nothing but
       the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
       and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch.

USually we just abbreviate the last element of that tirade.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 04:53 AM

"Wm Shaxpere of ENgland"

Never heard of him or the place he come from.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 03:21 PM

I am sorry -- but not surprised -- to hear as much, T. Unless you are just being snide about my typos.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Shlio
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 03:56 PM

Ouch - remind me never to get in an argument with you, Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Apr 04 - 04:42 PM

Sorry, Shlio -- I just hate to see mass hypnosis succeed when it is for dubious ends.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: el ted
Date: 22 Apr 04 - 10:32 AM

Boring.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Apr 04 - 11:29 AM

In other news, today's New York Times has an op-ed piece describing unintended consequences of our obsession with security since 9-11. The character of America is less than it was.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 08:18 AM

Twenty Nobel Prize winning scientists have joined a slew of others in condemning George Buish's anti-scientism. Scientific American covers the story in this article.

The man is a Ass.

A

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

In Alaska I qualify as a liberal. Why? Because I only have three guns in the house, and one of them is an air rifle. All my friends in Alaska are gung ho for Bush. When I go back East it's the other way around. I'm the gun-loving ANWR desecratin' arch conservative. All my friends here are anti-war.

But I'm more tortured than that.

Herman Wouk wrote a novel "The Caine Mutiny" and a play called "The Caine Mutiny Courtmartial". The two were turned into a good 1954 war flick with Van Johnson, Fred McMurry, and a famous supporting role by Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg. The story was about a U.S. Navy minesweeper being captained by a fairly unsteady almost senile type, who impressed his crew as a chickenshit officer, a chickenshit being somebody who is both ineffective and domineering at the same time. During a tropical storm in which the ship is almost lost at sea, some officers take over the ship. In the resulting courtmartial they seem to be about to lose their case (which is potentially a capital one) when their lawyer, a slick one well aware of his own capabilities, puts their captain on the stand and leans on him so hard that some of his nervous traits appear (the famous ball bearings). The judges are swayed by his obvious instability to find the officers innocent.

That night the officers are celebrating their good fortune when their slick lawyer shows up having tied one on and very angry with everyone. He feels guilty as if he'd crucified Queeg. His message, and the author's, is: You guys had a choice. You knew you had a weak leader. But, you could have sucked it in and helped him as best you could, and played a part in the war effort against the real enemy. Instead you let pride and a poor knowledge of psychology lead you to create a dangerous legal mess and a drain on your country's resources. The lawyer felt sorry for the men because there was an additional character who had egged them into it, yet escaped being charged by the court.

George W. has his faults. He doesn't shine in debate, and he has a garbled way of expressing himself in public. I disagree with much of his domestic agenda and the folks he was working it. I personally think he does not have a deep background in foreign affairs.

But he is the leader of the U.S. and the free world at a time when we have a real enemy out there, and he deserves support no matter what we think of him personally. If our European allies out there were a bit less self-centered (and, yes, a bit more gutsy), they could have led us to a more cooperative effort that brought us under U.N. jurisdiction and it would have been better for everyone.

W is not a bad person. He is not a stupid person. He is no coward. He has a moral center. He is someone we can work with. That is the message that is not getting out, although I suspect that that could be Blair's perception of him and the situation, and the PM has been IMHO courageous and brilliant in putting the British into the fray on our side.

I think we will find out that France and Russia had their own more selfish Iraqi agendas. I think we are already finding out about major corruption in that paragon of ethics and upright standards, The United Nations.

The reality of the world is that it isn't just what you stand for but the way you stand. So the U.S. is up for justifiable criticism in how we have gone about what we've gone about. But the U.S. also deserves some help. Accusing W of being a worse menace than Osama or Hitler is just not on.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 02:19 PM

"You knew you had a weak leader. But, you could have sucked it in and helped him as best you could, and played a part in the war effort against the real enemy."

It seems like a false analogy to me. My belief is that Bush is not a weak leader, and not attacking the real enemy. Saddam and Iraq are not responsible for 911. But Mr Bush said some time ago that he didn't think about bin Laden very much any more.

Waist deep in the Big Muddy, as the folkies say.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 04 - 02:26 PM

Robo:

I appreciate your thoughtful argument.

I believe you give him too much credit, though. A moral center would surely flinch at falsifying major information; and surely would blanch at the needless deaths of American soldiers in pursuit of an enemy not clearly linked to the attack of 9-11. A moral center tends to generate more humility than arrogance. I don't see such a center at work in this man.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Bush a Dry Drunk?
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 04 - 01:54 PM

11 Hard Questions For Bush


Nush as Dry Drunk

Enjoy....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 04 - 02:52 PM

(If there's a clone out there who could change "Nush" to "Bush" in the above I would be grateful).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 04 - 11:04 AM

From Slate

George W. Bush has governed, for the most part, the way any airhead might, undermining the fiscal condition of the nation, squandering the goodwill of the world after Sept. 11, and allowing huge problems (global warming, entitlement spending, AIDS) to metastasize toward catastrophe through a combination of ideology, incomprehension, and indifference. If Bush isn't exactly the moron he sounds, his synaptic misfirings offer a plausible proxy for the idiocy of his presidency.

Continued on this page...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 04 - 11:21 AM

"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."—Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003

AN insensitivity to irony? This is a quote from W last October, leading a nation which possessed weapons of mass destruction and has used them to attack another nation, beginning war.

For a collection of Bush's best remarks see Bushisms.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 May 04 - 12:56 PM

Ah, you can't trust even the most conservative people not to eventually stab you in the back:

"Conservatives have become unusually restive. Last Tuesday, columnist George F. Will sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policy, writing: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Two days earlier, Robert Kagan, a neoconservative supporter of the Iraq war, wrote: "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now."

I've lost the URL on this.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 11 May 04 - 11:43 AM

By now I thoght there was not a popular view of Bush possible.

well I know what I mean!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 04 - 09:14 PM

The system is crashing

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 21 May 04 - 01:46 AM

Thanks, Amos - I wish I had written that!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 04 - 01:20 PM

In other news, the Guardian includes:

Terry Jones
Saturday May 22, 2004
The Guardian

Tony Blair tells us that we should do everything
we can to support America. And I agree. I think
we should repudiate those who inflict harm on
Americans, we should shun those who bring
America itself into disrepute and we should
denounce those who threaten the freedom and
democracy that are synonymous with being
American.

That is why Tony's recent announcement that he
wishes to stand shoulder to shoulder with George
Bush is so puzzling. It's difficult to think of
anyone who has inflicted more harm on Americans
than their current president.
...
If Tony Blair really were concerned about
helping Americans, he would surely be helping
them to reclaim their country and institutions
from this catastrophic presidency.
Terry Jones is a writer, film director, actor and Python

Full story at:

Guardian UK

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 04 - 08:42 PM

President quietly toasts 2 graduations

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 May 04 - 08:45 PM

One sunny day in 2005 an old man approached the White House from
across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench.
He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to
go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer
president and no longer resides here."

The old man said, "Okay" and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said
to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President
Bush." The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr.
Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The man
thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to
the very same U. S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet
with President Bush."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man
and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here
asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is
no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you
understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just
love hearing it."

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 May 04 - 08:49 PM

May 12, 2004   (letter to the editor, as appeared in the Boston Globe)

THE BUSH administration seems to have a serious problem with reality. The most recent reality challenge is the policy of torture in both Iraq and Afghanistan, which the administration is frantically redefining as "abuse," "excesses," and "humiliation." We even have Secretary Rumsfeld describing footage of several American soldiers "having sex" with a female Iraqi prisoner. Let's have a little plain English here. "Having sex" with a prisoner is known as "rape." Systematic beatings are called "torture." Excesses that lead to death are called "murder." The hundreds of women and children in mass graves in Fallujah are the product of a "massacre." Taken together, all of these add up to "atrocities."

The dissemination of "incomplete information" from "imperfect intelligence" is called "lies." The billions of dollars that Halliburton and Bechtel have reaped in profits are called "war profiteering." The invasion of Iraq is called "illegal." The destruction of America's international standing is called "permanent." And Texaco/Phillips's high bid for Iraqi oil is called "why we are in Iraq."

ERICA VERRILLO Williamsburg

---

Did you notice when he spoke to the nation the slimeball had the nerve to say that the offenses committed at Abu Ghraib (which he could not pronounce) were the fault of "a few Americans who ignored American values" while sending troops in to blow up wedding parties, and unilateral invasions of foreign lands is obviosuly consistent with American values, I suppose? I spit!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 24 May 04 - 09:40 PM

Amos - It helps so much to know that there are still a few 'real' Americans left. Its so hard being in another country where the common belief is that most Americans support Bush. How will there ever be justice. Will the U.N. have the courage to push Bush out or will they wait until the reigns of power are transferred to the puppets.

And how will the American people ever redeem their reputation? I want America to be a beacon of hope for the world. How and when will Bush be held accountable? Will there ever be a way to try him for war crimes or crimes against humanity?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Metchosin
Date: 25 May 04 - 01:33 AM

The Devil Made Me Do It

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 04 - 04:52 PM

Yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore called for accountability for the Bush team in light of the fiasco in Iraq.   In the speech, Mr. Gore took on the Bush administration, arguing that the "abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse of the truth that characterized the Administration's march to war and the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the American people in the aftermath of September 11th." To sustained applause, he then called for the architects of the Bush foreign policy – Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, Paul Wolfowitz, and others -- to resign, arguing that "the current team is making things worse with each passing day."

You can read a full transcript of the speech and watch a great five-minute video of the highlights at:
this page

Mr. Gore began the speech by focusing on the policy of domination which pervades the Bush Administration:


"An American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does."

"Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens -- sooner or later -- to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul."

This policy, he explained, is making us less safe as a country:


"The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States. Just yesterday, the International Institute of Strategic Studies reported that the Iraq conflict " has arguable focused the energies and resources of Al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition." The ISS said that in the wake of the war in Iraq Al Qaeda now has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks."

To sustained applause, he then called for the resignation of the Bush foreign policy team:

"One of the strengths of democracy is the ability of the people to regularly demand changes in leadership and to fire a failing leader and hire a new one with the promise of hopeful change. That is the real solution to America's quagmire in Iraq. But, I am keenly aware that we have seven months and twenty five days remaining in this president's current term of office and that represents a time of dangerous vulnerability for our country because of the demonstrated incompetence and recklessness of the current administration."

"It is therefore essential that even as we focus on the fateful choice, the voters must make this November that we simultaneously search for ways to sharply reduce the extraordinary danger that we face with the current leadership team in place. It is for that reason that I am calling today for Republicans as well as Democrats to join me in asking for the immediate resignations of those immediately below George Bush and Dick Cheney who are most responsible for creating the catastrophe that we are facing in Iraq."

"We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point."

"We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense. Condoleezza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately."

And, at the end, he called for us to hold Bush accountable in November:


"I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands."

"I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable -- and I believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, 'We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility.'"

To read the whole speech and watch video highlights of the best moments, go to:
http://www.moveonpac.org/gore/

Here are the first few paragraphs of a good write-up in the Washington Post:

GORE CALLS FOR TOP OFFICIALS TO RESIGN
DEMOCRAT ASSAILS BUSH'S WAR CABINET
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 2004; Page A03

Former vice president Al Gore accused President Bush's war cabinet of reckless incompetence yesterday and called for the resignations of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director George J. Tenet.

"George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world," Gore said at a speech in New York sponsored by the liberal MoveOn PAC. "We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team."

Gore, jabbing his fingers and raising his voice to a shout, called the horrors of the Abu Ghraib prison "the predictable consequence of policy choices that flowed directly from this administration's contempt for the rule of law." His broad critique of that policy ranged from its aims to its vocabulary, and he complained about Bush aides' "frequent use of the word 'dominance' to describe their strategic goal."

---

Regards,

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 May 04 - 05:18 PM

Channel-surfing last night, I ran into the speech on CSPAN. Worst luck, I only heard part of it, but that was one helluva speech!! Who says Gore is "stiff and dull!???"

I wish Kerry would take a few vitamins and come on that strong!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 04 - 06:39 PM

Extreme times bring out the extremes of character. Gore is suddenly exhibiting a capcity for articulate passion, while Bush is showing his for inarticulate destruction.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 04 - 10:35 AM

David Corn discusses Rumsfeld's falsifications about the Iraqi police status in this scathing article. These guys are such a bushel of crooks...I don't mean the Iraqis, be that as it may, but the fat Anglo warlords.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jun 04 - 02:27 PM

Thanks, Amos. I'm forwarding that article to a number of people.

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

Wired magazine summarizes how the Bush Administration has begun the process of undermining America's repute in scientific matters in this over view article examining the administration's policy on pseudoscience.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Jun 04 - 09:46 PM

Amos - Thanks again for the links. It is amazing to me that America and as a result, Americans have shrunk in stature in such a short space of time. Its like watching the fall of the Roman Empire.

I am wondering, however, if the propensity for forging ahead with new ideas without looking at previous examples, isn't happening everywhere in our fast paced world. It certainly happens alot in my career. I have taken part in many 'pilot projects' in education and have kept careful records of the results. I am almost never asked for the data or my conclusions. The next thing I know, someone has put the program in a glitzy package and is marketing the program world wide as the latest and greatest. Seems that everything is marketable with or without a rationale.

It is especially frightening when governments start messing with science to further their political agenda. Yes, Korea and China, too, will soon outflank the U.S. when it comes to scientific breakthroughs. Why? Because they are unencumbered by religious dogma. It is especially destructive when religious dogma and political conviction become a single force.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:25 PM

Documents recently obtained by the press reveal White House anxiety
about how to protect President George W. Bush and members of his cabinet from
going to prison for ordering, authorizing or deliberately permitting
systematic torture of persons in their control, but technically outside
formal American legal jurisdiction. The question put to lawyers was how
the president and the others could commit war crimes and get away with
it.

This may be a much deeper scandal than originally thought. See this article from the International Herald Tribune.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:51 PM

Amos - good link, thanks. Yes, if Bush gets away with this, it will change the face of America forever. The American people must see to it that he and his pals are punished or the scar on the face of America will remain. The question is, how will America redeem itself?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 01:22 PM

And for a lighter note, review ALL the Jon Styewart reports at Comedy Central. The man is a powerhouse!!

Thanks to Donuel for the original pointer!




A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 09:57 AM

From a recent column in Slate on the incompetence of Richard Feith of the Bush administration, a reader makes incisive comment:

Remarks from the Fray:

…The neoconservatives deliberately cherry-picked intelligence that would help them make a case for a war that they just assumed was necessary. They didn't care if any of the reasons they cited were true or not; only that they'd be believed.

They deliberately avoided submitting the Iraq problem to the United Nations Security Council out of fear that they might solve it, peacefully, without the need for an invasion.

Feith emphasized the WMD justification because he obviously thought that the Army would find SOMETHING connected to a WMD program that could then be used to justify the war retroactively.

After the war, when no weapons and no links to al-Qaida were found, the emphasis shifted to "building democracy," and all the good America was supposedly doing for the American people.

Was any of this actually thought out? No.

The Administration decided, for no clear reason, that it wanted to invade Iraq, and did so.

The failure to come up with a post-facto rational justification for an inherently irrational action isn't a sign of stupidity or brilliance.

It's just what happens when insanity paints you into a corner.

--Thrasymachus

---

Somehow I just have to love that last line.

A

Subject: A Report Card for Wee Georgie...
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 11:56 PM

United States Grammar School Interim Report to Parents

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 10:41 AM

Bush behaving like Saddam, says Madonna

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 02:24 PM

Writing for the on-line edition of The Atlantic, Jack Beatty characterizes the Bush administration as the miserable failure it is. Click to read.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 02:57 PM

Pretty damned depressing. But let's hope that there's a glimmer of intelligence somewhere amoung a sufficient number of voters. Otherwise, fasten your seatbelt and hold your breath, because it's going to be a messy ride as we head down the drain.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 08:19 PM

An excerpt from the above:


"The Founders feared that the republic would succumb to corruption without republican citizenship—without citizens who could transcend privatism and hold elected officials to account, demanding probity and competence, and judging their performance against both the clamorous necessities of the time and the mute claims of posterity. They made property a criterion for voting because it secured a measure of economic independence. Property-less wage laborers, they feared, would vote as their employers instructed them to. The extension of democracy to those who could not rise to the responsibilities of republican freedom would corrupt the republic—hasten its decay into oligarchy or mob rule.

For all their worldliness the Founders were naïve to regard property as a shield of incorruptibility or the property-less as inherently corruptible. Their core insight, however, remains valid. A republic can be corrupted at the top and bottom, by leaders and led. The re-election of George W. Bush would signal that a kind of corruption had set in among the led. Our miserable failure as republican citizens would match his as President."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 04 - 09:48 PM

An interesting perspective distributed by "From the Wilderness", a commentary of the inside of Washington. It appears there may be some serious explosions over the plame expose, with serious legal impact on Bush and his core courtlings. An excerpt:

>The June 3rd issue of Capitol Hill Blue, the newspaper published for members
>of Congress, bore the headline "Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's
>Name" .
>That article virtually guaranteed that the Plame investigation had enough to
>pursue Bush criminally. The story's lead sentence described a criminal,
>prosecutable offense: "Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George
>W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA
>operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a
>critic of administration policy in Iraq."
>
>A day later, on June 4th Capitol Hill Blue took another hard shot at the
>administration. Titled "Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides"
> , the
>story's first four paragraphs say everything.
>
>President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood
>swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately
>express growing concern over their leader's state of mind.
>
>In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes
>from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media,
>Democrats and others that he classifies as "enemies of the state."
>
>Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge,
>increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public
>that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
>
>"It reminds me of the Nixon days," says a longtime GOP political consultant
>with contacts in the White House. "Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out
>to get him. That's the mood over there."
>
>The attacks have not stopped. On June 8th, the same paper followed with
>another story headlined, "Lawyers Told Bush He Could Order Suspects
>Tortured"
>.
>
>Journalist Wayne Madsen, a Washington veteran with excellent access to many
>sources has indicated for this story that the Neocons have few remaining
>friends anywhere. All of this is consistent with a CIA-led coup.
>

A

Subject: Suppression of Science by the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 04 - 10:18 AM

From the Times:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has ordered that government
scientists must be approved by a senior political appointee before they
can participate in meetings convened by the World Health Organization,
the leading international health and science agency.

A top official from the Health and Human Services Department in April
asked the WHO to begin routing requests for participation in its
meetings to the department's secretary for review, rather than directly
invite individual scientists, as has long been the case.

Officials at the WHO, based in Geneva, Switzerland, have refused to
implement the request thusfar, saying it could compromise the
independence of international scientific deliberations. Denis G.
Aitken, WHO assistant director-general, said Friday that he had been
negotiating with Washington in an effort to reach a compromise.

The request is the latest instance in which the Bush administration has
been accused of allowing politics to intrude into once-sacrosanct areas
of scientific deliberation. It has been criticized for replacing highly
regarded scientists with industry and political allies on advisory
panels. A biologist who was at odds with the administration's position
on stem-cell research was dismissed from a presidential advisory
commission. This year, 60 prominent scientists accused the
administration of "misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge
for political purposes."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Metchosin
Date: 27 Jun 04 - 11:58 AM

Whoa, I was going to comment "Sieg Heil!", but that directive could have just as easily eminated from the former USSR.... odd thing about totalitarian orders.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jun 04 - 11:47 PM

If you want a brief overview of the blatant stupidity of the US "plan" in dealing with the settling of Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam's military, look over this historical recapby an NBC correspondent. It shows up how uncoordinated and short on thoughtfuil analysis we have been overall.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 12:35 AM

Iraq doubts keep Bush's popularity on the slide

George Bush's popularity fell to a new low yesterday in a poll which suggests that there is an increasing level of scepticism about the motives for the Iraq invasion and rising concern about its consequences.

Nearly 80% of the Americans questioned in the poll for the New York Times and CBS news thought he had been either "hiding something" or "mostly lying" in his statements on Iraq.

From The Guardian.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 04 - 07:00 PM

The OpEd page of the New York Times contains a scathing indictment, for two reasons.

One is the embarrassing things it says about the similarities between George today and the then-George of 1776 against whom the Declaration of Independence was written. It tries to be kind to our present George.

The other is because of the many direct things it pussyfoots around, as though it would be a shame to name his madness for what it is. And I am not referring to Hanover, here.

A

Subject: Ashcroft Wins Villainy Award
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jul 04 - 09:20 AM

John Ashcroft has been named Villain of the month for yet further incursions into ordinary rights of privacy.

Somehow, his little face reminds me of certain 20-th century generals from Europe.


A

Subject: Ashcroft As Fascist
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jul 04 - 06:44 PM

A New Angle onSuppressing Information: Do It Retroactively!


A.

---

WASHINGTON -- Sifting through old classified materials in the days after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made
an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot,
including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they
were badly translated into English.

Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly
reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after
flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her
division, she was fired. Now, after more than two years of
investigations and congressional inquiries, Edmonds is at the center of an
extraordinary storm over US classification rules that sheds new light on the secrecy
imperative supported by members of the Bush administration.

In a rare maneuver, Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that
information about the Edmonds case be retroactively classified, even
basic facts that have been posted on websites and discussed openly in
meetings with members of Congress for two years. The Department of
Justice also invoked the seldom-used ''state secrets" privilege to
silence Edmonds in court. She has been blocked from testifying in a
lawsuit brought by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks and was allowed to
speak to the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks only behind closed
doors.

Meanwhile, the FBI has yet to release its internal investigation into
her charges. And the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the bureau,
has been stymied in its attempt to get to the bottom of her allegations.
Now that the case has been retroactively classified, lawmakers are wary
of discussing the details, for fear of overstepping legal bounds.

---

See http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/07/05/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jul 04 - 06:55 PM

Further on the above case:

"There's a great deal more info on this at
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Sibel_Edmonds
including a link to a lengthy, detailed, and coherent interview
from July 1: http://antiwar.com/news/?articleid=2920

Some of this may sound fantastic but see
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/25/60minutes/main526954.shtml)

"She's credible," says Sen. Grassley. "And the reason I feel she's very
credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of
her story."

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: jack halyard
Date: 08 Jul 04 - 05:07 PM

I just heard a news analysis of the military tribunal process being used to try David Hicks. It is the most Stalinist show trial since the end of the Soviet Union. Hicks has no chance of being cleared and no chance of liberty unless Bush and Howard agree on a pre-election act of mercy. Truth, Justice and the American way! I say Bush needs to be up before an international court himself. He's a bully, a thug and a proven liar.   Jack Halyard.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: TIA
Date: 08 Jul 04 - 06:21 PM

For this bunch, EVERYTHING is politics. The latest - the Bush Admin is pressuring Pakistan to kill or capture "high value targets" on July 26, 27, or 28 in order to upstage the Dem. convention.   Here is the story.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jul 04 - 06:53 PM

An excerpt:
PAKISTAN FOR BUSH.
July Surprise?
by John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari
Post date: 07.07.04
Issue date: 07.19.04

ate last month, President Bush lost his greatest advantage in his bid for reelection. A poll conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post discovered that challenger John Kerry was running even with the president on the critical question of whom voters trust to handle the war on terrorism. Largely as a result of the deteriorating occupation of Iraq, Bush lost what was, in April, a seemingly prohibitive 21-point advantage on his signature issue. But, even as the president's poll numbers were sliding, his administration was implementing a plan to insure the public's confidence in his hunt for Al Qaeda.


This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 09 Jul 04 - 07:29 AM

and what follows Amos' excerpt is...

This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in November. The Bush administration denies it has geared the war on terrorism to the electoral calendar. "Our attitude and actions have been the same since September 11 in terms of getting high-value targets off the street, and that doesn't change because of an election," says National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack. But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), "The Pakistani government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections." Introducing target dates for Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, "no timetable[s]" were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt. Another official, this one from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, which is responsible for internal security, explains, "The Musharraf government has a history of rescuing the Bush administration. They now want Musharraf to bail them out when they are facing hard times in the coming elections." (These sources insisted on remaining anonymous. Under Pakistan's Official Secrets Act, an official leaking information to the press can be imprisoned for up to ten years.)

A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Subject: More Ashcroft Crimes
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jul 04 - 05:53 PM

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Two Corpus Christi residents were arrested during
President Bush's visit to the West Virginia Capitol to honor the
country's veterans and gather support for invading Iraq.

Nicole and Jeffery Rank were taken out from among the crowd of about
6,500 packed into the Capitol's north courtyard in restraints by
police.
They were issued citations for trespassing and released, said Jay
Smithers, acting director of the Capitol police force.

"We were told we couldn't be here because we were wearing these shirts
that said we were against Bush," Nicole Rank shouted as police rushed
her out.

Smithers said the pair had tickets to the event and wore clothing over
their anti-Bush T-shirts. Once through the security checkpoint, they
removed their outer layers and mingled in the crowd.

"We asked them to go out to the designated protest area but they
refused," Smithers said. "They told our people they would not leave and
sat down on their hands. We didn't have any choice."

---

How about it folks? An appropriate response by a well-managed Administration? Or an effort to suppress dissent, quell free speech, and create false impressions of unanamity in a manner akin top Saddam's "election"

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 10 Jul 04 - 07:41 AM

The latter, the latter...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 04 - 10:44 AM

The LA Times excoriates the Bush administrations long-term dedication to defrauding the US populace.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 04 - 09:23 PM

"WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says legalizing gay marriage would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect it.

A few activist judges and local officials have taken it on themselves to change the meaning of marriage, Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

Leading the chorus of support for an amendment, Bush said, "If courts create their own arbitrary definition of marriage as a mere legal contract, and cut marriage off from its cultural, religious and natural roots, then the meaning of marriage is lost and the institution is weakened."

His remarks follow the opening of Senate debate Friday on a constitutional amendment effectively banning gay marriage.

Reflecting the election-year sensitivity of the issue, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said Republicans are using the constitutional amendment as a bulletin board for campaign sloganeering."


Has anyone pointed out to this lame-brained sack of sorry stupidity that the United States Consittiution is an ARCHITECTURE, and not a handbook of moral knee-jerk platitudes? Does he have any IDEA how he is degrading the most inspired social experiment ever designed, and dooming it to sorry desuetude by undermining it this way? He wants to take the moral value-judgements of a minority and make them boss by messing with the Consittution of the United States. The man is psychotic, I tell ya!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jul 04 - 10:08 PM

So, ahhhhh, what's new, Amos.....

Heck, when his lawyers and goon squads hyjacked the 2000 Election it was purdy danged apparent what these nazis had in mind...

And now you are surprised?

A few of us have been trying to tell folks what has gone down in America and it ain't too purdy...

BTW, great article by Robert Scheer in the LA Times...

And as fir the supposed 2004 Election? It's gonna take at least a 5% point win by Kerry to get rid of these crooks since the crooks have Diebold, the ballot counters on their side. Heck, make it 6%, maybe 7% just to win a friggin' election....

Like you said, these folks don't mind one bit messin' with the Constitution or any other law... fir that matter.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jul 04 - 12:44 PM

From the Washington Post:

ALBUQUERQUE, July 10 -- President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.






"The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."


The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a "cheap thug" and a killer. "Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that," Kerry said. "On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration."

Wow!! Even hearing a politician TALK about such a thing gets me all wet.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 11 Jul 04 - 06:51 PM

Time to re-decorate the White House...throw out some bushes and install some johns...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jul 04 - 07:57 PM

I read that article, Amos, and I am warming up to Kerry one step at a time...

When he says that restoring honesty to the executive branch he's saying stuff that needs to be said. I'm glad he's steppin' to the plate.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 01:02 PM

Give it back, George (Greg Palast GregPalast.com )

Give it back, George

Bush and Republicans should give up ill-gotten Lay loot that bought the White House

When the feds swoop down and cuff racketeers, they also load the vans with all the perp's ill-gotten gains: stacks of cash, BMWs, whatever. Their associates have to cough up the goodies too: lady friends must give up their diamond rocks. Under the racketeering law, RICO, even before a verdict, anything bought with the proceeds of the crime goes into the public treasury.

But there seems to be special treatment afforded those who loaded up on the 'bennies' of Ken Lay's crimes. If the G-men don't know where the tainted loot is cached, try this address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Ask for George or Dick.

Ken Lay and his Enron team are the ! Number One political career donors to George W. Bush. Mr. Lay and his Mrs., with no money to pay back bilked creditors, still managed to personally put up $100,000 for George's inaugural Ball plus $793,110 for personal donations to Republicans. Lay's Enron team dropped $4.2 million into the party that let Enron party.

OK now, Mr. President, give it back -- the millions stuffed in the pockets of the Republican campaign kitty stolen from Enron retirees. And what else did Ken Lay buy with the money stolen from California electricity customers? Answer: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Just before George Bush moved to Washington, Kenny-Boy handed his hand-picked president-to-be the name of the man Ken wanted as Chairman of the commission charged with investigating Enron's thievery. In a heartbeat, George Bush appointed Ken's boy,! Pat Wood.

Think about that: the criminal gets to pick the police chief. Well, George, give it back. Dump Wood and end the de-criminalization of electricity price-gouging that you and Cheney and Wood laughably call "de-regulation." Give us back the government Lay bought with crime cash.

And while we're gathering up the ill-gotten loot, let's stop by Brother Jeb's. The Governor of Florida picked up a cool $2 million from a Houston fundraiser at the home of Enron's former president long AFTER the company went bankrupt. Enron, not incidentally, obtained half a billion of Florida state pension money -- which has now disappeared down the Enron rat-hole.

And Mr. Vice-President, don't you also have something to give back? In secret meetings with Dick Cheney in the Veep's bunker prior to the inauguration and after, you let Ken and his cohorts secretly draft the nation's energy plan -- taking a short break to eye oilfield maps of Iraq. Let us remember that the President's sticky-fingered brothers Neil and Marvin were on Enron's payroll, hired to sell pipelines to the Saudis. The Saudis didn't bite, but maybe a captive Iraq would be more pliant. So, Mr. Law and Order President, please follow the law and give up the Energy Plan that Mr. Lay bought with other people's money.

When I worked as a racketeering investigator for government, nothing was spared, including houses bought with purloined loot. Let there be no exception here. It's time to tape up the White House gate and hang the sign: "Crime Scene: Property to be Confiscated. Vacate Premises Immediately."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 03:10 PM

Subject: Please help right away -- we've got to stick together

Dear Mudcatter,

Congress is about to vote on amending the U.S. Constitution to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples.

Never before has our Constitution been amended to take away anyone's rights. Yet our Senators will vote on this amendment in the next 48 hours.

It's urgent that we speak up now. This hateful divisiveness has no place in America. Please join me in saying so, at:

http://www.moveon.org/unitednotdivided/

Equality in marriage is the civil rights issue of our generation. We can't let anyone, or any group, be singled out for discrimination based on who they are or who they love.

Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 03:19 PM

Hear, hear.

There is no place in the Constitution for such an amendment. If there is a problem with the religious definition of marriage being threatened by same-sex unions, then the use of marriage by the US government (taxing status, for example)is an unlawful incursion of religion into state.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 04:23 PM

I'll be goddamned!! Bruce, a post after my own heart!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 04:40 PM

When bad people are allowed to chip away at a cherished document, soon the words thereon will be perverted to other ends. The Constitution of the United States of America is looked up to world wide. I wish Canada had such a document. I think Americans should not allow this to happen. I hope they don't. The issue is NOT gay marriage. The issue is human freedom. Stop the bastards. Please.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 04:43 PM

Bobert:

From Wired News today:

Critics of electronic voting are suing Diebold under a whistleblower law, alleging that the company's shoddy balloting equipment exposed California elections to hackers and software bugs.

California's attorney general unsealed the lawsuit Friday. It was filed in November but sealed under a provision that keeps such actions secret until the government decides whether to join the plaintiffs.

Lawmakers from Maryland to California are expressing doubts about the integrity of paperless voting terminals made by several large manufacturers, which up to 50 million Americans will use in November.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 10:25 PM

Refraichir pour le Bobert....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 10:40 PM

Sorry, Amos, but I'm not too sure if I took French in college but if I did I was too stoned to remember any of it....

Hey, who kidnapped beardedbruce? The one who posted above obviously ain't the one postin' under that handle on them I-rack threads....

Ahhhhh, back to you, Amos.... Yeah, I know that there's lots of states who ain't all that happy with Diebold. It's obvious 'er Bush wouldn't even bother to pull this sleeze politcial crap about the Constituional Ammendment. They are desperate. The prize is in sight. Four more years and they'll not only turn back the clock to pre-Emancipation Proclaimation days but have the entire working class, back, white, red and green, picking Boss Hog's cotton...

Glory days....

I'm beginning to agree with Dreaded GUEST. Buy guns!!!...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 11:09 PM

World-Class Doublespeak

If you want a real world class example of doublespeak, read the release from the Gummint on changing the rules about logging. The Times' version is here. Requires a free subscription/cookie.

These guys flip flop and say their new policies are providing conservational guidelines as though this was an improvement. Look a little closer and lo!! Thousands of acres open to logging that were previously closed. So GLAD they're taking care of things,.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 11:17 PM

Shoot, all they are doing is creating more fuel for forest fires by cuttin' old growth timber and leavin' everything but the "log" to sit there jus' dryin' out and gettin' ready to burn, baby, burn...

Then, of course, they'll blame Clinton for the forest fire... Man, them cigars will get you in a heap o' trouble...

I am convinced that given truth over lieing they will pick the lie 101 times out of a 100...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 04 - 11:59 PM

It seems to be what they have the most practice at.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:31 AM

"Wow!! Even hearing a politician TALK about such a thing gets me all wet."

(Amos on a Washington Post article)

What a weird expression to use. Wet with what?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:45 AM

Bobert,

I happen to believe that the Constitution should be kept as it is- I object to liberals trying to remove the second amendment, and conservatives trying to weaken the separation of church and state.

I object to changing the Electoral College- the states have always had the right to make their Electoral College votes proportional to the votes recieved, but very few have. ANd that has been under the control of both parties, so no blaming the neocons there.

And I object to people here who deny that the Supreme Court is the deciding legal authority of the land. Face it, Bush was elected legally. You may not like it, and even I will admit it may have made better political sense to have a recount ( of the ENTIRE state, not just the ones where the Dems expected to pick up votes, which is what Gore asked for) in the 2000 election, but the Constitution allows the Supreme Court to make the decision it did.

If one allows changes to the bill of rights for trivial reasons, the intent of the founding fathers ( see the Federalist Papers) will not be preserved. So far, I think we can agree that that intent has stood the test of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:47 AM

So I hear this familiar voice last night on the news saying, "So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman or defend America. Given that choice I will defend America".

Well I was thinkin' there fir a second, "Hmmmm, why would the new choose to air someone talking that mean about Bush? I mean calling him a mad man, and all?"

So I look up to see who it is on the TV and it *IS* Bush... Imean, go figure???

Well, I think I'll take his advice and "defend America" against a "madman" by voting for someone other than Bush...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:54 AM

That was not an election, but an appointment.

In addition, it violated provisions of the Constitution concerning the authority of the Florida Supreme Court.

So it wasn't as perfectly legal as all that,. But we abided by the decision of the Supreme Court thinking that was the honorable thing to do. Despite all the appearances of impropriety within the Court itself.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:54 AM

Voting for the candidate that you feel will represent your views the best is the appropriate thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 09:01 AM

Amos,

"That was not an election, but an appointment."

This is a statement of your opinion. If you intend to present it as a statement of fact, please show me the legal rulings you are drawing upon. In MY opinion, the attempt by the Gore campaign to recount ontly the precincts that they felt would give them an advantage, and denial of both recounts and absentee ballots in areas where they expected to have Bush win was a blatent attempt to steal the election.
In my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 09:10 AM

Fir all the un-Gorey details, Greg Palist's book, "The Best Denocracy Money Can Buy" has them all. Photocopies of documents, the connectin' of dots, and enough evidence to warrent 5 members of the Supreme Court, as well and Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris resiging from public office...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 09:17 AM

If it was evidence, why has there been no court case? Sounds like even the Dems do not think that they have a case.


I csn only go by the reports that I got during the election, from the radio and tv- that presented the press liasons of both campaigns. I HEARD the Dems asking that only the three districts that they thought should have had a higher vote for them be recounted, and that there was no reason to consider counting any others, especially those in the ( conservative) panhandle.



Anyway, by the SRS rule, No one needs to look at any evidence that you present from an obviously partisan source. Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 10:20 AM

First of all, the Dems are caught between a rock and hard place. If they cry "foul" then the "Repubs" jump up an down and cry "bad loosers".

Actually a case was brought in a Florida court by I believe the NAACP but the Repub. lawyers and Repub, appointed judges squashed it...

As fir partisanship, since you haven't been around here long, I have been a Green Party mamber going back since the Bush I, so I have no particular love for the Democratic Party...

Both the Repubs and Dems. are fully capable of stinking up the joint. With that said, I may (but may not) hold my nose and gvote for Kerry only to derail what even lots of us Greens see as a very, very dangerous Bush administartion...

This ain't partisanship. Just reality...

The checks and balances are way too out of wack and these current Repubs are making a push for complete and centralized control. Historically, this as been a bad combination and is one early warning that a system is ripe for implosion...

But back to the book...

I'll make you the same deal that I've made other Bushites. If you read Palist's book, I'll read any neo-con book you want me to. But I'm going to quiz you on it and expect the same from you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Chris Green
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 01:27 PM

George Bush is an incompetent halfwit who isn't fit to run a knocking shop. Tony Blair is a marginally less incompetent halfwit who is probably just about fit to run a knocking shop but on being given the responsibility would instantly turn to George Bush for advice (or 'orders' as the rest of the world likes to call them).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 01:32 PM

George Bush is an incompetent halfwit who isn't fit to run a knocking shop.

I have no idea what gets done in a knocking shop, but I am sympathetic to the first half of your proposition.

A

Subject: More Criminality From our Esteemed Congress
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:38 PM

---| From the Editor |--------------------------------------

    Last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed an
    amendment that would criminalize war profiteering. The
    Republican leadership not only removed it, but raised
    the limit on no-bid contracts from $7.5 million to $200
    million. At home, pork spending has enjoyed a stunning
    renaissance, from the creation of a $225 million African
    rainforest in Iowa, to a subsidy, procured by Rep. Billy
    Tauzin (R-La.), to help build a Hooters restaurant. Tom
    Delay, meanwhile, browbeat a D.C. restaurant manager to
    let him smoke a cigar at his table. Told that federal
    this would be against the law of the federal government,
    DeLay thundered back, "I am the federal government!"
    The 108th Congress, writes Jack Hitt, has been one of
    the most profligate - and least principled - in nearly a
    century. No shortage of candidates, then, for this year's
    Diddly Awards, Mother Jones' tribute to the most
    pork-happy, prejudiced, and pigheaded members of Congress.
    Writes Hitt, "[E]ven as they have scoffed at the rules the
    rest of us plebs must live by and spent like drunken
    sailors," members of the 108th Congress "still found myriad
    opportunities to, once again, do diddly."
   
See >http://ga3.org/ct/Z1affE61iaGn/

    Julian Brookes
    Assistant Editor, MotherJones.com

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 08:09 PM

The corruption of Tom Delay and his connection with the Enron debacle is discussed in the NY Times Op Ed piece by Paul Krugman.

This administration is so tangled up with big company bucks it is shameful. Not because of the profit motive but because they have done it at the expense of people all over the country who weren't even aware they were being scammed.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 09:51 PM

The Wsahington Post also ran a story on the Delay scandal but its 12 pages long (printed off the pudder) and my lexdexia keeps kickin' in around page 6 'er seven...

Man, geeze o pete. This guy is not only a crook but he may end up sharin' a cell with his buddy, Ken Lay...

More later on this story as it prolly deserves its own thread...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Fishpicker
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 03:38 PM

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

This is more timely today than ever before, just fill in the examples with contemporary ones.

                         FP

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 05:34 PM

And will ya look at the ignoramouses waitin' in line to sign up for their brown shirts?!!!?... Dumbed down so called Christains who wouldn't know Jesus if He walked up to them across the water.... Being led by a heathenous group of thugs, liars, crooks and cheats.

Hmmmmm. Guest is right. It is time to start buying guns so when they do come for the progressives and moderates at least it won't be cake walk...

And sho nuff... they are coming... don't take a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows...

Non-violent Bobert
(but will defend myself and my family...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Fishpicker
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 07:32 PM

Fighting for freedom are we? I wonder why our freedom is being systematically taken away from us if that is the case. The real *terror* is being slowly and surely ushered into a martial law police state with no protection from the high handed government neo-con overlords. This is one time I'm glad to be an old man! I truly am worried for what kind of future my kids will have in this country.

                         FP

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 08:36 PM

And Tom DeLay proudly proclaims himself to be a "Born Again Christian." Sheesh!!

Maybe that should be "convenience 'Christian.'"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 11:27 PM

Where's Tom DeLay's mama? He may think he's born again but his de*mean*or and actions show that he needs to be stuffed back in. He ain't half ready to be born again...

((((((((((((((((((((Judge thee not, Bobert!)))))))))))))))))))))

Nevermind, ol' Tom's got somethin' serious comin' down the road...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 01:33 PM

This New York Times editorial apologizes for not having had more sense about the fraudulent claims concerning WMD and the drum-beating in favor of war which it did not do enough to analyze.

If a newspaper can take responsibility for its follies, surely a President should be able to.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 05:26 PM

Whoopi Goldberg has defended her choice to attack US president George W Bush which led to her being dropped as a spokeswoman for diet aid company Slim-Fast.

Bosses at Slim-Fast dropped the star from their ad campaign, after admitting they were disappointed in her remarks at last Thursday's star-studded fundraiser for presidential hopeful John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Goldberg caused offence at the event, when, according to the New York Post she "fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia".

An unrepentant Goldberg hit back in a written statement. "Just because I'm no longer in those (commercial) spots, it doesn't mean I will stop talking.

"While I can appreciate what the Slim-Fast people need to do in order to protect their business, I must also do what I need to do as an artist, as a writer and as an American - not to mention as a comic."

"I only wish that the Republican re-election committee would spend as much time working on the economy as they seem to be spending trying to harm my pocketbook."


Get it said, you San Diego gal, you!! Get it SAAIIIID!!! Yeehaw. Go, Whoopi.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 07:20 PM

Guinan is centuries old and very wise. When those who cruise the gaxaly find themselves in a state of bewilderment, a few moments in 10-Forward chatting with Guinan usually puts them back on course.

Make it so.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Jul 04 - 08:08 PM

Man, do I have a dislexic keyboard! That should be "galaxy"!

(Maybe I'd better head for 10-Forward and have a snort of synthahol and a long chat with the bartender.)

Don (Sheesh!) Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 04 - 11:11 AM

The details on the snookering of law by the Republicans who used technical procedural manuvers to prevent the rollback of the Patriot Act are covered on this web page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 04 - 11:13 AM

NEW YORK - Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who has skewered politicians for
decades in his comic strip "Doonesbury," tells Rolling Stone magazine he
remembers Yale classmate George W. Bush as "just another sarcastic preppy
who gave people nicknames and arranged for keg deliveries."

Trudeau attended Yale University with Bush in the late 1960s and served with
him on a dormitory social committee.

"Even then he had clearly awesome social skills," Trudeau said. "He could
also make you feel extremely uncomfortable ... He was extremely skilled at
controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed
humiliation."

Trudeau said he penned his very first cartoon to illustrate an article in
the Yale Daily News on Bush and allegations that his fraternity, DKE, had
hazed incoming pledges by branding them with an iron.

The article in the campus paper prompted The New York Times to interview
Bush, who was a senior that year. Trudeau recalled that Bush told the Times
"it was just a coat hanger, and ... it didn't hurt any more than a cigarette
burn."

"It does put one in mind of what his views on torture might be today,"
Trudeau said.

Having mocked presidents of both parties in the "Doonesbury" strip since
1971, Trudeau said Bush has been, "tragically, the best target" he's worked
with yet.

"Bush has created more harm to this country's standing and security than any
president in history," Trudeau said. "What a shame the world has to suffer
the consequences of Dubya not getting enough approval from Dad."

Rolling Stone was publishing the interview Friday.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jul 04 - 03:40 PM

Washington Post editorial stresses the need for accountability for the deaths of hundreds in Iraq, inter alia.

"The toll on America is all the more galling because of how the country went to war. We now know we were told a great many things that turned out to be untrue. Bush administration officials, relying on unfounded, distorted and exaggerated intelligence concerning weapons threats, took the country down a path that has led to a catastrophic waste of human lives as well as billions of dollars.

Let's consider just a few of the things that were conveyed as the gospel truth:

• "The Iraq regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . [I]t has developed weapons of mass destruction." President Bush, Oct. 2, 2002.

• "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." Vice President Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002.

• "We said they had a nuclear program. That was never any debate." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, July 13, 2003.

...

Martha Stewart was convicted for, among several offenses, lying to the government. What's the penalty when the government misleads the people?"

---

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 09:31 PM

A popular downtown bar installed a robotic bartender.


One evening shortly after, a fellow came into the bar for a drink and
the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?"

The guy replied, "150."

The robot proceeded to make conversation about quantum physics,
string theory, atomic chemistry, and other esoteric topics.

The fellow listened intently and thought, "Hey, this is great!"




He decided to test the robot, so he walked out of the bar, turned
around, and came back in.

Again, the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?"

He responded, "100," and the robot held forth on about football,
baseball, and a variety of other sports.

Again, the customer thought, "Wow, this is really cool!"




He went out and came into the bar for a third time.

As before, the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?"

This time he replied, "50."

And the robot said, "So, you gonna vote for Bush again?"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 10:12 PM

As to what the candidates actually represent:

http://cdn.moveonpac.org/data/debate.mov

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jul 04 - 11:09 PM

You try that blue clicky thing, Amos???.... Don't want load fir me....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jul 04 - 11:36 AM

Try:

http://cdn.moveonpac.org/data/debate.mov

A

Subject: Rock Stars Say No More Bushwah
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 04 - 01:24 AM

Opinion-leaders in the rock-star constellation are joining forces to speak out with music against Bush in 2004 according to this article in the LA Times.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jul 04 - 05:49 PM

Saddam's People Are Winning the War
By Scott Ritter
International Herald Tribune
http://www.iht.com/articles/530608.html


    Thursday 22 July 2004
Misunderstanding Iraq


Mister Ritter makes some telling points about the failure of the Bush administration among others to understand the real dynamics of the Iraq situation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jul 04 - 10:24 PM

FEEL-GOOD SPEAK
Cheney this

BY CONGRESSMAN BARNEY FRANK, FOURTH DISTRICT, MASSACHUSETTS

With increasing pressure on the FCC to step up its role as censor, finding
language that appropriately communicates the depths of one's feeling
(especially when speaking on the record or within earshot of the press)
while remaining within the bounds of propriety has become difficult. As a
public-spirited move, I am recommending to my fellow elected officials - and
to others engaged in public controversies - a semantic solution to this
dilemma: use the word "Cheney" where discretion is required in the
expression of frustration, anger, or extreme derision.

Here are some examples of how this would work.

* Go Cheney yourself.

* How the Cheney would I know?

* Cheney you.

* I don't give a flying Cheney.

* Who the Cheney do you think you are?

In some cases, substitution of Cheney for its synonym would be particularly
appropriate. For example:

* George Bush sure has Cheneyed up the situation in Iraq.

* The Bush administration's position is that it is none of our Cheneying
business who helped formulate its pro-oil energy policy.

* In some cases, Halliburton seems to be Cheneying the American taxpayer.

Vice-President Cheney himself said after using the blunter word that it made
him feel better. It makes me feel better to suggest a way of expressing the
same sentiments while paying appropriate tribute to the vice-president's
role in our society.

(Recvd via email -- source not verified. A.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 11:15 PM

An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted

 

July 27, 2004



Robert Scheer


Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents' early return home, President Bush's nearly three years of bragging about his "war on terror" credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer27jul27,1,7719764.column?coll=la-home-utilities

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 11:44 PM

Why don't we just rename this thread 'Amos's View of the Bush Administration'?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:05 AM

Because all of the reports in this thread are taken from amongst the population at large, not me. I do choose ones that I agree with. I can count on Bush' s Juggernaut machinery to take care of itself in a Fair and Balanced way.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 02:32 AM

it's ok, GUEST, if you want to stick in a view that you agree with. Honest.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Deda
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 02:47 PM

Amos, as everyone knows, is a very articulate and intelligent guy. If he wanted to maintain a thread about his own political judgments, he could do that. This thread is a service AFAIC, disseminating material from the general press that I would otherwise have missed. Thanks, bro!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 03:08 PM

Aw shucks...thanks, Deda!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 03:35 PM

An interesting example of Republican misappropriation of public spaces (school auditoriums) paid for by common taxes. Tsk, tsk. Arrogance cometh before a fall...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:50 PM

Teresa Hampton, writing for the "Capitol Hill Blue" Website, raises the possibility that Bush is on psychopharmaceuticals big time in this article.

How depressed is he? "One long-time GOP political consultant who - for obvious reasons -asked not to be identified said he is advising his Republican
Congressional candidates to keep their distance from Bush.

"We have to face the very real possibility that the President of the
United States is loony tunes," he says sadly. "That's not good for my
candidates, it's not good for the party and it's certainly not good
for the country.""

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 12:54 AM

Ron Reagan's son, writing in Esquire Magazine summarizes the case against Mister Bush and the barbarism he has sponsored.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 07:42 PM

Al Sharpton responds to Mister Bush's questions with vigor at the Democratic national Convention. Thanks, Al.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 07:51 PM

John Perry Barlow proposes a civil insurgency -- dancing in the streets as an act of civil protestation!

Ya gotta love this guy.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 09:53 AM

Eric Umanski of Slate magazine describing the Wall Street Journal of August 4, 2004:

"The Journal goes high with word the Kerry campaign's impending release of endorsements from 200 big businessmen. Many of them supported President Bush in 2000. "George is a really good guy personally," said one. "He had an opportunity to bring the country together--which was his MO in Texas. But for reasons only his psychiatrist would know, he's chosen to do just the opposite as president. He's turning out to be the worst president since Millard Fillmore--and that's probably an insult to Millard Fillmore."" (Emphasis added).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 12:59 PM

Dr Howard Dean, addressing the charges against Tom Delay for rigging undue influence machinery in the sacrosanct halls of governmnet:

"Representative Tom DeLay of Texas needs to be stopped. He is at the
center of machine that launders corporate influence in our political
process. And now his machine is at the center of investigations by a
grand jury in Texas and the House Ethics Committee in Washington into
ethics violations and criminal activity.

But the DeLay racket reaches even into the Ethics Committee itself. We must act now to make sure the job gets done right.

The House Ethics Committee must appoint an outside counsel to lead the investigation. Add your name to the call for accountability:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/stoptomdelay

Four of the five Republicans on the House Ethics Committee, which will review the charges against DeLay next month, have received over $35,000 from an arm of the DeLay operation. They are in no position to conduct an independent investigation.

The examination of Tom DeLay's political money machine should be free
from the influence of that machine. That can only happen with an
independent, outside counsel leading the probe.

We will deliver your petition to the House Ethics Committee. And we will take your messages to Texas to give DeLay's constituents your thoughts about the man they will have the chance to vote out of office in November. Sign the petition now:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/stoptomdelay

The charges against DeLay filed in the Ethics Committee include trading favors for contributions, laundering illegal corporate contributions to influence Texas legislative races, and improperly directing the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a political witch hunt against Texas Democrats.

Tom DeLay has done more than any other person to construct a system
where our representatives sell the privilege of writing legislation to the highest bidder. His contempt for his opponents and win-at-all-costs approach pollute our political life -- and may have broken the law.

Join the call for a proper investigation of Tom DeLay:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/stoptomdelay

Please forward this message to your friends and spread the word -- we
are tired of business as usual and we demand a real investigation into the man who has been called the "chief enforcer of company contributions
to Republicans."

Thank you.

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

P.S. - Be sure to attend the DFA Meetup tonight at 7 PM in your
community: http://dfa.meetup.com

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 04 - 11:13 PM

The New York Times reviews an off-Broadway Bush-bashing dramatic piece of merit.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 04 - 03:15 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush told a roomful of top Pentagon brass on Thursday that his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the United States.
The latest installment of misspeak from a president long known for his malapropisms came during a signing ceremony for a new $417 billion defense appropriations bill that includes $25 billion in emergency funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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

The Republican incumbent, who is in a tight race for reelection against Democrat John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, used the 11-minute presentation to underscore his commitment to U.S. troops.

Subject: Dildos and the Constitution
From: Amos
Date: 07 Aug 04 - 01:49 PM

How deeply involved does the Federal Government need to be in individual lives and personal decisions?

Here's one article chastising excessive intrusive reach by the guvvy sector into civvy street.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Aug 04 - 07:06 PM

An excerpt from a Mother Jones article excoriating the Bush administration ofr manufacturing false intell on Iraq intentionally:

"Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the Pentagon's Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq's weapons and ties to terrorists. "It wasn't intelligence-it was propaganda," she says. "They'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together." It was by turning such bogus intelligence into talking points for U.S. officials-including ominous lines in speeches by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell's testimony at the U.N. Security Council last February-that the administration pushed American public opinion into supporting an unnecessary war.


Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has never been revealed in full. But, for the first time, a detailed investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews-some on the record, some with officials who insisted on anonymity-exposes the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion.


SIX MONTHS AFTER THE END of major combat in Iraq, the United States had spent $300 million trying to find banned weapons in Iraq, and President Bush was seeking $600 million more to extend the search. Not found were Iraq's Scuds and other long-range missiles, thousands of barrels and tons of anthrax and botulism stock, sarin and VX nerve agents, mustard gas, biological and chemical munitions, mobile labs for producing biological weapons, and any and all evidence of a reconstituted nuclear-arms program, all of which had been repeatedly cited as justification for the war. Also missing was evidence of Iraqi collaboration with Al Qaeda.


The reports, virtually all false, of Iraqi weapons and terrorism ties emanated from an apparatus that began to gestate almost as soon as the Bush administration took power. In the very first meeting of the Bush national-security team, one day after President Bush took the oath of office in January 2001, the issue of invading Iraq was raised, according to one of the participants in the meeting-and officials all the way down the line started to get the message, long before 9/11. Indeed, the Bush team at the Pentagon hadn't even been formally installed before Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense, and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, began putting together what would become the vanguard for regime change in Iraq."

Rest of article can be found in the February 04 edition of Mother Jones: The Lie Factory

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 12:10 AM

MoveOn PAC asked their members who voted for Bush in 2000 to talk about why they are voting for Kerry in 2004. Academy award-winning documentary film director Errol Morris interviewed these former Bush voters on camera, and cut seventeen ads that tell their stories. These stories of disaffection are powerful statements about the failed Bush presidency.

http://www.moveonpac.org/morris/

Go to the link above to vote on the ads you like the best. The highest-rated ads will be aired during the Republican convention

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 10 Aug 04 - 04:12 PM

This irony was pointed out by Maureen Dowd, a columnist for the New York Times, when she was being interviewed on The Al Franken Show: (She has a new book out: "Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk")

Bush #1 went to war to prove that you can't unilaterally invade another country.
Bush #2 went to war to prove that you CAN unilaterally invade another country.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 04 - 07:55 PM

Washington Post, August 12, 2004

Of course it would never happen like this, but it should: President Bush and political guru Karl Rove are enjoying a quiet evening together in the private quarters of the White House. Suddenly, Rove looks up in horror from his computer printouts and asks:

"George . . . where are the kids?"

Where, indeed. And we're not talking about Jenna Bush or her sister Barbara, but millions of other younger voters who supported Bush in 2000 but currently plan to vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Surveys suggest that Bush's popularity has plummeted among 18- to 29-year-olds in the past four months, posing a new obstacle to the president's bid to win reelection and an immediate challenge to Republicans seeking to win over impressionable and lightly committed young people during their upcoming convention.

Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore split the vote of 18- to 29-year-olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and Bush getting 46 percent -- the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in more than a decade.

But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll taken immediately after the Democratic convention, Kerry led Bush 2-1 among registered voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied.

Bush's problems with younger voters began months before the Democratic convention, Post-ABC polls suggest. The last time Bush and Kerry were tied among the under-30 crowd was back in April. In the five surveys conducted since then, Bush has trailed Kerry by an average of 18 percentage points.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 04 - 09:56 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2004) Praised by the members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Newt Gingrich's testimony yesterday was serious, thought-provoking, and entertaining.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, testified yesterday before the House Select Intelligence Committee, and blew away representatives of both political parties with his radical proposals for what to do about our systems of intelligence. Here's the video of that session (be sure to watch the Q&A that follows the testimony).


See the rest of this interesting article about radical restructuring of our Intel community on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 04 - 10:21 PM

Another stunning victory for secrecy and Ashcroft's New World:

On the 16th of August 2004, the 9th Circuit Court of   Appeals begins work on the Gilmore vs. Ashcroft case. At stake is nothing less   than the right of Americans to travel freely in their own country -- and the   exposure of 'secret law' for what it is: an abomination.   

The man who is fighting the good fight is named John   Gilmore. John made his fortune as a programmer and entrepreneur in the software   industry.   Whereas most people in his position would have moved to a tropical   island and lived a life of luxury, John chose to use his wealth to protect   and defend the US Constitution.   

On the 4th of July 2002, John Gilmore, American citizen,   decided to take a trip from one part of the United States of America to   another. At the airport, he was told he had to produce his ID if he wanted to travel.   He asked to see the law demanding he show his 'papers' and was told after a time that the law was secret and no, he   wouldn't be allowed to read it.    He hasn't flown in has own country since.   

http://www.gilmorevsashcroft.com   

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 04 - 11:36 PM

President Bush has unveiled his first campaign commercial, highlighting all of his accomplishments in office.  That's why it's a 60-second spot."
-- Jay Leno

"President Bush says he has just one question for the American voters,'Is the rich person you're working for better off now than they were four years ago?'"
-- Jay Leno

"The election is in full-swing.  Republicans have taken out round-the-clock ads promoting George Bush. Don't we already have that?   It's called Fox News."
-- Craig Kilborn

"Kerry is well on his way to reaching his magic number of 2,162. That's the total number of delegates he needs to win the Democratic nomination. See for President Bush it's different, his magic number is 5. That's the number of Supreme Court judges needed to win."
-- Jay Leno

"There was a scare inWashingtonwhen a man climbed over the White House wall and was arrested.  This marks the first time a person has gotten into the White House unlawfully since President Bush."
-- David Letterman

"A new poll says that if ! the election were held today, John Kerry would  beat President Bush by a double digit margin. The White House is so worried about this, they're now thinking of moving up the capture of Osama Bin Laden to next month."
-- Jay Leno

"The White House is now backtracking from its prediction that 2.6 million new jobs will be created in theU.S. this year.  They say
they were off by roughly 2.6 million jobs."
-- Jay Leno

"InLouisiana, President Bush met with over 15,000 National Guard troops.  Here's the weird part: nobody remembers seeing him there."
-- Craig Kilborn

"President Bush said he was 'troubled' by gay people getting married in  San Francisco.  He said on important issues like this the people should make the decision, not judges. Unl! ess of course we're choosing a president. Then  he prefers judges."
-- Jay Leno

"The White House has now released military documents that they say prove George Bush met his requirements for the National Guard.  Big deal. We've got documents that prove Al Gore won the election."
-- Jay Leno

"There was an embarrassing moment in the White House earlier today. They were looking around while searching for George Bush's military records.  They actually found some old Al Gore ballots."
-- David Letterman

"The big story now is that President Bush is coming under attack for his service in the National Guard.  The commanding officers can't remember seeing Bush between May and October of '72.  President Bush said, 'Remember me?  I was the drunk guy!'"
! -- Jay Leno

"On 'Meet the Press' yesterday President Bush was asked what he would do if he lost the election and Bush said, 'You mean like last time?''"
  -- Jay Leno

"This week, both John Kerry and Wesley Clark are making campaign appearance with the guys who saved their lives inVietnam.  Meanwhile President Bush is campaigning with a guy that once took a math test for him."
-- Conan O'Brien

"President Bush released his new $2.4 trillion federal budget.  It has two parts: smoke and mirrors."
-- Jay Leno

"Bush admitted that his pre-war intelligence wasn't what it should have been. But we knew that when we elected him!"
-- Jay Leno

"As you know President Bush gave his State of the Union Address, interrupted 70 times by applause and 45 times by really big words."
-- Jay Leno

"President Bush said that American workers will need new skills to get the new jobs in the 21st century.  Some of the skills they're going to need are Spanish, Chinese, Korean, because that's where the jobs went."
-- Jay Leno

The new Prime Minister ofSpainhas called the war inIraqa disaster, and plans to bring his troops home as soon as possible.  In
fact, President Bush is so upset atSpainthat he is now threatening to close down the border betweenSpainand theU.S.
-- Jay Leno

"The U.S. army confirmed that it gave a lucrative contract in Iraq to the firm once run by the Vice President Dick Cheney without
any competitive bidding.  When asked if this could be conceived as Cheney's friends profiting from the war, the spokesman said  "Yes.'"
-- Conan O'Brien


"Dick Cheney finally responded today to demands that he reveal the details of the Enron meetings.  This is what he said.  He met with unnamed people, from unspecified companies, for an indeterminate amount of time at an undisclosed location.  Thank God he cleared that up."
-- Jay Leno

"Plans are being discussed as to who will replace Dick Cheney if he has to resign for health reasons.  It's not easy for President Bush, he can't just name a replacement.  He would first have to be confirmed by the oil, gas and power companies"
-- Jay Leno

"President Bush spoke briefly to reporters before playing a round of golf in Crawford, Texas earlier today.  ...  This raises the question: Shouldn't the guy who is really running the country and who has had like 20 heart attacks be taking the vacation?"
-- Craig Kilborn

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 04 - 09:03 PM

Dahlia Lithwick -- a senior editor at Slate -- warns us against portraying Bush as a juvenile in this insightful piece in the NY Times. In doing so she manages to castigate his Administration for the right reasons en passant.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 02:42 PM

The chances are good that the Florida Presidential votye this year will be totally without credibility and tainted with multiple angles of corruption.

This article in Slate describes why.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: robomatic
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:45 PM

This thread is just so far into Bush hate that I think it is missing most of the important points that we need to pay attention to in the world of today, and yes, it harkens back to my point that if you want the world and the US to get better, you start with the leader you have.

Getting rid of Saddam was a good thing. If Iraq can be stabilized, that will be a good thing. I think Tony Blair has vocalized very well the reasons for prosecuting the war.

Bush may have many annoying characteristics. He is NOT a halfwit. I am aware of plenty of assertions that he and his administration lied. I am unaware of any proof. It's just like the Swift Boat veterans, a lot of accusation with no real tissue.

Bush may have connections to the religious right in the United States. He is not the same creature as a religious mullah who sends minions to their deaths with the assurance that they will be rewarded with virgins in heaven. If you want to assert parity here we aren't on the same planet.

This is not the Vietnam of a new decade. The strategic situation is different, the background is different, the weapons are different.

Things that are genuinely dangerous to the United States:

Not finishing what we start.

Government money being spent with no income increasing national debt.
Long term balance of trade against the U.S.
Heavy military expenditures which are mostly waste, such as missile defense system even now being installed in Alaska.
I agree with the observations above about flawed science policy.

We experienced terrorism under Democratic watch, and it proved no more effective than under this administration.

We have some real nuclear proliferationi problems with Pakistan, N. Korea, Iran. We NEED to solve these and we NEED to involve the world in solving it. I don't care who is leading the country, I want the problems addressed and a constant watch across party lines for this.

So go to town all you like on this thread, if it makes ya happy. But it's just like listening to Rush's twin brother on the left side of the dial.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:58 PM

Wel, Robo, you and I are a bit apart on a number of points.

I think GWB IS a half-wit and a murderous one at that. He had all the opportunity in the world to define and resolve the very issues you are speaking of with the world's blessing. Many of us here raised alarums about how he proceeded after 9-11 to disspate and ruin that good-will.

By not finishing what we start, what do you mean? Killing Iraqis in sufficient numbers?

Additionally, there are a lot of very specific charges of falsification which you seem to be dodging -- not that I blame you.

The simple fact in my view is that there are far too few people telling the truth about this jerk.

As for my going to town, I don't write these articles -- I just post links to them.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 08:58 PM

"Getting rid of Saddam was a good thing." Was it good enough to be worth killing your kids? Or just good enough to be worth killing Iraqi kids? Please don't explain to me that kind of thing always happens in war; I know it does. That's why I don't like war as a solution to anything.

But we finished what we started with Iraq. I saw the "Mission Accomplished" sign right behind our War President. That can't be a lie or Mr Bush wouldn't have participated in it.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 07:53 PM

Garrison Keillor reports his view of the Bsuh Administration in this telling piece called We're Not in Lake Wobegone Anymore, which I think is one of the funniest rebuttals of our current tragedy I have seen yet.
Garrison concludes:

"The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger.

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It's a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning."

Get the vote out.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Aug 04 - 08:06 PM

Charles Rangel, congressman from the 15th Congressional District of New York State, has introduced into Congress H.Res. 629 IH. "Resolved that Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense is impeached for High crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate."

There are nine articles listed in this bill, and the last sentence of the last article reads, "Wherefore, Donald M. Rumsfeld, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification for any further office of profit or trust under the United States." This bill is currently in the subcommittee on the Constitution (under the House Judiciary Committee), and may be read here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery. (Use the search foirm to find H.Res.629.

It is co-sponsored by:

Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] - 7/21/2004
Rep Owens, Major R. [NY-11] - 7/9/2004
Rep Slaughter, Louise McIntosh [NY-28] - 7/9/2004
Rep Stark, Fortney Pete [CA-13] - 6/18/2004


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 05:20 PM

A stunning description of the use of Secret Sevrice Agents to prevent members of the press from interviewing an author of unpopular material about Bush can be found on this page for Monday, August 30.

Sorry times indeed.

A

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

Zogby International reports on this web page that a surprisingly large number of New Yorkers believe the Administration had foreknowledge of 9-11 and failed to act.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Sep 04 - 09:44 PM

On this page, Amelia Gruber comments on failing respect for Da Gov in the eyes of American citizens nationwide.

Poll finds government falling in public's esteem
By Amelia Gruber

The public views the federal government less favorably this year than
last, Gallup poll results published Tuesday indicate.

Slightly more than a third of respondents to an early August survey by
The Gallup Organization expressed a "positive" or "somewhat positive"
view of the government. This represents a drop of seven percentage
points from a year ago, when 41 percent of Americans surveyed said
they looked favorably upon the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Sep 04 - 05:23 PM

i'm staying with my daughter and her husband to be in southern austria. during my stay i've met his extended family and friends from austria, the netherlands, and italy. on each occasion of having dinner with a bunch of people from a different country, they all raised the topic of how much they dislike george bush, his government, and the war in Iraq. today i spoke to a dutch man who told me his son is in Iraq. he and his wife are very distressed and are praying for a change of government in the US in november.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 10:29 AM

The Columbia School Of Journalism's Review pans the desperate complaisance of AMerican journalism in failing to report the truth about distortions pronounced at tthe RNC, in this article

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 02:45 PM

HE WAS RIGHT AFTER THE RUSSIAN CHILDREN
WHERE TAKEN INTO HELL

FIDDLE

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Sep 04 - 06:54 PM

Articles of impeachment being promoted to remove the Bush Administration from office can be found at this web site.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,GROK
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 06:35 PM

Like law will remove Bush, Cheney and the most powerful military organization in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 06:57 PM

The connection between the National Socialist Party of Germany in the 30's, which elevated Adolf Hitler to power, and George Bush Sr., Karl Rove, et alia, is discussed in this article in Counterpunch magazine. If you believed in power-structure conspiracies it would be enough to make you nervous.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,GROK
Date: 04 Sep 04 - 07:11 PM

Amos, I don't think there can be any doubt that a power structure is in place to control the world through economic means. MJ-12 and the secrecy to do with international banking demonstrate that 'money' is power. It can make or break whole countries, and with the USA nearing bankruptcy, the US government has to make its grab soon. IMO, we are looking at another decade, tops. The grab will have to occur before depleted oil supplies make it impossible--before debt makes it impossible. Hence the tremendous build up of the military. IMO, this has been in the works for at least a century now. Conspiracy?

Even paranoids have enemies.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 06:55 PM

An organization called Texans for Truth has come forward with an indictment of George's attack against Kerry on service-related grounds, the advertisement of which can be seen on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 08:33 PM

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
How to Watch the Watchers
By RICHARD BEN-VENISTE and LANCE COLE

The president's new civil liberties oversight board falls short of the
recommendations made by the 9/11 commission.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/07/opinion/07benveniste.html?th

--


"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular."
    --Adlai Stevenson

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 04 - 09:03 PM

This article discusses the Bush administrations falsification, censoring and manipulation of science.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 01:13 AM

Jimmy Carter wrote Zell Miller, keynote Democrat speaker at the GOP convention, ending it this way:

"Zell, I have known you for 42 years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral pre-emptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited."

    Sincerely, and with deepest regrets,
    Jimmy Carter

Read more at http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/090904C.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 08:53 AM

Internationally, a poll of 35000 people reveal a very strong   edge for Kerry -- in factm if the world could vote Kerry would win by a landslide.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 11:01 AM

The New Republic reports on the growing scandal of Bush' actual manuvering in the Air National Guard, and his failure to perform as he promised.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 11:02 PM

Sept. 16, 2004  |  "Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. Since then 812 American soldiers have been killed and 6,290 wounded, according to the Pentagon. Almost every day in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with bravado about how we are "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard convention on Tuesday.

But according to the U.S. military's leading strategists and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already lost.

Retired Gen. William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency, told me: "Bush hasn't found the WMD. Al-Qaida, it's worse -- he's lost on that front. That he's going to achieve a democracy there? That goal is lost, too. It's lost." He added: "Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving [Osama] bin Laden's ends."

(Excerpt from Salon.com, subscription required)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 04 - 11:27 PM

Maureen Down writes in A Dazzling Display to Mislead:

"...the administration has been so dazzling in misleading the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit.

Iraq is a vision of hell, and the Republicans act as if it's a model kitchen. The president and vice president brag about liberating Iraqis and reassure us that they are stopping terrorist violence at its source and inspiring democracy in the region by bringing it to blood-drenched Iraq.

But what they haven't mentioned is that they have known since July that their rosy scenarios are as bogus as their WMD. That's when the president received a national intelligence estimate that spelled out "a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq" in the next 18 months, as Douglas Jehl wrote in yesterday's New York Times. Worst-case estimates include civil war or anarchy.


Unlike the president, the young men and women trying to stay alive in the unraveling chaos of Iraq can't count on their daddies to get them out of the line of fire."

---

I think she has summed up the Republican Zeitgeist in a single fell phrase: Go forth,and be audacious and mendacious.

The Great American Moral Code: Brass in all things and Lies when convenient. Sure saves a lot of thinking, doesn't it, George?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 06:36 PM

Urgent: Please read George Bush's Plea for a Second Chance in which he finally comes clean while asking for your benevolent indulgence.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Sep 04 - 10:02 PM

That just about sums it up.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Sep 04 - 10:14 AM

The Guardian bemoans the complete mess the Bush administration has made of Iraq in this article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 04 - 09:01 PM

This editorial discusses the poisonous impact of the Bush administration on democratic representative government.

"n a democracy -- a fully functioning one -- none of this would happen. We simply would not allow one man -- any man -- to diminish our country as we stood idly by. But we have. In large numbers we have fallen for Bush's hat trick. One by one, all across America, we have decided it was not important enough to find the truth, to vote for the good of us all.
"


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 04:54 PM

The respected on-line science journal Nature accuses the Bush administration of distorting science.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Sep 04 - 08:42 PM

A detailed timeline of known facvts about the Bush AWOL timeline can be found in this chart.

Subject: Doctorow Writes of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 03:20 PM

GUESTWORDS: By E.L. Doctorow

    The Unfeeling President

    September 9, 2004 - Easthampton Star

    I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not
suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who
    wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General
Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives
    of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death
was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not
    of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost
more than Eisenhower could bear.

    But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind
for it. You see him joking with the press,
    peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't
seem to find, you see him at rallies
    strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the
carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving,
    triumphal, a he-man.

    He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is
satisfied during the course of a speech
    written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave
young Americans who made the ultimate
    sacrifice for their country.

    But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an
emotion which he does not feel in the
    depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not
feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000
    dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

    They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or
wives and children who will suffer to
    the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial
relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of
    aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability,
which is why the press is not permitted to
    photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

    How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets
nothing. He does not regret that his
    reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the
facts. He does not regret that his bungled
    plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a
disaster. He does not regret that,
    rather than controlling terrorism, his war in Iraq has licensed it.
So he never mourns for the dead and crippled
    youngsters who have fought this war of his choice.

    He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive
the costs of war, or to listen to those who
    knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war
when it is one of the options but when it is
    the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have
to.

    Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to
cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator.
    He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to
have a mind for only one thing -- to take
    power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of
themselves and their friends.

    A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader.
The country gets behind you. Dissent
    becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is
not contrite, he does not sit in the church
    with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the
president who does not feel. He does not feel for
    the families of the dead, he does not feel for the 35 million of us
who live in poverty, he does not feel for the
    40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for
the miners whose lungs are turning black
    or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work
overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills
    - it is amazing for how many people in this country this president
does not feel.

    But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is
relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the
    population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and
that he is polluting the air we breathe for
    the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the quality of
air in coal mines to save the coal miners'
    jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half
benefits for overtime because this is actually a
    way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

    And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and
the flag and democracy, when just what he
    and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of
it.

    But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I
remember the millions of people here and around
    the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that
spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and
    protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After
all, this was not the only war anyone had
    ever seen coming. There are little wars all over he world most of
the time.

    But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of
people that America was ceding its role as
    the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the
classic archetype of democracy was morphing
    into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was
turning its back on the future, using its
    extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a
concordance of civilizations but to endorse the
    kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a
people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring
    their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

    The president we get is the country we get. With each president the
nation is conformed spiritually. He is the
    artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the
laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern
    our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast
in his image. The trouble they get into and
    get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

    Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather
report. He becomes the face of our sky, the
    conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United
States of America given the stupid and
    ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving,
and the monarchal economics of this
    president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as
to make us mourn for ourselves.

# # #

---

With warm thanks to Nancy for pointing this piece out to me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 09:46 PM

RESUME : GEORGE W. BUSH

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the
influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's
license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost"
and
is not available.

Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take
a
drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the
Texas
Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a
cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business
in
Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any
oil
in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
I
bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took
land
using taxpayer money. With the help of my father and our friends in the
oil
industry
(including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:
- I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies,
making
Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston
replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.

- I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions
in
borrowed money.

- I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American
history.

- With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's
appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by
over
500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
- I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a
criminal
record.

- I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one
billion dollars per week.

- I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S.
Treasury.

- I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S.
history.

- I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any
12-month period.

- I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

- I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the
U.S.
stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost
their jobs and that trend continues every month.

- I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any
administration in U.S. history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza
Rice,
has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

- I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips by a U.S.
President.

- I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most
corporate campaign donations.

- My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends,
Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in
U.S.
History, Enron.

- My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to
assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election
decision.

- I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against
investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent
investigating
the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the
biggest corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest
energy
crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption
involving
the oil industry was revealed.

- I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.

- I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded
government contracts.

- I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any
President
in U.S. history.

- I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy
in
the history of the United States government.

- I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S.
history.

- I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations
remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

- I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

- I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. "prisoners of war"
detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

- I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election
inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).

- I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any
President
since the advent of television.

- I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year
period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over
the
worst security failure in U.S. history.

- I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade
Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated
country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world
history.

- I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to
simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people),
shattering
the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.

- I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked,
preemptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I
did
so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S.
citizens,
and the world community.

- I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in
duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.

- In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for
attacking
Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

- I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans
(71%)
view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

- I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a
WMD.

- I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to
justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
-All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's
library, sealed and unavailable for public view.

- All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my
bankrupt
companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

- All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-president,
attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and
unavailable for public review.

PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 11:22 PM

Thank-you Freda - Absolutely to the point. Who can argue with this? Who can defend this criminal? Is there any justice or will he just walk away laughing?

d

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 04 - 11:36 PM

Regarding Rather's embarassment for CBS:

What Is Bush Hiding?


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, September 21, 2004; Page A21

It is to be welcomed that President Bush wants to clear up questions about
his National Guard service. He wants more details out there, and good for
him. This story should be laid to rest, and the one person who can do it is
named George W. Bush.

Up to now, Bush has been interested in a rather narrow aspect of the story.
He wanted Dan Rather and CBS News to come clean about whether they used fake
documents in reporting on the president's Guard service back in the 1970s.

"There are a lot of questions and they need to be answered," Bush told the
Union Leader in Manchester, N.H., last week. "I think what needs to happen
is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and
let the truth come out."

I couldn't agree more. And apparently CBS came to the same view. CBS messed
up, and yesterday, Rather fessed up. He said the network could no longer
stand behind the documents. There will be much hand-wringing about the media
in the coming days, and properly so.

But what's good for Dan Rather, who is not running for president, ought to
be good for George Bush, who is. "There are a lot of questions and they need
to be answered." Surely that presidential sentiment applies as much to
Bush's Guard service as to Rather's journalistic methods.

The New York Times put the relevant questions on the table yesterday in a
lengthy review of Bush's life in 1972, "the year George W. Bush dropped off
the radar screen," as the Times called it. The issues about Bush's National
Guard service, the Times wrote, include "why he failed to take his pilot's
physical and whether he fulfilled his commitment to the guard."

Oh, I can hear the groaning: "But why are we still talking about Vietnam?"
A fair question that has several compelling answers.

First, except for John McCain, Republicans were conspicuously happy to have
a front group spread untruths about John Kerry's Vietnam service in August
and watch as the misleading claims were amplified by the supposedly liberal
media. The Vietnam era was relevant as long as it could be used to raise
character questions about Kerry. But as soon as the questioning turned to
Bush's character, we were supposed to call the whole thing off. Why? Because
the media were supposed to question Kerry's character but not Bush's.

And, please, none of this nonsense about how Kerry "opened the door" to the
assault on his Vietnam years by highlighting his service at the Democratic
National Convention. Nothing any candidate does should ever be seen as
"opening the door" to lies about his past. Besides, Vietnam veterans with
Republican ties were going after Kerry's war record long before the
Democratic convention.

But, most important, there is only one reason the story about Bush's
choices during the Vietnam years persists. It's because the president won't
give detailed answers to the direct questions posed by the Times story and
other responsible media organizations, including the Boston Globe. Their
questions never depended on the discredited CBS documents.

Bush could end this story now so we could get to the real issues of 2004.
It would require only that the president take an hour or so with reporters
to make clear what he did and did not do in the Guard. He may have had good
reasons for ducking that physical exam. Surely he can explain the gaps in
his service and tell us honestly whether any pull was used to get him into
the Guard.

But a guy who is supposed to be so frank and direct turns remarkably
Clintonian where the National Guard issue is concerned. "I met my
requirements and was honorably discharged" is Bush's stock answer, which
does old Bill proud. And am I the only person exasperated by a double
standard that treated everything Bill Clinton ever did in his life ("I
didn't inhale") as fair game but now insists that we shouldn't sully
ourselves with any inconvenient questions about Bush's past?

I'm as weary as you are that our politics veer away from what matters --
Iraq, terrorism, health care, jobs -- and get sidetracked into personal
issues manufactured by political consultants and ideological zealots. But
the Bush campaign has made clear it wants this election to focus on
character and leadership. If character is the issue, the president's life,
past and present, matters just as much as John Kerry's.

Dan Rather has answered his critics. Now it is Bush's turn.

[e-mail]

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Sep 04 - 09:19 AM

Regarding Bush's latest address to the United Nations in defense of hius adventures in Iraq, the New York times concludes:

"Mr. Bush might have done better at wooing broader international support if he had spent less time on self-justification and scolding and more on praising the importance of international cooperation and a strengthened United Nations. Instead, his tone-deaf speechwriters achieved a perverse kind of alchemy, transforming a golden opportunity into a lead balloon."

This man is a fucking MAROOOON!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 01:00 PM

Bush Attacks Kerry While Cozying Up To Dictators


President Bush earlier this week attacked his opponent, saying "It's hard to imagine a candidate running for President prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy."1 Yet, it is President Bush who regularly declares his personal friendship and gratitude to some of the world's most oppressive dictators, often wining and dining them at his ranch in Texas.

In June of 2004, Bush referred to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as "my friend,"2 even though the Saudi Arabian government has been investigated for its financial ties to the 9/11 terrorists3 and is listed by the U.S. State Department as one of the world's most oppressive regimes on the planet.4

In April, he referred to the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as "my friend" and welcomed him to the Crawford ranch by saying "I always look forward to visiting with him."5 Bush gave this praise to a dictator, even though Human Rights Watch notes that government "torture in Egypt is widespread and systemic"6 and the State Department says Mubarak has passed a Constitution in which the electorate is barred from being "presented with a choice among competing presidential candidates."7

In 2002, it was Bush who said "I want to welcome the President of China to our ranch, and to Texas."8 Bush was inviting into his home a dictator who, according to the U.S. State Department, presides over a government that regularly engages in the "arbitrary or unlawful" murder of its own citizens, kidnappings of political dissidents, and repression of religious minorities.9

Footnoted sources listed on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Question Laura Bush Could Not Answer
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 03:32 PM

The Question Laura Bush Could Not Answer: When Are Yours Going to Serve?

This moment of confrontation, between George Bush's wife and the heart-broken mother of a dead Marine, deserves more national attention that this brief article. But even by itself, it is a heartbreaker and it shows something of the panic that must regn in the hearts of the Bushes, who ride the powder keg of hbottled up truth and hidden mismanagement every day of thier lives.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 04 - 05:42 PM

Scores ofr Americans have expressed thoughtful views in Letters to George W. Bush on this website.

Most of them are disappointed in him. All of them are articulate and well worth reading.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 01:07 AM

London's Financial Times writes an analysis of the really bozo collapse of terrorism prosecutions in a number of ridiculous cases in this article.

The Bush administration in its anxiety and haste has been unable to obtain any convictions and has built cases on whimsy in several cases.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Jaze
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 11:04 AM

I find the flap over Dan Rather's story kind of amusing. But let's take it to another level. Did not George Bush launch and unprovoked attack against a sovereign nation based on informnation HE received and deemed reliable? Seems to me Bush should be most understanding of Rather's position. Yet we were all supposed to just accept that his information wasn't reliabe.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 11:52 AM

Well, attacking a nation... with lead and bombs, killing civilians, destroying homes buildings and lives, snuffing out daughters and sons... is one thing -- but Rather, armed with merely false DOCUMENTS but correct facts, has been categorized as far more heinous an offender for attacking a reigning President for misconduct which he actually did commit!!

Bush has repeatedly demonstrated that logic is not part of this.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 04:24 PM

Michael Moore details and excoriates President Bush & Co.'s history of flipflopping on policy regarding the Middle East and Iraq.

Makes Kerry look a steady-on as Gibraltar.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 10:27 AM

great stuff. Keep it coming!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 11:41 AM

Maureen Dowd, the bright light lady warrior of the New York Times, makes some telling remarks about the recent press show by Bush and Alawi.

Whole article found at this page.



Dance of the Marionettes
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: September 26, 2004



It's heartwarming, really.

President Bush has his own Mini-Me now, someone to echo his every word and mimic his every action.

For so long, Mr. Bush has put up with caricatures of a wee W. sitting in the vice president's lap, Charlie McCarthy style, as big Dick Cheney calls the shots. But now the president has his own puppet to play with.

All last week in New York and Washington, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq parroted Mr. Bush's absurd claims that the fighting in Iraq was an essential part of the U.S. battle against terrorists that started on 9/11, that the neocons' utopian dream of turning Iraq into a modern democracy was going swimmingly, and that the worse things got over there, the better they really were.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 10:31 AM

From Today's Papers for September 28, 2004, concerning Iraq civilian security forces:

"Meanwhile, contrary to the president's statements about "nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped" security forces, the military has acknowledged that only 8,200 have been fully trained. (Reuters flagged the discrepancy on Friday.) Finally, the Post mentions that a respected analyst released a report recently concluding that the number of security forces is actually dropping "in part because of desertions and purging of low-grade personnel." "

Mister Bush again discovers that what he says and what is real are sometimes leagues apart.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,peedeecee
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:08 PM

Here's a LOVELY bit of news that should be posted on various threads -- the newspaper in Crawford, Texas, which is Bush's home town, is coming out strongly in favour of Kerry. The editorial at the link is extremely good, especially considering that the Iconoclast (!) is a small, weekly newspaper.

The link below reports the story, but provides another link directly to the editorial.

CrawfordHatesBush

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 07:44 PM

The New York Times excoriates the sleazy extremes of the Bush campaign tactics as beyond the pale of decency. What else is new?

Story on this page .

Slimeballs.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 09:16 AM

The Washington Post provides an analysis that indicates the ground-truth situiation in Iraq is nearly FUBAR, and much worse off than President "Tell 'Em What They Want to Hear" Bush is indicating with his staged presentation by Alawi. Story on this page.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 04:39 PM

From the interesting link provided just below by Peedeecee, and excerpt from the editoria of the "Bush hometown paper":

"Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq," the editorial said.


The Iconoclast, established in 2000, said it editorialized in support of the invasion of Iraq and publisher W. Leon Smith promoted Bush and the invasion in a BBC interview, believing Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.


"Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda," the editorial said.


The newspaper praised Kerry for "30 years of experience looking out for the American people" and lauded his background as "a highly decorated Vietnam veteran

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:27 AM

The actual editorial from the Crawford, Texas Iconoclast is well worth reading.

Iconclast endorses Kerry.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 11:29 PM

Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush
    By George Soros
    George Soros.com

Definitely worth the read. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/093004D.shtml

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 09:48 AM

The New York Times discusses the President as Agent of God Almighty hypothesis which appears to be more wide-spread than just a few asylums, and also appears to agree with Bush's self-image.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 06:49 PM

In a fascinating article from tomorrow's New York Times, David Barstow analyzes false claims made by the Bush administration concerning nuclear capabilities in Iran:

An excerpt:

In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of
the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. In a speech to veterans that August, Vice President Dick Cheney said Mr.Hussein could have an atomic bomb "fairly soon." President Bush, addressing the United Nations the next month, said there was "little doubt" about Mr. Hussein's appetite for nuclear arms.

The United States intelligence community had not yet concluded that
Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program. But as the vice president told a group of Wyoming Republicans that September, the United States had "irrefutable evidence" - thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States.

The tubes quickly became a critical exhibit in t he administration's
brief against Iraq. As the only physical evidence the United States of Mr. Hussein's revived nuclear ambitions, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President Bush and his advisers. The tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, asserted on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

But before Ms. Rice made those remarks, she was aware that the
government's foremost nuclear experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all, an examination by The New York Times has found. As early as 2001, her staff had been told that these experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and a senior administration official, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

The article is on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 07:18 PM

Dr. Rice Today

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 07:20 PM

Huzza! My first blicky.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 08:06 PM

Wish I could do Blickies !

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 08:07 PM

But I will do post 300 just to stop El Ted doing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Oct 04 - 08:13 PM

Terry:

How very disappointing.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 12:35 AM

In a well-written editorial, Bob Herbert of the New York Times discusses Mister Bush's problem connecting to reality, with specifics, and offers an explanation as to why he lost the first debate.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Oct 04 - 02:59 PM

From the Editors of The New Republic, a subscription only magazine:

Fool Me Once
by the Editors



All politicians stretch truth to present accomplishments in the most appealing light. What President Bush has told the country over the past week about the deeply troubled Iraq occupation, however, is different. While an increasingly strong insurgency murdered 250 Iraqis last week, he portrayed the occupation as gliding to success. Last week, Bush told the Manchester Union-Leader, "I'm pleased with the progress." The template the administration is using for its portrayal of Iraq is the one the Johnson administration perfected during Vietnam: To win reelection, Bush is lying.

Not only has there been no recent progress in Iraq, there has been much backsliding over the past six months. Two weeks ago, a research team from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis) released the most comprehensive study about events on the ground. Originally invited to study Iraq at the behest of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, csis said, "In every sector we looked at, we saw backward movement in recent months." This is the opposite of "progress," and the administration knows it. In a July National Intelligence Estimate (nie), its own analysts reported that the best outcome in Iraq is a barely contained insurgency and tenuous stability. In other words, what last year was among the worst-case scenarios is now the best.

The president has a response to those who honestly depict the situation in Iraq: dismissal. "Just guessing," Bush shrugged at the NIE. The Iraqis "are defying the dire predictions of a lot of people by moving toward democracy," he said last week. In fact, the only predictions Iraqis have defied are his own. First they defied his prediction that they would accept instantaneous post-Saddam rule by expatriates. Then they defied his prediction that they would accept an open-ended occupation. Then they defied his prediction that they would accept an interim government chosen by convoluted caucuses. Then they defied his prediction that the U.S. military could rely on poorly trained Iraqi forces to combat the insurgency. Then they defied his prediction that the transfer of notional sovereignty to the interim government would destroy the insurgency's popular support.

And now it is dawning on observers that the latest prediction Iraqis will defy is that they are "moving toward democracy." "The Americans have created a series of fictional [election] dates and events in order to delude themselves," Ghassan Atiyya, director of the Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, recently told Newsweek. Even American ground commander Thomas Metz, commenting on the fact that most of Al Anbar Province is controlled by the insurgency, admitted, "I don't think today you could hold elections."

In response, the administration is telegraphing that, should it win reelection, it will insist on Iraqi elections nonetheless and call them legitimate, even if they are unfree and unfair. In a recent address to the National Press Club, Rumsfeld shrugged, "I've never seen an election anywhere that's perfect," as if Iraq were West Palm Beach. Iraqis are more honest. Interim President Ghazi Al Yawer declared last week, "We do not want to have elections for the sake of elections. It's the outcome of the elections that's most important." By which he surely means an outcome that will preserve his power. For that reason, the Association of Muslim Scholars, which represents about 3,000 Sunni mosques, has announced it will boycott the vote. Sheik Abdul Satar Abdul Jabbar of the Association told The New York Times, "If the election goes forward anyway, the body that will be elected will not represent the country." This decision virtually ensures that elections could move Iraq closer to civil war. With most Sunnis refusing to cast ballots, the new government would lack legitimacy and take on a sectarian character, fostering even greater factional conflict. As Atiyya recently warned, "Badly prepared elections, rather than healing wounds, will open them."

There are brave Republicans who understand how disastrous the Bush administration's Iraq policy has proved. Referring to Bush's predictions, the GOP chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar, remarked, "The nonsense of all that is apparent." But the nonsense has continued. Bush has enlisted Iyad Allawi to travel to Washington this week and claim the administration is delivering victory in Iraq. Unless more Republicans join Lugar and put truth above party, the lies will continue through Election Day and beyond.

the Editors

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Oct 04 - 08:22 AM

This CapitolHill Blue article reports negatively on Rumsfeld for flip-flopping on the Al Quaeda-Iraq issue.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 09:30 AM

"The proliferation of war, of weapons of mass destruction, of divisive fundamentalism (east and west), of aggressive unilateralism as opposed to a binding multilateralism. The end game on this Grand Chessboard is not a Pax Americana (an American Empire) as envisioned first by Zbigniew Brzezinski and now by PNAC (the Project for the New American Century), but a world in shambles, pocked by pocket wars, decimated by regional and national poverty and disease, a world of haves and have-nots, walled in or walled out by mutual fear and disrespect. Rather than crossing the human divides, we are widening them, like so many tribes stranded on ice floes in a roiling ocean. If we are to survive as a species we need to reach a common higher ground. The right choice, like voting or not, like which candidate is the sane one to vote for, is ours, and at this point not just a privilege, but an existential necessity. "

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer who resides in New York City. Contact him at [e-mail].

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 01:39 PM

George Soros argues clearly why it is important to evict Bush from the White House in this article on his website.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Oct 04 - 11:54 PM

One of the most interesting questions for this thread is what Saddam Hussein thought the Bush Administration and its predecessors were really doing.

An interesting compilation of what he thought and how he bluffed (and why it backfired on him) can be found in this article in the LA Times.

It is possible that much of what I have thought of as sheer malice on the part of Bush and his administration is actually attributable to the sad fact that no-one with enough edge was around to help them figure out what the hell was really going on with this guy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Oct 04 - 12:34 AM

Scientists on Bush's Policies


"Across a broad range of issues—from childhood lead poisoning and mercury emissions to climate change, reproductive health, and nuclear weapons—the administration is distorting and censoring scientific findings that contradict its policies; manipulating the underlying science to align results with predetermined political decisions; and undermining the independence of science advisory panels by subjecting panel nominees to political litmus tests that have little or no bearing on their expertise; nominating non-experts or underqualified individuals from outside the scientific mainstream or with industry ties; as well as disbanding science advisory committees altogether." - Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that includes 20 Nobel Prize laureates and 19 National Medal of Science honorees, in its statement "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking." [Union of Concerned Scientists]


"The administration plan would hurt public health and help big polluters by weakening, delaying and diluting cuts in power plants' sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollution compared to timely enforcement of current law. The administration plan would roll back the current law's public health safeguards to protect local air quality, curb pollution from upwind states, and protect our national parks. Tens of millions of people would be denied clean air, even as late as 2020 and beyond." - The American Lung Association, in its "State of the Air 2004" report [American Lung Association]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 11:39 AM

Excerpted from the NY Times editorial coming out in support of Kerry


John Kerry for President

Published: October 17, 2004



Senator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent.

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.
•


There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned the government over to the radical right.

Mr. Bush installed John Ashcroft, a favorite of the far right with a history of insensitivity to civil liberties, as attorney general. He sent the Senate one ideological, activist judicial nominee after another. He moved quickly to implement a far-reaching anti-choice agenda including censorship of government Web sites and a clampdown on embryonic stem cell research. He threw the government's weight against efforts by the University of Michigan to give minority students an edge in admission, as it did for students from rural areas or the offspring of alumni.

When the nation fell into recession, the president remained fixated not on generating jobs but rather on fighting the right wing's war against taxing the wealthy. As a result, money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security evaporated, as did the chance to provide adequate funding for programs the president himself had backed. No Child Left Behind, his signature domestic program, imposed higher standards on local school systems without providing enough money to meet them.

If Mr. Bush had wanted to make a mark on an issue on which Republicans and Democrats have long made common cause, he could have picked the environment. Christie Whitman, the former New Jersey governor chosen to run the Environmental Protection Agency, came from that bipartisan tradition. Yet she left after three years of futile struggle against the ideologues and industry lobbyists Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had installed in every other important environmental post. The result has been a systematic weakening of regulatory safeguards across the entire spectrum of environmental issues, from clean air to wilderness protection.
•


The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.

The president's refusal to drop his tax-cutting agenda when the nation was gearing up for war is perhaps the most shocking example of his inability to change his priorities in the face of drastically altered circumstances. Mr. Bush did not just starve the government of the money it needed for his own education initiative or the Medicare drug bill. He also made tax cuts a higher priority than doing what was needed for America's security; 90 percent of the cargo unloaded every day in the nation's ports still goes uninspected.

Along with the invasion of Afghanistan, which had near unanimous international and domestic support, Mr. Bush and his attorney general put in place a strategy for a domestic antiterror war that had all the hallmarks of the administration's normal method of doing business: a Nixonian obsession with secrecy, disrespect for civil liberties and inept management.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Iconoclast is in Clifton TX not Crawford.
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 12:34 PM

The Lone Star Iconoclast, P.O. Box 420, Crawford, TX 76638

Has a po box in crawford so you woun't know that it is actually published by left wing extremists in Clifton Texas, in another county 25 miles away.

For inquiries, call [phone] or write to:
The Clifton Record
P.O. Box 353
Clifton, TX 76634
http://www.cliftonrecord.com/about.asp

Hmmm. The Clifton paper has the same phone number as the Iconoclast:


The Lone Star Iconoclast
P.O. Box 420
Crawford, TX 76638
We accept money orders, checks or cash with mail-in orders.
YOU CAN ALSO CALL US
WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD AT
[phone]
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/subscribe.htm

I smell the pungent aroma of male cow feces.

Kerry edwards wil lower the cost of health care?
"Edwards' [1997] campaign rhetoric included a vow not to accept money from lobbyists or PACs. However, 86 percent of his Senate campaign was ultimately funded by the nation's most powerful special-interest group: personal-injury lawyers."

"In spite of his vocal opposition to PAC money, Edwards himself established a PAC in 2001: the New American Optimists (NAO). Nearly 70 percent (more than $4.1 million) of the NAO PAC's receipts have come from trial lawyers."

"Tab Turner, a fellow trial lawyer, donated a total of $200,000 to Edwards' campaign and PAC. Some contributions allegedly were in the name of several clerks in his law office. However, when investigations were made into the donations, more than one clerk revealed that they had made contributions to Edwards' campaign after Turner himself had assured them that they would be reimbursed—a practice that is forbidden by federal law. As a result, Edwards had to return $10,000 to employees of Turner & Associates. In spite of his legal background, Turner claimed that he was not aware that reimbursing his employees for their contributions was illegal."

"One of the leading asbestos litigation firms in the country—New York City-based Weitz & Luxenberg—contributed $34,250 in questionably raised employee donations to Edwards' presidential campaign."
http://www.thetruthabouttriallawyers.com/courtroom_roots.asp

Edwards blames Bush for the vaccine shortage but:
"Liability law appears to be a critical factor behind the vaccine shortage:
    As legal liabilities have chased many vaccine-makers out of the market, there are fewer manufacturers. This means less overall ability to produce additional doses, and less investment on new, faster ways to make vaccines.

    In the US about 185m people risk serious flu-related illness each year.

    At one time the US had 20 flu vaccine manufacturers. Today there are just four: Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Wyeth.

    After the second world war the science of cell cultures led a boom in vaccine production. But gradually profit margins thinned on vaccines, as the government became a big buyer of them. Increasing legal liability drove many makers out of the vaccine business.

    Today smaller biotech companies have entered the game. But they lack the capacity and the distribution to solve near-term shortages, experts say.

    "One of the problems with vaccines is you put them in healthy people," says Louis Galambos, history professor at Johns Hopkins University and an expert on vaccine manufacturing. "Now we're in a situation where we have too few producers."

    Congress passed a law in 1986 to limit liability on vaccines for children. There are no such liability limits for adults, however.

    Pharmaceuticals companies are inhibited by the particular structure of the US vaccine market, experts say. The US government is a large buyer of vaccines, leaving relatively poor profit margins on vaccines."
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2003/12/liability_and_f.html


Do you agree Amos?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:10 PM

OG,

you are supposed to let Amos be the voice of the Pop. The rest of us are all partisan extremists- HE has the only correct view of reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:07 PM

Maureen Dowd does her nation proud by calling a spade a spade vis-a-vis the hypocrisy of th4e Catholic church in politics.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:59 PM

In an article about Being Addicted to 9-11, columnist THomas Friedman says it like it is with regard to the Administrations bizarre mindset.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 03:03 PM

OG:

Thanks for the hads up. I will be alert for future misstatements by that scurrilous young charmer. And he had such a nice smile, too!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:42 AM

Just as I thought 254 675 phome numbers are in Bosque County and Clifton Texas.

Crawford is in McLennan County and the phone numbers start with 254 486

So whoever says the Iconoclast newspaper is in Crawford is deceiving the American public with lies and distortions.

And my post above about the flu vaccine: that was written in 2003, long before Edwards blamed it on Bush

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:27 AM

Old Guy - I'm not sure if he blamed Bush or not but I do know this...

Supply is not the problem. The problem is the FDA. We have the same drug regulations in Canada and should be able to sell our extra million doses to the U.S. Its hung up in the FDA.

Bush said he was workin' on it with Canada in the last debate. Maybe he should be workin on the FDA. Even if he starts workin' on it today it will take three weeks to ready the shipment for delivery.

Do you really think Bush cares about you old guy? I think he cares more about securing the middle east for exploitation and controlling the world's food supply through biotechnology. I hate to disappoint you but he doesn't really care about your health.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:22 PM

Bill O'Reilly, one of the unofficial loudspoeakers for the militant right, had a few choice words to offer female staffer about his fantasies concerning the use of felafel in the shower.

Talk about a sordid bunch!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 09:26 AM

O'Reily is guilty as charged. A BANG the gavel.

Now fork over the $60 million.

Next case please.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 11:22 AM

HEy, hey, OG!! Now you're getting into the swing of it!! LOL!

The irony is that he has, himself, pilloried so many with such excoriating rhetoric, on so little evidence, so ruthlessly, that a dose of the same medicine is not inappropriate!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 11:18 AM

Summary of Bush accomplishments:

http://www.monkeydyne.com/bushresume/resume.html


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 11:36 AM

Earlier historical examples of Georgie's ravenous but underhanded duplicity -- wonder how the Mathes family feels about their ex-governor?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 03:16 PM

TEHRAN, Iran

Axis member backs Bush

"Iran is endorsing President George W. Bush. The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that Bush's re-election was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's "axis of evil" label, accusations that Iran harbors Al Qaeda terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.


Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.


Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues."

http://www.freep.com/news/politics/pols20e_20041020.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 09:57 AM

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post describes in wincing insight the fact that the Old Bush has vanished, and Kerry may well win the election. Full column here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 03:19 PM

Youngstown's mayor endorses Bush
Amos 24x7

Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Associated Press

Youngstown, Ohio - The mayor of this Democratic stronghold known for its steel industry job losses endorsed President Bush's re-election on Monday.

"Although I have never publicly endorsed a presidential candidate, the significance of this election, an election which I view as the most important of my lifetime, has motivated me to acknowledge my support for President Bush," said Mayor George McKelvey, a Democrat in his second term.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1093344920264290.xml

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 04:47 PM

Great -- the Youngstown mayor and the PResident of the United States and the Prime Minister of Iran all agree on something.

Seven Florida newspapers come out for John Kerry

Major papers endorse John Kerry

28 More Papers Endorse Kerry for President

Gold-MEdalist Olympians ENdorse Kerry

Newspapers Across Country Endorse Kerry

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 05:00 PM

Similar rejections of the Bush Administration's ham-handed charade can be found from the Boston Police, the Boston Globe, the Kansas City Star, Mrs. Christopher Reeves, the Navajo people's national Council, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the ex-Governor of Michigan, Milliken, the Saint-Louis Post-Dispatch,200 New Hampshire Republicans, the Oregonian, the Charlotte Observer, the Columbia Daily Tribune, John Eisenhower, (note spelling), Senator McCain's senior aide,and many others -- all referenced on this page for the day.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 09:56 PM

Amos:

You forgot the head honcho if the biggest country in the world, Pooty-poot Putin, endorses Bush. Was it Texas Barbeque, or Beslan?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 11:13 PM

Premier Putin, The Master of Democratic Process? You sure that's a point for your side?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 05:00 PM

Hunter S. Thompson's passion is almost metaphysically inspiring. Following excerpt is from this article in Rolling Stone.

Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson sounds off on the fun-hogs in the passing lane

By DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON


Armageddon came early for George Bush this year, and he was not ready for it. His long-awaited showdowns with my man John Kerry turned into a series of horrible embarrassments that cracked his nerve and demoralized his closest campaign advisers. They knew he would never recover, no matter how many votes they could steal for him in Florida, where the presidential debates were closely watched and widely celebrated by millions of Kerry supporters who suddenly had reason to feel like winners.

Kerry came into October as a five-point underdog with almost no chance of winning three out of three rigged confrontations with a treacherous little freak like George Bush. But the debates are over now, and the victor was clearly John Kerry every time. He steamrollered Bush and left him for roadkill.


Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him "Mister President," and then I felt ashamed.


Karl Rove, the president's political wizard, felt even worse. There is angst in the heart of Texas today, and panic in the bowels of the White House. Rove has a nasty little problem, and its name is George Bush. The president failed miserably from the instant he got onstage with John Kerry. He looked weak and dumb. Kerry beat him like a gong in Coral Gables, then again in St. Louis and Tempe -- and that is Rove's problem: His candidate is a weak-minded frat boy who cracks under pressure in front of 60 million voters.


That is an unacceptable failure for hardballers like Rove and Dick Cheney. On the undercard in Cleveland against John Edwards, Cheney came across as the cruel and sinister uberboss of Halliburton. In his only honest moment during the entire debate, he vowed, "We have to make America the best place in the world to do business."


Bush signed his own death warrant in the opening round, when he finally had to speak without his TelePrompTer. It was a Cinderella story brought up to date in Florida that night -- except this time the false prince turned back into a frog.


Immediately after the first debate ended I called Muhammad Ali at his home in Michigan, but whoever answered said the champ was laughing so hard that he couldn't come to the phone. "The debate really cracked him up," he chuckled. "The champ loves a good ass-whuppin'. He says Bush looked so scared to fight, he finally just quit and laid down."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 05:02 PM

"War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .


Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)


Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?"

--Ibid

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 08:24 PM

First time I heard Bush referred to as a Golem. Right you are!

d

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 12:02 AM

Amos:

Please strike anyone from a non democratic nation from the list of Kerry supporters, you know like N Vietnam. See here

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
President Abraham Lincoln

You know him? The Republican that freed the slaves and people wer trying to oust him from office.

I'll opt for hanging.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 01:26 AM

OG:

The Union side, of the Civil War, I have always been taught, was the just side, the enlightened side, and the necessary side.

Kerry understood from first-hand experience that the Vietnam War was not just, nor necessary, and certainly not enlightened, and he had the guts to stand up in the face of mass counter-opinion and say so.

Opt as you will, I don't much care. Your chauvinism and jingoism are not entertaining, and (in my own opinion) unhealthy. You can take the actions of a decent human being and slander them and falsify them until the day looks like night.   Good for you, and may you have the joy of it, somewhere.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 01:39 AM

Amos:

Which person do you claim I am slandering?

If you mean Lincoln, I am honoring him. His quotation should be taken to heart today. People are claiming it is patriotic to undermine the military in a time of war. I say they are saboteurs and should be hanged like Ol' Abe said.

He was on the just side and freed the slaves.

Most amazingly he was a Republican.

If you say I am slandering Kerry, I am only saying he is an arrogant asshole.

Maybe you should come over to the just side.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 01:39 AM

Amos,

When you do not seem to be able to realize is, that to people who have opinions that are not the same as yours, you are equally guilty of what you accuse OG of. It is a pity that you are so absolutely sure of your opinion that you are incapable of realizing that others may not agree with you and still be well-meaning, thoughtful individuals.



"You can take the actions of a decent human being and slander them and falsify them until the day looks like night. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 01:55 AM

Al Gore describes the problem well in this speech.

"It appears to be an important element in Bush's ideology to never admit a mistake or even a doubt. It also has become common for Bush to rely on special interests for information about the policies important to them and he trusts what they tell him over any contrary view that emerges from public debate. He has, in effect, outsourced the truth. Most disturbing of all, his contempt for the rule of reason and his early successes in persuading the nation that his ideologically based views accurately described the world have tempted him to the hubristic and genuinely dangerous illusion that reality is itself a commodity that can be created with clever public relations and propaganda skills, and where specific controversies are concerned, simply purchased as a turnkey operation from the industries most affected.

George Orwell said, "The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." "

OG, BB -- John Kerry is not arrogant, or at least he is a lot less arrogant than our half-mad Resident. As for being an asshole, you are simply incorrect in your opinion. He is more of a gentleman, and a LOT more of a scholar, and a more experienced diplomat and a more skilled manager than W has ever dreamed of being. He's simply a better human being.

If you weren't completely locked in to the past and its serious errors, you could see it a lot more clearly. The merits on present time comparison of the two men and what they stand for are overwhelmingly in Kerry's favor.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 02:01 AM

Amos,

You are willing to accept Gore defining Bush as the definition of truth, but not Bush defining Kerry? It seems to me that you are showing an obvious bias. You make statements based on one-sided, partisan statements, and expect those who disagree with them to accept what you say as the Amos-given WORD. You do make valid comments, sometimes: BUT your use of obviously biased sources makes your general conclusion at least suspect, if not worthless.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 02:13 AM

I am biased, no question. I am not open minded and even handed about George Bush. You want to know why?

Because he has lied to me, lied to my representatives, mismanaged my nation, ruined our reputation abroad and wasted our treasure domestically. He has unleashed the forces of war unnecessarily and cost American lives and the slaughter of innocents in a wildly mis-estimated effort to act powerful. He has spilled innocent blood when he did not have to do so. He has consistently misrepresented the truth, and in the current campaign he has again and again misrepresented the efforts of others and the views of others, distorting them to serve his own interests by twisting their words. He has worsened my nation's economy and in every way displayed favoritism, arrogance, blatant and intentional illiteracy and ineptitude, a refusal to communicate openly, and an unrelenting willingness to suborn his office to the benefit of business associates.

Given this and his other offences, I am not even-minded about him. I have seen the deaths, and heard the testimony, and I don't think there is much room for appeal or redemption in this case.

Bummer.

The man is a danger to the nation. He should go home as quickly as possible before he kills again.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 02:31 AM

Amos,

"Because he has lied to me, lied to my representatives, mismanaged my nation, ruined our reputation abroad and wasted our treasure domestically. He has unleashed the forces of war unnecessarily and cost American lives and the slaughter of innocents in a wildly mis-estimated effort to act powerful. He has spilled innocent blood when he did not have to do so. He has consistently misrepresented the truth, and in the current campaign he has again and again misrepresented the efforts of others and the views of others, distorting them to serve his own interests by twisting their words. "



This is your opinion- given that, you are certainly entitled to your vote against him. But there are people out here who will say the same thing, with as much conviction and depth of feeling, about Clinton.



You are not entitled to make personnal attacks on those who hold other opinions. You can, and SHOULD, attack the facts presented when you feel them to be false: But to attack the person because they disagree with you makes you a worse type of person than you claim Bush is.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 02:37 AM

I attack lies, and I tend to be hard on liars. I have been on both sides of that street. You are backing a slimeball. That's your choice. I think less of you for exercising poor judgment in human affairs. That's mine. I do not attack you because you disagree with me, for goodness' sake!! That would really be dull. I just think you're making a sad mistake, and don't mind saying so.

The list of charges in my diatribe, above, which you so kindly excerpted, is not just my opinion, but an abstraction based on facts. We've been over this over nad over and over. The man is a liar, Brucie. You are back a forked-tongue liar who drove us into a lethal war we did not need, under false data. He's not a genuine guy, sorry.   

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 02:49 AM

Amos,

Bruce, not Brucie...

I read the British Report. I looked at the ongoing violations of UN resolutions by Iraq. I looked at the available information, and I have read the Russian warnings. IMO, in the post 9/11 situation, the Bush administration would have been negligent to NOT demand that the UN act, and when effective action was not forthcoming, take action on it's own. I do NOT say that the conduct of the was has been perfect- No was ever is. Do I wish that Saddam had complied, in November of 2001? YES- But he chose not to. I consider that the lives lost by the mistakes made are far fewer than the lives that would have been lost if the threat had been as it looked to be, and nothing effective was done. Should we have listened to the French, who were major violators of the UN sanctions with Iraq, or other nations that had a vested interest in seeing harm come to the US/ I do not think so.

I think that a reasonable person could see the need to eliminate Iraq as a potential source of WMD to terrorists. You seem to see something else. If I am wrong, thousands die- If you are wrong, millions. I pray to God that if your viewpoint prevails, you are willing to take the same blame for those millions that you place upon Bush for his thousands.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 03:03 AM

If I was right, Bruce, and the leader of the nation acted reasonably, no-one would have died, aside from those who fell to Saddam's continued aggressions against his own people. I am glad those lives were saved, sure, but they were saved in the most wasteful possible way.

The leader of the nation was unqualified. And he intended to target Saddam Hussein from the first days he was in office, long before 9-11.


I don't see the logic in that.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 03:09 AM

Amos,

You continue to make statements of YOUR opinion, and then act as if they are fact. When you do not see logic in a set of things that YOU have created, for whatever reason, perhaps it is because the person MAKING the statements is not logical...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 09:21 AM

I created Bush's poor qualifications? I suppose I did, but that's a metaphysic I would have not thought you capable of articulating so neatly!! Congratulations! I should stop contributing my energy to his being the conundrum that he is.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 02:02 PM

To Amos:

Amos in the morning Amos in the evening Amos at suppertime.
Be my little Amos And fight me all the time.


Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 03:24 PM

OG:

I am not fighting you.

I am fighting that insufferable asshole you are promoting. For one reason, really, only: he is damaging the nation and undermining the fiber of its pride and morale.

That's what I see. Call it opinion, call it viewpoint, call it intelligent extrapolation from data. It doesn't go away.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 03:58 PM

Viewpoints from hither and yon:

charles from shelbyville tn says "BUSH, IT THINK ITS TIME 4 U 2 LEAVE U HAVE BEEN PUTTING OUR TROOPS MORE IN DANGER I ALSO DONT THINK U SHOULD KEEP RAISING OUR TAXES ALSO WE NEED A LEADER 4 A PRESIDENT AND THAT WOULD BE PRESIDENT KERRY U R SO WORRIED ABOUT WATCHING IRAC THAT U NEED 2 PROTECT THE U.S THE LAST THING 2 SAY IS GOOOOOOOO KERRY U GOT MY VOTE" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:51pm PDT)


Robert Brennan from Long Island NY says "Free America from King George! Elect Kerry!The Emperor Has no cloths! Bush Lies, America Dies! Stop the Bush Dynasty before it's too late. Remember Bush was never elected in the first place, dont let him steal this election from the people again." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:50pm PDT)


diana from maryland says "Thanks for nothing!" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:48pm PDT)


priscilla from miami says "bush sucks and i'd vote for any one other than him. he one his first election only because he cheated;he put road blocks oin societies that where mostly middle and low class so that they wouldn't be able to vote on election day." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:47pm PDT)


Steve from New Zealand says "If Bush is re-elected the World is in big trouble. The man is a facist with no respect for human life at home or abroad." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:44pm PDT)


Charlie from Dallas says "Because your a liar and a crook, and seeing you sit in that class room while america was under a terroist attack on 9/11 and sing 'old macdonald' was the scariest god damn thing ive ever seen. GEORGE BUSH MUST BE STOPPED." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:44pm PDT)


Military Mother from USA says ""How do you think it feels for a grieving mother to hear Charles Duelfer, the top CIA weapons inspector for Iraq, state last week that Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction years ago and had no ability to produce more, under sanctions? How do you think it feels to hear White House officials now admit that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11? I want to know: did Michael die for a lie?" asked Lila Lipscomb, the military mother from Flint, Michigan, who is featured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" reading from the last letter her son, Michael, sent home from Iraq before he died." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:43pm PDT)



Henry from Canada says "A president is not a cowboy" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:39pm PDT)


Mari Lippi from Michigan says "GW was not ready to lead this country the first time he was given this job by the Supreme Court and is not ready to lead it now. He's lost track of the economy, our respect in the world, and if he can't protect the citizens of this country against the flu, how can he protect us against a terrorist attack? Homeland Security does not even check the cargo in the largest port in the world in L.A. for W.M.D. Instead he rushes to the Middle East chasing a fairy tale of W.M.D. when they could be sitting in our backyard. I'm more afraid of GW in office than not. We're not protected in this country, our borders are open to anyone who can sneak in. GW will run and hide as he did on 9/11. John Kerry will stand up and fight like a man and protect this country with intelligence and strength. GW will only face what he is comfortable with, just as his campaign functions. No one is allowed into his protected world unless they are a registered Republican, what a coward!" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:38pm PDT)


Mardi from Germany says "See ya Later, Bush, because a demagogue, liar and warmonger like you is simply unacceptable for our world!" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:36pm PDT)


nanna from ca,san jose says "you've put so much people in jeopardy!" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:35pm PDT)


Robert Hanshew from Las vegas says "the only thing that can save the world from president bush is for him to see welcome to washington, dc in his rear view mirror." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:34pm PDT)

Tim from East Hartford, Ct says "I would vote for Bush, if I could invest in the National Debt. Go to http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ and see how rich he can make you." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:31pm PDT)

Mos from California says "A lot of damage under your belt, King George. About time you got ousted hard, and let us get on with genuine principles instead of your brand of righteous fanaticism!" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:29pm PDT)


Ken Nicholson, LTC USArmy (Ret) from Virginia says "Bush just gave $10 Billion to Big Tobacco! On Friday Bush signed a bill that provides a $10 Billion handout to tobacco farmers, using our tax money to prop up the most destructive,harmful, odious business in this country. I give the government a third of my income so that they can do that? This is as outrageous as causing 1200 young soldiers to die in Iraq because Saddam Hussein once threatened Bush's father. Bush could send his twins to serve in the Army over there and then he'd finally understand just what the cost of his war is to the thousands of families that have been devastated by his impulsive behavior - but we will never see that - it will always be other people's children, spouses and parents who will be sent - what does he care? He didn't go to war himself when so many were dying in Vietnam - Daddy pulled strings to get him out of it. This jerk wasn't even elected by most voters. Hopefully the vote this time will be so overwhelming that even the Bush cronies controlling the elections in Florida won't be able to thwart the will of the American voters like they did so unabashedly last time." (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:28pm PDT)


richard falco from new york says "so long bush.you homo" (Sat, Oct 23rd, 12:27pm PDT)

http://laterbush.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 04:24 PM

Amos:

This might sound flippant but I am fighting that insufferable asshole you are promoting.

Remeber I was the first to say Kerry is an arrogant asshole and someone pretending to be related to me started a counter thread later.

May the best asshole win.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 07:17 PM

Seems to me, OG, that you are oblivious to the harm this man is doing.

But, as you say, may the best asshole win. *bg**

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 07:44 PM

From a dear friend:

---

GUESTWORDS: By E.L. Doctorow

    The Unfeeling President

    September 9, 2004 - Easthampton Star

    I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not
suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who
    wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General
Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives
    of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death
was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not
    of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost
more than Eisenhower could bear.

    But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind
for it. You see him joking with the press,
    peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't
seem to find, you see him at rallies
    strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the
carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving,
    triumphal, a he-man.

    He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is
satisfied during the course of a speech
    written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave
young Americans who made the ultimate
    sacrifice for their country.

    But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an
emotion which he does not feel in the
    depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not
feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000
    dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

    They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or
wives and children who will suffer to
    the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial
relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of
    aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability,
which is why the press is not permitted to
    photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

    How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets
nothing. He does not regret that his
    reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the
facts. He does not regret that his bungled
    plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a
disaster. He does not regret that,
    rather than controlling terrorism, his war in Iraq has licensed it.
So he never mourns for the dead and crippled
    youngsters who have fought this war of his choice.

    He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive
the costs of war, or to listen to those who
    knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war
when it is one of the options but when it is
    the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have
to.

    Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to
cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator.
    He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to
have a mind for only one thing -- to take
    power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of
themselves and their friends.

    A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader.
The country gets behind you. Dissent
    becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is
not contrite, he does not sit in the church
    with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the
president who does not feel. He does not feel for
    the families of the dead, he does not feel for the 35 million of us
who live in poverty, he does not feel for the
    40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for
the miners whose lungs are turning black
    or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work
overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills
    - it is amazing for how many people in this country this president
does not feel.

    But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is
relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the
    population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and
that he is polluting the air we breathe for
    the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the quality of
air in coal mines to save the coal miners'
    jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half
benefits for overtime because this is actually a
    way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

    And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and
the flag and democracy, when just what he
    and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of
it.

    But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I
remember the millions of people here and around
    the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that
spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and
    protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After
all, this was not the only war anyone had
    ever seen coming. There are little wars all over he world most of
the time.

    But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of
people that America was ceding its role as
    the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the
classic archetype of democracy was morphing
    into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was
turning its back on the future, using its
    extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a
concordance of civilizations but to endorse the
    kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a
people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring
    their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

    The president we get is the country we get. With each president the
nation is conformed spiritually. He is the
    artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the
laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern
    our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast
in his image. The trouble they get into and
    get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

    Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather
report. He becomes the face of our sky, the
    conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United
States of America given the stupid and
    ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving,
and the monarchal economics of this
    president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as
to make us mourn for ourselves.

---

Sums it up beautifully.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 07:53 PM

Quote for the day :

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day"

Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 11:09 PM

Amos Amos Amos:

Why didn't you name this thread "Popular views of the Amos"?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 11:19 PM

I don't write these references, is why. I just thought it would be good to have a place where the suppressed and stifled voices of dissidence could be pointed out, because Bushie gets really hard on those who disagree with him. Never before in the history of this nation has any President felt obliged to resort to the use of barriered enclosures called "free speech areas" where dissidents must confine themselves, so the public news casts don't see them. Never before has so much suppression of information been imposed by so few on so many. The Bill of Rights has never been so vigorously constrained and attacked as under the current administration.

Orwell must be spinning in his damned grave.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 04 - 11:47 PM

America, A Country on the Brink of Destruction; a summary of the Bush presidency,
by Lonna Gooden VanHorn, can be found on this page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 12:00 AM

beardedbruce - I take exception to the remark, "Should we have listened to the French, who were major violators of the UN sanctions with Iraq, or other nations that had a vested interest in seeing harm come to the US/ I do not think so."

What did Canada have to gain?

And why didn't the U.S. let the U.N. inspectors finish their job?

d

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 12:41 AM

Amos:

The democrats and thier supporters do all the spinning. Orwell is dead.

Who the hell is Lonna Gooden VanHorn? Is she a stiffled dissident?

Are you searching through a dumpster somewhere?


Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 12:47 AM

Orwell is dead, but Big Brother lives.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 12:59 AM

dianavan,

I have stated in past threads, which generated no end of ire that I dare have my own opinion, that the inspectors stated that they were not getting the required level of cooperation- for a number of years. IMHO, I feel that Saddam was given more than enough chances to comply, and continued to refuse. In the post 9/11 world , and with the information that was available at the time, to NOT take forceful action would have been to risk millions, or tens of millions of lives.

I still wonder why, in all the demonstrations against the US taking action against Iraq, NOONE ever just asked Saddam to comply. Not a single poster, placard, or sign. AT least, none that I know of, from any reports here or on the TV.

There had been a low level of actual fighting between the US and Iraq ever since 1991- but to most of the world it was business as usual, with numerous attempts to violate sanctions, and help Saddam misuse the Oil for Food money. WHy is it that noone ever asks HOW saddam had even the forces he dis, after the Gulf war and the sanctions? For country that the UN was preventing from rearming, Iraq had a lot of firepower....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 01:02 AM

The link that Amos gives on 21 October, 9:57, is essential reading, imo.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 24 Oct 04 - 01:15 AM

Are the enlightened people here keeping abreast of the oil for food corruption investigation?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 12:59 AM

this thread is dying Anus I mean Amos.

Old guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 01:10 AM

I think I can see why, Old Guy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 09:10 AM

The LA Times paints an accurate and deadly picture of the Bush Administrations Machiavellian philosophy, "Rovism" yclept. This editorial describes the Administration as "The Sopramos in the White House". Apt.

Click here for article

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 09:21 AM

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush administration has decided that some non-Iraqi prisoners captured by American forces in Iraq are not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

According to unnamed administration officials who spoke with the newspaper, the opinion reached in recent months holds that there are exceptions to previous U.S. assertions that the Geneva Conventions apply to all prisoners taken in the Iraq war.

Reuters article

---

How handy for the Bush Administration to have the power to set aside the Geneva Convention at will, re-define human rights in times of war, and claim freedom of speech and freedom of assembly is protected by providing "free speech areas" out back during political events.

These guys really are fascistic.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 09:28 AM

The London Financial Times endorses Kerry, stating among other things:

The bursting of the Bush bubble
The US presidential election is the most closely watched since at least
1980. Now as then, the choice is between two candidates with sharply
different governing philosophies and views on the exercise of American
power in the world. The outcome will determine whether the radical,
faith-based politics of President George W. Bush triumphs, or whether
Americans opt for the shift in course represented by Senator John
Kerry.

Mr Bush entered the White House in January 2001, having won a narrow
election victory, courtesy of the US Supreme Court. He pledged to be a
conciliator. He talked about uniting Democrats and Republicans at home.
He promised to pursue a humble foreign policy abroad. His record shows
that he has done neither. He has been a polariser, exploiting the War
on Terror to cow domestic opposition and divide the world into Them and
Us.




http://tinyurl.com/67wod

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 10:25 AM

The Washington Post describes the same ham-handed indifference to the Geneva Convention:

"While blaming the crimes at Abu Ghraib on a small group of low-ranking soldiers, the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA have fought to preserve the exceptional and sometimes secret policies that allow U.S. personnel to violate the Geneva Conventions and other laws governing the handling and interrogation of foreign detainees. Under those policies, practices at odds with basic American values continue--even if there are no sensational photos to document them."

What a team!! What a group!! We have a government fit to make Americans PROUD!!


I spit.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 10:33 AM

The New York Times reports on NASA's feelings about Bushies bad attityudes on global warming and their failure to act thereon.

"Dr. Hansen stood by his assertions and said the administration risked disaster by discouraging scientists from discussing unwelcome findings."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 12:43 PM

THe Washington Post examines the Bush adminitration's tepid series of accomplishments on nmuclear proliferation in this article. The Today's Papers summary:


In another impressive assessment, the Post looks at President Bush's record on counter-proliferation. The paper says Libya has been a success--albeit with a big assist by Britain--while the policies, or lack thereof, on North Korea and Iran have been disastrous. Iran has marked by paralyzing disputes within the administration, while the administration essentially put off Pyongyang, a policy one "participant" in decisions called "no carrot, no stick and no talk." The Post also says the U.S. had solid info about A.Q. Khan's order-nukes-by-mail business in early 2001 but waited a year and a half to deal, and then only after the strong urging of the British. "They made no attempt to get a handle on his activities abroad," said one former Bush assistant secretary of state.

---

It is interesting to note that Bush's fixation on Iraq may have been instrumental in allowing nuclear build up to occur in several more dangerous places.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 01:07 PM

A speech by Al Gore contained the following noteworthy phrases:

"The essential cruelty of Bush's game is that he takes an astonishingly selfish and greedy collection of economic and political proposals then cloaks it with a phony moral authority, thus misleading many Americans who have a deep and genuine desire to do good in the world. And in the process he convinces them to lend unquestioning support for proposals that actually hurt their families and their communities. Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the citizenry of America and give as much as possible to the already wealthy and privileged, who look at his agenda and say, as Dick Cheney said to Paul O'Neill, "this is our due."

The central elements of Bush's political – as opposed to religious -- belief system are plain to see: The "public interest" is a dangerous myth according to Bush's ideology – a fiction created by the hated "liberals" who use the notion of "public interest" as an excuse to take away from the wealthy and powerful what they believe is their due. Therefore, government of by and for the people, is bad – except when government can help members of his coalition. Laws and regulations are therefore bad – again, except when they can be used to help members of his coalition.

Therefore, whenever laws must be enforced and regulations administered, it is important to assign those responsibilities to individuals who can be depended upon not to fall prey to this dangerous illusion that there is a public interest, and will instead reliably serve the narrow and specific interests of industries or interest groups. This is the reason, for example, that President Bush put the chairman of Enron, Ken Lay, in charge of vetting any appointees to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Enron had already helped the Bush team with such favors as ferrying their rent-a-mob to Florida in 2000 to permanently halt the counting of legally cast ballots. And then Enron went on to bilk the electric rate-payers of California, without the inconvenience of federal regulators protecting citizens against their criminal behavior. Or to take another example, this is why all of the important EPA positions have been filled by lawyers and lobbyists representing the worst polluters in their respective industries in order to make sure that they're not inconvenienced by the actual enforcement of the laws against excessive pollution. In Bush's ideology, there is an interweaving of the agendas of large corporations that support him and his own ostensibly public agenda for the government he leads. Their preferences become his policies, and his politics become their business
"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 01:58 PM

Paul Krugman writing for the New York Times provides an excoriating analysis of the Bush administrations "Culture of Coverups"

Excerpts:

"Although President Bush's campaign is based almost entirely on his self-proclaimed leadership in that war, his officials have thrown a shroud of secrecy over any information that might let voters assess his performance.

Yesterday we got two peeks under that shroud. One was The Times's report about what the International Atomic Energy Agency calls "the greatest explosives bonanza in history." Ignoring the agency's warnings, administration officials failed to secure the weapons site, Al Qaqaa, in Iraq, allowing 377 tons of deadly high explosives to be looted, presumably by insurgents.

The administration is trying to play down the importance of this loss, arguing that because Iraq was awash in munitions, a few hundred more tons don't make much difference. But aside from their potential use in nuclear weapons - the reason they were under seal before the war - these particular explosives, unlike standard munitions, are exactly what a terrorist needs.

Informed sources quoted by the influential Nelson Report say explosives from Al Qaqaa are the "primary source" of the roadside and car bombs that have killed and wounded so many U.S. soldiers. And thanks to the huge amount looted - "in a highly organized operation using heavy equipment" - the insurgents and whoever else have access to the Qaqaa material have enough explosives for tens of thousands of future bombs.

If the administration had had its way, the public would never have heard anything about this. Administration officials have known about the looting of Al Qaqaa for at least six months, and probably much longer. But they didn't let the I.A.E.A. inspect the site after the war, and pressured the Iraqis not to inform the agency about the loss. They now say that they didn't want our enemies - that is, the people who stole the stuff - to know it was missing. The real reason, obviously, was that they wanted the news kept under wraps until after Nov. 2.

The story of the looted explosives has overshadowed another report that Bush officials tried to suppress - this one about how the Bush administration let Abu Musab al-Zarqawi get away. An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal confirmed and expanded on an "NBC Nightly News" report from March that asserted that before the Iraq war, administration officials called off a planned attack that might have killed Mr. Zarqawi, the terrorist now blamed for much of the mayhem in that country, in his camp.

Citing "military officials," the original NBC report explained that the failure to go after Mr. Zarqawi was based on domestic politics: "the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq" - a part of Iraq not controlled by Saddam Hussein - "could undermine its case for war against Saddam." The Journal doesn't comment on this explanation, but it does say that when NBC reported, correctly, that Mr. Zarqawi had been targeted before the war, administration officials denied it.

What other mistakes did the administration make? If partisan appointees like Mr. Goss continue to control the intelligence agencies, we may never know."

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 02:13 PM

From the NY Times, again:

Making Things Worse

Published: October 26, 2004

President Bush's misbegotten invasion of Iraq appears to have achieved what Saddam Hussein did not: putting dangerous weapons in the hands of terrorists and creating an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The murder of dozens of Iraqi Army recruits over the weekend is being attributed to the forces of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been identified by the Bush administration as a leading terrorist and a supposed link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That was not true before the war - as multiple investigations have shown. But the breakdown of order since the invasion has changed all that. This terrorist, who has claimed many attacks on occupation forces and the barbaric murder of hostages, recently swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and renamed his group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The hideous murder of the recruits was a reminder of the Bush administration's dangerously inflated claims about training an Iraqi security force. The officials responsible for these inexperienced young men sent them home for leave without weapons or guards, at a time when police and army recruits are constantly attacked. The men who killed them wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms.

A particularly horrific case of irony involves weapons of mass destruction. It's been obvious for months that American forces were not going to find the chemical or biological armaments that Mr. Bush said were stockpiled in Iraq. What we didn't know is that while they were looking for weapons that did not exist, they lost weapons that did.

James Glanz, William J. Broad and David E. Sanger reported in The Times yesterday that some 380 tons of the kinds of powerful explosives used to destroy airplanes, demolish buildings, make missile warheads and trigger nuclear weapons have disappeared from one of the many places in Iraq that the United States failed to secure. The United Nations inspectors disdained by the Bush administration had managed to monitor the explosives for years. But they vanished soon after the United States took over the job. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was so bent on proving his theory of lightning warfare that he ignored the generals who said an understaffed and underarmed invasion force could rush to Baghdad, but couldn't hold the rest of the country, much less guard things like the ammunition dump.

Iraqi and American officials cannot explain how some 760,000 pounds of explosives were spirited away from a well-known site just 30 miles from Baghdad. But they were warned. Within weeks of the invasion, international weapons inspectors told Washington that the explosives depot was in danger and that terrorists could help themselves "to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

The disastrous theft was revealed in a recent letter to an international agency in Vienna. It was signed by the general director of Iraq's Planning and Following Up Directorate. It's too bad the Bush administration doesn't have one of those.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 04:33 PM

From the New Yorker Magazine's assessment endorsing John Kerry for President of the United States:

As a variety of memoirs and journalistic accounts have made plain, Bush seldom entertains contrary opinion. He boasts that he listens to no outside advisers, and inside advisers who dare to express unwelcome views are met with anger or disdain. He lives and works within a self-created bubble of faith-based affirmation. Nowhere has his solipsism been more damaging than in the case of Iraq. The arguments and warnings of analysts in the State Department, in the Central Intelligence Agency, in the uniformed military services, and in the chanceries of sympathetic foreign governments had no more effect than the chants of millions of marchers.

The decision to invade and occupy Iraq was made on the basis of four assumptions: first, that Saddam's regime was on the verge of acquiring nuclear explosives and had already amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons; second, that the regime had meaningful links with Al Qaeda and (as was repeatedly suggested by the Vice-President and others) might have had something to do with 9/11; third, that within Iraq the regime's fall would be followed by prolonged celebration and rapid and peaceful democratization; and, fourth, that a similar democratic transformation would be precipitated elsewhere in the region, accompanied by a new eagerness among Arab governments and publics to make peace between Israel and a presumptive Palestinian state. The first two of these assumptions have been shown to be entirely baseless. As for the second two, if the wishes behind them do someday come true, it may not be clear that the invasion of Iraq was a help rather than a hindrance.

In Bush's rhetoric, the Iraq war began on March 20, 2003, with precision bombings of government buildings in Baghdad, and ended exactly three weeks later, with the iconic statue pulldown. That military operation was indeed a success. But the cakewalk led over a cliff, to a succession of heedless and disastrous mistakes that leave one wondering, at the very least, how the Pentagon's civilian leadership remains intact and the President's sense of infallibility undisturbed.

The failure, against the advice of such leaders as General Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, to deploy an adequate protective force led to unchallenged looting of government buildings, hospitals, museums, and—most inexcusable of all—arms depots. ("Stuff happens," Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld explained, though no stuff happened to the oil ministry.) The Pentagon all but ignored the State Department's postwar plans, compiled by its Future of Iraq project, which warned not only of looting but also of the potential for insurgencies and the folly of relying on exiles such as Ahmad Chalabi; the project's head, Thomas Warrick, was sidelined. The White House counsel's disparagement of the Geneva Conventions and of prohibitions on torture as "quaint" opened the way to systematic and spectacular abuses at Abu Ghraib and other American-run prisons--a moral and political catastrophe for which, in a pattern characteristic of the Administration's management style, no one in a policymaking position has been held accountable.

And, no matter how Bush may cleave to his arguments about a grand coalition ("What's he say to Tony Blair?" "He forgot Poland!"), the coalition he assembled was anything but grand, and it has been steadily melting away in Iraq's cauldron of violence.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 07:58 PM

Allawi charge is boost for Kerry
By Tim Reid in Washington and James Hider in Baghdad






IRAQ'S interim Prime Minister yesterday delivered another blow to President Bush just a week before the US election when he blamed American-led forces for failing to prevent last weekend's massacre of 49 Iraqi Army recruits.

Mr Allawi, who only last month lavished praise on Mr Bush during a White House visit, said that "gross negligence" on the part of the US and its coalition partners was to blame for the massacre of the recruits, 95 miles north of Baghdad.




Mr Kerry had already moved onto the attack against Mr Bush over Monday's news that hundreds of tons of explosives were stolen from an Iraqi military facility after the US-led invasion, and reports yesterday of an imminent White House request for another $70 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos JR
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 12:19 PM

Bush is both arrogant and an asshole. But that's enough of this.

AJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 12:25 PM

OG, I liked it better when you used your original handle instead of this sort of back-door insult. For an Old Guy you are acting immature.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 12:44 PM

From Richard Cohen writing in the Washiongton Post a week ago:

"Historians may someday say that the beginning of the end for Bush came last April when Time magazine's John Dickerson asked the president at a televised news conference, "What would your biggest mistake be . . . and what lessons have you learned from it?" Bush, who said the question took him by surprise, said he could not come up with one.

Essentially the same question was asked by Linda Grabel, an ordinary voter, at the St. Louis debate. This time, it could not have been a surprise. But this time, too, Bush could offer not a single substantive example. Aside from making "some mistakes in appointing people," everything had gone swimmingly.

This was a preposterous, dishonest answer. It was either the response of someone who is vastly deluded or sticking to a political strategy conceived by people who do not value truth. Either way, it harkens back to that "learning curve" Stewart mentioned and it demolishes Bush's pose as a regular guy, someone approachable -- someone you could like. It is not possible to like someone who cannot admit a mistake. Iraq is the crazy aunt in the attic that Bush will not acknowledge. When she throws the furniture, Bush says you're just hearing things. Yeah, sure."

Charming metaphor. But "conceived by people who do not value truth" is a ringing, categorical, recognizable and resonant condemnation of Bush's team, IMNSHO.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 04 - 08:28 PM

American Conservastive Magazine, endorsing Kerry mainly because Bush is too unacceptable for them to endorse:

" George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to
> almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international
> policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign
> peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies-a notion more
> grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort
> of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies-temporarily put
> on hold while he runs for re-election-are just as extreme. A
> re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions
> of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans "won't do." This election
> is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render
> him unworthy of any conservative support. "

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 01:16 PM

In Closing of the Presidential Mind Franklin Foer shows that while Conservatives have long distrusted experts, inside the Bush administration, that distrust has grown into a war against scientists, economists, intelligence analysts--and the very idea of objective truth.

In Power from the People , Jonathan Chait argues that President Bush isn't an aspiring dictator, and he's not planning to rig the election. But, with his love of secrecy, his penchant for misinformation, and his use of the machinery of government for partisan ends, he has made America less democratic.

In Hero Worship , Noam Scheiber writes that while President Bush styles himself as a man of deep principle, in fact, he switches principles all the time. What he abides by are story lines--especially ones that cast him as the hero.

ALl from the New Republic.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos JR
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 01:42 PM

The Crawford Iconoclast

AJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 01:46 PM

"Smith started the Iconoclast after Bush bought his ranch in Crawford. He began publishing the paper in late 2000, offering school news and plenty of pictures of Crawford Pirate sporting events. As the 2000 election's outcome was battled out in the courts, the new paper endorsed Bush.

But in the recent editorial, the Iconoclast said it supports Kerry and accused the president of having a "smoke-screened agenda" and leading the United States into a "quagmire" in Iraq on flimsy pretenses.

Smith, who co-wrote the editorial, said it gave a voice to a minority of Crawford residents who do not feel they can speak their minds without being "pounced upon."

"People are telling us that they read the editorial and that it reflects the way they feel," Smith said. "They felt like we had stepped out and done that in a very bold way right in the heart of where the problem is."

To many in Crawford, though, the editorial was a slap in the face on the same week as the town's biggest event of the year -- the annual Tonkawa Traditions Festival, which features a parade, a street dance and lawnmower races. "

(From the wise-guy link offered above. It demonstrates a certain interesting contrast in priorities, wouldn't you say?) (And just to set the record straight there is no such person as Amos Jr. except for some anonymous yahoo's impulse to commit identity theft.)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 01:51 PM

TNR's description of the Medicare Flim-FLam:

"Last summer, President Bush and the Republican congressional leadership had a problem. The legislative linchpin of the president's reelection effort, a bill to add prescription-drug coverage to Medicare, lacked the votes in Congress, where conservative Republicans were chafing at the expense. GOP leaders finally secured a bare majority by consenting to the demands of 13 Republican House members, who agreed to vote yes if the cost would not exceed $400 billion over ten years. But that created another problem: The administration knew the bill would cost considerably more--$534 billion, to be exact.

The only non-loyalist who seems to have known the real number was Richard Foster, a 31-year veteran of the bureaucracy who was serving as chief actuary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The job of putting a lid on Foster fell to his boss, Thomas Scully, appointed by Bush to run Medicare. Scully instructed Foster not to reveal the number, or even to answer queries from Democrats, without his approval. Foster later said he understood Scully to be operating at the White House's direction. In one e-mail obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Foster asked Scully for permission to answer congressional queries that "strike me as straightforward requests for technical information." No, replied Scully's assistant, who then warned, "The consequences for insubordination are extremely severe." (Scully, by the way, later admitted to having negotiated a job with lobbying firms while he helped craft the bill, in which they had a massive interest.)

The Medicare bill was therefore widely understood to cost $400 billion when, at three o'clock in the morning on November 23, the House of Representatives assembled to vote on it. Surprisingly, a majority voted no. In response, the GOP leadership violated the customary time limit on votes, holding the vote open for nearly three hours and twisting enough arms to reverse the result shortly before dawn. (A hint as to their methods of persuasion came from retiring Republican Representative Nick Smith, who offhandedly revealed a few days later that certain "members and groups" had offered to contribute $100,000 to the congressional campaign of his son Brad, who was running for Smith's seat, if he voted yes.) When Democrats controlled Congress, they had extended a vote once, in 1987, for 15 minutes, after a member inadvertently caused a budget bill's defeat and then left town--provoking spasms of indignation from Republicans. The three-hour Medicare vote, congressional scholar Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute later wrote, was "the ugliest and most outrageous breach of standards in the modern history of the House." (...)

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040726&s=chait072604

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 02:37 PM

"The governments of France, Russia, China and Syria blocked U.S. efforts within the United Nations to stop Saddam Hussein from misusing the oil-for-food program, a State Department official told Congress yesterday.
    Patrick F. Kennedy, a State official who is a representative to the United Nations for management and reform, told a House hearing that other U.N. member states "resisted" U.S. efforts to end bribery and contracting corruption under the program aimed at providing humanitarian relief from anti-Saddam sanctions. ..
France, Russia, China and Syria were among the members of a special committee overseeing the oil-for-food program that opposed U.S. efforts to stop corruption that led to more than $10 billion being stolen by Saddam and his regime, Mr. Kennedy said."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041006-012159-1086r.htm
JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 03:12 PM

Johnjohn:

I think the Washington Times might be ummmmm....a somewhat slanted source of news. I am not sure what the facts (if they are facts) in your post have to do with the purpose of this thread.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 03:37 PM

"Saddam's U.N. Payroll
Oil for Food bribery means sanctions against Iraq were doomed to fail.

Thursday, October 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Out on the campaign trail, John Kerry continues to diminish our allies in Iraq and decry President Bush for "rushing" to war without U.N. Security Council approval. But we hope his would-be Secretaries of State, Biden and Holbrooke, are paying attention in private to revelations about the crumbling sanctions regime they would have had us continue and the related corruption in the U.N.'s Oil for Food program.

These folks are in for a rude awakening if they really think Old Europe will be rushing to help a President Kerry in Iraq, or that the United Nations is competent and trustworthy enough to manage their foreign policy projects.

The latest pieces of news are last week's data dump from Paul Volcker's U.N.-blessed investigation of Oil for Food, and U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer's report to Congress earlier this month. Everybody is still digesting these massive documents. But the most important conclusion is already clear: Saddam Hussein exploited the program to run the largest bribery scheme in the history of the world.

Yes, we mean that literally. Total turnover between 1996 and 2003 was about $97 billion, or $64.2 billion in oil sales and $32.9 billion worth of food and other "humanitarian" goods. Crucially, Saddam was able to manipulate the program largely because U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan--who was given more or less complete discretion to design Oil for Food by the Security Council resolution that created it--allowed him to pick and choose the buyers of his oil and the sellers of the humanitarian goods.

This meant the Iraq dictator could reward his friends and political allies with oil at below market prices and goods contracts at inflated ones. In the middle of the program, he also started demanding kickbacks on the contracts to add to the stream of unmonitored revenue he was already getting from oil smuggling.

It can't be stressed enough that both the Duelfer and Volcker investigations confirm that this global web of corruption is no mere allegation trumped up by Ahmed Chalabi and "neoconservatives," as U.N. officials tried to pretend in January when Iraq's al Mada newspaper published a list of the oil voucher recipients.

Mr. Duelfer's list of recipients--which more or less confirms al Mada's--was compiled based on information from current and former Iraqi officials and lists maintained by former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan (now in U.S. custody) and the former Iraqi Oil Minister. Mr. Volcker's lists--which include the 248 companies that bought Iraqi oil under the program and the 3,545 companies supplying humanitarian goods--are compiled from the U.N.'s own records and cross-checked against Iraqi and other sources, including the French bank BNP Paribas that administered program revenues.

High-level officials of Saddam's regime have told investigators that oil and goods contracts were always awarded with an eye to helping Saddam politically, particularly to promote the lifting of the sanctions. The Volcker data bears this out. Iraq's top customer was Russia, whose firms bought $19.2 billion worth of Iraq oil and exported $3.3 billion in humanitarian goods. Fellow Security Council member France was a distant but significant second, at $4.4 billion and $2.9 billion respectively. China is also high on the list.

Oil voucher recipients are alleged to include the Russian presidential office, former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, and even former Oil for Food program director Benon Sevan of the U.N. Just this week our news side colleagues reported that French authorities have placed under formal investigation a top official of French oil giant Total, for possible misuse of funds including payment of the Iraqi kickbacks. Before the war Total was also openly courting Baghdad for the rights to develop two large Iraqi oil fields."

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005818

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 02:14 PM

JohnJohn:

What is the title of this thread?

A

Four Years of Lost Liberties
posted by Dan Gillmor 08:02 AM
http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010960.shtml
(This is also my column today in the San Jose Mercury News.)

If you believe that political and social liberty go hand in hand
with economic freedom -- and that they form an underpinning of a
vibrant free market -- you should be worried about another four
years like the four we've just had.


Let's grant that George W. Bush plainly believes in a free
market, largely unconstrained by government intervention. But he
has made it clear that he doesn't have the same devotion to
other kinds of liberty.

He and his allies have used terrorism to launch a massive
assault on civil liberties. They are not just indifferent to
liberty, they are actively hostile to it.

Bush's first term has been a catalog of encroachments. He has
expanded surveillance -- electronic and otherwise -- without
adequate safeguards. He has had a mania for secrecy, shielding
more and more government information from public view. This
amounts to telling Americans they have no right in many cases to
know how our money is being used or what government is doing in
our names.

This president has curbed dissent through intimidation. His
attorney general practically labeled as traitors people who
questioned the outrageously named ``Patriot Act,'' for
example. More recently, the Bush forces have excluded anyone who
is not a declared supporter from being even in the vicinity of
campaign events, and have even fenced off protesters in
Orwellian ``free speech zones'' far from the scenes.

The Bush years have emboldened rights and privacy invaders
everywhere. A national ID card is making a back-door entrance
via a scheme by the state agencies that issue driver's licenses,
for example.

He has given corporate interests carte blanche to buy, sell,
massage and trade our most personal information -- mocking his
vows in the 2000 campaign to be a president who would protect
privacy.

The federal government now encourages (and buys) all kinds of
data collection and ways to manipulate it, and offers barely a
hint of safeguards. Do you imagine for even a second that the
radio-chip ID implants being sold to track patients inside
hospitals won't be used for much broader kinds of surveillance
someday? Ditto the radio tags the government says it wants to
put into our passports (and soon, no doubt, our driver's
licenses). Surveillance is big business now.

Insidiously, the Bush administration has turned the corporate
data mongers into partners in the dawning surveillance
state. Evading even the most trivial safeguards, including
federal laws protecting privacy, it buys or uses data collected
by private companies that are under no such restrictions.

An intrusive airline passenger screening system, relying on
commercial data and other information, was officially scrapped
after protests. But as the Washington Post reported earlier this
month, one of the former government officials behind that
project has launched a private company that will collect and
provide data for the project's new incarnation -- and
established the company offshore in Bermuda, ``outside the reach
of U.S. regulators.''

The most frightening assault on liberty has had nothing to do
with the Patriot Act, surveillance or privacy. Bush has
systematically ignored the law when it suited his purpose,
treating the Constitution as a suggestion box, not the bedrock
of liberty. He asserted the right to declare American citizens
as enemy combatants here at home and to jail them indefinitely,
with no right even to see a lawyer.

The Supreme Court, thankfully, rejected Bush's dictatorial views
in two pivotal decisions earlier this year. But presidents
nominate justices, and this one means to nominate the kind who
will let the government do pretty much what it pleases.

Early last week, William Rehnquist, chief justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court, had surgery for thyroid cancer. His
condition reminded people that whoever is president during the
next four years will probably nominate three or four justices to
the highest court.

A court with two, three or four judges of Bush's preference
would not be friendly, on balance, to our rights as
individuals. The president has made clear his intention to
appoint judges who would overturn abortion rights. That, too, is
a question of liberty.

Is John Kerry any better? He voted for the ``Patriot'' law,
after all.

But while Bush vows to expand that law's reach over our lives,
Kerry has said he would work to repeal some of the more odious
provisions, such as the one that lets government agents rifle
through our lives -- including what library books we read --
with few safeguards.

I believe that a free economy rests in large part on people's
willingness to feel free -- to take chances, to be different
from others. The surveillance state is a conformist state, where
a fog of fear deadens initiative and the willingness to take
risks.

No sane person wants to make law enforcement impotent. But risk
is part of a free culture, and the more we clamp down on things
that have any element of risk the more we clamp down on freedom
itself.

--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: [phone]
http://www.ibd.com

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 04 - 02:29 PM

HEADLINE: Public Opinion Poll Indicates Iraqis Favor Kerry over Bush in U.S. Presidential Race


INTRO: A new public opinion poll shows more Iraqis favor Democratic challenger John Kerry than President Bush, who launched the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. But as VOA's Greg Lamotte reports from Baghdad, more than half of the two-thousand peopled polled throughout Iraq don't care who wins the U.S. presidency in next week's election.


TEXT: The new survey of Iraqi public opinion was conducted last week by Iraq's Center for Research and Strategic Studies in Baghdad. The group, which has been operating in Iraq for about a year, says its latest survey indicates that among Iraqis with a preference, Mr. Kerry leads President Bush by six-and-a-half percentage points. The poll has a margin of error of four percent.

But the director of the center, former Iraqi exile Sadoun al-Dulame, says 58-percent of the respondents said they don't care who wins the U.S. presidential election.


(From the VOA website)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 01:16 AM

Dan Gillmore posts a weblog editorial in the Silicon Valley Press concerning the reduction in liberty that has occurred int he last four years.

"Bush's first term has been a catalog of encroachments. He has
expanded surveillance -- electronic and otherwise -- without
adequate safeguards. He has had a mania for secrecy, shielding
more and more government information from public view. This
amounts to telling Americans they have no right in many cases to
know how our money is being used or what government is doing in
our names.

This president has curbed dissent through intimidation. His
attorney general practically labeled as traitors people who
questioned the outrageously named ``Patriot Act,'' for
example. More recently, the Bush forces have excluded anyone who
is not a declared supporter from being even in the vicinity of
campaign events, and have even fenced off protesters in
Orwellian ``free speech zones'' far from the scenes."

...

But while Bush vows to expand that law's reach over our lives,
Kerry has said he would work to repeal some of the more odious
provisions, such as the one that lets government agents rifle
through our lives -- including what library books we read --
with few safeguards.

I believe that a free economy rests in large part on people's
willingness to feel free -- to take chances, to be different
from others. The surveillance state is a conformist state, where
a fog of fear deadens initiative and the willingness to take
risks.

No sane person wants to make law enforcement impotent. But risk
is part of a free culture, and the more we clamp down on things
that have any element of risk the more we clamp down on freedom
itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 09:27 AM

"Measure Number:H.R. 3162 (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001 )Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea"

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00313

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 10:20 AM

JJ:

Your point, sir?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 10:52 AM

A poignant testimony from one heartbroken sister. Requires Quicktime.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 10:56 AM

There once was a campaigner named Amos
On Mudcat he become very famous
He trys beyond hope
Still his candidate's a dope
If we disagree with him he will flame us!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 12:00 PM

Really on topic, and the scansion is inspired.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 05:27 PM

From the Op Ed section of the Times:

"Taking Bush at His Word
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: October 30, 2004

I often criticize statements by President Bush, so today let me praise some of his real wisdom:

• Oct. 11, 2000: "If we're an arrogant nation, [foreigners] will resent us. If we're a humble nation but strong, they'll welcome us. ... We've got to be humble."

It's a good thing Mr. Bush tried to be humble, or the U.S. would have an approval rating even lower than 5 percent in Jordan, and Osama bin Laden's approval rating in Pakistan would be higher than 65 percent.

• Feb. 27, 2001: "I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. ... We should approach our nation's budget as any prudent family would."

But Mr. Bush, with the help of a weak economy, has transformed the Clinton budget surpluses into huge deficits. Since Mr. Bush took office, the federal debt has increased by $2.1 trillion, or 40 percent.

• Sept. 25, 2000: "It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."

Hmm. And many of our exports go abroad. Meanwhile, despite the lackluster economy, oil imports are 1.3 million barrels per day higher than in Mr. Clinton's last year in office.

• June 11, 2001: "My administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change."

Great! Because America's carbon dioxide emissions, associated with global warming, have risen 1.7 percent since then.

• June 26, 2003: "Notorious human rights abusers, including, among others, Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe, have long sought to shield their abuses from the eyes of the world by staging elaborate deceptions and denying access to international human rights monitors."

It takes a big man to admit mistakes, like his administration's practice of hiding certain Arab prisoners from Red Cross and other inspectors.

• Nov. 5, 2003: "In the debate about the rights of the unborn, we are asked to broaden the circle of our moral concern. ... We're asked by our convictions and tradition and compassion to build a culture of life, and make this a more just and welcoming society."

Abortions declined in the U.S. in the Clinton years; the abortion rate dropped by 22 percent in the 1990's. But while data are incomplete, abortions appear to have increased sharply since Mr. Bush took office. Glen H. Stassen, a Christian pro-life theologian, estimates that 52,000 more abortions occurred in 2002 than would have been expected based on the previous trend. Professor Stassen attributes the rise in abortions in part to the troubled economy and concerns among pregnant women that they cannot afford to have babies.

• May 25, 2004: "One of the challenges we face is to make sure the health care system responds to the needs of the citizens."

But five million more Americans don't have health insurance, compared with when Mr. Bush took office.

• Sept. 9, 2003: "We must focus early to make sure every child can read and write and add and subtract."

But Mr. Bush's budget guidelines translate into inflation-adjusted reductions in 2006 alone of more than $900 million for Head Start and childhood education.

• May 24, 2003: "We will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea."

On Mr. Bush's watch, North Korea is generally believed to have gone from two nuclear weapons to about eight.

• 2001: "Not on my watch."

Scrawled note by Mr. Bush on a report to him about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that had occurred under President Clinton.

That's reassuring to the 100,000 or more people in Darfur who have died in a spasm of murder and rape that Mr. Bush acknowledges as genocide.

• Sept. 30, 2004: "The biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network."

But the single most important step to reducing the risk that a nuclear weapon will destroy New York is to secure loose nukes abroad, and Mr. Bush has been lackadaisical about that. Only 135 out of 600 metric tons of Russian nuclear materials have been given comprehensive upgrades, and Mr. Bush initially proposed cutting funds for that program.

• Sept. 2, 1999: "Effective reform requires accountability. ... It is a sad story. High hopes, low achievement. Grand plans, unmet goals. My administration will do things differently."

Oh?

---

Hmmmmmm....



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Rosencranz & Guildenstern
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 05:42 PM

:Employment Growth Accelerated in October: US Economy Preview

US employers probably added 175,000 workers to payrolls in October, the most in five months, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 5.4 percent, the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists shows."

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=avn64.gOLNdI&refer=home
RG

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Rosencranz & Guildenstern
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 07:07 PM

"Nancy Reagan Strongly Endorses President Bush"

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/2/161745.shtml

RG

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 08:37 PM

The New York TImes Dowd column puts the issue of Osama's new tape versus Bush's eligibility into its best and most natural perspective.

That Dowd gal is hotter than a Saturday night special.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 04 - 09:47 PM

AN INTERESTING ASSESSMENT BY THE Christian Science Monitor discusses the view of Bush held by various nations around the world, where his pockets of support are, and who sees him which way, and more interestingly, why.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 01 Nov 04 - 09:50 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 05:31 AM

399

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 05:32 AM

400. I thank you. God that felt good!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 09:49 AM

Super Ted:

You are a jerk.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 03 Nov 04 - 10:23 AM

Look, I gave you every chance to reach 400, you can't said I didn't! Don't take it out on me just because you were too slow to catch a cold! I bet I get the 500th too! Shape up other there will you?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Captain America
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 10:58 PM

New York Times discusses Bush post-election.   Not pretty. Rated R.

Captain America

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Gumby
Date: 05 Nov 04 - 11:04 PM

Amos:

Are you still beating on that horse that died Tuesday.

G

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Nov 04 - 12:17 PM

Inspiration by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered.
They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now.  Ours
is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the
latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired
to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday
people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge
you,  ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing
these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly
because, the fact is that we were made for these times.

Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and
just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement... I grew up on the
Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding
awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than
there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned  and
able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind...
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on
the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in
this stormy
world, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder
come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand
storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.



In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much
is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency
too to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach,
by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without
raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we
meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us
and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you
were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater?
Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to
submit to the voice greater?...

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of
stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any
small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some
portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given
to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip
toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an
accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.

We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and
peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the
first, second, or hundredth gale. One of the most calming and powerful
actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show
your
soul.  Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul
throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper
matters to catch fire.  To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like
these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of
immense bravery and
greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are
fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this
is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt
despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not
entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In
my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be  no
despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and   who
sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours:
They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that
spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall:

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no
doubt.  But that is not what great ships are built for.

This comes with much love and a prayer that you remember who you came from,
and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D Author of Women Who Run with the Wolves

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 07:23 PM

An Election That Will Live In Infamy


By Paul Craig Roberts


The following excerpt is from an essay called

An Election That Will Live In Infamy

which can be found at http://www.vdare.com/roberts/041105_infamy.htm.

The writer is Paul Craig Roberts, a senior fellow in Stanford's
[notoriously conservative!] Hoover Institution, the John M. Olin Fellow
at the Institute for Political Economy, and research fellow at the
Independent Institute.

A former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal and columnist
for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, he is a
nationally syndicated columnist and a columnist for Investor's Business
Daily. In 1993, the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of its top
seven journalists.

Roberts was a distinguished fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to
1996. From 1982 through 1993, he held the William E. Simon Chair in
Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.

During 1981-82, he served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for
economic policy. President Ronald Reagan and Treasury secretary Donald
Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act
of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious
Service Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of
United States economic policy."

---

An Election That Will Live In Infamy

On November 2 Americans blew their only chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the world.

The entire world is stunned by the Bush administration's abandonment of a half century of US diplomacy in favor of misguided, unilateralist, "preemptive" naked aggression on totally false pretenses against Iraq.  America's allies are amazed at the ignorance manifested by the Bush administration. They are resentful of Bush's "in-your-eye" attitude toward friends who warned Bush against leading America into a quagmire and giving Osama bin Laden the war he wanted.

The world was waiting hopefully for the sensible American people to rectify the ill-advised actions of a rogue neoconservative administration. Instead, Americans placed the stamp of approval on the least justifiable military action since Hitler invaded Poland.
In the eyes of the world, Bush's reelection is proof that Ariel Sharon's neoconservative allies in the Bush administration speak for America after all.

The world's sympathy for America that followed the September 11 attacks has been squandered. If the US suffers terrorist attacks in the future, the world will say that America invited the attacks and got what it asked for.

Europeans and Asians will never be able to comprehend that Bush was reelected because Americans were voting against homosexual marriage and abortion.

The world is simply unable to believe that Americans, so enamored of family values, would vote to send their sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers to unprovoked war unless Americans valued empire and control over oil as more important than their family members.

The crude propagandistic Republican campaign against John Kerry is shocking to Europeans. The childishness of American conservatives scares them.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Calhoun
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 07:27 PM

Amos will tilt at his windmill for the next four years.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 08:21 PM

Calhoun:

Get stuffed, shortbread. In case you can't read words of more than one syllable, the foregoing article was written by a re-SPEC-ted Re-PUB-lican.

I calls 'em like I sees 'em, pal, and if you feel I shouldn't have that right, step up and say so, instead of being a sarcastic passive-aggressive puke.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Sancho
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 09:35 PM

What does it take for a sore looser to get over it and get on with life?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 11:19 PM

>www.filmstripinternational.com kinda sums it up.

You who insist "Dems just don't get it" are the ones who aren't. It is not about who won or lost the election. We are losing a lot more than some scrabble-ass election, fellas. I think what upsets people and produces films like the one linked above is losing a whoe standard of life, of justice and right action.

Oh, and Sancho, in English we say "loser". We try to spell our words well because we appreciate that we are trying to communicate, not just bloviate or make others wrong. That's cheap and easy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 11:35 PM

Amos,

SRS refuses to allow anything from the Hoover Institute to be used for any purpose on this thread. You better watch out, or you will be in real trouble.....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 02:26 AM

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge shut down the first American military commission since World War II yesterday, ruling that the Bush administration violated the Geneva Conventions in its handling of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

The ruling, the first test of a US Supreme Court decision in June granting legal recourse in civilian court to the 550 or so ''enemy combatants" being held at Guantanamo, delivered a new legal blow to President Bush's unorthodox war on terrorism policies.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 09:28 AM

Bush and Kerry walk into a barber shop not knowing the other is there. Both get a haircut and a shave.

After the shave, the barber ask's "Would you like aftershave, Mr. Kerry?", too which he replies, "Oh no, I don't want my wife to think I was in a whorehouse!".

So the barber ask's the President "Would you like aftershave sir?", too which he replies, "Sure, put it on good! My wife has never been to a whorehouse!"

JJ

Subject: An Open Letter from Ramsey Clark: Impeach!
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 09:30 PM

President Bush can run, but he cannot hide from the Constitution of the United States. The election does not pardon the President for past, or future "high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Impeachment is not a partisan political issue. The House of Representatives, possessed of the "sole power of impeachment," is required to consider a bill of impeachment on the facts even if every Member were of the same party, or political persuasion, as the President. The seven specific provisions of the Constitution setting forth the powers and duties of the Congress in considering impeachment intend that any President or other civil officer of the United States who has committed a high Crime or Misdemeanor "...shall be removed from Office."

The power of impeachment assures the people against criminal acts and despotic ambitions by government officials.

We, the People have the power to require the House of Representatives to do its duty and act on a bill of impeachment after full investigation and consideration. If it fails to do so those House members who failed to perform this Constitutional duty can and should be voted from office. Remember that President Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment for Watergate less than two years after his landslide reelection in 1972.

IMPEACHMENT IS IMPERATIVE

For the American people who support and defend the Constitution of the United States, who want to prevent further crimes by a lawless administration, who believe we can redeem our country in the eyes of those we have assaulted and those who have witnessed this brutality and who dare to demand of future government leadership, NEVER AGAIN, Impeachment is Imperative. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we Americans should declare the causes which impel us to impeach.

President George W. Bush chose to wage a war of aggression against Iraq, which had not attacked the United States and presented no imminent threat to our people, or legitimate interests. A small cabal, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby and Rove wrested decision making processes from established institutions of government to reinforce President Bush's desire to seize Iraq, defying international institutions, the opinions of humankind and the rule of law to commence a disastrous criminal military adventure.

A CAMPAIGN OF DECEIT AND FALSE PROPAGANDA

War of aggression is the first offense listed in the Nuremberg Charter as a Crime against Peace. The Nuremberg Tribunal after hearing evidence of Nazi crimes in World War II convicted the leaders of waging wars of aggression, which it called "the supreme international crime."

At Nuremberg, the Chief U.S. Prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, promised posterity that in the future all nations, including our own, would be held accountable for such crimes.

President Bush and key administration officials engaged in a lengthy campaign of deceit, concealment and false propaganda to create support for, and acceptance of, its war of aggression by claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, harbored terrorists, had close ties with and supported Al Qaeda and intended to attack the U.S., U.S. citizens and U.S. interests. A free society, democratic institutions and constitutional government cannot survive such deceit by its own government.

The U.S. has made civilians and civilian facilities its direct object of attack. It has pursued assassination and summary executions as official policy. President Bush boasted of summary executions in his State of the Union message in 2003. Excessive and indiscriminate force and illegal weapons have been used. Many thousands of Iraqi citizens, whole families, women, children, elderly Iraqis have been killed as a result.

U.S. military casualties exceed 10,000 including more than 1,100 deaths with many additional thousands returned to the United States for physical and mental illnesses.

The U.S. has employed torture, including torture to death, rape and sexual assault and humiliation, as approved and ordered policy from Afghanistan and Guantanamo to Iraq, inflicted on thousands of prisoners, many, if not most, without any evidence of wrongful conduct. An admitted 37 human beings have been murdered while being held in captivity by the United States under these conditions. We know not how many more. All the mounting evidence makes clear that this program of torture and death is not aberrational conduct of rogue or undisciplined soldiers but is rather the policy adopted at the highest levels of the Bush/Rumsfeld chain of command. All this in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention Against Torture, the laws of all nations and common human decency.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States provides: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, Shall Be Removed From Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

MORE THAN 100,000 DEAD BASED ON A LIE

We learn from the prominent medical journal Lancet of the report by researchers at John Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad that the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq and military occupation has cost "at least" 100,000 Iraqi lives already must civilian, women and children. Already President Bush has launched a massive aerial and ground assault on Falluja which may kill thousands of defenseless civilians.

Haiti, where President Bush forced the elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide from office, is in chaos with many thousands killed by widespread daily violence committed by U.S. supported paramilitaries against Aristide supporters.

Nearly 500,000 have voted to impeach. Help us increase that number into millions the Congress cannot ignore.

Every American should choose whether to vote for impeachment entirely on the facts, straight up, or down, without political, or partisan fear, or favor. We owe this to the country, its future, the Constitution and our common heritage. Impeachment is Required Now.

Impeachment now is the only way we, the American people, can promise ourselves and the world that we will not tolerate crimes against peace and humanity by our government. Knowing what we know, to wait longer is to condone what has been done and risk more.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Clark

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 04 - 10:20 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ten U.S. troops and two Iraqi troops fighting alongside them have died in the assault to take control of rebel-held Falluja, but senior insurgency leaders probably escaped the city, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

"I think we are looking at several more days of tough urban fighting," Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, in charge of day-to-day U.S.-led military operations in Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon, as thousands of U.S. and allied Iraqi forces pressed their assault to gain control of Iraq's most rebellious city.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 04 - 12:34 AM

In all fairness it is only meet that some views from the far corners of Iraq, such as Kurdistan, be included here even if they don't reflect my point of view.   This is a blog focused on Kurd viewepoints. http://kurdo.blogspot.com/

It is amusing what the translation problem does for CARE and Kerry!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 04 - 12:48 AM

Then there's humorous perspectives such as this one from the Borowitz Report:

BUSH CANCELS AGREEMENT BETWEEN NOUN AND VERBS


'I Has a Mandate, and I Intends to Use it,' Says President


President George W. Bush announced the first major initiative of his second term in office today, canceling the agreement between nouns and verbs.

The president, who had been widely expected to announce a series of faith-based initiatives, surprised Washington insiders by kicking off his second term with a grammar-based one.

Mr. Bush left little doubt that he intended to consign the agreement between nouns and verbs to the dustbin of history, telling reporters, "I has a mandate, and I intends to use it."

In world capitals, heads of state responded with a mixture of shock and dismay to the president's decision to back out of the noun-verb agreement, long considered a cornerstone of human communication.

"It was one thing to back out of the Kyoto Protocol and the Geneva Conventions, but if Mr. Bush intends to break the agreement between nouns and verbs he is going it alone," said French president Jacques Chirac.

But President Bush was quick to correct Mr. Chirac, responding, "I think what my good friend Jacques Chirac means is, I 'are' going it alone."

The president noted that his proposal had received a vote of confidence from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who earlier in the day said, "He have my full support."

Mr. Bush went on to announce a series of other bold initiatives, such as imposing a moratorium on complete sentences and eliminating the letter "g" from the end of most words.

Elsewhere, the Pentagon announced that U.S. fighter jets missed a target in southern Iraq today, strafing a middle school in New Jersey.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 04 - 11:32 PM

AMOS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 01:19 PM

"Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. "

So writes Frank Rich in the Times.

Interesting perspective on the groundswell in progress.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 05:12 PM

"Morality justifies Bush policy"
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/198265_sanchez05.html

"Bush policy is reason bin Laden didn't attack"
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=82288

"Bush's economic vision is better suited to modern times"
http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-edt-barone19.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 06:35 PM

Ashcroft's dismal legacy: Attorney general put his beliefs above the law

A Register-Guard Editorial (From this Oregon paper_)  



 




Tuesday's resignation of John Ashcroft, one of the most divisive attorneys general in U.S. history, briefly opened a door for President Bush. He had a chance to reach out to the nation's political center and name a replacement who would put enforcement of the law and respect for civil rights above ideology.

Bush closed that door one day later by appointing White House counsel Alberto Gonzales as Ashcroft's successor, passing over less controversial candidates such as C. Boyden Gray, a White House counsel to the first President Bush, and Larry Thompson, who served as Ashcroft's deputy until last year.

While Gonzales is not nearly as polarizing a figure as Ashcroft, the Senate should think long and hard before confirming the longtime Bush ally. Gonzales played a pivotal role in developing the administration's relentless post-Sept. 11 push to curb civil liberties with the justification of enhancing national security.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 10:19 PM

The highly intelligent Maureen Dowd discusses the current developments in the strutcure of the Administration in this piece entitled Moveable Feast of Terrorism which remarks how much safer we ar enow that the election is over, despite missing half of the insurgent forces in Fallujah.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 04:45 AM

Lots of great stuff here, Amos, keep it rolling.

And though it might feel at times as though you're either preaching to the choir, or casting pearls before swine...

Both are well worth the effort to get the truth out.

Thank you.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 11:42 AM

Bush continues to polarize the nation
By Heidi A. De Vries
UCF News
Thursday, November 11, 2004

John Ashcroft, the gospel-singing son of a preacher, is leaving the White House. No longer will the most vocal champion of the Patriot Act be the attorney general of the Bush administration.

Detractors have said that Ashcroft, who encouraged his staff to participate in daily prayer meetings, blurred the line between religion and the government. In particular, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York told the Associated Press that he hopes "the president will choose a less polarizing attorney general as his successor."

If the president's acceptance speech on Nov. 3 is any indication, Bush has a desire to do precisely that.

He seemed to express a genuine desire to bring the two nations together: to marry the red states and the blue states into the United States yet again.

It could be construed that even Ashcroft was thinking that a more moderate man should be his replacement.

"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved," he wrote in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush dated Nov. 2, Election Day. "Yet I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration."

After Bush's announcement yesterday nominating Alberto Gonzales as Ashcroft's replacement, it would seen he has done a bad job in trying to unite the nation.

Gonzales, a former White House counsel, is one of the most prominent Hispanics in the administration.

Gonzales has been linked with Bush for the past 10 years. He was a Bush-appointed justice on the Texas Supreme Court and a Texas secretary of state. The organization Texans for Public Justice also reports that Gonzales has accepted contributions from Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton.

He was once a partner in a Houston law firm that represented Enron.

While serving as a general counsel for then-Texas Gov. Bush, Gonzales wrote 57 memos to Bush about the death penalty. The counsel that Gonzales provided "repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence," wrote reporter Alan Berlow in The Atlantic Monthly.   (Continued on original site).

---

Thanks, EP, for your kind post.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Harpo
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 10:06 PM

"Legitimate victory makes for peaceful election"
http://www.orion-online.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/11/09/41919d24bb95d

"President Bush said Friday that there was now a "great chance" to establish a Palestinian state and that he would invest the authority of the United States to try to accomplish that goal during his second term."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/13/international/13prexy.html

"Democrats need to overcome bitterness to win"
http://www.desertdispatch.com/2004/110026967876168.html

"Bush's approval up in post-election survey"
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041112-120611-2229r.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Nov 04 - 11:48 PM

An Associated Press writer takes a dim view of Ashcrofts condemnation of checks and balances applied to the Bush administration.

I hope the fallacy inherent in Ashcroft's rationale does not need to be spelled out.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 12:29 AM

Slapping the Other Cheek
By MAUREEN DOWD

Maureen is her usual sharp and articulate self tearing a strip off the unforgiving un-Christian right, and their brutal politics as usual. With specifics.

An excerpt:



You'd think the one good thing about merging church and state would be that politics would be suffused with glistening Christian sentiments like "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," "good will toward men," "blessed be the peacemakers" and "judge not lest you be judged."

Yet somehow I'm not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office.

I'm getting more the feel of a vengeful mob - revved up by rectitude - running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 08:39 AM

AP - US President George W Bush, honouring Allied sacrifices of World War II, has appealed to a new generation of Europeans and Americans to pull together on Iraq and said the war against terror "is the challenge of our time."

Putin: Bush Must Win or Terrorists Will Triumph

Putin: Bush Win Shows US Voters Not Scared

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Opie
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 08:55 AM

George Bush`s America: Moral Beacon in a Dark World

O

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 09:58 AM

How come the Counterpoint Singers are afraid to be identified? Opie's link just above seems to be broken when I click on it, but to call Bush a moral beacon is about a wild as I have heard. There's nothing moral about unilateral aggression.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 11:03 AM

Several comments on the Fallujah battle currently (I hope) beingbrought to a successful end, from a BBC survey:

"War is the ultimate expression of temporary insanity. But it happens nevertheless. Had the UN settled this more than 10 years ago, things would not be as they are. Nothing good comes without sacrifice and dedication."
Eduardo, Menorca, Spain

"As a US citizen I feel the weight of this type of action heavily on my mind. To me it is a barbaric action that leaves the United States looking like no more than a muscled bound bully in the world playground. I send my apologies and regrets to those who suffered greatly in this unjust assault on the city of Falluja."
Stephen Hauskins, Santa Cruz, California, USA


"I don't hear any outrage about the innocent civilians that have been killed or wounded, and the devastation that has resulted from this senseless assault. It looks like the rebel leaders have run away, to fight another day. We are alienating the Iraqi people by prolonging their suffering."
Roseanne, NJ, USA

"I spoke with an Iraqi woman in Ireland yesterday who was no lover of Saddam Hussein and who lost a sister in a bomb attack in August. She said that what is going on is international bullying and the needless ruin of a beautiful country. Not for one second does she see what is happening as being in any way for the good of her people. What can we do to rid the world of this soul-less imperialism with its "kick ass" culture and philosophy?"
Brian Smyth, Meath, Ireland

(It is probably inaccurate to describe what we are doing as imperialism. We are certainly not retaining colonized sub-nations nor requiring citizenship of them as both Rome and England did in their empires. And it is always going to be laid at the feet of "necessity", when failures of sanity produce concatenations of violence. My vehement disagreement with the process is when we begin to exalt rather than vilify those whose internal dramatizations lead to external destruction and shame.)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 11:56 AM

From t he New York Times:

The Department of Defense has identified 1,150 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this week:

BABBIT, Travis A., 24, Specialist, Army; Uvalde, Tex.; First Cavalry Division.

CORNELL, Todd R., 39, Staff Sgt., Army Reserve; West Bend, Wis., 339th Infantry Regiment.

JAMES, William C., 24, Cpl., Marines; Huntington Beach, Calif.; First Marine Division.

LARSON, Nicholas D., 19, Lance Cpl., Marines; Wheaton, Ill.; First Marine Division.

SEGURA, Juan E., 26, Lance Cpl., Marines; Homestead, Fla.; First Marine Division.

SLAY, Russell L., 28, Staff Sgt., Marines; Humble, Tex.; Second Marine Division,

TROTTER, John B., 25, Sgt., Army; Marble Falls, Tex.; Second Infantry Division.

WELLS, Lonny D., 29, Sgt., Marines; Vandergrift, Pa.; Second Marine Division.

WOOD, Nathan R., 19, Lance Cpl., Marines; Kirkland, Wash.; First Marine Division.

SLAY, Russell L., 28, Staff Sgt., Marines; Humble, Tex.; Second Marine Division.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 12:05 PM

The LA Times offers a heart-breaking survey of the mental damage done to veterans in Iraq, and the lack of preparedness of the administration to deal with it.

It is a deeper and more important question as to why the Bush administration ignored this known factor in its decision to initiate a brutal, violent war in the first place.

The insanity bred by an insane decision, arguably made by an insane man, will be taking its toll from the nation for decades in lost lives, broken families, scarred children, and disabled men and women.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 12:53 PM

The Alameda times laments the atmosphere of fear surrounding the refusal to air Saving Private Ryan, and attributes it to the rampant conservatism espoused by the President and the Congress. They suggest Saving the First Amendment.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 04 - 01:09 PM

The International Herald Tribune calls for a spirited public debate on the US Commission on Human Rights report on the Bush Administrations record on civil rights in this editorial.

Excerpt:"The report, which is still available online, is a scathing 166-page assessment of an administration that has, at best, neglected core civil rights issues. It cites numerous examples of administration attempts to replace affirmative action with "race neutral" alternatives, or to recast taxpayers' support for religious institutions as a civil right for people of faith, rather than as a constitutional issue involving the separation of church and state."

"In telling research into the way that Bush uses talk of civil rights to promote his own agenda, the report says that of Bush's public statements on civil rights, only 17 percent have outlined plans of action. It criticizes the president for using the See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article


In a rare gesture of transparency, a majority of the eight commissioners on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted in 2002 to put the agency's staff reports on the Internet as soon as they are completed (www.usccr.gov). That way, the public can read them before the commissioners hold public hearings to discuss the staff's findings.
.
The latest report - an assessment of President George W. Bush's civil rights record - was put on the agency's Web site in September. But at their October meeting, the commissioners declined to discuss it. The four commissioners appointed by Bush and the congressional Republican leadership managed to put off any discussion until the postelection meeting, scheduled for Friday.
.
Now, the commission owes the public a spirited debate, especially if, as the report indicates, the apparent aim of the Bush administration is to break with long-established civil rights tactics and priorities.
.
This question takes on a new urgency with the appointment of the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, as the next attorney general because he was deeply involved in the formulation of administration policy on these issues in the first term.
.
The report, which is still available online, is a scathing 166-page assessment of an administration that has, at best, neglected core civil rights issues. It cites numerous examples of administration attempts to replace affirmative action with "race neutral" alternatives, or to recast taxpayers' support for religious institutions as a civil right for people of faith, rather than as a constitutional issue involving the separation of church and state.
.
In telling research into the way that Bush uses talk of civil rights to promote his own agenda, the report says that of Bush's public statements on civil rights, only 17 percent have outlined plans of action. It criticizes the president for using the language of civil rights - terms like "remove barriers" and "equal access" - to frame his case.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Harpo
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:21 AM

Why Democrats got boost from sex offenders
By John Patterson Daily Herald State Government Editor
Posted April 07, 2003
SPRINGFIELD - A former state worker with Democratic ties at a Joliet treatment center for the state's most dangerous sex offenders registered more than 125 of them to vote last fall.
Voting patterns show the child molesters, rapists and other sexual deviants overwhelmingly supported Democrats.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Opie
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 02:25 AM

J F Kerry Divorced.

G W Bush not divorced.

"George Bush`s America: Moral Beacon in a Dark World
Posted 11/10/2004
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
The American people have once again demonstrated that they are the most glorious on earth.

The entire world ganged up on them to dump a moral president whose signature issue was a belief that people have a right to be free. Europe mobilized its millions in the streets to show their hatred of this man and his ideals. The UN frowned at his speeches and treated him with contempt. Hollywood and the recording industry unleashed its superstars to prevail upon the American people that they dare not reelect a monster. And Osama bin Laden released a video tape informing individual states that if they voted against Bush they would be free from terrorist attack.

In the end, even American Jews abandoned this steadfast friend of Israel and gave John Kerry 75 percent of their votes.

Never in the history of the United States has more pressure been brought to bear on the American electorate to dump a leader whose values the world so loathed. But in the end, not the glamour of Hollywood, nor the threats of terrorists, nor the alienation of Europe, nor the condescension of the UN, could break the American people̓s commitment to a moral presidency.

With all the pressure in the world to become like the rest of the world — overlooking genocide and making deals with tyrants — the American people voted to retain a faith-based presidency, even if it meant going it alone. Exit polls showed that morality, even more than security, was the single biggest issue animating American voters.

The rise of the moral voter is an earthquake that has forever changed the American political landscape. Who would ever have seriously believed that morality would be the single biggest consideration for politicians? But there it is. Gone are the days when politicians can seek office merely by pandering to voters by promising them jobs, health care, and pork. Now, politicians who want to connect with the electorate will be forced to articulate a powerful moral vision of something worth fighting for. Bush did this with his constant focus on the fight for human freedom and his pledge to protect the family.

This election was never really about Bush, Kerry, or even Iraq. Nor was it a referendum on conservative verses liberal. Rather, it was a challenge to the very notion of whether faith-as-policy had any place in a modern, technologically-advanced republic. And the victory was not for a man and his followers but for a belief in right and wrong and how religious conviction must be first translated into protecting human life through a fight against tyranny and state-sponsored murder.

Those Bush supporters who gloat over the blow inflicted on Bush̓s opponents betray an arrogance which in turn betrays a lack of commitment to moral principles, thereby eroding the cause for which the victory was sought. Michael Moore and Al Gore can rant all they like that Bush is a religious fraud, that he went into Iraq for oil and power rather than security and humanitarian concerns. Why vindicate their meanspiritedness with a meanspiritedness of our own? Why trivialize a moral victory by making it a personal victory?

Right and wrong does not belong to President Bush or any of the people who voted for him, but is rather the eternal inheritance of all of God̓s children, and in that sense, even those who voted against Bushshare in his victory.

I am well aware that many Americans approach the increasing religiosity and moral commitment of the body politic with foreboding. They fear a theocracy that will be oppressive and infringe upon their rights. It is for Bush supporters to refute this unjust fear by demonstrating not only magnanimity in victory but a deep commitment to harmony and unity.

In behaving modestly in victory, Bush̓s supporters have no better example than President Bush himself. Many things have impressed me about this president over the past few years, but perhaps none more so than his refusal to respond in kind to those who called him a liar and compared him to Hitler. Here was the most powerful man on earth who consistently ignored the savage attacks on his character and instead went humbly on with his work. The American people have rewarded this humility with a considerable mandate which I trust he will continue to use over the next four years to fight evil and pursue justice.

Israel Can Learn From America

Although they have become the most hated nation on earth for doing so, Americans chose another four years of a faith-based presidency and were happy to continue with their pariah president, even if that meant being rejected by the international community for their commitment to a moral foreign policy.

If only Israelis would follow their close ally̓s example and behave more like a chosen nation themselves. Unfortunately, the United States and Israel could not be headed in more different directions.

President Bush̓s stunning victory was a mandate from the people for a more moral nation. The contrast with Israel could not be more stark; an Israeli prime minister speaking about God is the certain kiss of electoral death.

Most Americans would find it shocking that the political leaders of the Jewish nation, who gifted the Creator to the world, would never consider mentioning G-d for fear of alienating a majority secular electorate who are deeply distrustful of faith. In this respect, Israeli leaders are more like European leaders who are about as likely to invoke the name of God as they are the name of Zeus.

Then there is the fact that the majority of Americans just don̓t care about being cut off from the rest of the world. In this election the American people made a resounding judgment: If America is right and the world is wrong, we will show them our contempt.

John Kerry̓s central campaign platform was the need to rebuild frayed alliances with Europe and the UN that he said were damaged by Bush administration "arrogance." In the end, Americans decided that their strength lay not in being popular but in being moral. An America that finds Europe and the UN arrogant, dishonorable, and condescending is content to live in splendid isolation. Kofi Annan can stick up for Saddam, and Jacques Chirac can visit Arafat in the hospital. We̓d rather not be invited to that party.

Yet Israel continues to grovel before the Europeans for acceptance and has always been a supplicant for UN approval. I am well aware of the old argument, that America is a superpower that can go it alone but Israel is a tiny country in need of friends.

But that argument is unpersuasive, first because Israel has a phenomenal friend in the United States and can easily be strong and secure with that friendship alone. And second, because Israelis should have learned by now that no matter how many concessions they make to the Arabs, they will forever be rejected by the international community in favor of the Palestinians.

Since that is the case, better to build your walls, protect your people, and proclaim your contempt for the world̓s amorality, just as Americans have.

Finally, there is the colossal discrepancy between how the United States and Israel have decided to deal with a terrorist insurgency. American soldiers are being attacked and killed in greater number in Iraq than even Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The pundits were convinced for this eason that the American people would choose John Kerry̓s "wrong war" philosophy over George Bush̓s "no retreat" pledge. In the end, the American people decided they would not be pushed out of Iraq by a bunch of murderous thugs, because that would only produce more murderous thugs.

But Sharon̓s withdrawal from Gaza under fire is sure to vastly increase terrorist pressure on Israel in every corner of its land. Any terrorist leader who sees the shrinking borders of Israel that began with the Camp David accords twenty-five years ago can only conclude that the goal of pushing Israel into the sea is slowly becoming a reality.

Nobody wants to see Israeli soldiers die in Gaza, just as no one wants to see American soldiers die in Iraq. But while the Americans understand that withdrawing the troops will lead to more American deaths at home, Sharon mistakenly believes that withdrawing the troops will lead to international acceptance of Israel̓s claim to most of the West Bank and partial pacification of the Palestinians.

By retreating under fire, Sharon has proven himself to be the John Kerry of Israeli politics when what Israel really needs is its own George Bush.

From the earliest days of the American republic, the patriots who built this nation drew upon the biblical idea of a chosen nation as the inspiration behind the struggle against British tyranny. Yet, since its founding, Israel̓s leaders have totally missed the universality of Israel̓s chosenness to the rest of the world. Ever week hundreds of American Christians write to me about how much they love Israel and see in its founding the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy for the Jews to bring blessing to the world from their ancient homeland.

How ironic that while 70 million born-again Christians believe that with all their heart, the average secular Israeli would scoff at such a notion.

Why I Love Evangelical Christians

The impact the American evangelical voting block has had on world affairs is incalculable and explains why there has been a revolution in the way the world does business. The staunch support of evangelical Christians has enabled George W. Bush to pursue a foreign policy based not on expediency or realpolitik, but on a deep-seated morality wherein tyrants are punished and the oppressed liberated. These policies would have been unthinkable without the steadfast support of Bush̓s die-hard constituency of evangelical Christians who comprise one-quarter of the American electorate.

I am a Jew who is deeply in love with evangelical Christians. Although I am at odds with them on various issues, they today constitute the most potent force for good in America, and the most influential constituency who consistently demands that America be a nation of justice, standing up for the persecuted and living up to its founding ideals of serving as a global beacon of freedom.

To be sure, I am devoted to Judaism. Wild horses and iron combs could never pry me away from my Jewish identity and I have devoted my life to the dissemination of Jewish ideas in the mainstream culture and to bringing wayward Jews back to their heritage. But I must give credit where credit is due. And evangelical Christians, more than any other group today, are responsible for America being a godly country.

Whenever I am in the company of evangelical Christians, I feel completely at home, among true brothers and sisters of faith. More so, I feel inspired. When evangelical Christians talk to me about God, they speak with an immediacy and sense of intimacy which is both inspiring and impressive. To the evangelicals, God is a loving father rather than a distant relative. And unlike secularists who love making up their own morality, evangelical Christians humbly submit to the Divine will. The potency of evangelical faith is manifest in their being at the forefront of feeding the hungry, curing the sick, and giving clothing to the poor.

Unlike so many Americans, evangelical Christians utterly reject materialism. They raise godl children who are open-hearted and uncorrupted. Evangelical Christian parents protect their children from a corrosive culture that is so harmful to America̓s youth. The evangelicals have created their own music, TV and film industries which promote values-based entertainment as opposed to crude sexual exploitation. Their women are taught to value themselves and would never contemplate surrendering their bodies to a man who has not committed to them in marriage. And their men are taught to value women and to work to be worthy of them.

This is not to say I don̓t have serious disagreements with evangelicals. It is on the subject of Jesus, especially, and other related theological questions, that I am, of course, most distant from my evangelical brothers and sisters. I have had many televised debates against leading evangelicals forcefully rejecting Jesus as the Jewish messiah. But for all that, I have never felt any emotional distance from the evangelicals.

Many of my Jewish brethren reject evangelical Christians as dogmatic and intolerant. In so doing they are guilty of themselves of rejecting one of Judaism̓s most seminal teachings: to judge a man by his actions rather than his beliefs. Just try to find kinder, more compassionate people who are more willing to assist their fellow man in a time of crisis, than the evangelicals. And this is especially true of the evangelical love for Israel.

As an American Jew, I have two great loves: the United States and Israel. The Talmud says that what makes Israel unique is that God̓s presence is a tangible reality in the Holy Land. In Israel, one can sense and feel God̓s holy presence. Thanks largely to evangelical Christians, the same is true today of the United States. God is alive and well in America. And it is primarily for that reason that this great country is so blessed.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a nationally syndicated radio host daily from 2-5 p.m. EST on the Liberty Broadcasting Network, and was named by Talkers magazine as one of America̓s 100 most important talk-radio hosts. A bestselling author of 14 books, his latest work is "The Private Adam: Becoming a Hero in a Selfish Age" (HarperCollins)."

O

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 04:15 AM

Oy, vey!! Wot kinda shmuck would do such a thing as cut and paste so much stuff?

Better HTML you should learn.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 07:54 PM

According to Knut Royce of Newsday the White House is ordering the CIA to purge anyone not loyal to Bush from its ranks.

Well, that's only fair, seeing as how he has such a compelling mandate from the nation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 07:59 PM

In The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy Thom Hartman cries out against the corruption of a sacrosanct basic public process: voting. And for good reason.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 08:39 PM

The cut and paste was for whining idiots who cannot reach the URL on their own and then complain.

"In his first trip abroad since winning a second term, US President George W. Bush heads to an Asia-Pacific summit in Chile hoping to revive global trade talks and kill off North Korea's nuclear program."

O

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 09:06 PM

"WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) has selected Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), his national security adviser and trusted confidant, to replace Colin Powell (news - web sites) as secretary of state, officials said Monday, in a major shakeup of the president's national security team. Three other Cabinet secretaries also resigned.


Powell, a retired four-star general who often clashed on Iraq (news - web sites) and other foreign policy issues with more hawkish members of Bush's administration, said he was returning to private life once his successor was in place."


HOLY MOLY!! No wonder Condi did such a dumbass job -- she was in the wrong position!! She was diplomacy, not security!! Wow -- isn't it great we got that cleared up?? Now we'll see international relations fly!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Opie
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 09:14 PM

"President Bush is aiming to use his second term to work with other countries to secure and dismantle nuclear weapons and halt the black market in nuclear materials to prevent startups by other countries."

O

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 15 Nov 04 - 09:50 PM

Amos

You are a complete sick in the head idiot and if you say that you are not obsessive, just count how many times you posted to this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:03 AM

Thanks, Martin, for your usual helpful and insightful post.

I am persistent, but only a one-eyed fool would confuse that with obsession.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:45 AM

Some interesting background on the intermingled roles of Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, George H. W. Bush, and Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction can be found at this site which documents some little-known aspects of American support for Saddam Hussein.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 12:46 AM

?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 09:07 AM

President Chirac makes a series of subtle Gallic observations that essentialy call the Bush boys a bunch of banderlogues not to be trusted.

But he does it in classically indirect French style. Interview and report in the London Times

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 09:32 AM

Holy shit Batman! Amos is in meltdown mode!

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:02 AM

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is defined as a disorder that compels a person to commit ritualistic actions that prevent them from functioning in normal society. Though many speculate about the origin of such a disorder, the most prominent of "arguers," namely Sigmund Freud and Judith Rapoport, claim two such distinct theories for the cause of such a disorder. Comparatively, though Freud's theory of "psychological trauma" shows many examples and probable answers to the origins of OCD, Rapoport's "physiological stimulus" also gives compelling information.

-----Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or Obsessive Neurosis (as Sigmund Freud refers to it), is seen (by Freud) as an effect of past traumatic experiences. According to him, a person with such a past is then liable to go through unexplainable ritualistic motion often times unconsciously which then debilitate the person from functioning in a normal society.

S. Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 11:31 AM

You are mistaken, Guest. I am in the mode of persisting toward truth in the presence of great and redundant and multiplexed falsehoods.

I appreciate the Freudian definitions, Siggy, but I assure you I am as capable or more than the average bear at discriminating between Now and Then.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 02:16 PM

Mark Geibert raves about corruption in high places in an article entitled George W. Bush Is The Most Corrupt President In History .

He feels the country has gone a bit mad, and I certainly sympathize.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 07:31 PM

It is time to hijack this thread, or at least send it to the FBI so they can see one man's obsessivness with a hate of a president.

Amos, you could frighten a lot of people, nore than half of the voters in this country with this obsessive ranting.

I am going to contribute something useful to this thread and that is whether the Cubs will or will not trade Sammy Sosa.

Sosa, the Cubs all-time home run leader is now very unpopular with the fans.

Do you think any team would be interested in him?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 07:51 PM

Martin:

The majority of the posts on this thread are pointers to articles in the public media, you half-witted sociopath.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Opie
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 08:00 PM

US President George W. Bush urged both President Omar el-Bashir of Sudan and that country's main rebel leader to reach a peace deal when negotiations resume in late November, the White House said.


O

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 08:48 PM

US President George W. Bush has invited his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir to sign an expected peace accord with the country's southern rebels in Washington

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:16 PM

The Guardian offers a rather pessimistic view of Bush's record of broken promises contrasted with Blair's optimism regarding same and Middle East peace.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:48 PM

Robert Scheer writing for the Los Angeles Timers in an article called

The Peter Principle and the Neocon Coup discusses " the wholesale political revenge campaign being waged by the hard-liners in the Bush administration against anybody and everybody inside the government who challenged the way the second Persian Gulf war in a decade was marketed and run".

Excerpt:

Out: Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose political epitaph should now read, "You break it, you own it" for his prescient but unwanted warning to the president on the danger of imperial overreach in Iraq.

Out: Top CIA officials who dared challenge, behind the scenes, the White House's unprecedented exploitation of raw intelligence data in order to sell a war to a Congress and a public hungry for revenge after 9/11.

Out: Veteran CIA counterterrorism expert and Osama bin Laden hunter Michael Scheuer, better known as the best-selling author "Anonymous," whose balanced and devastating critiques of the Iraq war, the CIA and the way President Bush is handling the war on terror have been a welcome counterpoint to the "it's true if we say it's true" idiocy of the White House PR machine.

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 11:57 PM

It would appear from this piece that Tony Blair is (a) distancing himself a bit from the US and (b)encouraging the US to adapt Kerry's platform.

Hmmmm. Why?

"London, England, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the United States to reach out to the rest of the world and adopt a more multilateral approach to international affairs."

(Washington Times/UPI)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: RichM
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 04:46 PM

American taxpayers-even bushitters- are soon going to start getting uneasy about the cost of all these foreign expeditions!

Wave goodbye to your dollars

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:02 PM

The War in Iraq Cost the United States
$145,626,209,182 as of 14:58 PST today.

Robert Scheer discusses the moral profile of Dick Cheney in this article entitled The Man Behind the Oval Office Curtain. He says, inter alia:

"Lately, as the war has become an unmitigated disaster for the United States and Iraq, Cheney and the President have been on the defensive against charges by numerous terrorism experts--and presidential candidate John F. Kerry--that the invasion of Iraq was a dangerous distraction from the fight against Al Qaeda and its affiliates.


Undaunted, Cheney tells us the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has been blamed for many anti-American attacks in Iraq, originally entered Iraq with Hussein's permission; thus Cheney tries to post facto justify the invasion as a legitimate pillar of the war on terror. But it's just another lie, with the CIA stating the opposite: The fundamentalist Zarqawi first sneaked into Hussein's secular and nationalist dictatorship using a false identity.


That Cheney clearly has a huge personal interest in the war makes all of this that much more sickening."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 06:05 PM

In A Little Education Can Be a Dangerous Thing John Nichols reports that a respected Yale
professor    is embarassed by Dick Cheney. As well he should be!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 07:17 PM

In a special report Representative Waxman examines the extent of secrecy in the Bush White House.

"It finds that there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration's actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government."

---

This website offers 100 Facts (possibly uncomfortable but irrefutable) leading to one unavoidable opinion, supporting the many views against the Bush administration between 2000 and 2004. It also offers a handy PDF download of the whole list of facts. Click here to download.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 08:16 PM

The BBC has posted a survey of world-wide responses to Bush's election. They are representative of both sides of the schism, but on the whole seem to weigh heavily n the side of being disappointed in the intellectual poverty being shown by American voters.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 09:11 PM

In an article called If at First You Don't Secede, Michelle Goldberg talks about the polarization that Bush's administration has built throughout the nation, and howe it could lead to a virtual secession, pinning the hopes of liberal-minded people on State's rights and local freedoms. She writes:

"These sentiments were so pronounced that they migrated into the
mainstream. Speaking on "The McLaughlin Group" the weekend after
George W. Bush's victory, panelist Lawrence O'Donnell, a former
Democratic Senate staffer, noted that blue states subsidize the
red ones with their tax dollars, and said, "The big problem the
country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion
of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the
country that pays for the federal government is now being
governed by the people who don't pay for the federal
government."

A shocked Tony Blankley asked him, "Are you calling for civil
war?" To which O'Donnell replied, "You can secede without firing
a shot.""

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 12:43 AM

The irascible and ineluctable Maureen Dowd speaks up on the issue of excessive emphasis on loyalty in this New York Times column. She says:

"Now, in the 21st-century reign of King George II, flattery is mandatory, dissent is forbidden, and erring without admitting error is the best way to get ahead. President Bush is purging the naysayers who tried to temper crusted-nut-bar Dick Cheney and the neocon crazies on Iraq.

First, faith trumped facts. Now, loyalty trumps competence. W., who was the loyalty enforcer for his father's administration, is now the loyalty enforcer for his own.

Those promoted to be in charge of our security, diplomacy and civil liberties were rewarded for being more loyal to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney than to the truth."

---

She makes a telling case. Why should the leader of the free world depend on sycophants and butt-boys? Personal instability? Low self-esteem? Artificial intelligence?

You decide.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 09:03 PM

>http://slate.msn.com/id/2108995/

This article describes the dynamics of Iraq and why we are in for a long
haul that we cannot now afford to abandon. The complexities of the
interactions between Kurds, Sunni and Shiite and Hammabi Iraqis and the once
power-holding Sunni Baathists, are the woof and warp of what George W. Bush
never thought about when he went after the token entity he knew (after his
father) as "Sadamn". The facile goal of "regime change" has been sliced and
diced into an explosive and corrosive blend of hatreds on the ground of
Mesopotamia.

It is obvious from the aftermath that these factors were not understood,
just as it is obvious that the intricate planning of the war was not
extended to plan for the peace.

One bad decision of an important magnitude can have a tearing floodtide of bad
consequences; nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the situation in
Iraq. And it is clear this was a strategic, not a tactical error. The
Marines and Army units and their officers, who have largely beens uccessful
in tactical purusits, cannot afford to worry about where they would like to
be, but are obliged by life-or-death considerations to move forward from
what is. The irrationality of the current situation must be plainly placed
on the doorstep of George Bush, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and
Condi Rice. While it may be modern to say these people are not stupid, and
it may even be true, what is also certainly true is that they made some very
stupid decisions at the strategic level, with some very painful and
expensive consequences. It is hard to understand why this gang wa shired int
he first place, given their demonstrations of managerial callousness. It is
even harder to understand why they were considered for rehiring.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 09:12 PM

Can you believe that the Chicago Bulls are 0 and 6?

This once great dynasty is now the piece of crap of the NBA.

Perhaps John Kerry should become the head coach.

What do you think, Amos?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 09:21 PM

Is anyone following the hit new series "Desparate Housewives?"

Some cute ladies on the show.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:18 PM

I believe that the important questions of human life on earth will not be answered by the Chicago Bulls.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:29 PM

Innocence Protection Act Signed Into Law
11/10/2004 3:05 PM

On November 1st, 2004 President Bush signed into law the Justice for All Act

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:56 PM

Amos, I just need to tell you again, that what you are posting here is of great value. I have sent many of the blue clicky websites and articles to appreciative friends who are all amazed at how much important information you've garnered in one place.

I know I don't have to tell you to ignore Martin Gibson. Why he comes here to taunt you says far more about him than you, as usual.

Just please KEEP IT UP! My respect for you grows by the day.


..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 12:04 AM

Werner's somewhat mute post points to one of the few positive actions I have seen coming out of the Bush administration. Here is a description of the fancifully-titled act known as "Justice for All". Considering the number of corpses Mister Bush has prodyuced in his short lifetime, it is wonderful fine he should care so much.

Ellen, thank you very much for the kind remarks. Really, they do help!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 09:12 AM

Bush's Echo Chamber (NY Times Op Ed)
By BOB HERBERT

Published: November 19, 2004

Excerpt:

Colin Powell, who urged the president to think more deeply about the consequences of invading Iraq, is being shoved toward the exit. And Condoleezza Rice, who blithely told America, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," is being ushered in to take his place.

Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration. In the Bush circle, no less than in your average youth gang, loyalty is everything. The big difference, of course, is that the administration is far more dangerous than any gang. History will show that the Bush crowd of incompetents brought tremendous amounts of suffering to enormous numbers of people. The amount of blood being shed is sickening, and there is no end to the grief in sight.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 09:20 AM

Over in the House of Representatives, the Righties are doing the Ethical Sleight of Hand Polka:

---

Regressive Ethics in the House

Published: November 19, 2004

Having picked up a handful of seats in this month's election, House Republicans seem to think they have a mandate to eradicate Congressional ethics standards.

On Tuesday, House Republicans unanimously elected Tom DeLay to serve another term as House majority leader, despite his unsavory record when it comes to abiding by accepted Congressional standards of conduct. He received two separate bipartisan rebukes from the normally timid ethics committee this fall.

Just in case Mr. DeLay gets into more trouble, G.O.P. lawmakers have followed up by repealing their wise party rule that barred indicted members from holding leadership positions. Only a handful of Republicans had the moral compass to object.

The Republican conference's worry about Mr. DeLay's relationship with the forces of justice stems from the same events that nailed down his current popularity. He muscled an egregiously partisan redistricting plan into Texas, and that helped Republican candidates pick up five Congressional seats there.

(Excerpted from the New York Times Op Ed Section)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:07 PM

This is only indirectly germane but itis vitally important to our political and social well-being.

A reporter is facing imprisonment because he declined to reveal a confidential source to a state court. See link for full story.
 
If anyone in the Bush administration had the brains of a wet hen, they'd be pushing for a constitutional amendment to support a national shield policy, instead of caring about marital conventions.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:31 PM

Just a repeat from that Op Ed article two up, for the sake of emphasizing an important line:

History will show that the Bush crowd of incompetents brought tremendous amounts of suffering to enormous numbers of people. The amount of blood being shed is sickening, and there is no end to the grief in sight.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 07:41 PM

In Partisan Spooks the Los Angeles Times speaks sharply about the risks Mister Bush took in appointing Mister Goss to the head position over at Langley.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:38 PM

From the Arizona Republic:

Afraid you'll lose? Just change the rules

Nov. 20, 2004 12:00 AM

So Tom DeLay, the Republican House majority leader, has three ethics violations, may soon be indicted, and could face felony charges.

Not to worry! Just change the party rules so he can remain the House leader.

President Bush gets the majority of his judges approved but comes up short on a few. No problem. Change the filibuster rules. Some Republicans want to run Arnold Schwarzenegger for president but he is not a U.S.-born citizen. No problem. Amend the Constitution.

Do you see an erosive pattern here? So much for the "values" of the Republican Party. - Kevin Horan, Flagstaff

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:45 PM

US President George W. Bush plans to seek support from China and other key allies at the Asia-Pacific summit to help resurrect talks with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:53 PM

Gee....a flip flopper!!! Oooooh!


Glad to see he is taking Kerry's advise seriously at least on the face of things. We know where the proof of the pudding will be, now, don't we?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Armed and Dangerous
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 04:51 PM

At least, to some. Every cult and circle of initiates has its little resistive corners, the ones who get in by mistake or who have genuine aspirations but some how fall short of experiencing the big E. The core truth of all these truths seems to be that belief can be manipulated, and that belief brings about experience. It is kind of funny to hear someone say, "I have to believe it. I experienced it." And testimonial experiential data is used as an appeal for persuasion. But the simplicity of it all is that belief brings about experience. In the manipulations of con men or gurus, the first target is always belief, not experience. When belief is manipulated whether by advertising, psychic bombardment, persuasion, love and hugs, or strong arm and terror tactics as often used by the Feds -- then we can experience the reality being pointed out. The simple truth is humans don't experience what they don't believe. This can be quibbled with, because a belief in a house will bring about an experience of rooms, but the specifics are peculiar to the individual's belief structures.

AJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 04:57 PM

The violence and chaos into which Bush's decisions have plummeted the USMC is frightening. It is well portrayed in detail in this NY Times article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 20 Nov 04 - 05:24 PM

Nervous breakdown:
A period of mental illness, usually without a physical cause, which results in anxiety, difficulty in sleeping and thinking clearly, a lack of confidence and hope, and a feeling of great sadness.

Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:02 AM

As reported in the Washington Post for November 19, more than 20,000 people marched in Chile to vent their anger at Pacific Rim leaders, particularly President Bush.

While some protesters said they oppose the APEC summit, which they likened to a rich man's club that does nothing for the poor, much of the rage was aimed at Bush and the U.S.-led war in Iraq.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:14 AM

The FCC Chairman Has No Clothes
Washington Post, Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page N01



Oops. They got rid of the wrong Powell. The father unfortunately is going, but the son, even more unfortunately, remains behind.... Staying in office, however, and capable of wreaking havoc in American broadcasting until 2007, is Colin's son Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and definitely not a force for good in America.


His father is stepping down as secretary of state, but Michael Powell could remain in power until 2007.

Pompous and imperious, an ideologue who believes unfailingly in his own philosophy of how TV and radio should work (the FCC also has domain over telephone and emerging broadband technologies), Powell ignores or condemns anyone who opposes him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:19 AM

THe Washington Post examines the dubious competence of Mister Bush's selected Attorney General for the nation in a well-reasoned article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:39 AM

Kathryn Graham, writing for the Sierra Times, discusses the cred8ibility of the Administration in an article entitled The Bush Administration and Freedom. She makes this reassuring observation:

"The rest of the world watched in horrified fascination as George W. Bush handily won reelection to the office of President of the United States a couple of weeks ago. Many who had deep moral issues with the Bush administration, but not with the American people, now believe that this election proves that the American people are as morally bankrupt as their leaders.

That is not necessarily true."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 01:42 PM

The Philadelphia Enquirer's editorial on The Bush Cabinet casts a skeptical eye on the insulated and robotic crew surrounding the Bush.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 08:03 PM

This obsession is killing you, Amos.

I believe that you think that this is your life's work.

What a shame and a waste.

I am considering a request that this thread be closed, already.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:00 PM

Thanks for the concern, Martin, Request away. I am more concerned with keeping the truth about the corruption you support so loyally in plain view.

Of course I am sure suppressing such things is old hat to you, but I don't know that I am causing anyone any discomfort except you and a few of your nameless borgs. And since you have a reputation as such an unmitigated anti-social troublemaker, I see no reason to expect that your request will weigh very much.

The nature of this thread is very consistent and obvious, such that no-one need visit it twice who does not intentionally choose to. You obviously find it of compelling interest.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:06 PM

Maureen Dowd rides again with a shap-edged piece call Absolute Power Erupts

She says: "The White House says it wants greater harmony, but it's acting like the thought police. Having run into resistance in their bid for global domination, the president and vice president are going for federal domination, pushing out anyone with independent judgment who puts democracy above ideology.

It's a paradoxical game plan: imposing democracy abroad while impeding it here."

(Of course the ground truth is that it is not truly being imposed there, either.)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:13 PM

Quoting Colin Powell in remembering Viet Nam, Mark Danner writing for the NY Times:

" ' Our senior officers knew the war was going badly. Yet they bowed to groupthink pressure and kept up pretenses. ...Many of my generation, the career captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels seasoned in that war, vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in halfhearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.'

Those plain words about Vietnam stand out with refreshing immediacy today, in this age of the destruction of the fact, when incontrovertible but unwelcome information is dismissed as partisan argument. What might the Colin Powell who wrote those words, or the younger officer in Vietnam who envisaged his future as a man who could never "quietly acquiesce," have said about our present war?"

From Danner's current Op Ed, "A Doctrine Left Behind" which describes indirectly why we may be losing the war in Iraq: "If the old rule of thumb about counterinsurgency warfare holds true - that the guerrilla wins by not losing and the government loses by not winning - then America is losing the Iraq war. "

---

This is a question that needs to be honestly asked and honestly answered. The latter is improbable.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:18 PM

Thomas Friedman also poses the question and offers a way to answer it:

Excerpted from his worth-reading Postcards From Iraq:

" Readers regularly ask me when I will throw in the towel on Iraq. I will be guided by the U.S. Army and Marine grunts on the ground. They see Iraq close up. Most of those you talk to are so uncynical - so convinced that we are doing good and doing right, even though they too are unsure it will work. When a majority of those grunts tell us that they are no longer willing to risk their lives to go out and fix the sewers in Sadr City or teach democracy at a local school, then you can stick a fork in this one. But so far, we ain't there yet. The troops are still pretty positive.

So let's thank God for what's in our drinking water, hope that maybe some of it washes over Iraq, and pay attention to the grunts. They'll tell us if it's time to go or stay."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 11:23 PM

In the Times Editorial called Groundhog Day the hawkish assertions of the administration concerning Iran and their nuclear capabilities, and the similarity to the war drums heard before the invasion of Iraq, are examined plainly.

Is it possible that once a warmonger, always a warmonger? Do you suppose that is why Hitler went and attacked the USSR and kept on going? The taste of human blood is said to make maneaters out of tigers. Perhaps it does something similar to leaders.

Interesting question.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 12:13 PM

Amos, no one can accuse you of not being tenatious. I do wonder, though, why you persist in continuing to promote this skewed view of what the popular views are of the Bush Administration. That issue was clearly settled on November 2, 2004 when Bush got both the Electoral and Popular vote majorities.

Perhaps it is therapy for you. If so, I guess it does have a purpose.

Maybe a change in title might be in order for this thread. Something like, "Amos's view of the Bush Administration" or "The Minority's View of the Bush Administration."
DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 01:21 PM

Armed & Dangerous:

Did you write that weird shit? Man, you are a sicko.

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 03:56 PM

Hispanics for Jorge

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:05 PM

One of the side effects of invading Iraq that could have been anticipated, but was not, is the doubling of the starvation of children in the country.

Meanwhile, with the dance of War costing the nation billions, the state of affairs at home among those in the poverty bracket is not improving. The NY Times Editorial on the subject is telling, and is entitled, SHHH--Don't Say 'Poverty".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:21 PM

John Kenneth Galbraith, the world renowned Harvard economist, had a few succinct phrases to describe his disappointment in the voters on November 2d, and his view of some of the Administrations accomplishments.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:31 PM

The Lessons of Fallujah
Killing terrorists doesn't make them stronger.

Another point in the Zarqawi recording bears attention: "This war is very long, and always think of this as the beginning, and always make the enemy think that yesterday was better than today." In Israel, this is known as the question of the barrel: Is there a bottom to it or not? Beyond whatever tactics the Iraqi insurgents may employ, their strategy is to convince Americans that there is no bottom; that their cause enjoys huge popular support; that it feeds off the resentments that "occupation" inevitably engenders; and that it can go on undeterred by whatever damage U.S. forces inflict.

Sadly, there are plenty of Westerners willing to buy into this hypothesis, since it sits so well with those who think the war was a mistake and thus can't imagine that we can still win. Yet apart from the military success, the big news of the Fallujah campaign is that most Iraqis quietly supported it. The protests from nationalist politicians was far more muted than in April, perhaps because they have seen from the car bombings and beheadings what the Zarqawis also intend for them.


WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 06:35 PM

Sorry, Doug; the title is correct. Remember that your butt-boy Bush won by one of the slimmest margins ever. A large percentage were sorry to see him win, just within the United States. Take the population of the world into account and you would find that a significant majority were revolted by it. Repeat: revolted, not just slightly disappointed.

Bear in mind, too, that almost all these references come from leading media outlets such as the International Herald Tribune, The Arizona Sun, the New York Times, and others. So it absolutely correct to call these popular views.

This has nothing to do with therapy for me, thanks. It has to do with adhering to a line of truth, not buying a coverup and not pretending that the murderous chaos of Iraqw is a normal state of affairs when you are at war.

Your bad Bush boy walked this nation into bloody chaos through mismanagement and myopia on his own part and on the part of his team. The result: humans dead in the sand. Babies, women, innocent bystanders, Marines, US Army men and girls, businessmen, as well as rebels, insurgents, and terrorists. Don't ask the administration to give you a count of which is which, cuz they won't except for the US armed forces. But they are very high numbers of deaths and uncounted other suffering all of which did not need to occur.

Your boy did that, DougR. Face it like a man.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 07:39 PM

Here's the link Werner meant to post which seems to originally come from the Wall Street Journal. It argues that a recent tape from Zarqawi sounds tired and desperate, and asserts that we are winning the war.

Well, if we are winning it, it is not too surprising, given the resources we are spending. For half of what we spent taking the nation by force, we probably could have bought it.

That we win it, if we do, does not mean that it was the right course of action, because even if we win it, we have won a foothold in the Middle East at an incredible cost that we could have had much more cheaply. Not only that but we have demonstrated our willingness to act as unrelenting bullies and killers of the innocent, as well as the guilty. No matter how righteous our cause in Iraq was, we have unilaterally invaded a foreign nation, and that will never be forgotten. We were always known by some as aggressors, but we kept it covert, and balanced it with acts in defense of freedom. Those excuses are still being voiced, of course, but will they hold any water in the affairs of the world and command any decent price in the marketplace of ideas?

Or will they be seen as   cheap bully-ragger's plastic imitations of once strongly built notions?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:19 PM

Here is the link that anus wanted to post but he is afraid it makes him look even more like an anus.

Smoking is more likely to kill
I was shocked to see the large photograph on Nov. 10. A tired, dirty and brave Marine rests after a battle — but with a cigarette dangling from his mouth! Lots of children, particularly boys, play "army" and like to imitate this young man. The clear message of the photo is that the way to relax after a battle is with a cigarette.

The truth is very different from that message. Most of our troops don't smoke. And most importantly, this young man is far more likely to die a horrible death from his tobacco addiction than from his tour of duty in Iraq.

DR. DANIEL MALONEY

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:27 PM

This suggests that Amos has become the enemy:

"For now, I suggest that the best way to support our troops on the battlefield is to not become our "enemy" here at home."

STEPHEN T. PHILLIPS

Sugarland Texas

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:28 PM

TruthOut.org covers a report that was reported by both 60 Minutes and CBS which indicates there is serious minimizing being done by the DoD in reporting the numbers of people whose lives have been seriously ruined by the war. In this article they state the number of casualties wounded in operations in Iraq is on the order of up to 30,000, not reported because their injuries were not in direct battle.

The DoD denies the estimate and says you have to understand the normal rate of injuries in other situations, which is a reasonable statement but an evasive response tot he question.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 08:37 PM

You two need to find something genuine to do. Puerile natter doesn't cut it, especially when it is out of context and makes no sense. Werner, I was trying to help you out when you posted a bad link. Sorry if I misestimated you -- I thought you were trying to make a point, so I addressed it.




A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 10:00 PM

This













































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































SUCKS!






































































































































































IT REALLY
































































































































































































































































































































SUCKS































































































































































































































































































































































































RIGHT, AMOS?


























































































































































































































































































































































































































































HUH?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 10:10 PM

AMOS,


SEE BELOW

V
V
V
V




































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































PSSSSSSSSSSSSST. KERRY LOST
























































































































































































































































































!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Zack
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 10:12 PM

Amos You need to add your name to the list of people whose lives have been seriously ruined by the war.

Z

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 10:22 PM

1. Amos
2. Saddam

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 10:39 PM

This quotation explains why people like Amos defeat their own purposes:

"For the first time in my life I voted for a Republican president. Maureen Dowd's Nov. 6 column, "Don't look for healing, reconciliation from this bunch," was offensive to me. I have two sons-in-law who are on active duty (one in Afghanistan) facing the reality of jihad every day, and her casual use of the term demeans their service.

Dowd should realize that one of the reasons many former "blues" went "red" is the result of her (and others like her) over-the-top inflammatory remarks. Never have I read such disrespect directed toward our leaders. Four years of "stupid, liar, cuckoo clock, deserter" was all this former blue voter could stand. Somehow, there must be a standard of decency applied to disagreement."

DIANE WOODARD
Houston Texas

Civil discourse needs a layer of grace
"Maureen Dowd's Nov. 6 column, "The red zone, a blue puddle," insulted anyone who values balanced journalism. Before Ms. Dowd next sits at her keyboard she should avail herself of a sense of proportion and a cold shower.
    Cape Codders gave 43 percent of their votes to George Bush, and the conservatives I know are neither "imbeciles" nor right-wing vulgarians trying to hijack the republic. We hope to hold the line on taxes, trim the bureaucracy, protect the homeland with a muscular foreign policy and restore a whiff of morality to the public square without imposing a faith-based doctrine on our fellow citizens.
    Most of us are civic-minded souls who pay our taxes, attend church and rake our leaves like everyone else. Some of us even hold some liberal views such as supporting gun control, a safety net for the disadvantaged and equity for women in the workplace. We do not demonize John Kerry or his supporters. And we wish both sides would provide a layer of grace over our civic discourse.
    We applaud the "Healing the Body Politic" session sponsored by the Cape Cod Interfaith Alliance but think it sad that our civic life has come to that."

    FRANK TIVNAN
    East Dennis

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 11:13 PM

Johnjohn:

I commend you for at least offering a partially coherent assertion that might have some substance to it. Your colleagues could profit from a study of the difference.

But let me point out that each of the voices that seem to come out of the woodwork on this thread are asserting singular opinions. No-one has offered me any facts to counter the various points that have been made in the links I have provided.

Martin, your contributions are so frivolous and so irrelevant and meaningless that by rights they ought to be deleted, as they are obviously only there to make the thread hard to read. Your conclusions about my attitudes and so on are even worse -- groundless, ill-formed, ill-mannered and boorish, obviously the deep thoughts of a brutish mindset.

Stay well, it may be all you have going for you.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 04 - 11:52 PM

Here is a lovely list of excerpts from all over the world of writers viewing various aspects of the Bush administration. The Toronto Star, The Guardian, The Irish Review, The Boston Globe, the Economic Policy Institute, the New York Times, Yahoo News, and many others. I would say "popular views" is a fair description.

Have a look and decide for yourself.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 12:23 AM

Case for Iraq War Stronger Than Ever

U.S. satellite photos confirming the existence of a Boeing 707 fuselage that Khodada and his partner say was used as a hijacking classroom. U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who was tapped on Friday to succeed David Kay, corroborated their account.

A May 7, 2003, decision by Manhattan U.S.
District Judge Harold Baer, . . . The account of former CIA Director Woolsey, whose testimony was summarized by Judge Baer thusly:

"Director Woolsey described the existence of a highly secure military facility in Iraq where non-Iraqi fundamentalists [e.g., Egyptians and Saudis] are trained in airplane hijacking and other forms of terrorism. Through satellite imagery and the testimony of three Iraqi defectors, plaintiffs demonstrated the existence of this facility, called Salman Pak, which has an airplane but no runway."

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Zack
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 12:29 AM

Here is a perfectly adorable article that proves Amos is a totally deranged sick little puppy:

The investigator picked by the CIA to replace David Kay as head of the U.S. team in Iraq hunting for weapons of mass destruction has told British reporters that he saw terrorists training near Baghdad in airplane hijack techniques resembling those used in the 9/11 attacks.

In a November 2001 account to the London Observer, Charles Duelfer, the former No. 2 United Nations weapons inspector who was appointed Thursday to head the U.S.'s Iraq Survey Group, corroborated the testimony of Iraqi military defectors who said they helped train radical Muslim recruits to hijack U.S. airliners aboard a Boeing 707 fuselage parked at the terrorist training camp Salman Pak.

At the time the London Observer reported:

"Duelfer said he visited Salman Pak several times, landing by helicopter. He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors. The Iraqis, he said, told Unscom it was used by police for counter-terrorist training."

"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter,'" Duelfer told the Observer.

"I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq," he added.

A month later Duelfer told USA Today, "We reported [the Salman Pak hijacking drills] at the time, but they've obviously taken on new significance" after the 9/11 attacks.

It's not clear whether part of Duelfer's new mandate as head of the ISG will be to pursue evidence tying Iraq to 9/11.

Duelfer told the Associated Press that CIA Director George Tenet assured him he wanted one thing: "That is the truth, wherever that lay."

Z

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 12:41 AM

Amos: "The Arizona Sun." What's that? Mainstream media? I don't think so.

If your refrences include those with the reputation of the "Arizona Sun" I fear they are still suspect.

But if spending the next four years dwelling on the loss makes your day, so be it. Enjoy!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 03:14 AM

Who got the 500th post then? I missed it!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 04:12 AM

Amos---retire my friend. The piss pedlars are ganging up on you, and all others have decided that you're valiantly trying to swim in molasses.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 08:15 AM

Thanks for the kind thought, Boab. Given the analytical level and the irrational site appearing from some of the militantly minecephalic sorts in this part of the jungle, it is tempting.

The presence of Salman Pak has never been definitive, although it is the only indirect evidence that Iraq may have trained someone to hijack an airliner. When and where that hijacking occurred is not something anyone has been able to say. I don't understand why more was not made of Salman Pak amongst the Bushites during the rampup, when Bush was steering the nation deliberately into war while lying about his intentions and pretending no such decision had been made. Remember that?

There was a wonderful radio humorist who used to pretend he was a super-illiterate redneck and deliver diatribes against anything that crossed his sights. He ended every rant with the invocation, delivered in a heavy Georgian accent, "Whake Up, Amurrica!". He was just kidding of course. The death toll in Iraq, the creep corrosion undermining free speech, the insidiious contravention of free assembly, the invasive overtones of a fascistic reign, all prove that it is possible to get used to anything, as long as it doesn't disturb your peanut butter.

Some of us, anyway.

According to recent polls a small but clear majority of Americans believe that the Administration falsified the case for going in to Iraq and that their conduct of the invasion has harmed the war on terrorism.

Maybe "Whake Up Amurica" isn't too far off. You can't put all the people to sleep all the time.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Zack
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 12:06 PM

Where is the terrorist raining camp in Afghanistan with the aircraft to practice a hijacking in? Is there one anywhere in the middle east besides Iraq?

There are satellite photos of the aircraft to prove that it was and still is there. Did Saddam let Al Qaeda train there? While not conclusive, the majority of the evidence indicates he did.

If you conspiracy aficionados want to get really torqued up, there are people in the US and Canaduh that claim the US government flew the jet liners into the towers and the Pentagon to create an excuse to attack Iraq for the oil. You can join that group of "enlightened" individuals.

Zack

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 12:34 PM

Amos, your post of 22 Nov. 11:52: Again, you offer "evidence" based on news stories or editorials or columns from newspapers who clearly detest Bush. That's hardly an argument to offer without bias.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 06:07 PM

DougR:

Don't put words in my mouth, young feller. I said they were popular views, not evidence. The only thing they evidence is what people are thinking. First the people who are writing them, and second, an indeterminate percentage of their readers.

I finds it curious that so many qualify as detesting Bush. Maybe he's despicable?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 07:19 PM

From a posting to a Democratic site:

"Here's your ethical superiority


Today, House Republicans decided that since their ethics-challenged leader Tom Delay stands a real chance of being caught by their own ethics rules, it would probably be best to change them before they actually had to abide by them. So they did. Republican members of the House changed a rule put in place to show their "ethical superiority" in the early 1990's that forbade Republicans from serving in leadership positions if indicted for a crime that could put them in jail for more than two years.


Delay is at the center of a campaign finance scandal that has already led to the indictment of three people, so Republicans certainly had reason to worry. But instead of standing up and truly showing some type of ethical conscience, Republicans changed the definition of what they felt a leader should embody. No longer is a Republican leader held to a standard that says: "if you're indicted, you're not qualified to lead us." They're now held to a standard that says: "if you're indicted, we'll take thirty days to decide if the indictment was warranted, and even then we'll probably let you stay around."


It's amazing what happens when the ethically bankrupt are in control of their own ethical standards."

Posted by Josh McConaha @ 08:52 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 07:24 PM

The International Herald Tribune has some thoughtful comments by Ed Morris on the Bush Administration's current war.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 08:13 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/opinion/23tue2.html

A nEw York Times Editorial:

Dispensing with legislative niceties like holding hearings or full and open
debate, President Bush and the Republican Congress have used the cover of a
must-pass spending bill to mount a disgraceful sneak attack on women's
health and freedom.

Tucked into the $388 billion budget measure just approved by the House and
Senate is a sweeping provision that has nothing to do with the task Congress
had at hand - providing money for the government. In essence, it tells
health care companies, hospitals and insurance companies they are free to
ignore Roe v. Wade and state and local laws and regulations currently on the
books to make certain that women's access to reproductive health services
includes access to abortion.

---

Slimy, huh?:

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Zack
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 08:54 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Zack
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 08:58 PM

Amos will surely fall for this one:

Arafat is alive, the only question is where

Z

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:09 PM

Amos and this old fart are like two peas in a pod:

There's no question they wanted to run it because it was negative towards Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:16 PM

Spending Bill Held Up by Tax Provision


Measure Lets Panels Examine Returns; Repeal Is Planned

By Dan Morgan and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 23, 2004; Page A01

A $388 billion government-wide spending bill, passed by Congress on Saturday, was stranded on Capitol Hill yesterday, its trip to the White House on hold as embarrassed Republicans prepared to repeal a provision that could give the Appropriations committees the right to examine the tax returns of Americans.

Top GOP lawmakers disavowed the provision, expressed surprise that it was in the bill, and blamed both the Internal Revenue Service and congressional staffs for incorporating it into the omnibus spending package funding domestic departments in 2005.

(From the Washington Post)

My, how embarassing!! How do you suppose that got in there?!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:19 PM

Andy Rooney? You do me great honor - a very funny man:

---

"Second year Fletcher student Jeremy Harrington asked Rooney to "skewer people outside our borders," to which Rooney deadpanned, "There's bound to be a conservative in every crowd."


Rooney responded by referring to the American failure to win the support of Iraqis and the world community in the Iraq war. He said the United States started the war "for good reasons," but he did not think the rest of the world agreed.


"We are in such a leadership position and I just don't feel we are leading as well as we could," he said. "We should try and sell ourselves, and try to convince the Iraqi people - with something other than guns - that we are here to help."


Rooney said he thought Iraq was "an ignorant society, not to be critical of them," a remark which was questioned later in his speech. Rooney defended the comment, saying that it is difficult to sell democracy in a country where few have access to the media and illiteracy is high, but acknowledged that "my attitude of the Iraqis is typical of the America I am complaining about."

He said Christian fundamentalism is a result of "a lack of education. They haven't been exposed to what the world has to offer."


Rooney said he also could not understand how "men who work with their hands voted for George Bush," and again attributing the phenomenon to a lack of education. "The labor force is conservative," he said. "How in the world did that happen?"


Rooney said that he hoped Bush's re-election would give him the "confidence" to end the war in Iraq. "I think if George Bush said tomorrow, 'I was wrong, I ask for an apology,' I bet the American people would thank him, and they would like him," he said.

---

Thanks, man.

As for old fart, hey, you came to the right website! The place is crawlin' with 'em!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:31 PM

Amos

It's just that I find this all so frivilous. While you are looking for ways to detest a president who will be around 4 more years at the will of the people, I am just going to continue to have fun with the whole concept of how an intelligent person like yourself can waste his life.

So here we go again...............



























































































































































































































































































































































































































I love pussy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:31 PM

Amos will shit his britches over this one:

The Yellowcake Con

the Butler report vindicates President Bush on the allegedly misleading "16 words" regarding uranium from Africa

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arnie
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:38 PM

Amos needs to spew his bush hatred on NPR. They welcome propagandists there.

NPR Paints Fullujah as "Holy Resistance" Against U.S. "Genocide"

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 09:47 PM

Amos feels a certain kinship to this Bush hater:

An Exchange on HBO's On the Record with Bob Costas, May 9, 2003.

Michael Moore: "What happened to the search for Osama bin Laden?"
Bob Costas: "Obviously they're pursuing Osama bin Laden as we speak."
Moore: "Really? You believe that?"
Costas: "Yes."
Moore: "You do believe that?"
Costas: "Sure. And if they could find him, and perhaps they eventually will, they'd be gratified by that."
Moore: "You don't think they [the U.S. government] know where he is, huh?"
Bob Costas (astonished): "You think they know where Osama bin Laden is and it's hands off?"
Moore: "Absolutely, absolutely."
Costas: "Why?"
Moore: "Because he's funded by their friends in Saudi Arabia! He's back living with his sponsors, his benefactors. Do you think that Osama bin Laden planned 9/11 from a cave in Afghanistan? I can't get a cell signal from here to Queens! Alright, I mean, come on, let's get real about this. The guy has been on dialysis for two years. He's got failing kidneys. He wasn't in a cave in Afghanistan-"
Costas: "You think he's in Saudi Arabia?"
Moore: "Absolutely."
Costas: "Not Afghanistan, not Pakistan?"
Moore: "Well, could be Pakistan but it's, he's under the protective watch of those who have said put stop to this because-"
Costas: "Including, at least by extension, the United States? He's under the protective watch of the United States?"
Moore: "I think no, I think the United States, I think our government knows where he is and I don't think we're going to be capturing him or killing him any time soon."

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Opie
Date: 23 Nov 04 - 10:05 PM

Amos in it up to his neck:

Liberal War against Conservatives a Quagmire

O

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:28 AM

Curious what a personal stance you lot seem to take. Why is that?

Perhaps you approve of bloodletting in various forms. I dunno. In any case look for more biased lying left wing pinko liberal swill from this pinko commie punk America hater in the near future.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Harpo
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 11:25 AM

This great article proves that it's time for Amos to jump on the bandwagon with the normal people:

November 23, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — President Bush is heading into his second term, with his job approval rising to 55 percent, a new poll shows.

Bush's post-election bounce and growing public support come at a time when 72 percent of Americans say the country is deeply divided, according to the nationwide Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll.

Bush has been seen as a polarizing president, but his job approval is at 55 percent while disapproval is down to 42 percent — his best job rating since last January, when he was still riding the boost from Saddam Hussein's capture.

In one noteworthy finding, Americans oppose, by more than 2 to 1, a constitutional amendment to let a foreign-born U.S. citizen like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger run for president.

Harpo

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 12:08 PM

Is Amos as biggoted as John Sylvester?

The Faith Based Leadership Council (FBLC), a coalition of more than 200 black clergy and members of the faith-based community, wants the Mid-West Family Broadcasting Group to dump the WTDY-AM host for last week referring to Rice as "Aunt Jemima" and Powell as "Uncle Tom.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 04:35 PM

It is evident from the similarity in your HTML constructs and your spelling that one of you feels it necessary to use multiple identities, perhaps in order to hide from a two-way communication. Tsk, tsk. That's self-defeating.

I am not "biggoted" in any way I know of. I am definitely opposed to many of the things President Bush stands for. But that's a matter of rational policy. I think he may be mentally unsound, but that is merely a hypothesis. Comparing me to a person accused of Klan-like racist remarks is quite unfair, but not surprising -- it is the kind of inaccuracy that typifies your contributions to this thread, often inserted solely for the purpose of insult or abuse.

The purpose of this thread is to gather for viewing salient perspectives concerning Bush and his administration from others, wherever they may be found.

If you would like to start a separate threat to call me names in, feel free to give that a shot.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Homey
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 06:15 PM

Amos who puts his personal digs onto his posts, objects to the practice.

A 14 year old boy died on Thursday, November 11th, after having received 85 lashes; according to the ruling of the Mullah judge of the public circuit court in the town of Sanandadj he was guilty of breaking his fast during the month of Ramadan.

HTC

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 07:31 PM

Well, obviously the flaws of fanatic Muslim practices are just the same as various perspectives on the current American government, right? There must be a link anywhere -- and if anyone can find a link that isn't there, it's a fanatic Bushian.

I take it your purpose in posting the above was to create hatred toward Muslims, Homey?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Homey
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 08:29 PM

Just pointing out the things that Bush is trying to eliminate by declaring Iran, Iraq and N Korea the Axis of Evil.

Other people bitch about everything he does and try to discredit him at every turn, therefore supporting such evil things.

If he does anything about Iran he is wrong. If he does not do anything about Iran he is wrong.

This has been orchestrated by Iran and others with the unwitting help of Bush haters:

The re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush significantly affects the entire strategic balance in the Middle East, and particularly with regard to Iran.

The Iranian and Syrian governments, in particular, plus many nominally non-state, transnational players � such as al-Qaida, HizbAllah, and the like � geared much of their strategic posturing over the past few years to removing the Bush Administration in the U.S. This created its own dynamic, but, having failed, the positions and policies of these entities will now evolve.

HTC

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:26 PM

HTC:

Thanks for a most interesting article. Assad Homayoun is an interesting feller, a man who was succeeding under the Pahlavi regime and would therefore like nothing more than to resurrect a similarly secular regime that took pride in its Persian legacy. Who can blame him for that?

I understand that those who do not approve of the war may seem to you to be supporting the evil of fanatacism, but from my point of view our fanatacism has rushed us into a war chosen at the wrong time, fought in the wrong place, and started for unclear and in some ways misguided reasons. Above all, my objection is to the violence that the decision to go to war has suddenly brought down on innocent heads, especially those crippled and killed and ruined by calamity directly caused by war fighting. What we support is not the extremes of Msulim fanatacism -- who do you think we are? -- but the ineluctable advanced of reason and communication among reasoning people as the ultimate power of any social deal.

As for Bush's position about Iran, it is tricky, but I think his best bet is to inspire the community of nations to send Iran to Coventry if she acts anti-social.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 04 - 09:37 PM

World Tribune.com, the site linked to above, has some very interesting things to say about Bush's overall position. An excerpt:

"In the eyes of the establishment, the Bush tactics, the Bush agenda, and Mr. Bush himself are over the top. The president is girding for battle. He's aiming to consolidate control of his administration, drive out recalcitrant (read: establishment) elements, and make the permanent government heel, especially at the CIA and State Department. He's kept his White House staff intact, from political adviser Karl Rove to speechwriter Mike Gerson to budget chief Josh Bolten, as a kind of headquarters cadre. The White House aides who've departed, such as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and counsel Alberto Gonzales, were dispatched to take over Cabinet agencies.

Mr. Bush's agenda is post-Reagan in its conservatism, which means it's more far-reaching and thus more threatening to the establishment. Mr. Bush would not only reform Social Security and allow individuals to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in financial markets, he would also revamp the entire federal tax code and fill the Supreme Court with judicial conservatives. And those are only his domestic plans. In foreign affairs, Mr. Bush would make aggressive efforts to spread democracy around the world the centerpiece. The foreign policy élite s aghast."

---

The balance of the article, which is strongly conservative, can be found on this page. It essentially describes Bush as a bold insurgent, an unusual piece of positioning. I do not support the viewpoint of the author, myself, but I think he is intelligent and is doing a good job of saying what he sees. I don't understand, given the departure six cabinet members, how he can say that Bush has kept his cadre intact. But I'll cut him some slack on that issue.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 03:34 AM

Homey,
    Thank you for those somewhat shocking links. A good attempt at balancing this extremely lopsided thread.
      Most of the students at the school of Architecture that I went to in England in the late 1970's were Persian. They were similar to me in most respects, they drank, smoked, we played chess together, cards, I even taught two of them to drive in my trusty VW beetle.
      When the Shah was deposed, and Persia became Iran, some of the lads failed their exams deliberately, so that they could spend another year in England. THEY knew what was coming! God knows what became of them when they went home!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:02 AM

Why do they call Bush a liar?

Clinton says Saddam's ouster essential

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Homey
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:10 AM

Ted:

This is indeed a lopsided thread by a former Kerrydriod with a braincase made of Kryptonite.

HTC

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:15 AM

The CIA's secret war in Iraq - ABC News Report
Peter Jennings Reporting
Showdown with Saddam
Feb. 7, 1998

PETER JENNINGS (VO)
             These are some of the
             Iraqis Bob, Tom, John, Ted and other CIA
             officers recruited in their secret campaign to
             overthrow Saddam Hussein. The CIA went after
             Saddam Hussein, because the US military didn't
             get him during the Gulf War-not that they
             didn't try. (interviewing) Do you want him
             killed?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Werner
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 08:22 AM

The independent Iraqi weekly Al-Yawm Al-Aakher reveals details on the training of Al-Qa'ida members operating under the orders of Saddam's Presidential Palace two months before the September 11 attacks. The following are excerpts from the article:

WVB

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 10:11 AM

Dear Guest:

You don't have to paste the whole excerpt into a link. You can limit the amount of text that becomes clickable, which is the text between the first ">" and the second "<" -- see the HTML FAQ.

It is interesting to realize that we had spent a million dollars encouraging the anti-Saddam factions in Iraq under Clinton. Bush's version is a much richer and bloodier stew indeed. I can hear the answer now -- "Yeah, but we got Saddam!". And in exchange we have the mother of all insurgencies on our hands.

The ground truth is that we did not have the courage to take Saddam down by other means. One fanatic suicide bomber in the right place would have done the job much more neatly than this stupid invasion, even if we grant that his oppressive regime was wortht hat risk, which is possibly true.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Nov 04 - 10:42 AM

Werner:

An interesting document, but one I think has to be taken with some salt. I am mindful of the fact that the belief that Saddam had large installations of weapons of mass destruction was primarily generated by one ex-pat Iraqi. It is also unlikely that such inflammatory intelligence would not be used by the Bush faction in widely publicized justifications for the invasion.

So it seems a little inconsistent. But interesting! Thanks.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 11:48 AM

The New York Times discusses the international convention on the future of Iraq recently held, and the nature of the Bush administration's role in it, on the op Ed page:

Still Worlds Apart on Iraq.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 01:46 PM

Werner: thanks for posting the article, but EVERBODY knows Saddam had nothing what-so-ever to do with terrorists.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:00 PM

Everybody but Amos.

Getting to the point where he is embarrasses me as an American.

Amos, the revolution will not be televised.

It's entertaining to watch you make a douche bag of yourself.

You are one for the obsessive nut-case books.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:02 PM

BUSH 'TOOK COCAINE AT CAMP DAVID'
And wife Laura liked dope, says book
By Emma Pryer

GEORGE W Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David, a new book claims.

His wife Laura also allegedly tried cannabis in her youth.

Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.

She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: "Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either."

Other acquaintances allege that as a 26-year-old National Guard, Bush "liked to sneak out back for a joint or into the bathroom for a line of cocaine".

Bush has admitted being an alcoholic but, asked during the 1999 election if he did drugs, he said: "I've told the American people that years ago I made some mistakes.

"I've learned from my mistakes and should I be fortunate enough to become president I will bring dignity and honour to the office."

Later an aide clarified his remarks saying Bush hadn't taken illegal drugs in the past 25 years.

Kelley says that the Bush family covered up scandals because of their wealth and influence. She claims George W started drinking at school and continued at Yale university to overcome shyness.

Former student Torbery George says in the book: "Poor Georgie. He couldn't relate to women unless he was loaded."

Another says: "He went out of his way to act crude. It's amazing someone you held in such low esteem later became president."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:11 PM

In related news:

The Bush family saga

By Nicholas M. Horrock and Richard Tomkins
Published 11/26/2003 4:14 PM


WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- A Texas court has been asked to order the younger brother of President George W. Bush to give a new sample for DNA testing in a paternity-related defamation suit, sources told United Press International Wednesday.

The request for the new sample from Neil Bush, filed on behalf of Sharon Bush, was slated to be heard in Houston's Harris County Civil Court on Dec. 9.

"We require he be forced to give a sample under court supervision," David Berg, attorney for Sharon Bush, told United Press International. "He voluntarily did it before we got to court but not under court supervision. It was a good first step, but we want it under court supervised conditions."

Sharon Bush is being sued for defamation by Robert Andrews, a business associate of Neil Bush, who claims she defamed his 2-year-old son by publicly saying the boy was fathered by Neil Bush.

Maria Andrews, now divorced from her husband, is currently living in Paris with the child. Bush has said he intends to marry the woman following his divorce from Sharon Bush last spring. It was unclear if Neil would join her for the Thanksgiving holiday or remain in the United States.

Neil Bush did not return UPI's calls for comment by publication time Wednesday.

In a deposition given in the divorce case in March, a month before his divorce from Sharon, the president's 48-year-old sibling detailed financial relationships with firms in Taiwan and China and admitted to having had sex on several occasions in years past with unidentified women who simply came to his hotel door in Thailand and Hong Kong.

"It is dead on," said a source who read the leaked transcript, which has not been made public record.

Under the divorce settlement with Sharon, Bush reportedly pays about $1,500 per month in child support payments to Sharon and gives her $30,000 a year in alimony for four years.

The Bushes have three children.

Sharon bought the family home, valued at $850,000, from Neil the exact sum Andrews is suing her for.

---

(From UPI feed: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031126-033621-2133r)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 03:22 PM

 " Iraq was not a threat to the United States, or to any of their neighbors. The sanctions put into effect after the first Gulf War had turned that regime's conventional military into a large collection of paperweights. There are no weapons of mass destruction of any kind in Iraq. There were no connections whatsoever between Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and the attacks of September 11.

    The men and women whose faces fill the page below were not told this. They were, in fact, told the exact opposite. They raised their hands and took the oath, they donned their uniform and picked up their weapon, they boarded a plane and flew far from home, and they died. They were doing their duty, and they believed their President.

    George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Colin Powell and the members of this administration have much to answer for. (...)"

From Faces of 1000 Dead -- in case you want to know just whom we have lost because of our President's mismanagement. Just the first 1,000 men and women.

A


 

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 04:21 PM

The New York Times offers an analysis of statistics from Iraq. Motor fuel is more available, the number of insurgents is way up, the per centage of Iraqis wanting US forces to stay incountry is way down, indigenous optimism is down slightly, and the stats on casualties, although mounting, are probably false.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 07:11 PM

Geeze, Amos, I really am getting concerned about you. Did you have a good Thanksgiving? Are you depressed or something? Considering the books you have been reading, searching diligently for crap to relay to us about Bush that other "authors" have written would depress anyone. Maybe you should check with your physician to see if a good dose of Prozac might help your condition.

We (conservatives) survived eight years of Clinton. I'm sure you can survive eight of Bush. If you were to put the same energy into trying to get a candidate that thinks as you do elected in 2008, that you have put into whining about GWB winning the 2004 election, you might be a much more satisfied man in eight years!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 09:48 PM

DougR:

I can't do anything about the election -- I suppose we just want stupid people. But I can draw to public attention facts that are often painted out of the public view or buried by administration machinations.

Bush's decision to combat terrorism by invading Iraq was foolish, ill advised and expensive in life and treasure. As a manager, he would drive a corporation in to bankruptcy, judging by his effects on the nations reserves, economy and public repute.

This is profitable for a minority.

But that does not make it wise, a good course of action, just or even viable.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 04 - 10:19 PM

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=54767&d=21&m=11&y=2004

"Reagan Years May Give a Clue to Bush's Future Actions
Abdulrahman Al-Rashid, [e-mail]


Following the 1991 American-led war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq, people in the Gulf used to joke about George Bush the father. They said if Bush was nearby, you could sleep soundly in your house. Now, in light of what is going on in the region, people are saying if Bush the son is near, you had better flee your house. The departure of Colin Powell, the only rational voice in the administration, and the naming by Bush of his iron-lady national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, to replace him, is a clear message to every one that Bush is not afraid of engaging in new wars."

Balance of this Arabic editorial can be found >here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 09:40 AM

Validity of Ukraine election in doubt, Bush says


By Scott Lindlaw
Associated Press

Crawford, Texas — President Bush declared Friday that charges of voter fraud have cast doubt on the Ukrainian election.

"The only good deal is one that's verifiable," the president told reporters.(Emphasis added. AHJ)

The United States and other Western nations contend that massive fraud marred the presidential runoff election Sunday in Ukraine, and the country's highest court has ordered election officials not to publish the results until an appeal is heard next week. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell cited reports of fraud in the election in saying the United States cannot accept the results.

---

Hmmmmmmm.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 09:58 AM

From http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/opinion/23tue2.html:

Dispensing with legislative niceties like holding hearings or full and open
debate, President Bush and the Republican Congress have used the cover of a
must-pass spending bill to mount a disgraceful sneak attack on women's
health and freedom.

Tucked into the $388 billion budget measure just approved by the House and
Senate is a sweeping provision that has nothing to do with the task Congress
had at hand - providing money for the government. In essence, it tells
health care companies, hospitals and insurance companies they are free to
ignore Roe v. Wade and state and local laws and regulations currently on the
books to make certain that women's access to reproductive health services
includes access to abortion.

---

Underhanded, huh?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 06:22 PM

In this interesting essay on the influence of Bernard Lewis, Michael Hirsh asks a pointed question about the faltering Bush vision for Iraq: What if Islam isn't an obstacle to democracy in the Middle East but the secret to achieving it?

Interesting backgrounder on current colisions.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 08:00 PM

Exerpted from: Vast Borrowing Seen in Altering Social Security
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON for the New York Times



WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - The White House and Republicans in Congress are all but certain to embrace large-scale government borrowing to help finance President Bush's plan to create personal investment accounts in Social Security, according to administration officials, members of Congress and independent analysts. ...

...Mr. Bush has vowed to push hard to remake Social Security. Republicans in Congress say the White House has signaled to them that Mr. Bush will put the issue at the top of his domestic agenda in the coming year.

But the White House has never answered fundamental questions about Mr. Bush's plan. In particular, it has not explained how it would deal with the financial quandary created by its call for personal accounts.

---

The problem with this approach is that the full faith and confidence of the United States government has been dramatically adulterated in the eyes of the world, and the dollar is no longer seen by those in distant countries as the refuge of sane investment in troubled times. Without the reputation for probity and viability of the nation behind it, borrowing will be extremely expensive. Which in turn will accelerate our decline toward national insolvency and enforced reevaluation. If only we had a few billion dollars to spare to straighten all this out!! Unfortunately all our spare billions were needed to invade Iraq.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 08:09 PM

In A Foreboding Thaw the New York Times editorial page says:

Like many studies of global warming, this one notes some possible benefits, like longer growing seasons. But these few pluses have to be weighed against the destruction of an entire ecosystem. The life patterns of native people and native species in the Arctic have shifted drastically over the past half-century. Warming on the scale projected by this study could well mean the extinction of some species of seals and polar bears, and a certain end to traditional ways of life.

These are sobering thoughts. Ice cores show that over history the polar climate has fluctuated, often severely. But this fluctuation is caused by human activity. Even if we were to sharply and immediately reduce carbon dioxide emissions, some arctic warming would continue.

The solution to this problem rests on our ability to imagine and purposefully shape the future. One obvious way is to create international agreements and recognize that immediate restraint on our part may make the difference. The Bush administration has denied the severity of global warming and the science behind it. On this vital matter, the president needs to look a painful reality squarely in the face.

---

Anyone giving odds that's going to happen?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 09:54 PM

This is the Enemy Names list, Flag ED 2830RB, 25 July 1992, Suppressive Persons and Groups.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 10:18 PM

Amos Jessup, a philosophy major from Connecticut. The son of a senior editor on *Life* magazine, Jessup had gone to Saint Hill in 1966, while he was studying in Oxford, to try and get his young brother out of Scientology and instead had become converted himself. `I was soon convinced', he said, `that instead of being some dangerous cult it was an important advance in philosophy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 11:06 PM

The Sources of American Legitimacy
Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2004

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs

Summary: The 18 months since the launch of the Iraq war have left the country's hard-earned respect and credibility in tatters. In going to war without a legal basis or the backing of traditional U.S. allies, the Bush administration brazenly undermined Washington's long-held commitment to international law, its acceptance of consensual decision-making, its reputation for moderation, and its identification with the preservation of peace. The road back will be a long and hard one.

Robert W. Tucker is Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University. David C. Hendrickson is Robert J. Fox Distinguished Service Professor at Colorado College.

AN ERODED IDEAL

The 18 months since the launching of the second Iraq war have brought home, even to its advocates, that the United States has a serious legitimacy problem. The pattern of the first Iraq war, in which an overwhelming victory set aside the reservations of most skeptics, has failed to emerge in the aftermath of the second. If anything, skepticism has deepened. The United States' approval ratings have plunged, especially in Europe-the cooperation of which Washington needs for a broad array of purposes-and in the Muslim world, where the United States must win over "hearts and minds" if it is to lessen the appeal of terrorism. In both areas, confidence in the propriety and purposes of U.S. power has dropped precipitously and shows little sign of recovery.

Legitimacy arises from the conviction that state action proceeds within the ambit of law, in two senses: first, that action issues from rightful authority, that is, from the political institution authorized to take it; and second, that it does not violate a legal or moral norm. Ultimately, however, legitimacy is rooted in opinion, and thus actions that are unlawful in either of these senses may, in principle, still be deemed legitimate. That is why it is an elusive quality. Despite these vagaries, there can be no doubt that legitimacy is a vital thing to have, and illegitimacy a condition devoutly to be avoided.

How to restore legitimacy has thus become a central question for U.S. foreign policy, although the difficulty of doing so is manifest. At a minimum, restoring international confidence in the United States will take time. The erosion of the nation's legitimacy is not something that occurred overnight. Washington is unlikely to succeed at renewing it simply by conducting better "public diplomacy" to "make the American case" to the world, for world public opinion already rejects the case that has been made. If the United States is going to be successful in recapturing legitimacy, it will have to abandon the doctrines and practices that brought it to this pass.

---

This is brainy stuff, but of great interest. It i s not particularly pro- or anti-Bush.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 09:20 AM

From Thomas Friedman's editorial, "The Last Mile".

"Indeed, I have never understood how an administration that wanted a war so badly and will be judged on it by history so profoundly, could manage it so sloppily. Right now we need an "intelligent czar" for Iraq much more than we need an "intelligence czar" for America.

Consider one small example. Last week, The Times's defense correspondent, Thom Shanker, wrote about a study conducted by the Defense Science Board, which found that nearly two years into the war in Iraq, America's institutions charged with "strategic communications" - about what we are doing in the world and why - are broken. The study found that "the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam."

---

If we can't coordinate one little war, maybe we're not really qualified to hunt down and kill terrorists wherever they may be found regardless of charges, evidence, due process and other such civilized niceties.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 10:13 AM

Greg Palast, Blueblood troublemaker from the git-go, discusses how New Mexico and Ohio spoiled themselves rotten in implementing racial prejudice in the democratic process.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 04:59 PM

In The President's Goal in Iraq, Jay Bookman tries to figure the real rationale behind the war in Iraq.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 05:16 PM

Sheila Samples, a writer from Oklahoma, discusses Stinky and the Vulcans, and how an 8-year old can sometimes see readily things that a 48-year old cannot. Her essay is entitled, Stinky and the Vulcans. Among other thoughtful remarks, she writes:

"It is a mystery to me why Americans would vote for four more years of war crimes against humanity. However, while watching a C-Span program on the subject shortly after the election, I was struck by the answer given by a sweet-sounding woman from Missouri -- "I had no choice but to vote for Bush," she said almost regretfully. "I was obliged to vote for him because he was endorsed by God..."

Has there ever been a more glaring example of the chasm that grows wider every day under this administration between "religion" and "Christianity"? Religious "believers" who cast their votes were instructed by their leaders to cast a "vote for God" or for a man who would "ban" the Bible, support not only gay marriage, but drive-through abortions and killing babies for stem cell research. Verily, this deeply religious woman, and millions like her, had no choice but to vote for Bush. 

Perhaps that is why so many Christians are weeping...

So, as Stinky and the Vulcans head for that fantastical midway and begin rehearsing for their next number entitled, "To Iran -- and Beyond!" just remember even an 8-year-old knows instinctively that the coming attraction transcends comic-book horror. It's the real thing. And it's e-e-e-e-v-u-l...

Later, we cannot say we didn't know."

See the link for the whole article, which clarifies where the name comes from.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Munchausen
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 09:07 PM

Amos:

Don't piss your pants but this is just what you have been hoping to find.

USA staged 9/11 Attacks

The Baron

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 09:28 PM

Thanks, Baron. While I sympathize with the idea that the 9-11 attacks might have been just too too convenient for Bushlandia, I can't quite buy Andreas von Bulow's argument. I think the plain, prima facie evidence is enough to convict the Bushcorps of criminality and the sort of insanity usually accompanying megalomaniac destructive acts.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 11:06 PM

From the current edition of the Cairo Al-Ahram:

"A conference of this magnitude of Sharm El-Sheikh certainly indicates a desire to find a solution that restores stability to Iraq through the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1546. The resolution calls for the formation of a transitional government to run the country until general elections are held in January 2005. The transitional government was formed in June 2004, with help from the UN. Resolution 1546 calls for the withdrawal of the occupation forces once the transitional government requests it, or after 12 months. Six months have already passed -- something for the Sharm El-Sheikh conference to think about.


The conference is a final chance to address the humanitarian crisis that one Iraqi city after another is facing.


Events in Iraq have violated all international norms. They undermine the credibility and universality of human values. International norms are not the exclusive preserve of the West. People are suffering and dying, their wealth squandered, their sovereignty trampled underfoot, all for the benefit of the US and its allies.


UN participation in the formation of the transitional government in June is something worth repeating until Iraq is rid of occupation. Initiatives and conferences are not enough to end the tension in the region. The tragedy in Iraq will not be over until the occupation is over.


This is a chance for the UN to repair its damaged legitimacy and assume the rightful leadership of the international community. This is a chance for Europe, Japan and the US to reclaim their democratic values. This is a chance for countries such as China and Russia to help their past and future allies in the region. This is a chance for Iraq's neighbours to prove their goodwill regarding Iraq's security and stability. It is a chance for the Arab League and its members to stand up for Iraq's rights, alone or alongside the international community.


Will anyone take these chances, for they may well be the last?"

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Munchausen
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 11:17 PM

Amos:

I thought you would fall for that conspiracy bullshit the way you fell for the Scientology bullshit.

The Baron

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 11:26 PM

Baron:

Your perspicacity is clearly below par, then.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 05:53 PM

From writings by Ben Franklin, criticized for including inappropriate infoprmation in his publishings:

http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/cambridge/apology.html


"A certain well-meaning Man and his Son, were traveling towards a Market
Town, with an Ass which they had to sell. The Road was bad; and the old Man
therefore rid, but the Son went a-foot. The first Passenger they met, asked
the Father if he was not ashamed to ride by himself, and suffer the poor Lad
to wade along thro' the Mire; this induced him to take up his Son behind
him: He had not travelled far when he met other, who said, they were two
unmerciful Lubbers to get both on the Back of that poor Ass, in such a deep
Road. Upon this the old Man gets off, and let fis Son ride alone. The next
they met called the Lad a graceless, rascally young Jackanapes, to ride in
that Manner thro' the Dirt, while his aged Father trudged along on Foot; and
they said the old Man was a Fool, for suffering it. He then bid his Son come
down, and walk with him, and they travell'd on leading the Ass by the
Halter; 'till they met another Company, who called them a Couple of sensless
Blockheads, for going both on Foot in such a dirty Way, when they had an
empty Ass with them, which they might ride upon. The old Man could bear no
longer; My Son, said he, it grieves me much that we cannot please all these
People: Let us throw the Ass over the next Brisge, and be no farther
troubled with him."

Had the old Man been seen acting this last Resolution, he would probably
have been call'd a Fool for troubling himself about the different Opinions
of all that were pleas'd to find Fault with him: Therefore, tho' I have a
Temper almost as complying as his, I intend not to imitate him in this last
Particular. I consider the Variety of Humours among Men, and despair of
pleasing every Body; yet I shall not therefore leave off Printing. I shall
continue my Business. I shall not burn my Press and melt my Letters."

For you whom the shoe fits,


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 06:16 PM

To the Editor:

I was saddened to read in "In My Next Life" (column, Nov. 25) that Thomas L.
Friedman is thankful that "the public schools still manage to produce young
men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and
Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own."

Isn't that an example of gravely diminished expectations? I would much
prefer a situation where adequately financed public schools produced leaders
bent on making peace through diplomacy than war fraught with
self-righteousness.

Robert Wagner
New York, Nov. 25, 2004
(From the New York Times)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 06:18 PM

Scientology:

      STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship.

      Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range."

      Strong is a research manager in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science's bipolar disorders clinic and a doctoral candidate at the Pacific Graduate School. She is presenting preliminary results during a poster presentation today (May 21) at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association Meeting in Philadelphia.

      The current study is groundbreaking for psychiatric research in that it used separate control groups made up of both healthy, creative people and people from the general population.

      Researchers administered standard personality, temperament and creativity tests to 47 people in the healthy control group, 48 patients with successfully treated bipolar disorder and 25 patients successfully treated for depression. She also tested 32 people in a healthy, creative control group. This group was comprised of Stanford graduate students enrolled in prestigious product design, creative writing and fine arts programs, including Stegner Fellows in writing, students in the interdisciplinary Joint Program in Design from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and studio arts master's students from the Department of Art & Art History. All subjects were matched for age, gender, education and socioeconomic status.

      Preliminary analysis showed that people in the control group and recovered manic depressives were more open and likely to be moody and neurotic than healthy controls. Moodiness and neuroticism are part of a group of characteristics researchers are calling "negative-affective traits" which also include mild, nonclinical forms of depression and bipolar disorder.

      Though the data are preliminary, they provide a roadmap for psychiatric researchers looking to solve the genius/madness paradox depicted in the movie A Beautiful Mind, which tells the story of Nobel Laureate John Nash. The existing data need further review, Strong said. "And, we need to expand this to other groups," he said. How mood influences the performance of artists and genius scientists will be the subject of future research at Stanford. "We need to better understand the emotional side of what they do," Strong said.


Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 06:23 PM

You Can't Get Here From There
By JOSEPH S. NYE Jr.

Published: November 29, 2004


Cambridge, Mass. — Last year, the number of foreign students at American colleges and universities fell for the first time since 1971. Recent reports show that total foreign student enrollment in our 2,700 colleges and universities dropped 2.4 percent, with a much sharper loss at large research institutions. Two-thirds of the 25 universities with the most foreign students reported major enrollment declines.

---

While Nye discusses primarily the impact on our economy and repute resulting from this sorry decline, he only slightly indicates the actual cause of the situation: the paranoid responses by the Ashcroft and Bush crowd in improving security.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 06:26 PM

A Charming Review of Bush's life in the White House


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 06:58 PM

A darling article about why Amos is mentally ill:

Post-Scientology Behavioral Patterns

Given that the Scientology world view is very rigidl defined, in both cases, the departure is traumatic to the individual. The degree of trauma varies according to the intensity of the circumstances surrounding the departure, how long the person was in, and how deeply involved they were, and the personality of the individual. As with any trauma, the individual experiences depression, dislocation with the world they suddenly find themselves in, rage, anger, sometimes a desire for revenge. This paper is not intended to be an "exit counselling", since there are experts who specialise in this, and the literature listed at the conclusion adequately identifies these aspects, and suggests strategies for dealing with them.

Rather, what is being highlighted here is the often undetected behavioral patterns, learned while in Scientology, that manifest in an individual long after they have left, even when they feel that they have fully recovered from Scientology. These behavioral patterns can be traced back to specific aspects of Scientology teaching, and what will be outlined is intended as a starting point, and guide, which can be modified, or added to, depending on the reader's own experience and perception.
1. POLARISED THINKING:

By polarised thinking, I am referring to extremist thought patterns, which could even be compared to totalitarian rigidity. Things are either ALL good, or ALL bad, a person is either TOTALLY evil, or TOTALLY good. The individual can unconsciously re-act to life, people and information with this rigid and uncompromising approach. They either love a person, or hate them. A piece of information is either perfectly true, or all lies.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 08:13 PM

Dear Guest:

In addition to refusing to speak to the actual issues raised in this thread; in addition to refusing to sign your name to your communications; in addition to refusing to learn how to do simple HTML, thus distorting the appearance of your own slimy posts;in addition to insisting on distorting everything you write into an ad hominem attack; in addition to accusing me of the ordinary curiosity of a healthy mind, as though it were some defect, when the only mental defect in evidence here is your own hidden and underhanded hate; you now pretend to know a thing or two about Scientology, a subject in which you have no reading nor any experience.

If you did, you would know that one of their principals is that bi-valued logic is primitive and inadequate for most purposes. If you would like to start a discussion about the tenets of the subject, which I did in fact study some forty years ago (a fact which you seem to think is condemnatory rather than merely minimally interesting) by all means start a thread on the subject. But it has nothing to do with this thread or its subject, which is the atrocious inhumanity of a gang of thieves in Washington operating a different and more rabid cult, that of neoconserrvative imperialism. You want to talk about bi-polar logic? Whooeeee! But in any case it pains me to the extreme to think that in a time when children and women are being riddled with shrapnel and lead and bleeding to death, all you can do is raise rhetorical questions about whether it should be pointed out or not. I suppose if you heard someone screaming murder outside your window you would take notes on their grammar -- that's the kind of pusillanimous little shit you are.

Anyway, please crawl back in to your gutter, or under your rock, or wherever it was you thought you should crawl out from. Your constant irrelevance and underhanded droolery is vaguely nauseating, and below the standards of normal discourse.

In other news, Osama's right hand man has released a tape asserting that the United States is not treating Muslims with respect and thereby is causing all its own troubles.

Hmmmmm......

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 08:31 PM

You be da' man, Amos... Rant on and know as long as yer posting stuff that tells the truth about what jerks Bush and thugs are, I am in total agreement...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:09 AM

I think I have it now. Amos is shooting for the record of writing more posts to a thread he/she has started than any other poster. Uh, Amos, I think you have done it already with this one. Congratulations!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 05:39 AM

I am mostly adding in the general views I find in various places, Doug. I don't expect all these folks to seek out the Mudcat and post to it, naturally. Even you can understand that.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:04 AM

I trust you are reading all these links, aren't you, Doug? That's what I like about you. Though you are a knothead their is hope. You don't stay glued to Fox TV all day...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:57 AM

According to Amos:

"Things are either ALL good, or ALL bad, a person is either TOTALLY evil, or TOTALLY good. The individual can unconsciously re-act to life, people and information with this rigid and uncompromising approach. They either love a person, or hate them. A piece of information is either perfectly true, or all lies."

Everything has good and bad points. Amos can see only one or the other. Kerry was all good and Bush is all bad. Quite a defective thought pattern.

Yesterday Bush picked a new cabinet member. Is he all bad or all good Amos? Why don't you start a rant on him and attack him the way you accuse others of attacking you?

Why don't you rant about Rice and the others? The must be ALL BAD if Bush wants them.

Never mind looking for or mentioning anything good that might be happening, just dwell on anything that you perceive as wrong and never acknowledge anything positive.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 06:19 PM

Poindexter,

Your eyes are brown, right?

Things are not all bad. In fact many things are very good.

The President, however, is not one of those things.

And I am sure he is not all bad. But he is a liar and an incompetent leader, which is bad enough. If he were running a used flower stand on the roadside in Central Texas, I would find him praiseworthy, I assure you. As President of my country he is a mockery.

When you grow up all this will make more sense to you.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 06:32 PM

Heck, if I were gonna throw a big fraternity party, I'd want Bush in on the planning... Hey, he's likable nuff guy... Just has these personality disorders so he ain't the guy you're gonna trust to drive yer wife home 'er invest yer money...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Poindexter
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 07:39 PM

Amos:

He did get elected. He won by a comfortable margin. Are you going to impeach Bush or knock him off or just keep whining because you are in the minority?

If you want to keep covering the same ground, here is a real story: Kerry's Victim

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 08:49 PM

http://deargeorgeletters.blogspot.com/

Siamese twins
Dear George,

You are the worst president of my lifetime, and probably of this country's
history. You led us into war under false pretenses. You have taken us from a
record budget surplus to a record deficit. Your policies have cost us jobs.
Access to health-care has not improved under your administration, and
probably worsened. You have pandered to the elite, the super-wealthy, and
the large corporations. You have turned your back on the environmental
standards and treaties. You have offered up give-aways to the energy and
timber industries with Orwellian names like "Clear Skies" and "Healthy
Forests." You have ham-strung AIDS work around the world by tying funding to
the promotion of abstinence at the exclusion of condom distribution. You
have played the politics of divisiveness, using the constitution as a wedge.
I could go on and on, but you know what you have done. And so do we.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who seem to be asleep at the wheel.


America is like a pair of Siamese twins, where one of the twins has a
genetic defect resulting in low IQ and a mean disposition. We can't kill our
mongoloid brother, or we kill ourselves. There was the opportunity for
separation, back in the 1800's, and perhaps, we should have taken it, but
its too late now. So, we are doomed to life with an idiot appendage dragging
around next to us, picking fights, drooling and spouting biblical passages.
In the end, our idiot brother will be our undoing. We are stuck.

So, what is the answer? Let the healing begin? No, I don't think so. This is
war. But you already knew that also.

I hope you choke on a pretzel, you pampered, inbred, dimwit.

Glenn
Age 39
Somerville, MA

---

A little harsh, I agree, but you can understand how he feels.


A

As for Gardner, I feel sorry for him. I don't trust his recollections, though. But again this thread is about the current administration.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:05 PM

In three FLorida counties, an unofficial recount has confirmed the voting that gave the state to George Bush in 2004. Full story in the New York Times.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:14 PM

From UPI:

Washington, DC, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A major Hispanic interests group praised U.S. President George Bush Tuesday for picking Kellogg's chief executive Carlos Gutierrez for commerce secretary.


The Latino Coalition, a non-partisan group formed to address issues affecting the well-being of Hispanics, said Bush's choice "sends a clear message" the president is "serious about expanding economic opportunities for all Americans."

...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 09:52 PM

Keep 'em comin', Amos!

A famous man once said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

But it seems that for some people, it works out as, "You shall hear the truth, and the truth shall piss you off!"

Too bad. So sad. If the truth hurts that bad, you sort of wonder what their values are.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:40 PM

To the Editor:

Since the election, hardly a day seems to go by without someone in the Bush administration claiming that the mandate it received indisputably vindicates one of its policies ("The Real Environmental Mandate," editorial, Nov. 26).

President Bush won with only 51 percent of the vote, not by some overwhelming landslide. On many key individual issues, including the environment, polls repeatedly show that the public doesn't support his policies. Certainly, his victory does not mean that his administration now has a mandate for invading foreign countries based upon erroneous justifications, presiding over a continued rise in people without health insurance, or increasing the federal deficit to record new heights.

I would hope that the president and his advisers start recognizing how limited is the depth of Mr. Bush's mandate. Otherwise, this nation faces the prospect of becoming even further divided.

Russ Weiss
Princeton, N.J., Nov. 26, 2004

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Opie
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 10:44 PM

By Zell Miller
Cox News Service
Friday, November 05, 2004

America's faith in freedom has been reaffirmed. With the re-election of President Bush, America recommitted itself once again to expanding freedom and promoting liberty. Only the 1864 re-election of Abraham Lincoln, the 1944 re-election of Franklin Roosevelt and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan rival this victory as milestones in the preservation of our security by the advancement of freedom.

this thread is about the current administration
I thought it was about poetic bullshite from Pinkola Estes and other airheads.

O

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

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


A

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

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

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

Bobert

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

Opie:

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

A

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

Bush begins another push for intel reform

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobert

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

Polling Data

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

        
          Nov. 2004 Oct. 2004

Approve      51%          45%

Disapprove   43%          47%

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

           Nov. 2004 Oct. 2004

Approve      45%         40%

Disapprove   50%         53%

WVB

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

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


(Excerpted from Axis of Logic)

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

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

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

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

A

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

Ah Amos, if only.


..xx..e

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

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

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

This guy has the same opinions as Amos:

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

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

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

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

DougR

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

While we still can ....


1. Drink a nice clean glass of water.

2. Cash your social security check.

3. See a doctor of your own choosing.

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

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

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

7. Hoard gasoline.

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

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

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

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

12. Stay out late before the curfews start.

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

14. Go see Mount Rushmore before the Reagan addition.

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

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

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

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

19. Start your school day without a prayer.

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

21. Learn French.

22. Attend a commitment ceremony with your gay friends.

23. Take a factory tour anywhere in the US.

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

25. Visit Florida before the polar ice caps melt.

26. Visit Nevada before it becomes radioactive.

27. Visit Alaska before "The Big Spill."

28. Visit Massachusetts while it is still a State.

---

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

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

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

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

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

From the Seattle Times:

Bush to dramatically reduce areas protected for salmon

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter


Critical habitat for West Coast salmon and steelhead


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

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

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

The NY Times reports: Congress Trims Money for Science Agency

November 30, 2004
By ROBERT PEAR

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

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

From the New York Times opinions section:

To the Editor:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned for that report...

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

Bobert

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

Bush Picks Up Minority Visibility

CBS NEWS NEW YORK, Nov. 29, 2004

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bobert

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

Jerusalem Post
Dec. 1, 2004 22:31

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

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

Da Kingfish

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

An excerpt from the sloppy link above:

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

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

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

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

---

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


A

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

Ise tryin' Amos

Bush Signs Bill for Nev. Wilderness Area

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

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

From the New York Review of Books:

The American Press and Iraq


By Michael Massing
Preface by Orville Schell



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


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


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


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

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

From the New Tork Times Editorial Section:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letters to the Times:

To the Editor:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

HTC

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

This is presented as a real story at this site:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diaries :: DowneastDem's diary ::

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

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

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

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

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




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






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






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






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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Detailed story on this page


A

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

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

Robert Scheer:
The Invisible Hand Holds the Remote


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A

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

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



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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

That's a significant portion of the Bush cadre.

A

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

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

DougR

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

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

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

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

Bobert

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


A

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

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

A

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

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

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

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

http://www.ImpeachBush.org

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

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

Bush beat Kerry nationally by 3 percentage points."


Da Kingfish

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

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

3 December 2004
Suffering the Democrat blues

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

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

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

Freud

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

Siggy:

Get off it.

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

A

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

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

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

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

Canadian authorities arrest US president George W. Bush

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

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

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

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To the Editor:

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

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

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

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

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

Freud:
The Beginning

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

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

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

Freud

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

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

One excerpted quopte out of many of interest:

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


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


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 02:08 PM

The New York Times Editor is not happy with the fiscal soundness of the nation under the present crew of deficit hawks:

A False Start on Social Security

Published: December 3, 2004


Even before the debate has truly begun over the centerpiece of President Bush's second-term domestic agenda - creating private retirement accounts within Social Security - White House and Congressional budget leaders have been floating the idea that it won't require a major increase in the federal budget deficit. This is dangerously misguided. Unwilling to raise taxes, Congress and the administration will have to borrow well over $1 trillion to turn the president's wish into reality.

For a country that already needs to borrow $2 billion a day just to stay afloat, that gargantuan price tag for privatization is one reason it's a bad idea. It is far from the only reason, and arguably not even the main one. Yesterday, for instance, the president's top economist said privatization would very likely lead to major benefit cuts, which could be devastating for people who lost money in their private accounts. For now, however, the cost issue is moving to center stage in Washington. It is imperative to refute the suggestion that private accounts would somehow, magically, pay for themselves.

The issue is how to pay full benefits to people at or near retirement if Social Security money starts going into private accounts. Since current wage earners cover the benefits for current retirees, every dollar workers invest elsewhere has to be replaced. This is the so-called transition cost, estimated at $1 trillion to $5 trillion.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 02:20 PM

Molly Ivins? Amos, if you are going to use someone to drive home your point(s), why not pick someone who has credibility with conservatives? If you point is only to preach to the choir, I'm afraid that your rants are merely a waste of your time. Your quoting someone like Molly Ivins as a creible source would be equal to my offering Ann Coulter as a credible source to liberals.

I guess centerpiece did go a bit too far.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 02:40 PM

DougR:

Dang, here I thought you were gonna pay me a compliment and you withdraw it!! Damn. Just for that, four more years of Mollie Ivins.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 09:06 PM

Putin Accuses U.S. of Double Standard

Fri Dec 3, 6:27 PM ET

By RAJESH MAHAPATRA, Associated Press Writer

NEW DELHI - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) sharply criticized the United States on Friday, accusing it of a double-standard in fighting terrorism and questioning whether any election in Iraq (news - web sites) can be democratic when fighting is raging in the country.

Putin, who has been angered by U.S. and European denunciations of the Ukraine election as rigged unacceptable, began a three-day visit to the Cold-War era ally with continued criticism of Washington, saying it seeks a "dictatorship of international affairs."

"Even if dictatorship is wrapped up in a beautiful package of pseuo-democratic phraseology, it will not be in a position to solve systemic problems," Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying in a speech Friday night in New Delhi.

Putin, who has been critical of the United States for going to war without international approval, warned that the fighting in Iraq was threatening the possibility of a democratic vote slated for Jan. 30.

"All this will definitely call in question the possibility of holding honest and democratic elections in Iraq early next year," he said.

Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a joint declaration that called for ending "political expediency" in the global fight against terrorism. The declaration made no reference to any country.

But in an interview in a Hindu newspaper, Putin said the United States and European nations practiced double standards by allowing into their countries some Chechen rebels whom Moscow considers to be terrorists.

(From Yahoo News)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 11:12 PM

Sanity

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 10:10 AM

Thomas Friedman takes the Administration to task for slighting the National Science Foundation and offers President Bush a transcendant opportunity to make good:

Fly Me to the Moon

...

If President Bush is looking for a legacy, I have just the one for him - a national science project that would be our generation's moon shot: a crash science initiative for alternative energy and conservation to make America energy-independent in 10 years. Imagine if every American kid, in every school, were galvanized around such a vision. Ah, you say, nice idea, Friedman, but what does it have to do with your subject - foreign policy?

Everything! You give me an America that is energy-independent and I will give you sharply reduced oil revenues for the worst governments in the world. I will give you political reform from Moscow to Riyadh to Tehran. Yes, deprive these regimes of the huge oil windfalls on which they depend and you will force them to reform by having to tap their people instead of oil wells. These regimes won't change when we tell them they should. They will change only when they tell themselves they must. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 10:32 AM

In A Soldier's Story a poignant and electrifying insight into the difference made when the war connects with you directly.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 05:06 PM

From CNN on John McCain on military sufficiency:

McCain said the problems in Iraq go deeper than troop numbers.

"The problem we have here is that the Pentagon has been reacting to initiatives of the enemy rather than taking initiatives from which the enemy has to react to," he said.

"And the problem, when you react, you have to extend people on duty there, which is terrible for morale. There's a terrific strain on Guard and reservists. If you plan ahead, then you don't have to do some of these things.

"The military," he said, "is too small."

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, said U.S. forces in Iraq are "still paying an awesome price for the initial failures on policy and refusal to change them of this administration, of going in with too little power and too little legitimacy."

Biden, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq, told ABC's "This Week," "We've won everything we've tried to do, including Falluja, but then we've lacked the resources to secure what we've won."

Biden said that, after his trip to Iraq, he was "less concerned about an outbreak of civil war than I am about the outbreak of civil chaos."

Biden also predicted that the Pentagon would keep troops in place until an objective has been reached, in this case the elections, "and then you're going to see them draw down again."

---

Looks like a bad plan, badly executed by inept management to me. Those who were there will remember that this is what cost us the Vietnam fiasco, on two sides: one, we failed to understand the hunger for self-determination of the North Vietnamese, who saw US forces as invaders; and two, we pretended to be there to win, but we compromised on our resources and degree of intent. There is no such thing as half a war. If there are not sufficient moral grounds for going and overwhelming the insurgents flat out, taking tactical and strategic initiative and providing completely adequate numbers to do so, then we should have no war at all. Playing half the game will lose another thousand lives just because the CiC doesn't know whether he is coming or going. I wouldn't take a bullet for those reasons, myself, but then I am not a good hypnotic subject, either.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 08:42 AM

The United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, warned today that the number of young Iraqi children suffering from acute malnutrition has nearly doubled since the March 2003 invasion, as health and living conditions have deteriorated. Almost eight per cent of Iraqi children younger than five suffer from chronic diarrhoea and protein deficiency, the agency's latest reports said.

"This means that hundreds of thousands of children are today suffering the severe effects of diarrhoea and nutrient deficiencies," UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said.
Diarrhoea, caused mainly by unsafe water and in some areas lack of clean supplies, is responsible for 70 per cent of child deaths in Iraq, the agency said.

Water treatment plants, already in poor condition, have suffered more damage since the invasion. In Baghdad, 40 per cent of the water system has been damaged, with water lines either broken or contaminated. Sewage treatment plants no longer work because of problems with the electrical supply, poor maintenance, and damage caused since the invasion.

Malnutrition doubled since US invasion: UNICEF; December 6, 2004 ; Sydney morning herald

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 09:15 AM

The G.O.P. vs. President Bush

Published: December 6, 2004 (NY Times)


It seems surreal that after winning a majority of voters on the point that he is the strongest anti-terrorism leader, President Bush must fairly beg House Republicans not to embarrass him any further by bottling up the badly needed reform of the intelligence agencies. Yet this is the ludicrous scenario as Congress returns for a two-day session with the president's political clout on the line and the intelligence overhaul bill blocked from a floor vote by a few G.O.P. committee chairmen. Voters are entitled to wonder who really won in November. Mr. Bush with a pressing national agenda? Or a few House lions determined to pander to Pentagon power eddies and fire up anti-immigrant animosities?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 09:18 AM

Talk About Scrooge
Published: December 6, 2004


In November, wages grew a whopping 1 cent an hour. But that was clawed back by a six-minute decline in the average workweek, producing a $1.25 drop in weekly earnings. Coming on the heels of a sluggish start to the holiday shopping season, the Labor Department's latest employment report, released Friday, doesn't presage a particularly merry Christmas or happy New Year for millions of working Americans.

In what is becoming a dismally predictable occurrence, the economy produced far fewer jobs than expected last month - 112,000 new slots versus an expectation of 200,000 - for the worst new-job total since last July, which was widely characterized as an economic "soft patch." Moreover, job growth in October and September was not as good as once believed. Those monthly numbers, disappointing on their own, reinforce what is now an unmistakable pattern in which the economy grows at a decent pace and corporate profits surge, while wages lag inflation and job creation barely keeps pace with the growth in the labor market.

We know how we got here. Tax cuts were misdirected at investment rather than consumption, resulting in an economic recovery weaker than it might have been.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 06:31 PM

When did the Soviet Union collapse? When did reform take off in Iran? When
did the Oslo peace process begin? When did economic reform become a hot
topic in the Arab world? In the late 1980's and early 1990's. And what was
also happening then? Oil prices were collapsing.

In November 1985, oil was $30 a barrel, recalled the noted oil economist
Philip Verleger. By July of 1986, oil had fallen to $10 a barrel, and it did
not climb back to $20 until April 1989. "Everyone thinks Ronald Reagan
brought down the Soviets," said Mr. Verleger. "That is wrong. It was the
collapse of their oil rents." It's no accident that the 1990's was the
decade of falling oil prices and falling walls.

If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, he would dry up
revenue for terrorism; force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to
take the path of reform - which they will never do with $45-a-barrel oil -
strengthen the dollar; and improve his own standing in Europe, by doing
something huge to reduce global warming. He would also create a magnet to
inspire young people to contribute to the war on terrorism and America's
future by becoming scientists, engineers and mathematicians. "This is not
just a win-win," said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael
Mandelbaum. "This is a win-win-win-win-win."

Or, Mr. Bush can ignore this challenge and spend the next four years in an
utterly futile effort to persuade Russia to be restrained, Saudi Arabia to
be moderate, Iran to be cautious and Europe to be nice.

Sure, it would require some sacrifice. But remember J.F.K.'s words when he
summoned us to go to the moon on Sept. 12, 1962: "We choose to go to the
moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure
the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we
are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we
intend to win."

Summoning all our energies and skills to produce a 21st-century fuel is
George W. Bush's opportunity to be both Nixon to China and J.F.K. to the
moon - in one move.

(From the NY Times Editorial section -- Friedman)

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 07:12 PM

Paul Roberts, who served under Reagan as Treasury Secretary, has a very dim view of the current posture of the Bush Administration.

In a piece entitled Is The Bush Administration Certifiable? he asks seriously, "Has President Bush lost his grip on reality?", and goes on to say:


'In his December 1 speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, President Bush again declared his intention to pre-emptively attack "enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting." Freedom from terrorism, Bush declared, will come only through pre-emptive war against enemies of democracy.

How does Bush know who and where these secret enemies are? How many more times will his guesses be wrong like he was about Iraq?

What world does Bush live in? The US cannot control Iraq, much less battle the rest of the Muslim world and beyond. While Bush threatened the world with US aggression, headlines revealed the futility of preemptively invading countries: "Pentagon to Boost Iraq Force by 12,000," "US Death Toll in Iraq at Highest Monthly Level," "Wounded Disabled Soldiers Kept on Active Duty." ...Bush's insane doctrine of pre-emptive war promises a 21st century more bloody than the 20th.' See link for whole article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 07:18 PM

A site called "WhyWeHateBush" (which I saw for the first time today I believe) is upset about the Republican assault on Kofi Annan, in an essay entitled Once again, it's the Bush Administration vs. the World. Part of their thesis:


Bush Republicans Attack United Nations, Deflecting Attention from Cheney Corruption

 Commentary ~ December 4, 2004: George Bush and his minion Republican attack dogs launched a vicious assault this week on United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan because, they say, his son received $125,000 in payments from Cotecna, a Swiss contractor in the oil-for-food program. This accusation conveniently overlooks the fact that Dick Cheney continues to get $1 million a year from Halliburton, the company that received billions in uncontested contracts from the U.S. Government through Cheney's influence.


The New York Times reported that Mr. Annan's son, Kojo Annan, was employed from December 1995 until the end of 1998 by Cotecna Inspection Services, a company based in Geneva. On Monday, the United Nations confirmed that Kojo Annan received nearly $2,500 a month after leaving the company, payments that did not cease until February 2004.

Seth Goldschlager, a spokesman for Cotecna in Paris, told the International Herald Tribune that the $2,500 a month in health care compensation was part of the noncompete agreement that is required by Swiss law.

$2,500 a month for an official's son vs. $1 million a month for an actual official? Realistically speaking, if there was any corruption, wouldn't Kojo have asked for ten times that amount?

For all this so-called "corruption," Cotecna won a $4.8 million contract to monitor the import of aid items to Iraq under the oil-for-food program, which permitted Iraq to sell oil to buy goods to offset the effects of sanctions between 1996 and 2003. Halliburton, far and away the largest recipient of Iraq reconstruction dollars with about $18 billion in contracts, has seen revenues increase by 80 percent in the first quarter of 2004, compared with the same quarter of 2003, according to the Financial Times. Next in line is the Bechtel Group of San Francisco, with nearly $3 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts. USA Today has reported that Bechtel executives gave thousands of dollars to both Bush presidential campaigns, and two of the company's top executives serve on advisory boards for the White House and Pentagon.
A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 07:22 PM

A paper called the New York Tribune has written a condemnatory article on the Bush Administrations "managing the news flow out of Iraq". An excerpt:

US media uncover Bush administration's managing the flow of news from Iraq
By New York Tribune Dec 3, 2004, 11:57


Allawi's recent visit to the United States was part of an intensive campaign by the Bush administration to manage the flow of news out of Iraq. As a matter of policy, any journalist wanting to visit the Green Zone, had to be escorted at all times; one could not simply wander around and chat with people in bars and cafés, says the latest issue of the New York Review.
The vast world of civilian contractors-of Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root, of Bechtel, and of all the other private companies responsible for rebuilding Iraq-was completely off-limits; employees of these companies were informed that they would be fired if they were caught talking to the press. During the days of the Coalition Provisional Authority, its administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and the top military commander, Ricardo Sanchez, gave very few interviews to US correspondents in Baghdad.
They did, however, speak often via satellite with small newspapers and local TV stations, which were seen as more open and sympathetic. "The administration has been extremely successful in going around the filters, of getting their message directly to the American people without giving interviews to the Baghdad press corps," one correspondent said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,siggy
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:51 PM

Mental Health 101 by Amos

Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:55 PM

GUEST, Siggy--your post was number 666.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:34 AM

Founding principles under siege by Bush administration

By SCOTT ELLIOT

"Karl Rove has all but succeeded in reversing the outcome of the Civil War and the Scopes trial in one masterstroke. The founding principles of this country have been under siege by the Bush administration for the last four years. In our schools, biology is being edged out by Bible studies, the pursuit of happiness has become the private reserve of the most affluent, and America the Beautiful is falling prey to the oil drill and the chain saw.


I'm surprised that we Democrats lost, but in retrospect, I'm not surprised that we lost on "moral values." After all, everyone knows, or should know by now, that it is more moral to take up swords against "infidels" than to beat them into plowshares. Osama bin Laden taught us that, only he had to make do with box cutters.


Bearing false witness not only appears to be acceptable to Bush supporters; it is the common thread between the campaigns of father and son. Bush I gained office with the aid of Lee Atwater's infamous Willie Horton ads. Bush II used Atwater protégé Karl Rove's attacks on the patriotism of true war heroes, John McCain, Max Clelland and John Kerry. Attacks were made against Bush, to be sure, but so far, none have been proven untrue.


Followers of U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Bush apparently believe that the mere sight of a woman's breast is a grave threat to our national morality, but they have no problem with peeking into people's bedrooms and then finding ways to punish them if they don't like the way they make love.


While Kerry dreams of someday reducing terrorism to the level of a nuisance, Rove already considers the poor, the sick and the elderly little more than a nuisance. Dismantling Social Security and Medicare, protecting profits for health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, rolling back environmental standards and slashing housing programs are the cornerstones of the new morality.


While Bush enlists the working class in making a heaven on earth for the rich, Rove is no doubt busily at work trying to figure out how to expand the eye of a needle."

See link for rest of article.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:40 AM

Bush Administration Facing Failure On Every Front


By Paul Craig Roberts


Is the Bush administration competent? There is enough information at hand on which to base an objective opinion.

On the eve of President Bush's second term, the US economy has fewer jobs than when Bush was inaugurated four years ago.

During Bush's first term, the US economy was unable to create jobs in both export and import-competitive sectors. The formerly powerful US jobs machine has been allowed to run down to the point that jobs can only be created in nontradable domestic services.

The service jobs that have been created are too few in number to offset the loss of manufacturing and knowledge jobs. Unemployed manufacturing workers, US software engineers, computer programmers, and IT workers number in the hundreds of thousands.

During Bush's first term, the value of the US dollar declined dramatically in relation to other traded currencies. The extraordinary diminution in the dollar's exchange value threatens its role as the world's reserve currency. If the dollar loses its role as reserve currency, there will be catastrophic consequences for US living standards and superpower status.(...)

---

Click link for rest of article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:26 PM

From The Boston Globe:

Afraid to look in the moral abyss


By James Carroll  |  December 7, 2004

Excerpt:

WHY DON'T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised. "Coalition" members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can't secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:29 PM

Bush sets out plan to dismantle 30 years of environmental laws

By Geoffrey Lean in Washington

05 December 2004

Excerpt:

George Bush's new administration, and its supporters controlling Congress, are setting out to dismantle three decades of US environmental protection.

In little over a month since his re-election, they have announced that they will comprehensively rewrite three of the country's most important environmental laws, open up vast new areas for oil and gas drilling, and reshape the official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

They say that the election gave them a mandate for the measures - which, ironically, will overturn a legislative system originally established by the Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford - even though Mr Bush went out of his way to avoid emphasising his environmental plans during his campaign.

"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda," said Mike Leavitt, the Bush-appointed head of the EPA. He points out that over a third of the agency's staff will become eligible for retirement over the President's four-year term, enabling him to fill it with people lenient to polluters.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:31 PM

Years from now, the mistreatment of Afghan war detainees at Guantánamo and
Iraqi war detainees at Abu Ghraib is likely to rank with the internment of
Japanese-American civilians in World War II as a blot on the history of the
United States. But the Bush administration remains deaf to criticism of its
actions, whether it comes from U.S. courts or the International Red Cross.
Congress must act to steer America back toward compliance with the Geneva
conventions and U.S. law.

From The International herald Tribune editorial section.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:50 PM

New York Times
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 -
The House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve the sweeping intelligence-overhaul bill sought by President Bush and the independent Sept. 11 commission

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:59 PM

Afghanistan swears in first democratic leader
Declan Walsh in Kabul
Wednesday December 8, 2004
The Guardian UK
"For 30 years coups, assassinations and invasions were the usual means of power transfer in Kabul. But yesterday Hamid Karzai broke with bloody tradition and assumed office with a simple formula of words.

Laying a hand on the Qur'an, Afghanistan's first democratic president swore his allegiance inside the former royal palace that was once the scene of thunderous gunbattles but has since been renovated to welcome 600 guests."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Calhoun
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:14 AM

Bloomberg
Representative Allen Boyd became the leading Democrat to endorse President George W. Bush's plan to create private Social Security accounts ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Kingfish
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:23 AM

New US team reflects Bush's world-view

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:38 AM

Dear John-John Guest Kingfish Calhoun:

What I don't get is why you feel you have to be secretive and pretend to be three different people.

Why is that?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:57 PM

Couldn't help but be bemused by these two news stories which appeared side by side in a newsfeed this morning:

---

Huge no-fishing zones 'offer only hope' of saving marine ecosystem from
disaster
Michael McCarthy | December 8
The Independent -

It has been invisible, so it has gone largely unheeded,
but the wrecking of the seas is now the world's gravest environmental
problem after climate change, British scientists said yesterday.

Such destruction has been caused by over-fishing in the marine environment
and only massive protected zones, where all fishing is banned, will allow
the sea's damaged areas to recover, members of the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution said.

---

US rules out joining Kyoto treaty

The US has told a UN conference on global warming that it has no
intention of re-joining international efforts to cut greenhouse gas
emissions.

The chief American negotiator at the conference in Argentina's capital
Buenos Aires ruled out any move to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol for years.

He told reporters that efforts to cut emissions were based on bad science.
The US was focused instead, he said, on implementing President George W
Bush's plans to promote energy efficiency.

---

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:33 PM

Amos: I don't recall the Democrat's idol, Bill Clinton, waving the flag for the Kyoto Treaty either. Do you? He and the Democrat controlled congress had ample opportunity to sign it if they wanted to. Why didn't they? For the very reason the U. S. representative pointed out. A division of opinion, even in the scientific community, whether or not global warming is a real threat.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:17 PM

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

The "scientific community" believes with unanimity that global warm is a threat. Oh yeah, the Bush administration can always find a quack whom they can pay to say otherwise, but "the scientific community" (consisting of liberal, conservative, American, European, Asian, black, yellow, brown, christian, hindu, WHATEVER...) agrees that it is happening and that it may have cataclysmic consequences. The only real question is how much human activity is implicated. Note that it IS implicated, but we don't know for sure how much.

The notion that there is any debate whether global warming is really occuring or not is a myth propagated by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, who are either scientifically illiterate, or lying through their teeth (you choose). On September 14, 2004, Rush Limbaugh actually said "come on think about it folks...if the ice caps were melting, the oceans would be getting cooler." If you follow this logic, and believe this BS, the same two choices apply for you.

Sorry to jump on anybody, but I've got three kids who may have kids themselves, and this shit matters! Drop the political crap. Where and how are my kids and their kids going to live? I've seen the world environment change in my lifetime. Seventy percent of the world's coral reefs have died in the last 10 years (go look it up if you don't believe it).

If Rush Limbaugh were a coal miner, he'd be saying "big deal, it's just a dead canary."

Idiot.

"Winning" politically matters more than our progeny's future?

Idiots all.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:53 PM

Voodoo, science?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Jeb Shwarzeneggar
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:48 PM

Kyoto will not work, warns climate expert
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

09 December 2004.

"The West's approach to fighting global warming, enshrined in the Kyoto protocol, will not work, a leading climate scientist said yesterday."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:03 PM

Yeah, fir every scientist who seems to make sense there's another who doesn't have a clue...

Even Bush's clue-less scientists agree that the planet seems to be warming. Where the disageement crops up is in the area of solutions. Bush's scientist think that we just need to figure ways of eating up the carbon monoxide short of protecting forests. But they don't seem to have any real ideas on how that might happen???

And these are scientists???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:09 PM

Anyone notice the incredible calving that is going on at bopth poles, with segments falling of icebergs as big as Greenwich Village? Unprecedented decomposition of centuries-old ice-masses?

Hmmmmmm?


There are some pictures out there of these blocks of ice falling apart...fskinatin'


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Crawford Iconoclast
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:26 PM

Letters to the EditorDear Editor:
I want to congratulate George Bush on his victory in the 2004 presidential election! An impressive win was accomplished with 52% of the 60 per cent of eligible voters casting a Republican ballot!
He will have a very tough job ahead given the record of the previous administration and I, for one, don't envy him the task! George Bush will now have to oversee a federal bureaucracy that has mushroomed more than any other in history with a 300 plus trillion dollar deficit to get down. He will have to get those health care savings accounts in place for the 45 million uninsured and see if those drugs that people want from Canada are safe to buy more cheaply. I am looking forward to investing my 2% in my social security account (and am looking closely at Smith&Wesson/Remington Gun stock) though I know he will have to fight tooth and nail with those "liberals" who wanted to keep the trust intact!.

But most difficult of all is that he will inherit a war from a previous administration with no clear exit strategy, waning moral support from battle weary reservists and national guard and worsening insurgency that have killed more Americans every month ....But I know this moral president can do the job! Again Congratulations and Best of Luck!

G.D.
Jonesboro, Ark


What an embarrassment you are to Crawford, Texas!! What an embarrassment you are to the State of Texas!! We live in Indiana now and it was amazing how people here were making fun of you for what you wrote about Bush. Of course, Indiana voted 61% for President Bush. I guess that's one of the reasons alot of people here thought you should be run out of Crawford.

As small as your little town is, I would think you would have a one way ticket to California or New York by now. My question to you-----how can someone so out of touch with Texas be able to run a newspaper in the town where the President of the United States lives??? I guess you have trouble with subscriptions at least in your area. Do you personally know President Bush??? I wondered about that. And I guess you know that John Kerry's hometown newspaper endorsed President Bush. Go figure-----Maybe you two were just trying to get some publicity for yourselves.......

We hope to move back to Texas soon. We miss the Lone Star State. We are also proud of the President and proud that he has Texas roots.

Sincerely
S.H.
Ft. Wayne, Indiana


After spending 33 years writing for and editing newspapers, I am well aware of how easy it is to be stupid.
Your editorial for Kerry proves anew that being stupid is our occupational hazard.
D.B.
Lake Placid, Fla.


Go cry in your cow manure. This is a rag for nitwits.
K.S.


Hurray! Hurray!
Four More years of:
Dick Cheney, Halliburton and their
top assistant George W. Bush.
D.M.


I am very grateful that your endorsement of John Kerry fell on deaf ears. The breakdown of counties throughout the United Sates shows a shift away from the Democratic Party. The era of Ted Kennedy and his "gang of liberals" is now over. Ain't life grand?? Now the hard part for this newspaper is to make amends with the local town folk for your endorsement. Your need for fifteen minutes of fame didn't set well did it??
J.M.
Fort Worth, Texas


Eat your hearts out you lying liberal jackasses!
M.H.

WELL MR SMITH,
I WANT TO THANK YOU AND YOUR TWIN, AND SOUL-MATE MICHAEL MOORE.
YOUR PROFOUND IGNORANCE HELPED TO ENERGIZE A NATION TO GET OFF IT'S BUTT AND GO OUT AND VOTE AGAINST THOSE LIKE YOU AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY, RE WWW.CPUSA.ORG THEY TOO ENDORSED JOHN KERRY.
YOUR ENDORSEMENT WAS NOT BORN OUT OF TRUTH, BUT A PACK OF LIES GENERATED BY THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY.
I COULD RESPECT A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION HAD YOU SIMPLY SAID IN YOUR DISGUSTING EDITORIAL THAT BASED ON A DISAGREEMENT IN POLICY YOU WERE ENDORSING KERRY . BUT YOU WENT OUT OF YOUR WAY TO EDITORIALIZE THE UNTRUE ALLEGATIONS YOU DID .
GEORGE BUSH WENT TO WAR IN IRAQ BASED ON INFORMATION FURNISHED BY AN INTEL REPORT PROVIDED BY AN AGENCY IN POWER DURING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, ANY AMERICAN WITH ANY GUTS WOULD DO THE SAME.YET YOU LITTERLY CALLED A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY FROM WHICH YOU EARN A LIVING CRAWFORD TEXAS . A LIAR. YOU MAY CALLTHAT 1ST AMMENDMENT FREEDOM? OF COURSE IT IS. BUT THERE IS ALSO A THING CALLED "TASTE" SOMETHING YOUR INFLATED EGO IS DEVOID OF, BUT SINCE I PLAN TO EXERCISE MY FIRST AMMENDMENT RIGHTS ALSO , BASED OF YOUR EXAMPLE .I PLAN ON INFORMING ANYONE WHO ADVERTISES IN YOUR PAPER THAT I'LL BE DRIVING TO WACO OR CLEBURNE TO SHOP, AND SINCE YOU DONT LIKE BUSH I WONT OFFEND YOU BY ADVERTISING IN YOUR PAPER ANY MORE, AFTER-ALL YOU WOULDNT WANT TO GET GERMS FROM MY MONEY, SURELY ALL US BUSH FANS ARE BOUND TO HAVE GOTTEN A KICK-BACK FROM HALLIBURTON?
SO EVEN THOUGH I'VE NEVER SPENT A GREAT DEAL WITH YOU, SO YOU WONT MISS THIS "BUSHIE" GUESS I'LL JUST "TATOO" MY ADS ON A JACKASS'S BEHIND AND LEAD IT AROUND TOWN.
THAT MAY BE JUST AS RESPECTED.AS YOUR PAPER NOW IS.

J.V.


GUESS YOUR CANDIDATE LOST. WHY DON'T YOU MOVE TO BOSTON. YOU MUST BE A BUNCH OF IDIOTS! GO GEORGE W!!
Unsigned

It is clear you do not represent Texas. Please get into your car, pick up that lesbian Marxist named Molly Ivins and head north, way north.
Like that line in that old John Wayne movie-"We just don't need your kind around here".
The sooner the better.

J.M.
A real Texan, born in Texas.



Dear Texans:
Today, all of America has received a wonderful gift from the great state of Texas. I want to let you know that Americans appreciate the fact that Texas has lent him to us for the next four years. In four years time he will return to Texas and most likely go down in history as one of the greatest presidents of all time. Some may not like his policies but all should respect his convictions and desire to serve this great country.
E.V.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, you lose. - K.R.


Dear Mr. Smith,
Well, I hope you aren't shocked, appalled or surprised at the outcome. You decided to open your mouth and back Kerry, in Bush's hometown. Fun, isn't it, being on the outside looking in?
Are you going to whine about it? Are you going to just emphasize the "hate" mail and NOT focus on your arrogance?
The big articles just put out by Time and Newsweek magazines, delayed, according to the editors, because they were so negative for Kerry, are very interesting and informative. Too bad you didn't have a chance to know some of that stuff before you editorialized for Kerry....in Bush's home town.
These two editors were on the O'Reilly Factor yesterday. VERY interesting.
What a colossal dose of Smith-arrogance. You called it "principle." Another load of arrogance. You tried to rub the noses of your local readers in your liberal point of view. Endorsing Kerry in Bush's hometown? Unbelieveable arrogance. I won't call it stupid because you KNEW exactly what you were doing.
You must win some kind of Darwin award for it—the "Mother of all Arrogance" award perhaps?
My guess is that you will be a guest columnist on the syndicated liberal rags in blue states. I look forward to reading some more of your gems. I DO read both sides.
Come on out to Kaleeeeforneeyah! We love our Governator and his lovely Democrat wife! He's no girlie man; he will PUMP YOU UP!
You DO have a future with the left, er, progressive side of the Democrat party.
I was a Democrat until 1994. Became an independent as a shock reaction to Clinton's admission of his gargantuan lie about Gennifer Flowers. Then, I became a Republican when my Democrat party put up Clinton for re-election in 1996. One of the "seven dwarves," "a third rate governor from a second rate state"....the DEM'S own words. "What has happened to mah party?" —
Zel Miller.
Y.B.A.
San Francisco

To The Editor:
Well, it looks like you really stepped in it NOW. You may want to just shut it down and move to the 'LEFT COAST'. No one of any common sense shares your liberal bias. Hey I've got an idea. MOVE TO FRANCE! They'd love you there.
S.M.
Omaha, Neb.

The Editor of your newspaper should move to Boston. That's where the Queers are but not many steers.
J.B., Minn.

To The Editor:
Concerning Stem Cell Research
As Homo-sapiens we are different and have risen above all other creatures. Every life is valuable, but human life is more so. Humans should not be treated by the scientific community as "cattle", ripe and ready for experimentation without ethical checks and balances. No other human endeavor has carte blanche like the science community is not only asking, but DEMANDING of the world.
Life is precious and so very, very short. I don't know when it starts. I don't really care. If I'm to make a decision concerning stem cell research, I see it this way: I refuse to even risk the possibility of taking an innocent life to save mine, but I am very willing to give mine to save yours. And it would be my greatest honor to do so.
J.G., Katy, Texas

To The Editor:
You are what my dad used to refer to as being "penny wise and dollar dumb."
Bush may be bad for "the" economy....but your dumbass actions are responsible for "your" economy, and that of your paper, taking a rather serious dive, huh?
R.

To The Editor:
Adding fuel to the fire. There are some people who are too stupid to understand how they have messed up; are you? You primarily earned your income from local matters......... It appears to most that you took the chance for greater notoriety with your only partially accurate opinion. Now 'tis time to pay for your folly. I wish you no bad cess (guru net that), only hope that you have learned not to bite the hand that feeds you, even if it is the "right" hand. Ha, ha - good pun -did you get it?
Sincerely,
P.Z.
Robbinsville, N.C.

Thank you Amos for informing us about this fine bottom of the birdcage class newspaper.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:29 PM

And these are scientists???

In a word, Bobert: No. They're not. They're Bush propagandists, bought and paid for.

Since about a week after Bush took office, REAL scientists & scientific organizations have pointed out time and time again how the BuShites use junk "science" to support their ideaology.

Just Google "Bush" and "junk science" or do a news.google.com search for the same- you'll be reading for weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:31 PM

Dear Bratwurst-Brain:

More anonymous hatred, huh? Y'ever wish you could just come out and say what you had to say under your own name and own your own point of view?

Terror is ugly whether high or low. Spewing this kind of venomous crap is just sad.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:40 PM

Flash: This Just in.

Amos is really an Arab.

I heard the CIA is interested in him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Fat Albert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:54 PM

Amos is the Mr Universe of spewing venimous crap. It looks like those letters were from ordinary people that did not like the bulshit spewed by Leon Smith, the Democratic candidate two time loser and owner of the newspaper.

Are Asian countrys in violation of the Kyoto Treaty? Maybe those glaciers calve because of them.

Massive air pollution casts Asian haze over global climate

Wed Dec 8, 2:58 PM ET

"AGRA, India (AFP) - A cloud of pollution which has been identified in the skies across Asia travels long distances across the Indian ocean and is now threatening to make the entire planet a drier place, experts warned."

Hey Hey Hey

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:43 AM

If you bother to rub your brain dwells together, Albert, you will see a slight difference. Once in a great while I go off the handle about the murderous cretin in charge of the country, because I think his rampant galloping idiocy has done serious harm to the world. But MOSTLY I offer various views from different people on this thread, and try to speak to issues, reserving my ad hominem stuff for the President.

The people who wrote most of those letters, though, were just so full of hatred all they could do was froth at the mouth. And by the way the word you are thinking of is venomous, meaning rich in venom.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Fat Albert
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 02:25 PM

The positive facts that others post here are usually from news articles. The things you post here are from Bush haters. You always ad you personal spin to it to emphasize the negative and degrade anything positive. Do you also hear voices?

I picture you as Joe Bfstplk in Lil' Abner. The guy with the raincloud over his head all the time.

If you are allways looking for shit you will find it. If you want to be miserable you can find a way. The opposite is also true. Forget Dianetics and see a professional.

Hey Hey Hey

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 03:45 AM

Hey Amos, I'm an Arab too!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 03:48 AM

Robert Kilroy Silk reckons Arabs are rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:22 AM

Hi jOhn, fancy meeting you down here in Intellectual land! Robert Silk has an orange face, never trust a man with an orange face!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:49 AM

He is OK Robert Silk but he doesn't Bush his teeth.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:52 AM

That Anique bloke off telly {david Dickson] has got an orange face as well, he's a right weirdo, he wears womens dresses, i saw a programme about him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:53 AM

Morning Dave, Now THAT'S the kind of link we like to see!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:57 AM

Is that really a photo of Robert Kilroy Silk?
he looks a bit different on telly, must be all the make up etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:58 AM

699

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 06:01 AM

700!!!! Thanks chaps, a good team effort!

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

Much has been made of the large U.S. budget and trade deficits in explaining the U.S. dollar's recent weakness. But is the sinking U.S. dollar mostly a reflection of global dissatisfaction with recent U.S. foreign policy? Joseph Quinlan — chief market strategist at Banc of America — argues that the dollar will continue to drop until U.S. legitimacy is restored.

Behind the Sinking Dollar: America's Image as a "Rogue Nation?" has the whole article.

Albert, while it may seem I am putting out some osrt of flow of hatred, in my view I am simply insisting on the clear and simple repetition of the fundamental facts of the case, especially the facts concerning unnecessary warmongering, economic malfeasance and incompetence as a manager or executive. You may recall in his first campaign Mister Bush asserting that his most telling qualification was that he knows how to lead. If you examine where he has lead the nation to you may want to add this to his list of inaccurate and misleading assertions.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Bunky
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 06:34 PM

Would the fact that he was re-elected for a second term in spite of all the propaganda and dirty tricks by the Democrats have any bearing on his leadership?

You Bush haters simply refuse to acknowledge those facts and continue your rant.

You will not acknowledge that the terrorist attack of 9/11 was an economic blow that could have ruined the country and lead to a much higher deficit and a depression. Why did it not?

If the great Gore had been in charge on 9/11, you would be selling apples on the street corner and holding out a tin cup.



B

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:09 PM

Rumsfeld under fire for 'hillbilly armour' used to defend army

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington


11 December 2004



The row over America's failure to send enough military vehicles to Iraq took a new twist yesterday when the company that manufactures them said it could deliver 1,200 more a year, but has had no request from the Pentagon.


Two days earlier, Donald Rumsfeld, was bluntly confronted by an Iraq-bound National Guardsman at what was meant to be a pep rally with the Defence Secretary at a US staging base in Kuwait. Instead, Mr Rumsfeld was hit by a barrage of pointed questions, first about the extended tours of duty driving down the morale of service personnel in Iraq, then over the lack of properly armoured Humvees to protect them from the roadside bombs that are the insurgents' weapon of choice.


"We don't have proper vehicles," said Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee Nation Guard, who claimed he and his men were forced to rummage in landfills for metal scrap and ballistic glass to use as makeshift shielding, known by soldiers in Iraq as "hillbilly armour".


Mr Rumsfeld, insisting everything possible was being done, and said: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want." That forthright response only made matters worse. Senior Demo-crats, led by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, said the episode only proved the Pentagon's incompetence, and the refusal of Mr Rumsfeld and his colleagues to face reality.

(From the UK Independent)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:52 PM

Yo, Bunko...

9/11 *did* ruin the US economy... Prior to Bush's cousin Osoma's strike Bush had the lowest approval rates in like four or five hundred years... Like it was preceeded with a - (minus)... Then Cousin Osoma conviently blows up some stuff and yer guy become the *Second Coming*.... Go figure?

Well, Iz all fir the Second Coming but it ain't Bush. No, what 9/11 did was open the flood gates for Bush and his boys to raid the treasury and raid, pilliage and plunder they have done. And then along came this past election, with Diebold's CEO promising to deliver the good to tyhe plunderers and deliver he did. Yup, lotta pollsters scrathing their heads even to this day on how, for the first time in the history of exit polls, voters decided this year, like some big voter conspiracy, to lie to the pollsters? And then the 51% to 48% split when the exit polls were the opposite??? Like, can I get a big, "hmmmmmmmmmm"?

No Bunko, you got it wrong. We don't hate Bush. Heck, he doesn't have a clue he lost in both 2000 or 2004. Buyt what we do hate is his anti-American policies that are Hell bent on bankrupting the federal governemnt so that his thugs can do what every Repub has tried to do for the last 60 years: kill the New Deal and restore Boss Hog to his birth-right dominance over the working man...

Just that simple... No reason to complicate it beyond this... Everywhere you look Boss Hog has more on the table than he can possibly eat and the working man is just hoping to get a scrap... 1 in 5 kids in America live in poeverty... Oh yeah, Bunko, they screwed up in not chosing to be born into the ruling class...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 08:43 PM

In and of themselves the 9-11 attacks would have had no serious negative impact on the economy, especially if we had stayed focussed on the correct targets and prosecuted the actuaL perps successfully. As Bobert says, what has been far more damaging to the economy is the blind panicked leverage the attack gave Bush. The notion that had Gore been in charge the economy would have worsened is groundless, and without content as an argument -- unless Mister Bunker has some irrefutable rationalization for his assertion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 08:59 AM

The dreams of Rummy and the neocons were bound to collide. But it's immoral to trap our troops in a guerrilla war without the essential, lifesaving support and materiel just so a bunch of officials who have never been in a war can test their theories.

How did this dangerous chucklehead keep his job? He must have argued that because of the president's re-election campaign, the military was constrained from doing what it is trained to do and flattening Fallujah and other insurgent strongholds. He must have told W. he deserved a chance to try again after the election.
Excerpt from a Maureen Dowd column on Rumsfeld's recent embarassment (Click for article):


...He had a willing audience. W. likes officials who feed him swaggering fictions instead of uncomfortable facts.

The president loves dressing up to play soldier. To rally Camp Pendleton Marines facing extended deployments in Iraq, he got gussied up in an Ike D-Day-style jacket with epaulets and a big presidential seal on one lapel and his name and "Commander in Chief" on the other.

When he really had a chance to put on a uniform and go someplace where the enemy was invisible and there was no exit strategy and our government was not leveling with us about how bad it was, W. wasn't so high on the idea. But now that it's just a masquerade -- giving a morale boost to troops heading off someplace where the enemy's invisible and there's no exit strategy and the government's not leveling with us about how bad it is -- hey, man, it's cool.

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:26 PM

From the Washington Post, by Neely Tuckerconsidering the Second Bush Inaugural Address planned in January:


...Further, Bush faces a challenge in that second inaugurations are by nature
less giddy affairs. When Lincoln stood to give that landmark second
inaugural address during the Civil War, even he began by saying: "At this
second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less
occasion for an extended address than there was at the first."

But what he went on to say, particularly considering it came during the
nation's bloodiest war, is striking for its humility. Though the end of the
war was at hand, he did not boast or even promise victory.

He allowed that the war even might be God's punishment for slavery. If it
continued "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be repaid by
another drawn with the sword," then so it must be.

He said that soldiers on both sides read the same Bible, prayed to the same
God, and each invoked His aid against the other. "It may seem strange that
any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not
judged," he said. "The prayers of both could not be answered. That of
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

What faith! What dignity! What honesty!

Lincoln was assassinated a month later in Ford's Theatre, less than a mile
away from where he gave his inaugural address.

His own purposes, indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:51 PM

HOENIX Dec 13, 2004 — U.S. Sen. John McCain said Monday that he has "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq and the failure to send more troops.

McCain, speaking to The Associated Press in an hourlong interview, said his comments were not a call for Rumsfeld's resignation, explaining that President Bush "can have the team that he wants around him."

"I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," said McCain, R-Ariz. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."

---

You have to wonder why he is NOT calling for Rumsfeld's resignation.

I am.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 09:47 PM

Torture and Truth
By Mark Danner Interviewed By Dave Gilson
Dec 11, 2004, 21:37



Tracing the origins -- and the aftermath -- of what happened at Abu Ghraib.  It's a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes.


When the Abu Ghraib scandal boiled over last spring, it looked, briefly, as if it would cause a major shakeup -- if not in how the Bush administration was fighting the war in Iraq, then at least within the administration itself. But soon enough, election season arrived, and the issue all but faded into the background. That doesn't mean we've heard the last of Abu Ghraib. Far from it, says journalist Mark Danner. "I don't think this thing is over by any means."


In his new book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War On Terror, Danner explores the origins and aftermath of the administration's post-9/11 decision to "take the gloves off." The book collects several articles written for the New York Review of Books over the past year, offering a mix of reportage -- Danner was one of the first reporters to arrive on the scene of the bombing of the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad in October 2003 -- and a close reading of the nearly 500 pages of official documents related to the Abu Ghraib scandal that make up its bulk. The documents, some of which are published for the first time in Torture and Truth, make for gripping, if disturbing, reading. Danner admits that most Americans are unlikely to delve into these papers with the seriousness they did another official account of terror-fighting gone wrong, the best-selling 9/11 Commission report. "These are difficult issues," says Danner. "They make people uncomfortable."


The documents illustrate how the Bush administration constructed its rationale for ignoring prisoners' rights, and how that decision played out, with appalling consequences, in Iraq. "I think it's a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes," Danner says. "It's there in the documentary history." Exhibit A is the "torture memo" issued by the Justice Department in early 2002 at the request of President Bush's legal adviser (and nominee for attorney general) Alberto Gonzales, which concluded that "under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate" U.S. laws prohibiting torture. A few pages later, Iraqi prisoners give hair-raising depositions of their time in American captivity. Such first-hand accounts, says Danner, reveal how the "euphemistic world" of the Bush bureaucracy translated into "real pain and real suffering on the ground." As some of the Abu Ghraib guards go on trial, and fresh stories of abuses in Guantanamo and Iraq come out, it remains to be seen whether any of this will trickle up the chain of command.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Truth Fairy
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 01:19 AM

The futile efforts of a minority to terrorize a majority now risen to power. The Sunni insurgency is attempting to play its last card by starting a civil war in Iraq without success.

Sunni Arab antigovernment and al Qaeda gunmen now make no secret of their desire to trigger a religious and ethnic based civil war in Iraq. Attacks on Kurds (who are not Arabs) and Shia Arabs (who practice the form of Islam prevalent in neighboring Iran) are increasing. ... There are two reasons why the civil war has not broken out yet. First, the Sunni Arab gunmen represent a minority in the Sunni Arab community. ... One thing that makes the current situation different than the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, is that the Sunni Arabs are not united to fight anyone. The antigovernment forces represent several factions, and many other larger factions want no part of a civil war.

This illuminates the second reason for no civil war; the Sunni Arabs are vastly outnumbered and likely to get quickly smashed. This is made worse by the fact that 80 percent of the population (the Kurds and Shia Arabs) would like to see the Sunni Arabs "punished" for generations of tyranny. Most Sunni Arabs understand this, but the minority who continue to murder and molest Shia Arabs and Kurds spend most of their efforts on terrorizing their fellow Sunni Arabs.

What the insurgency has done is remove the old Sunni chieftains from the field leaving it clear for those they formerly terrorized. An MSNBC article describes that while Sunni insurgents have forbidden participation in the elections their voice no longer carries the power of command.

As Iraq's first nationwide elections in more than a generation near, Hamra and other Shiite clergy, perhaps the country's most powerful institution, have led an unprecedented mobilization of the Shiite majority population through a vast array of mosques, community centers, foundations and networks of hundreds of prayer leaders, students and allied laypeople. The campaign has become so pitched that many Iraqis may have a better idea of Sistani's view of the election than what the election itself will decide. The momentum they have created has made a delay in the ballot difficult, if not impossible. Voters will choose a 275-member National Assembly, but powerful groups within Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority are boycotting the election or have called for a postponement so that they can bring calm to restive Sunni regions where insurgents have threatened to attack those taking part. ...

"Who wants to boycott, let them boycott, but the elections will happen regardless," said Hamra, sitting in an office with white walls bare but for a portrait of Sistani reading the Koran.

On December 3 a suicide car bomb blew up a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad in an effort to reassert dominance but it merely increased scorn for the insurgents. The Financial Times found a curiously passive way to say the unsayable: that maybe some Shi'ites are joining forces with the government and America against the insurgents. For now at least when bombers -- accused of being Sunni insurgents -- struck at Shia holy sites in August 2003 and February 2004, many Shia clerics saved their strongest criticism for the coalition authorities, who they said had failed to protect them from attack. However, insurgent threats against forthcoming elections, which have been strongly endorsed by senior Shia scholars such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, may be breaking down the clergy's resolve to stay aloof. ...

A black-turbaned Shia cleric drove through the streets of the southern Baghdad district of al-Amel on Saturday, carrying a loudspeaker and mocking the insurgents who scrawled anti-election slogans on the neighbourhood's walls. "Let those who wrote this show their faces, if they are men," residents quoted him as saying, as two dozen armed supporters followed his motorcade on foot, painting over graffiti that threatened to "cut off the heads" of voters. "Come and vote," the cleric said to passersby. "We will protect you." ...

Dozens of Shia, from clergy to army and National Guard recruits, have been killed by Sunni ultra-puritans while driving through Latifiya. Two weeks ago, a delegation of tribesmen from Basra calling themselves the "Brigades of Anger" approached Mr Sistani, asking him for permission to launch reprisals in Latifiya, says Sheikh Musa al-Musawy, a representative of the Grand Ayatollah in Baghdad. Mr Sistani refused them his blessing. "The government will deal with this problem, and the law will take its course," he reportedly said.

The Iraqi Government found the strongest possible terms, borrowing unconsciously from a cult horror classic, to assure the nation that they would not waver nor yield in the face of terror -- and those words were spoken by a Sunni.

As the powerful, mainly Sunni tribe led by Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar's uncle rallied behind an electoral bloc formed by leaders of the long oppressed Shi'ite majority, Yawar urged people not to identify the insurgency with the Sunni cause. Speaking after a particularly bloody few days in which more than 70 people have been killed, Yawar said: "Right now, we're faced with the armies of darkness, who have no objective but to undermine the political process and incite civil war in Iraq."

"But I want to assure the whole world that this will never, ever happen... After all these sacrifices, there's no way on earth that we will let it go in vain," said Yawar, who holds a largely figurehead position in the administration set up in June to take over responsibility from the U.S.-led occupation forces.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Tucker
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 02:04 AM



"December 13, 2004: There about 115,000 Iraqi security forces on duty. This includes police, troops and security forces that basically guard things like power plants and oil facilities. Journalists over there tend to concentrate on those incidents where Sunni Arab soldiers or police run away. But the majority of the Iraqi armed forces and police are doing their job. The jails are filling up with criminals again, and the Sunni Arab gangs in central Iraq often attack Iraqi police and soldiers, only to find that they are Kurds or Shia Arabs, who are eager to shoot right back.

The Sunni Arab terrorism is giving rise to an increasing amount of similar actions by Shia Arab groups. The Shia Arabs, unlike the Sunni Arabs, are not trying to take over the government. Once elections are held next month, the Shia Arabs will be the largest block in parliament. What the Shia gunmen are looking for now is revenge. What outsiders often forget is that decades of terrorism and violence by Saddam was done most often by Sunni Arabs who did not hide their identities. The Shia took names, and some are not waiting for trials. They have lists, and are out looking for Sunni Arabs to kill. It is personal. And the police are not bothering much with these vigilantes.
NATO has agreed to help Iraq train police commanders and army officers, but few NATO members will actually send trainers. Most Iraqis (the Kurds and Shia Arabs) believe that the violence in central Iraq is supported by Saddam Hussein's many friends. This in includes Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, and many European countries (Russia and France were major weapons suppliers to Saddam). So NATO's reluctance to help them makes sense. Conspiracy theories are popular in Iraq, the one about France and Russia wanting to put Saddam back in power has gained some traction.
Shia Moslems have long been persecuted by the majority Sunni. While the Kurds are Sunni, they are not very religious. At least most of them. A small minority of Kurds support Ansar al Islam, an Islamic radical group in league with al Qaeda, and supported by Iran. While Iran is mostly Shia, there are some in the Iranian government who support anyone who will help kill American soldiers. A principal belief of Iranian Islamic radicals is that the United States is the major enemy of Islam and must be destroyed, or at least weakened, by any means available. This attitude is a bit much for Iraqi Shia Arabs, who were never fond of the Iranian government anyway. Arabs are a minority in Iran, and even though these Iranian Arabs are Shia, they have suffered persecution from the majority, non-Arab, Iranians.
Iraqi Shia Arabs have lived in fear, and domination by Sunni Arabs or Iranians, for over a thousand years. Now it is their turn to rule, and they are not eager to let their chance slip away.


December 11, 2004: Iraqis believe that their Arab neighbors are using Iraq as a way to get rid of their Islamic radicals. Syria, in particular, does little to stop Islamic radicals from entering Iraq. The Syrians know that most of these men will get killed. Those that survive and return, can be arrested, questioned to see if they are still willing to die to establish an Islamic state, and release them if they have mellowed out. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf States are accused of doing the same thing. These countries remember what happened during the 1980s, when eager young men went off to fight for Islam in Afghanistan, and the survivors came back eager to start an Islamic revolution in their home countries.
Actually, very few of the Arabs who went to Afghanistan got killed there. The Afghans were reluctant to take, into combat, inexperienced Arab volunteers who didn't even speak the local languages. But the Arab volunteers, like Osama bin Laden, stayed in Pakistan working with Afghan refugees and helping out as they could. Then these fellows went home full of enthusiasm for establishing Islamic republics. This resulted in the formation of Islamic rebellions in many Arab countries. In Iraq, many of the volunteers, even though they speak the local language (although with an accent that gives away their foreign origin), were also shunned by the more experienced Sunni Arab gunmen leading the fight against the government and coalition forces. Many of the foreigners are used as suicide bombers, as all this requires is driving a few miles, then pushing a button.
The Arab volunteers, in effect, identify themselves as Islamic radicals by going to Iraq. Frequently, even their families are surprised when they discover a son has gone off to Iraq. This is often considered a tragedy, because if the kid doesn't get killed in Iraq, he will be on a police list of usual suspects when he comes back.
It's thought that several hundred foreign volunteers died in Fallujah, a city that many volunteers headed for when they entered Iraq. Fallujah was the center of suicide bomb operations, and an area where foreign volunteers were prepared for suicide missions, or given training to make them useful as gunmen or for planting roadside bombs. But many of these volunteers never left Fallujah, as it was easier to use locals (who knew the neighborhood) to plant roadside bombs, or make attacks on local police. So when the battle for Fallujah happened, many foreign volunteers for a chance to fight. They were pretty inept, and many of those who got caught by bombs, and didn't leave behind enough information to identify nationality, were believed to be foreign Arabs. Interrogations of over a thousand captured gunmen in Fallujah indicated that lots of foreigners were there, and had been encouraged to stay there and fight. Most apparently did, and died. Only a few dozen were captured.
Iraqis are angry with their neighbors for allowing these bloodthirsty men to come to Iraq to kill people. Most of the casualties inflicted by the foreign Arabs are Iraqi. The government is increasingly vocal in demanding that their neighbors crack down on these "volunteers," but little is actually being done. Getting rid of your local Islamic radicals is too good an opportunity to pass up.
December 9, 2004: Most of the suicide bombers in Iraq are foreigners. The volunteers are numerous, but they come prepared to die. The Sunni Arab Iraqi antigovernment organizations that come across these foreigners, pass them on to al Qaeda groups, who get the volunteer ready for the mission. Sunni Arab groups have been helping with getting cars (bought or stolen) and equipping them with bombs (usually artillery and mortar shells wired to explode when the driver pushes a button.) But most of the suicide car bombs have been al Qaeda operations. Few Iraqis have volunteered to be suicide bombers, but the concept is popular in other Arab countries, where Palestinian suicide bombers have been turned into folk heroes. Many of the volunteers don't want to kill Iraqis. These are often told to go home. Others are convinced that they will be killing Kurds (who aren't Arabs, and are ethnically related to Iranians, who are much hated by Arabs) or Shia Arabs (al Qaeda is a Sunni movement that preaches death to Shia for not being Sunni enough.) Some of the suicide volunteers, the ones who aren't too bright to begin with, are simply deceived and sent out on their mission. It's not like the guy is likely to come back and complain that he was tricked.

The foreign volunteers are eager to kill coalition, especially American, troops. Some of the suicide car bombers are still directed against American troops, and sometimes they succeed. But most of the time they either can't get into position, or American troops shoot them. So the volunteers are given secondary targets, and these are the ones that are usually hit. The volunteers drive off with a non-suicidal guide/minder, who plays navigator until they are within sight of a target. The guide then arms the explosives, bales, and the volunteers drives off to do his best.

There have been 100-150 suicide car bomb attacks so far, with many more aborted, or the drivers arrested or killed before they could set off their explosives. Over 500 people, mostly Iraqis, have been killed by suicide bomb attacks so far. The attacks have made al Qaeda, foreign volunteers and Sunni Arab rebels very unpopular with most Iraqis. This is what al Qaeda wants (the better to start a Sunni/Shia civil war), although it is not exactly working out according to plan. Over a third of the Iraqi dead are Sunni Arabs, and Shia Arabs and Kurds are increasing their own security (with volunteer guards, or simply more civilians willing to point out attackers to police or coalition troops.) This forces the suicide bombers to increasingly hit targets in Sunni Arab neighborhoods. This is one of the reasons there have been so many attacks on police stations in Sunni Arab areas. While this demoralizes the police, it infuriates the Sunni Arabs because of all the Sunni Arabs killed in these attacks.

Seven suicide car workshops were found in Fallujah, and several more have been found in and around Baghdad. There are obviously more out there, and they will only be found when enough Sunni Arabs get fed up with the bombings and let the police know where the workshops are.


December 7, 2004: The fighting in Iraq is a continuation of the war that began in March, 2003. While Saddam's army and government was quickly demolished, his supporters in Sunni Arab areas of central Iraq were still there. Saddam didn't rule Iraq with the army, but with a force of skilled and ruthless terrorists. With a strength of over 100,000 men (and a few women), the work was often done at night. Real, or suspected, opponents of Saddam were kidnapped, beaten or killed in the dark. Broad daylight executions, or mutilations, in public places, were also used. Terror is fueled by frightening images, either mental or visual. Day and night, Saddam's terrorists frightened the Iraqi people into submission. The work of these terrorists continues, but the victims are fighting back. Saddam's thugs were chased out of northern Iraq ten years ago, with the U.S and Britain providing backup for the Kurds doing the chasing. In southern Iraq, Shia Arab gangs have been forming to go after Saddam's men in mixed Shia/Sunni areas of central Iraq. Saddam's thugs have been terrorizing and killing Shia Arabs. This is done mainly gain dominance and control in towns and neighborhoods with mixed populations. The thugs want everyone to know who the real boss is. The main target of the Sunni Arab gangs are the police and security forces. But these are increasingly staffed with Shia Arabs and Kurds. Saddam's men cannot threaten the families of Kurdish cops, and are having a harder time reaching the kin of Shia Arab police and soldiers. Western journalists have a hard enough time covering the battle involving American troops, but they are almost completely cut out of this other war. All you hear reported is the occasional killing of a prominent Sunni Arab (usually a clergyman). But the body count on both sides is quite high, and trending against the Sunni Arabs. If the Sunnis gather together in large groups, to overwhelm local police, they risk getting caught, and demolished by American troops. Operating in smaller groups, and there is increasing danger from Shia Arab (and even Kurdish) death squads. This is a very dirty war, which will eventually get reported as such. But for the moment, it's a dangerous beat for reporters, because neither side wants journalists along, and will kill any who get too close.
December 5, 2004: Sunni Arab antigovernment and al Qaeda gunmen now make no secret of their desire to trigger a religious and ethnic based civil war in Iraq. Attacks on Kurds (who are not Arabs) and Shia Arabs (who practice the form of Islam prevalent in neighboring Iran) are increasing. Only a minority of Kurds and Shia Arabs are affected, because most of those populations live in parts of Iraq where there are no Sunni Arabs, or where the local Sunni Arab leaders have kept the gunmen out. The major battlegrounds are cities like Mosul and Kirkuk. Saddam Hussein had, for over a decade, forced Kurdish families out of these cities, and moved in Sunni Arabs. It was ethnic cleansing at its most blunt. But large Kurdish minorities remain, and more Kurds, and their guns, are returning. In central Iraq, Sunni Arab gunmen roam the roads that Shia Arabs use to travel between the majority of Shia Arabs in the south, and the large minority of Shia Arabs in Baghdad. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 07:51 PM

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/14/news/edgiscard.html


Letter from Europe:

Dear President Bush...
Giuliano Amato, Ralf Dahrendorf and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, December 15, 2004

As the political dust settles in your country after a long campaign season,
we urge you to engage promptly in a reassessment of relations with
Europeans. However powerful your country may be, experience has already
demonstrated that you will need allies and functioning global institutions
to preserve your fundamental interests.
.
Your best potential partners remain the Europeans. For all our current
shortcomings, we share basic values, we are committed to democracy and
market economics, and we are strong believers in making multilateral
institutions effective.
.
The hard lessons of the past two years are clear for us as well: If we are
split, we are unable to exercise any significant international influence.
.
There are five important points to make:
.
Be multilateral and effective. The case for working multilaterally is bound
to grow in coming decades. The rise of China and India as economic, military
and diplomatic heavyweights seems certain, and Russia may be heading down
the same path. Only a solid Euro-American core can make international
institutions more effective.
.
A strong Europe makes for a strong alliance. Mr. President, a more
integrated Europe is in America's long-term interests, even though there
will be times when it opposes you.
.
In order to encourage Europeans to rise to the major challenges of our era,
you could offer a series of tradeoffs. For example, you could promise that
if Europeans deliver on our pledges, you will loosen your protectionist
rules on the transfer of military technology. You could offer more of the
top command slots within NATO to Europeans. And you could share more
intelligence with your key allies.
.
Work jointly on the Middle East. Mr. President, in the next four years you
will probably spend more time and energy on the greater Middle East than on
any other international region.
.
Offer the Europeans a quid pro quo: If Europe supports common efforts in
Iraq (some with troops, others by increasing support of the buildup of Iraqi
forces) and commits more financial resources to the reconstruction, America
will uphold its promise of promoting a Palestinian state by 2006. You need
to demonstrate, in deeds not just words, that the United States is serious
about a two-state solution. You should propose to the Europeans that
together we assist and train Palestinian security and police forces and that
NATO play a role in delivering security, together with Arab countries like
Egypt. We Europeans will have to focus our efforts on assisting the rise of
a responsible and accountable Palestinian leadership.
.
On Iran, Europe and America should partly switch sides. You should encourage
the Europeans to consider using sticks, as long as the provisional agreement
with Iran is not implemented; in turn, America should set out what
incentives it is willing to offer Tehran in return for a verifiable end to
Iran's nuclear program.
.
It's also the economy, Mr. President! We have to devise an economic new
deal. The European and American economies remain tightly interdependent and
represent the keystone of the global trading system.
.
The single most relevant action of your first administration as far as
impact on the world economy is concerned was the reversal of the federal
budget from a surplus of almost $250 billion in 2000 to a deficit of more
than $400 billion in 2004. This has provided a powerful stimulus to the U.S.
and world economies, but has also increased the instability of the
international financial system.
.
What we need is a commitment by the United States to gradual fiscal
consolidation, a commitment in Europe to accelerated reform so as to raise
potential growth, and a commitment by China to abandon the dollar peg and to
replace it with a peg to a basket of currencies including the dollar and the
euro. To further this goal, we should encourage growing links between the
G-7 and China.
.
Think of a new strategic forum. To cooperate effectively, the Western allies
have to share decisions. On the American side, this means real consultation
- not just setting the line and expecting us to follow. On the European
side, this means creating a better decision-making mechanism, which has to
be collective.
.
We suggest creating a Contact Group, which would serve as a much more
functional forum between the European Union and the United States than
anything we currently have. NATO is now too large and too reactive to allow
a real strategic discussion.
.
Mr. President, we believe that a new trans-Atlantic deal should be part of
our future. On the basis of our historical roots, it is natural, and even
healthy, for both Americans and Europeans to define our respective
identities in terms of our differences.
.
But we still share bounds of civility and interests in the world that will
be more effectively protected if we do it together. They are equally crucial
to a new trans-Atlantic deal.
.
.
(Giuliano Amato is a former prime minister of Italy. Ralf Dahrendorf, a
member of the British House of Lords, was director of the London School of
Economics. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is a former president of France. This
article was drafted under the auspices of the Aspen Institute Italia in Rome
and distributed by Global Viewpoint for Tribune Media Services
International.)
.



See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the
International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article As the political dust settles in your country
after a long campaign season, we urge you to engage promptly in a
reassessment of relations with Europeans. However powerful your country may
be, experience has already demonstrated that you will need allies and
functioning global institutions to preserve your fundamental interests.
.
Your best potential partners remain the Europeans. For all our current
shortcomings, we share basic values, we are committed to democracy and
market economics, and we are strong believers in making multilateral
institutions effective.
.
The hard lessons of the past two years are clear for us as well: If we are
split, we are unable to exercise any significant international influence.
.
There are five important points to make:
.
Be multilateral and effective. The case for working multilaterally is bound
to grow in coming decades. The rise of China and India as economic, military
and diplomatic heavyweights seems certain, and Russia may be heading down
the same path. Only a solid Euro-American core can make international
institutions more effective.
.
A strong Europe makes for a strong alliance. Mr. President, a more
integrated Europe is in America's long-term interests, even though there
will be times when it opposes you.
.
In order to encourage Europeans to rise to the major challenges of our era,
you could offer a series of tradeoffs. For example, you could promise that
if Europeans deliver on our pledges, you will loosen your protectionist
rules on the transfer of military technology. You could offer more of the
top command slots within NATO to Europeans. And you could share more
intelligence with your key allies.
.
Work jointly on the Middle East. Mr. President, in the next four years you
will probably spend more time and energy on the greater Middle East than on
any other international region.
.
Offer the Europeans a quid pro quo: If Europe supports common efforts in
Iraq (some with troops, others by increasing support of the buildup of Iraqi
forces) and commits more financial resources to the reconstruction, America
will uphold its promise of promoting a Palestinian state by 2006. You need
to demonstrate, in deeds not just words, that the United States is serious
about a two-state solution. You should propose to the Europeans that
together we assist and train Palestinian security and police forces and that
NATO play a role in delivering security, together with Arab countries like
Egypt. We Europeans will have to focus our efforts on assisting the rise of
a responsible and accountable Palestinian leadership.
.
On Iran, Europe and America should partly switch sides. You should encourage
the Europeans to consider using sticks, as long as the provisional agreement
with Iran is not implemented; in turn, America should set out what
incentives it is willing to offer Tehran in return for a verifiable end to
Iran's nuclear program.
.
It's also the economy, Mr. President! We have to devise an economic new
deal. The European and American economies remain tightly interdependent and
represent the keystone of the global trading system.
.
The single most relevant action of your first administration as far as
impact on the world economy is concerned was the reversal of the federal
budget from a surplus of almost $250 billion in 2000 to a deficit of more
than $400 billion in 2004. This has provided a powerful stimulus to the U.S.
and world economies, but has also increased the instability of the
international financial system.
.
What we need is a commitment by the United States to gradual fiscal
consolidation, a commitment in Europe to accelerated reform so as to raise
potential growth, and a commitment by China to abandon the dollar peg and to
replace it with a peg to a basket of currencies including the dollar and the
euro. To further this goal, we should encourage growing links between the
G-7 and China.
.
Think of a new strategic forum. To cooperate effectively, the Western allies
have to share decisions. On the American side, this means real consultation
- not just setting the line and expecting us to follow. On the European
side, this means creating a better decision-making mechanism, which has to
be collective.
.
We suggest creating a Contact Group, which would serve as a much more
functional forum between the European Union and the United States than
anything we currently have. NATO is now too large and too reactive to allow
a real strategic discussion.
.
Mr. President, we believe that a new trans-Atlantic deal should be part of
our future. On the basis of our historical roots, it is natural, and even
healthy, for both Americans and Europeans to define our respective
identities in terms of our differences.
.
But we still share bounds of civility and interests in the world that will
be more effectively protected if we do it together. They are equally crucial
to a new trans-Atlantic deal.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 07:52 PM

This excerpt from Lancet says much about the dubiosu successes in Iraq:

Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey


Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert
Burnham



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Lancet 2004; 364: 1857-64


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Published online October 29, 2004 http://image.thelancet.com/
extras/04art10342web.pdf

SUMMARY:

Background In March, 2003, military forces, mainly from the USA and the UK,
invaded Iraq. We did a survey to compare mortality during the period of 14·6
months before the invasion with the 17·8 months after it.

Methods A cluster sample survey was undertaken throughout Iraq during
September, 2004. 33 clusters of 30 households each were interviewed about
household composition, births, and deaths since January, 2002. In those
households reporting deaths, the date, cause, and circumstances of violent
deaths were recorded. We assessed the relative risk of death associated with
the 2003 invasion and occupation by comparing mortality in the 17·8 months
after the invasion with the 14·6-month period preceding it.

Findings The risk of death was estimated to be 2·5-fold (95% CI 1·6-4·2)
higher after the invasion when compared with the preinvasion period.
Two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of
Falluja. If we exclude the Falluja data, the risk of death is 1·5-fold
(1·1-2·3) higher after the invasion. We estimate that 98000 more deaths than
expected (8000-194000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and
far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included. The major causes of
death before the invasion were myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular
accidents, and other chronic disorders whereas after the invasion violence
was the primary cause of death. Violent deaths were widespread, reported in
15 of 33 clusters, and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most
individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children.
The risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58
times higher (95% CI 8·1-419) than in the period before the war.

Interpretation Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000
excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from
coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths. We have shown that
collection of public-health information is possible even during periods of
extreme violence. Our results need further verification and should lead to
changes to reduce non-combatant deaths from air strikes.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 07:53 PM

Excerpted from Bob Koehler's column at
http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col267.htm regarding a report
developed by field research in Iraq and published in Lancet magazine, quoted above:


Based on the findings, the researchers were able to estimate a death rate
before and after the invasion. The after rate - excluding the data from the
shattered city of Fallujah, which would have skewed the overall results, so
much greater was the death toll there - was 1.5 times higher than the before
rate, which extrapolates to about 100,000 "excess" dead.

Furthermore, most of the pre-invasion deaths were from heart attacks,
strokes and the like, whereas afterward, according to the Lancet article,
"violence was the primary cause of death. Violent deaths were widespread . .
. and were mainly attributed to coalition forces. Most individuals
reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children. The risk of
death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher . .
. than in the period before the war."

And most of the deaths were the result of coalition air strikes, leading the
study's authors to conclude that "Civility and enlightened self-interest
demand a re-evaluation of the consequences of weaponry now used by coalition
forces in populated areas."

I'm inclined to word that conclusion just a tad more hysterically: This is
slaughter, Mr. President! In the name of God, in the name of Allah, call it
off. What strategic end is worth what we're doing to the Iraqi people? What
consequences do you think will flow from it?

Your mandate for this war, sir, is based on gross ignorance - that the
collateral carnage we're churning up is minimal, that Iraqi deaths matter
less than American, that because we don't do beheadings we aren't barbaric.

A hundred thousand dead, sir. And counting. When does a conscience kick in?
When do we become worse than Saddam Hussein?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 07:44 PM

From MSNBC:

Debasing the Medal of Freedom (David Shuster)



I don't have a problem with Paul Bremer (former US administrator in Iraq),
George Tenet (former CIA director), or General Tommy Franks (led the
invasion of Iraq.)   And I'm convinced that all three did their jobs as best
they could under exceptionally trying circumstances.

However, I couldn't help but get sick to my stomach today as I watched
President Bush award Bremer, Tenet, and Franks the Presidential medal of
freedom. Maybe it was because I spent most of yesterday at Walter Reed Army
hospital, interviewing United States soldiers who are learning how to use
prosthetic legs and arms because their own got blown off in Iraq.   (More on
these courageous young men/women tomorrow on Hardblogger and Thursday night
on Hardball.) Or maybe I just couldn't get over the apparent contradictions
between the record of today's medal of freedom recipients and the
qualifications listed on the web site. According to the medal of freedom
web site, "this great honor is reserved for individuals the President deems
to have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or
national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or
other significant public or private endeavors." The award is "given only
after careful thought, always sparingly so as not to debase its currency."

"Debase its currency." Hmmm. The 9-11 commission blames the CIA and Tenet
for some of the crucial intelligence failures that prevented us from
stopping the terrorist attacks. On Iraq, before the invasion, it was Tenet
who described the existence of WMD as a "slam dunk." Paul Bremer guided
the postwar Iraq effort into chaos and insurgency. And General Tommy
Franks, while leading US troops brilliantly to Baghdad, had no plan once US
troops got there to secure any part of the nation and prevent looting or
sabotage.

Once upon a time, the Presidential medal of freedom was awarded to spies who
quietly risked their life for our nation. And in previous years, the medal
of freedom has been given President Gerald Ford, President Jimmy Carter,
Thurgood Marshall, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, civil rights leader Rosa Parks,
educator Albert Shanker, former Senator and GOP Presidential candidate Bob
Dole, philanthropist David Rockefeller, and etc. and etc.

My point is that it is a shame to see a meaningful award turned into the
latest political photo-op. I'm glad to hear that George Tenet, Paul Bremer,
and Tommy Franks are doing so well in private life.    But if the Bush
administration wants to review the record of these three, let's have an
honest discussion instead of the historical revisionism and political
theater that was on center stage today.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Dec 04 - 07:54 PM

NYTimes.com > Opinion



   

EDITORIAL
No Bang for Our Cheap Buck


Published: December 15, 2004




The Bush administration's de facto weak-dollar policy - its preferred
"cure" for the American trade deficit - is not working. Yesterday's trade
deficit report shows that imports outpaced exports by a record $55.5 billion
in October. The huge imbalance was worse than the gloomiest expectations.

So far, the administration has been hoping that the weaker dollar will raise
the price of imports, leading American consumers to buy less from abroad,
and will at the same time make our exports cheaper so foreigners will buy
more American goods. That's supposed to shrink the trade deficit and, with
it, America's need to attract nearly $2 billion each day from abroad to
balance its books.

But the dollar has been declining since February 2002 - it's down by 55
percent against the euro and 22 percent against the yen - and the trade
deficit has stubbornly refused to shrink along with it. The falling dollar
has done nothing to diminish America's appetite for foreign goods - such
imports continue to rise at a faster rate than exports. According to
yesterday's report, imports were some 50 percent greater than exports in
October. Much of October's import growth was caused by high oil prices,
which have since subsided. But that's no reason to shrug off the disturbing
evidence of the weak dollar's failure to fix the trade gap. The United
States is now on track for a trade deficit of more than $60 billion next
June.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:10 AM

Excerpt from the Washington Post:

Presidential Medals of Failure



By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 16, 2004; Page A37

Where's Kerik?


This is the question I asked myself as, one by one, the pictures of the latest Presidential Medal of Freedom awardees flashed by on my computer screen. First came George Tenet, the former CIA director and the man who had assured President Bush that it was a "slam-dunk" that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Then came L. Paul Bremer, the former viceroy of Iraq, who disbanded the Iraqi army and ousted Baathists from government jobs, therefore contributing mightily to the current chaos in that country. Finally came retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the architect of the plan whereby the United States sent too few troops to Iraq.


One by one these images flicked by me, each man wearing the royal-blue velvet ribbon with the ornate medal -- one failure after another, each now on the lecture circuit, telling insurance agents and other good people what really happened when they were in office, but withholding such wisdom from the American people until, for even more money, their book deals are negotiated. (Franks has already completed this stage of his life. His book, "American Soldier," was a bestseller.)


I braced myself. Could Bernard Kerik be next? Would we skip the entire process of maladministration, misjudgments in office and sycophantic admiration of the current president and go straight to the celebrated failure?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:22 AM

According to the Sun Herald:

Lott: Replace defense chief

By MELISSA M. SCALLAN




BILOXI - U.S. Sen. Trent Lott doesn't believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign immediately, but he does think Rumsfeld should be replaced sometime in the next year.


"I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld," Lott, R-Mississippi, told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday morning. "I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers."


Rumsfeld has been criticized since a soldier asked him last week why the combat vehicles used in the war in Iraq don't have the proper armor. Both Rumsfeld and President Bush have said more vehicle armor will be shipped to Iraq.


Lott said the United States needs more troops to help with the war. The country also needs a plan to leave Iraq once elections are over at the end of January.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:28 AM

Amos - debasing the medal of honor was right on.

We need new medals, I just happen to have one here...

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/metalofdishonor3.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 05:59 PM

A New York Times editorial reveals that the bloody consequences of Bush's war-mongering are beginning to be appraised -- not the cost in limbs and lives snuffed out, but in the ruthless destruction of sanity caused by participating in psychotic, institutionalized violence and the destruction of others..

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:14 PM

Ex-Military Lawyers Object to Bush Cabinet Nominee
By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: December 16, 2004


WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Several former high-ranking military lawyers say they
are discussing ways to oppose President Bush's nomination of Alberto R.
Gonzales to be attorney general, asserting that Mr. Gonzales's supervision
of legal memorandums that appeared to sanction harsh treatment of detainees,
even torture, showed unsound legal judgment.

Hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination are
expected to begin next month. While Mr. Gonzales is expected to be
confirmed, objections from former generals and admirals would be a setback
and an embarrassment for him and the White House.

Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy's judge advocate general
from 1997 to 2000 before he retired, said that while Mr. Gonzales might be a
lawyer of some stature, "I think the role that he played in the one thing
that I am familiar with is tremendously shortsighted."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 04 - 08:17 PM

Bush Administration and Oil Companies Want Arctic Meltdown

by
Wayne Madsen

[Petroleum elites are benefiting from oil scarcity, because it raises
prices. But they also fear oil scarcity, because it raises costs and
eventually makes business impossible. And since the oil industry is also
impeding the large-scale development of alternatives while continuing to
encourage rampant consumption, scarcity of fossil fuels may eventually kill
them. They don't seem to mind. Maybe the pursuit of world-destroying
policies is some kind of compensation for their own mortality --- you know,
if I can't live forever, I think I'll take the rest of you down with me.
Such a policy is neither government nor business; it's the melodrama of a
big dysfunctional family whose patriarchs are finally going crazy - just
when their power is at its height.

Here's another metaphor: the Petro-Administration of Cheney-Rice-Bush is
like a psychotic who tries to play chess: indifferent to the rules, he
simply steals the opponent's king off the board, claims victory, and burns
the whole chess-set in the fireplace.

In the following shocker by Wayne Madsen, we learn that there are people
high up in Washington who regard the apocalyptic melting of the polar ice
caps as a good thing. Why? It will clear new shipping lanes for the
exploitation of Arctic oil and gas.

About six years ago I published an essay in the Massachusetts Review called
"Scarcity and Compensation in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick." I learned that
the American whaling industry did not end because petroleum replaced whale
oil; whaling stopped because the animals had been "harvested" almost to
extinction, and the only place left to catch them was in the perilous ice
floes of the Arctic Ocean. In 1873 thirty-three out of forty whaling ships
cruising in the Arctic were destroyed by ice. 1

Today the American oil industry finds itself back up in the Arctic, chasing
petroleum (not whale blubber). But this time, pollutants from its own
product have warmed the globe, and instead of destroying our ships, the ice
is just melting out of the way! What a wonderful way to settle an old score.
- JAH]

November 11, 2004 0900 PDT (FTW) -- Washington, DC. Speaking off the record,
scientists studying the current warming of the Arctic region intimated that
some officials in the Bush administration saw the loss of Arctic ice and the
resultant opening of sea channels such as the Northwest Passage of Canada as
a good thing for the exploration and retrieval of oil and natural gas from
the endangered region.

Over 300 international scientists have just completed an extensive 1200-page
report documenting their exhaustive 4-year Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
study on the rapid warming of the Arctic. The study was commissioned by the
Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee at a
ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in Point Barrow, Alaska in 2000.
On November 8, the scientists released a 144-page summary of their findings
at a press conference in Washington, DC.

As if out of a scene from the Roland Emmerich's climate disaster movie, "The
Day After Tomorrow," the U.S. State Department is criticizing the
international panel's call to slow down Arctic warming by curbing greenhouse
emissions into the atmosphere. The State Department, according to some
scientists, is echoing the positions of oil companies and
anti-environmentalist pressure groups like the Cato Institute and Heritage
Foundation, in dismissing the recent report on Arctic warming. In fact,
President Bush has repeatedly referred to previous scientific studies
pointing to the effects of global warming as "silly science" based on "fuzzy
math."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:28 PM

ush's economic summit
The Boston Globe Saturday, December 18, 2004
President George W. Bush's two-day economic summit was an exercise in
political propaganda that attempted to hide the underlying economic problem
for the administration over the next four years: The government is spending
far more than it is taking in and needs to raise taxes to make up at least
part of the difference.
.
Instead, participants in the summit - dominated by the president's
supporters - focused on proposals to block anti-business lawsuits (a
perennial issue for Republicans) and allow partial privatization of Social
Security (a new favorite of the party). The budget turnaround, from a $236.4
billion surplus to a $413 billion deficit over the last five years, was
mentioned in passing, but only as a way for participants to praise Bush for
pushing tax cuts that supposedly revived the economy.
.
A strong case could have been made for a quick stimulus package to pre-empt
a deep recession following the stock market collapse and the 9/11 attacks.
But nobody at the conference made the point that Bush used his narrow
victory in 2000 to destroy the bipartisan consensus of the 1990's that
balanced the budget. His tax cuts, if kept in place, will reduce federal
revenues far into the future without regard to their impact on the
government or the economy as a whole.
.
The Congressional Budget Office notes that federal spending, growing at a
3.5 percent rate in the 90's, has soared to a 6 to 7 percent growth rate
under Bush. Much of that can be attributed to the war against terrorism, but
it made no sense to embark on the invasion of Iraq while simultaneously
cutting taxes, as Bush continued to advocate throughout his first term. And
the Medicare drug benefit, which Bush pushed through Congress last year,
will put more pressure on the budget when it takes effect in 2006. The
program lacks the price restraints necessary to keep it under control.
.
Instead, the summit participants talked about Social Security as if it were
in crisis, rather than a long-term manageable problem. The president and
Joshua Bolton, his budget director, did suggest that tough spending choices
would be necessarily to reduce the deficit, but no one was ready to offer
specifics. Even if all unnecessary spending were eliminated, essential
federal programs would require more funding than is possible when revenues
shrink to an unreasonably low percentage of the gross domestic product -
16.5 percent, according to the CBO.
.
Participants at the summit also barely focused on the decline of the dollar,
but foreign investors' tendency to put their money elsewhere is a sign that
the Bush administration and Congress are pursuing polices that threaten
American economic leadership. Despite Republican rhetoric, Americans are far
from overtaxed. The Bush administration is underperforming in its essential
role as guardian of the U.S. economy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 04:29 PM

How To Talk About the Deficit
A lesson in the art of avoidance from the Bush economic conference.
ByTimothy Noah
Posted Thursday, Dec. 16, 2004, at 2:24 PM PT
http://slate.msn.com/id/2111173/

President Bush is holding an economic conference this week at the White
House. The whole thing is about as spontaneous as a wrestling match; even
David Brooks called it a "pseudo-event." So I'm not particularly surprised
that, at today's session on the budget deficit, nobody suggested that taxes
be raised. Republicans always oppose raising taxes. It did surprise me,
however, that even a staged conversation about the deficit could take place
without anyone proposing a specific budget cut.

Conservatives in general, and the Bush administration in particular, favor
budget cuts. At the conference, President Bush said there were going to be
"some tough choices on the spending side," and he boasted that "non-defense,
non-homeland discretionary spending" had increased at a rate of less than 1
percent over last year. But "non-defense, non-homeland discretionary
spending" is a tiny sliver of all the money that the government spends.
Overall, the federal government this year spent an estimated 5 percent more
than it spent last year, and that's only counting expenditures through
November. Bush doesn't like to cut spending; he likes to say he likes to cut
spending. In truth, Bush spends just as freely as a Democratic president
would, if not more. The only significant difference is that Bush is bleeding
domestic programs in order to increase spending on the military and homeland
defense. Bush's hypocrisy about government spending is so naked that a whole
new ideology, "big government conservatism," had to be invented in order to
explain it away.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:41 PM

Well, gol danged...

Looks as if Bush is so good at starting wars that he's gone a started another one without even knowing it?

Huh, you say...

That's right. Goergie Porg has started *Cold War II*!!!!! Looks as if Russia and China have agreed to hold military manouvers together signaling an alliance that can't be viewed as anything but Cold War tactics...

Now, throw in China bankrollin' Bush's spending spree, the outcome of this Cold War certainly looks to be different than the last one...

Funny thing. Both Bush and Reagan held power by decreasing taxes, driving unprecidented debt yet Reagan spent it on a military that wasn't used and that, among other factors, helped the US win Cold War I. Bush has also spent heavily on the military but has used it (quite unwisely) and cranked up the War that purdy much ended under Reagan...

How much more Bush America can survive???

Everything he touches turns to sh*t...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 06:52 PM

Hitler had exactly the same problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 04 - 07:30 PM

ANd look how he solved it!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 10:53 AM

Kris Kristofferson, urging action to stop the genocide underway in Darfur:

"Mr. Bush bemoaned Mr. Clinton's use of the White House for sex with an intern, and he was right to do so. But it's incomparably more immoral, and certainly a greater betrayal of American values, for Mr. Bush to sit placidly in the White House and watch a genocide from the sidelines."

Read the whole excellent piece here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 12:26 PM

From The Washington Post:

...Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation's civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are living with an increased risk of death.


All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase. U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops in Iraq the "best equipped" is more than an exaggeration; it is bilge, baloney and cruel.


An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and deploy around the globe 2.5 million trucks in the same period of time that the incumbent U.S. government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq.


The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a mock warhead -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 05:49 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats on Saturday said U.S. soldiers in Iraq lacked adequate body armor and plated vehicles because of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's flawed leadership.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, in the Democrats' weekly radio address, blasted the Pentagon under Rumsfeld for "a litany of serious miscalculations" including underestimating the Iraqis resistance and failing to give troops enough protective equipment even though Congress gave it all the money it requested.

"The Pentagon says the lack of protective equipment is a matter of 'logistics.' No it's not. It's a matter of leadership," Durbin said.

"Those responsible for planning this war were not prepared for the reality on the ground, and many of our soldiers have paid the price," he said, citing nearly 1,300 U.S. service members who have died in Iraq and more than 10,000 injured.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 10:15 AM

Portland, Maine's Herald opines in this piece:

The White House must love 'opposite day'

Copyright © 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
 
It is a favored tactic in the Bush White House to take on tough criticism by boldly asserting the opposite.


Keeping clean air regulations from forcing further cuts in emissions is labeled a "clear skies" initiative. Judicial nominees who would bring the government into our bedrooms are defenders of liberty. And a scheme to gut Social Security and turn it into a money machine for the securities industry is a plan to "strengthen" that same system.

The latest in this series of 180-degree misdirections - reminiscent of when kids play "opposite day" - was Bush's assertion at a White House conference last week that moving forward with his proposals on Social Security would send positive signals to financial markets.

Say what?

Let's be clear about the what the president wants to do. He wants to put the nation another $2 trillion in debt so that, over time, he and his conservative supporters can eliminate the Social Security system as we know it.

---

Follow link for balance of editorial.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 04 - 09:25 PM

In Defense of Chevy Chase's Right to Call Bush a Dumb Fuck

 By Jackson Thoreau

 Excerpted from this page

I've long liked Chevy Chase , but now I like him even more. He joins Jon Stewart and Bill Maher as my favorite comedians.


 To stand up and call Bush a dumb fuck at a hoity-toity event like one hosted by the People for the American Way in mid-December [see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3216-2004Dec15.html ], takes some guts. Chase just said what most of us want to say, but doubt we would if we had a national stage like Chase has and had to worry about pissing off fans who pay to see our movies and acts.


And I don't know why Democrats and liberal-types have to apologize for, and distance themselves from, Chase, such as some with the People for the American Way and others on Fox shows like Hannity's did. They come off sounding like wimps, and maybe a lot of liberals are wimps [as are a lot of conservatives, especially those who talk tough but don't act on the talk, such as the chicken hawks who wimped out on going to Vietnam ].


Don't call Chase's remarks offensive and act like Bush is a legitimate U.S. president. Just say Chase's opinions are his own and leave it at that. I mean, if Cheney, who is supposedly a moral statesman, can use the f-word on the floor of Congress, a comedian can surely use it at an awards ceremony.


Bill O'Reilly, that purveyor of morality who paid millions to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit by an employee after transcripts revealed he admitted to having extramarital affairs amid phone sex with her, was indignant at Chase daring to "disrespect" the president this way.


O'Reilly and others overlook how Bush & co. have desecrated the office with the way they lied and cheated to get there, and the way they have lied and cheated since. Bush disrespected the Constitution, including in violating the part about the president and vice president living in separate states. He said he supported the will of the people, then worked to stop the legal counting of votes. He is among the most dirtiest campaigners in American history. History will show that his campaign engaged in high-tech cheating and intimidation tactics in 2004. He doesn't deserve respect. And Chase reminds us of this in an effective way.


 O'Reilly asked on his recent show for examples of Republicans who have publicly cussed at or called Democrats or opponents profanities. Bush and Cheney themselves have done that numerous times, including last June when Cheney told Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-Vt.] on the god-damned SENATE FLOOR to go "fuck yourself." Right-wingers like Joe Scarborough, who allegedly had an affair with a female employee who died in his office in a weird way, continue to gloat about that.


 How about Bush calling a reporter a major-league asshole in public in 2000? Did Cheney or Bush apologize for those statements? HELL, NO! Other examples are in a column I wrote a few months back for numerous sites, including the Moderate Independent at http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i19thoreau.htm .


 And journalist Jeanne Wolf said on O'Reilly's show that no one will defend Chevy Chase . So I am doing so in this column.


Instead of Dems apologizing and sucking up to Republicanazis, we need to stand up to the bullies like Chase did. We need more national celebrities to call Bush a dumb fuck. Some people say Bush is not so dumb, that he may not read books or position papers or even the Cliff Notes his staff prepares, but he does run campaigns that win, even if he cheats.


 That's not the point. The point is Bush doesn't deserve respect. He's not in the White House legitimately - even if you don't think he cheated in 2004, which he did, there is the more widely acknowledged cheating to take the White House in 2000. He shouldn't have even been in the position to run in 2004. Calling him a dumb fuck is reminding people that Bush is illegitimate. He's a presidential bastard, besides being a dumb fuck. I don't care if you think I'm unpatriotic for defending Chase and calling Bush a dumb fuck myself.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 04 - 08:56 PM

An excellent chuckle at the SECDEF's expense can be found in Maureen Dowd's latest column.

God grant we can still laugh.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 12:20 AM

An excerpt from the Washington Post's article describing Chevy Chase's original speech:

After actors Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon delivered speeches accepting their Defender of Democracy awards, Chase took the stage a final time and unleashed a rant against President Bush that stunned the crowd. He deployed the four-letter word that got Vice President Cheney in hot water, using it as a noun. Chase called the prez a "dumb [expletive]." He also used it as an adjective, assuring the audience, "I'm no [expletive] clown either. . . . This guy started a jihad."


Chase also said: "This guy in office is an uneducated, real lying schmuck . . . and we still couldn't beat him with a bore like Kerry."

---

My sympathies to Mister Chase. I suspect he may have laid his pearls before swine again...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 08:00 PM

In this editorial, the New York Times credits Bush with deeper insght than average on the Palestinian-Israeli evolution and with wisely disregarding "received wisdom".

This is unusually fulsome praise for the Times for Mister Bush, whom they usually excoriate.

At least they had the courage to change their minds this once.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 02:25 PM

An excerpt from a highly vocal individual of the Liberal perusasion, concerning the gentle drift of the United States towward National Socialism:

12/22/04 "ICH" -- When the thunderous clouds of fascists past and corporatists present finally dissipate over the vast lands of the United States, leaving in its wake a nation recovering from the violent downpours of mass lunacy, fear and collective schizophrenia that have caused a dustbowl-style drought of humanity in the nation of gluttonous undertakings, it will finally be seen, beyond the enveloping haze of post 9/11 hypnosis hindering American visibility, the devastation of what was done to us and what has been done to the world in our name, oftentimes with our willing consent and through our complicit guilt through silence and acquiescence.

The shock and awe storm of the Amerikan Nazis will inevitably one day pass, as all tyrannies eventually do, yet what will remain to haunt us, what will tug at our conscious for years to come, will be the dishonor and shame upon our society for the human malice spawned in the minds of so many millions of Americans. For the Amerikan Nazi phenomenon has with the passing of each sunset grown and mutated beyond the small cabal of criminal corporatists, power hungry warmongering fascists, military-industrial complex elites, delusional Zionist-first neocons, religious Bible-Belt fundamentalists and profit over people capitalists. Today, the cancer is spreading far and wide, infecting those residing inside the belly of the beast, afflicting first and foremost the most unenlightened and ignorant among us.

Tens of millions of Americans are being transformed into conduits of barbarism and catalysts of violence, regenerating the evil of racism against an entire population of purposefully scapegoated innocents whose only crime is belonging to a group the Amerikan Nazis have chosen as the necessary enemy from which to unleash perpetual war for perpetual profit. The deliberate conditioning of tens of millions of citizens by the Amerikan Nazis into purveyors of mass murder and violence accepting and indeed deriving pleasure from the death of 100,000 innocent Iraqis should send shockwaves throughout the world that perhaps a communal lunacy has infiltrated a large segment of the American people.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 08:20 AM

In The Cabinet of Incuriosities (N.Y. Times) Ron Suskind discusses the necessary qualities of a Bush cabinet member -- first and above all, compliancy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 08:27 AM

Excerpt from The Sociopathic Bush Administration

- by Mary Shaw

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was recently questioned by a U.S. soldier regarding the shortage of armor to protect our troops in Iraq, his insensitive response seemed to suggest that armor is for sissies, because even armored humvees can explode. The lack of compassion and lack of empathy exemplified by his response reinforced my belief that the Bush administration consistently displays clear signs of collective sociopathic behavior.

Let's take a look at some of the characteristics of sociopathic behavior, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, and see how they fit:

1. Callousness, lack of empathy, irresponsibility, and reckless disregard for the safety of others: In addition to Rumsfeld's most recent display of callousness and reckless disregard, President Bush routinely exhibits these symptoms.
Childhood friends have described how the young George W. Bush would attach firecrackers to frogs and blow them up. Decades later, as Governor of Texas, Bush mocked and ridiculed convicted murderer Karla Fae Tucker's desperate plea for her life. Today, President Bush sends our young people to Iraq to fight an out-of-control war based on lies, ships American workers' jobs overseas, runs up the budget deficit, and sets out to put Social Security into the hands (and pockets) of Wall Street brokers, with apparently no consideration for how this reckless behavior will affect average Americans. He and those closest to him remain safe in their money-padded cocoons, far removed from the reality that their actions create.

2. Glibness and superficial charm: George W. Bush won votes with his casual, down-home style. He won the support of the heartland's cupcake moms and NASCAR dads by coming across as a regular guy. At the height of the 2004 campaign season, when asked which candidate they would rather have a beer with, 43 percent responded that they would rather have a beer with President Bush, compared with 25.1 percent for John Kerry. But Bush's frozen smirk betrays a glibness that tells us that his underlying agenda does not include buying a round at the local saloon for the common folks.

3. Deceitfulness: George H. W. Bush deceived the nation when he said, "Read my lips: no new taxes." But that lie did not cost thousands of innocent lives. George W. sent our young men and women into Iraq to fight a war based on false
allegations: Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, ties to al- Qaeda, and a grave and gathering threat to America. Vice President Cheney still clings to some of these stories, and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice herself tapdanced around the truth in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
This administration does not let facts get in the way of their agenda.

4. Grandiose sense of self: Having won reelection with 51 percent of the vote (hardly a landslide), George W. Bush described his victory as a "mandate." He claimed to have earned "political capital" during the campaign, which he now intends to spend. The other 49 percent of the voting public will just have to accept it. After all, as Bush told an Amish group in July of 2004, "God speaks through me."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 04:43 PM

Sigh. And I thought we had seen the last of your very own private thread Amos. Well, I guess a few days is better than ...what? Nothing?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 06:06 PM

I know. I am sure the innocent Germans got tired of hearing about their problems too, but those who stand and do nothing do not serve.

I do not enjoy being led by a sociopath. Nor do I think it very well for the planet.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 07:29 PM

Shopping for War
By BOB HERBERT

Published: December 27, 2004


You might think that the debacle in Iraq would be enough for the Pentagon, that it would not be in the mood to seek out new routes to unnecessary wars for the United States to fight. But with Donald Rumsfeld at the apex of the defense establishment, enough is never enough.

So, as detailed in an article in The Times on Dec. 19, Mr. Rumsfeld's minions are concocting yet another grandiose and potentially disastrous scheme. Pentagon officials are putting together a plan that would give the military a more prominent role in intelligence gathering operations that traditionally have been handled by the Central Intelligence Agency. They envision the military doing more spying with humans, as opposed, for example, to surveillance with satellites.

Further encroachment by the military into intelligence matters better handled by civilians is bad enough. Now hold your breath. According to the article, "Among the ideas cited by Defense Department officials is the idea of 'fighting for intelligence,' or commencing combat operations chiefly to obtain intelligence."

That is utter madness. The geniuses in Washington have already launched one bogus war, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and provoked levels of suffering that are impossible to quantify. We don't need to be contemplating new forms of warfare waged for the sole purpose of gathering intelligence.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 08:15 PM

This is waht I was talkin' about on another thread... Seems the Pentagon has a 25 year stategy and has wars planned up the wazoo...

And the beat goes on...

And, fir the record here? Amos is my hero for his vigilence. If I weren't so gtol danged busy trying to make a sanged living and pay my fair sahre of taxes that I'd like to think went toward HUD or the Dept. of Ed, I'd be here shoulder to shoulder with him but...sniff... I can't be..

Keep hammerin', Amos, keep a hammerin'...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 09:00 PM

Typical insightful and constructive remark, Martin. Let us know if you decide to mature, although I know it is late.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 28 Dec 04 - 11:44 PM

Whatever.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 08:54 AM

The New York Times Op Ed from December 24th -- excerpt:


It's like watching your son playing in traffic, and there's nothing you can do." - Janet Bellows, mother of a soldier who has been assigned to a second tour in Iraq.

Back in the 1960's, when it seemed as if every other draftee in the Army was being sent to Vietnam, I was sent off to Korea, where I was assigned to the intelligence office of an engineer battalion.

Twenty years old and half a world away from home, I looked forward to mail call the way junkies craved their next fix. My teenage sister, Sandy, got all of her high school girlfriends to write to me, which led some of the guys in my unit to think I was some kind of Don Juan. I considered it impolite to correct any misconceptions they might have had.

You could depend on the mail for an emotional lift - most of the time. But there were times when I would open an envelope and read, in the inky handwriting of my mother or father or sister, that a friend of mine, someone I had grown up with or gone to school with, or a new friend I had met in the Army, had been killed in Vietnam. Just like that. Gone. Life over at 18, 19, 20.

I can still remember the weird feelings that would come over me in those surreal moments, including the irrational idea that I was somehow responsible for the death. In the twisted logic of grief, I would feel that if I had never opened the envelope, the person would still be alive. I remember being overwhelmed with the desire to reseal the letter in the envelope and bring my dead friend back to life.

This week's hideous attack in Mosul reminded me of those long ago days. Once again American troops sent on a fool's errand are coming home in coffins, or without their right arms or left legs, or paralyzed, or so messed up mentally they'll never be the same. Troops are being shoved two or three times into the furnace of Iraq by astonishingly incompetent leaders who have been unable or unwilling to provide them with the proper training, adequate equipment or even a clearly defined mission.

It is a mind-boggling tragedy. And the suffering goes far beyond the men and women targeted by the insurgents. Each death in Iraq blows a hole in a family and sets off concentric circles of grief that touch everyone else who knew and cared for the fallen soldier. If the human stakes were understood well enough by the political leaders of this country, it might make them a little more reluctant to launch foolish, unnecessary and ultimately unwinnable wars.

Lisa Hoffman and Annette Rainville of the Scripps Howard News Service have reported, in an extremely moving article, that nearly 900 American children have lost a parent to the war in Iraq. More than 40 fathers died without seeing their babies.

The article begins with a description of a deeply sad 4-year-old named Jack Shanaberger, whose father was killed in an ambush in March. Jack told his mother he didn't want to be a father when he grew up. "I don't want to be a daddy," he said, "because daddies die."

Six female soldiers who died in the war left a total of 10 children. This is a new form of wartime heartbreak for the U.S.

We have completely lost our way with this fiasco in Iraq. The president seems almost perversely out of touch. "The idea of democracy taking hold in what was a place of tyranny and hatred and destruction is such a hopeful moment in the history of the world," he said this week.

The truth, of course, is that we can't even secure the road to the Baghdad airport, or protect our own troops lining up for lunch inside a military compound. The coming elections are a slapstick version of democracy. International observers won't even go to Iraq to monitor the elections because it's too dangerous. They'll be watching, as if through binoculars, from Jordan.

Nobody has a plan. We don't have enough troops to secure the country, and the Iraqi forces have shown neither the strength nor the will to do it themselves. Election officials are being murdered in the streets. The insurgency is growing in both strength and sophistication. At least three more marines and one soldier were killed yesterday, ensuring the grimmest of holidays for their families and loved ones.

One of the things that President Bush might consider while on his current vacation is whether there are any limits to the price our troops should be prepared to pay for his misadventure in Iraq, or whether the suffering and dying will simply go on indefinitely.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 01:56 PM

Washington's New Year War Cry: Party On!

By FRANK RICH

Published: January 1, 2005



ON the fourth day 'til Christmas, the day that news of the slaughter at the mess tent in Mosul slammed into the evening news, CBS had scheduled a special treat. That evening brought the annual broadcast of "The Kennedy Center Honors," the carefree variety show in which Washington's top dogs mingle with visitors from that mysterious land known as the Arts and do a passing (if fashion-challenged) imitation of revelers at the Oscars. This year, like any other, the show was handing out medals to those representing "the very best in American culture," as exemplified by honorees like Australia's Dame Joan Sutherland and Britain's Sir Elton John. Festive bipartisanship reigned. Though Sir Elton had said just three weeks earlier that "Bush and this administration are the worst thing that has ever happened to America," he and his boyfriend joined the president and Mrs. Bush in their box. John Kerry held forth in an orchestra seat below.

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"The Kennedy Center Honors" is no ratings powerhouse; this year more adults under 50 elected to watch "The Real Gilligan's Island" on cable instead. But I tuned in, curious to see how this gathering of the capital's finest might be affected by the war. The honors had actually been staged and taped earlier in the month, on Dec. 5. That day the morning newspapers told of more deadly strikes by suicide bombers in Mosul and Baghdad, killing at least 26 Iraqi security officers, including 8 in a police station near the capital's protected Green Zone. There were also reports of at least four American casualties in other firefights.

But if anyone at the Kennedy Center so much as acknowledged this reality unfolding beyond the opera house, it was not to be found in the show presented on television. The only wars evoked were those scored by another honoree, John Williams, whose soundtrack music for "Saving Private Ryan" and "Star Wars" was merrily belted out by a military band. (Our delicate sensibilities were spared the sight of an actual "Private Ryan" battle scene, however, lest the broadcast risk being shut down for "indecency.") The razzle-dazzle Hollywood martial music, the what-me-worry Washington establishment, the glow of money and red plush: everything about the tableau reeked of the disconnect between the war in Iraq and the comfort of all of us at home, starting with those in government who had conceived, planned, rubber-stamped and managed our excellent adventure in spreading democracy.

Ordinary people beyond Washington, red and blue Americans alike, are feeling that disconnect more and more. On the same day that CBS broadcast the Kennedy Center special, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 70 percent of Americans believed that any gains in Iraq had come at the cost of "unacceptable" losses in casualties and that 56 percent believed the war wasn't "worth fighting" - up 8 percent since the summer. In other words, most Americans believe that our troops are dying for no good reason, even as a similar majority (58 percent) believes, contradictorily enough, that we should keep them in Iraq.

So the soldiers soldier on, and we party on. As James Dao wrote in The New York Times, "support our troops" became a verbal touchstone in 2004, yet "only for a minuscule portion of the populace, mainly those with loved ones overseas, does it have anything to do with sacrifice." Quite the contrary: we have our tax cuts, and a president who promises to make them permanent. Such is the disconnect between the country and the war that there is no national outrage when the president awards the Medal of Freedom to the clowns who undermined the troops by bungling intelligence (George Tenet) and Iraqi support (Paul Bremer). Such is the disconnect that Washington and the news media react with slack-jawed shock when one of those good soldiers we support so much speaks up at a town hall meeting in Kuwait and asks the secretary of defense why vehicles that take him and his brothers into battle lack proper armor."


From An editorial in the Times

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 02:05 PM

DUBYA IS BAD. HIS FATHER WAS WORSE.

(Excerpted from the New Republic on-line edition of Dec 27)

Sins of the Father
by Tom Frank

Only at TNR Online | Post date 12.27.04
 E-mail this article


In the late 1990s, as Americans found themselves learning more than they cared to know about Arkansas courtship rituals, the name Bush began to inspire sentimental feelings. Bill Clinton's predecessor, it was said, had at least shown respect for the office. If he'd never managed to achieve the common touch, neither had he been accused of disrobing and offering suggestions such as "Kiss it" within minutes of making someone's acquaintance. In 1999, The New York Times noted that Bush I was now "basking in the glow of a surprisingly early, and positive, reassessment of his stewardship."


Oddly enough, the arrival of George W. Bush didn't quell the longing for George H.W. Bush; in fact, for some Americans, it only intensified it. Just six months into the younger Bush's presidency, Fareed Zakaria was already writing in Time that Dubya should "embrace his own family values" and emulate his father, who was, in fact, "a pretty good president." Once Dubya began to anger much of the world, others chimed in. The elder Bush was "a master of personal diplomacy," reminisced columnist Maureen Dowd, an "old-school internationalist who ceaselessly tried to charm allies as U.N. ambassador and in the White House." Her colleague Thomas Friedman took Bush nostalgia even further. Days before the 2004 election, Friedman wrote, "The more I look back on the elder Bush ... the more I find to admire." He concluded: "Yes, next Tuesday, vote for the real political heir to George H.W. Bush. I'm sure you know who that is." (Friedman meant John Kerry.)


This was, really, going a bit far. Even in a world where the spectrum of political belief is bounded by the poles of Bush I and Bush II--a world in which, evidently, Friedman and others are now dwelling--surely some norms, such as avoiding nostalgia for our worst chief executives, must be respected. True, whatever your political beliefs--liberal, conservative, libertarian, other--Dubya has done something to bother you. Anyone who invades Afghanistan, occupies Iraq, expands Medicare, passes No Child Left Behind, flouts the Kyoto Protocol, pushes a Constitutional amendment on marriage, sinks the dollar, cuts taxes, and proposes dynamiting the New Deal is bound to step on a toe every so often. But is our current president bad enough to warrant something as drastic as the rehabilitation of Bush I?


Perhaps we should cheer up. In reality, there's something worse than the mix of ideological belligerence and lack of scruples that characterizes Dubya's administration. That would be the mix of cynicism, demagoguery, and ineffectiveness that characterized the presidency of his father

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 04:03 PM

Excerpted from Counterbias:

The Arrogant Administration


December 31 2004
Counterbias.com
Scott C. Smith


I'm beginning to think that a prerequisite exists before one assumes a position with the Bush administration: applicant must be arrogant. Just like George W. Bush.

We've seen many examples over the last four years of Bush administration arrogance. Take Attorney General John Ashcroft's remarks to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 7, 2001 as an example. Ashcroft said, referring to critics of the Patriot Act, "To those who pit Americans against immigrants, citizens against non-citizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve…they give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil." (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 04:06 PM

Friday 24th December 2004 (02h06) :
Hold the Bush Administration accountable for its use of torture
2 comment(s).

We must hold the Bush Administration accountable for its use of torture

By Angie Pratt

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4863

You want to know why when news of prisoner torture percolated up the channels of the government nothing was done? The answer is quite simple. They condoned the actions. In fact, we now know that they were following an executive order from George W. Bush. This isn't based on hearsay. This isn't a figment of some Massachusetts liberal's imagination. This allegation is based on an internal FBI document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The document, a two-page FBI internal e-mail, references an Executive Order that states the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

Now. do you think the government released this e-mail freely? Nope. It took a federal judge in response to a freedom of information request lawsuit brought by the ACLU to force the release of this information. Why? Because the Bush Administration knows it is guilty of sponsoring the use of inhumane interrogation methods against Moslem detainees.

The Bush Administration has slipped down the slippery slope and fallen into Satan's den. The God that George Bush claims to speak to is not the one that Jesus speaks about. Torturing prisoners is not an activity that Christ would approve of. Christians around the world need to stand up and declare these actions immoral.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 07:30 PM

Wow, Amos, this should make it a whopping 750 posts! Looks, too, it's down now to just you and me.

Happy New Year Amos!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 08:05 PM

And me, Big Guy...

751...

And Happy New Year to both of you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 08:32 PM

Hangin' in. Happy New Year to all three of you!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 06:59 PM

Miracles Are Unlikely in Bush's Middle East Gospel

by Charles V. Peña

Charles V. Peña is director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute.

A week after the U.S. presidential election, Secretary of State Colin Powell - often considered the moderate and realist in the Bush administration's first term - defended President George W. Bush's foreign policy record and said he "is not going to ... trim his sails or pull back. It's going to be a continuation of his principles, his policies, his beliefs." At the beginning of December, in Canada, Bush declared that the election was an endorsement of his foreign policy, especially the doctrine of preemption against gathering threats. He also reiterated his vision of spreading democracy in the Middle East. So what should we expect there during the next four years?

In Iraq, more than 18 months have passed since Bush declared "mission accomplished," but the conflict is still unfinished business. Re-taking Fallujah in November was more about real estate than realizing military or political-strategic objectives. Public enemy number one in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was not captured or killed. And it would seem that the vast majority of the 5,000-6,000 insurgents alleged to be in Fallujah simply ran away to fight another day. Indeed, even as victory was being declared, insurgents struck in Mosul and Samarra. More recently, there were back-to-back suicide bombings inside Baghdad's Green Zone.

Iraq has come to resemble the arcade game Whack-A-Mole, where every time you hit a mole as it pops out of a hole another one pops up out of a different hole.

Despite the inability of the American military to put down the insurgency, the Iraqi elections in January are still likely to take place. In fact, the U.S. has almost no choice but to hold elections - even if many Sunnis boycott them and if some segments of the population are unable to vote because of the violence. If elections are not held as promised, the majority Shiites will have every reason to more actively oppose the U.S. occupation and the interim Iraqi government, this time also using violence. Of course, elections are no guarantee of peace and stability either.

Excerpted from The Cato Institute.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:09 PM

Some commentary on the Administration from -- of all papers -- the Quad City Times:

Bush administration creates its own reality and leaves ours behind

"The aide (a senior adviser to President Bush) said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine,

Oct. 17, 2004.

This is the quote that now has some noted bloggers identifying themselves as, "Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community."


Of all the problems that arise from having an administration that chooses not to believe in reality, the one most likely to have irretrievably disastrous consequences is environmental.

The Bush solution to global warming is to declare it does not exist. While this solves the problem for him in the short term, global warming is highly unlikely to be impressed by the news that we are now an empire and can change history.

Just lately, "history's actors" have made a couple of singular contributions to our future that we in the reality-based community will doubtless be studying for some time to come.

The first allows sewer operators to dump inadequately treated sewage into the nation's waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency (a name that becomes more ironic daily) currently requires sewer operators to fully treat their waste in all but the most extreme circumstances, like during a hurricane. The new plan will allow operators to dump sewage routinely any time it rains.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council: "For the last 50 years, standard sewage treatment has involved a two-step process: solids removal, and biological treatment to kill bacteria, viruses and parasites. The new policy allows facilities to routinely bypass the second step and to 'blend' partially treated sewage with fully treated wastewater before discharging it into the waterways."
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:15 PM

Predictions for George Bush's Second Term (Excerpted from One Thousand Reasons)

Predictions are rarely accurate, but sometimes history gives us such a clear indication of the future that predictions rise to the level of fate. Such is the case with the second term of George Bush. Now that he claims all that "political capital," he will surely try to spend it, and this is where we expect him to shop:

Social Security. He tipped his hand on this one as soon as the election was over, so this is not even a prediction. Bush will do his best to dismantle it, taking away the guaranteed payments most of us have worked a lifetime for, substituting a gambler's nightmare called privatization. Given the choice, he would simply do away with Social Security -- as part of the New Deal, it represents the kind of government hard-core (and hard-right) conservatives loathe -- but his thin "mandate" failed to deliver enough "capital" for a complete dismantling. He and his kind will take what they can get, which means extra profits for investment bankers, insurance executives, and Wall Street, while the rest of us hand over a portion of our paycheck to be entrusted to private investments.

War: We don't expect him to start another one, but the sound of his saber will be heard worldwide. Meanwhile, the war in Afghanistan continues at a slow boil, and Iraq is spinning out of control, not toward democracy, but toward chaos. Bush will likely send more troops, construct more bases, spend tens of billions more than he claimed, and continue the occupation while claiming that Iraq is now "free."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:22 PM

S simple but sincere web-site editor named Huck whose website is called "What the Huck", offers some thoughts on the two waves of death we have recently endured:


"A Tsunami hit Asia like George Bush on steroids. The Tsunami killed over 52,000 in one swoop. The George Bush Tsunami of lies has resulted in 1,326 American deaths. Which Tsunami is worse? The George Bush Tsunami that was a cold calculated lie for political and economical gains. Or the Tsunami which hits without warning that is a random act of nature. When you take a look at George Bush and what he did regarding Iraq as it relates to the Tsunami of life. Maybe George Bush is just a destructive Tsunami of life that we can't control as it causes great destruction to anything or anyone that crosses his path. As we approach the New Year I can't stop thinking of those Americans that continue to die in Iraq for the lies of George W. Bush. As we approach the New Year I can't help but think how hard these holidays have to be on the families that lost their loved ones because of the Tsunami like lies, political agendas, and economic reasons George W. Bush used to initiate this war in Iraq.

    I literally grind my teeth when I see an image of George Bush as I remember the lies he told that have resulted in families losing people they cared about. It seems the more I think about it, the more frustrated I become. Every day that another American life is reported lost I reflect on what resulted in their life being lost. It always comes back to one person, George W. Bush. Yes, one Tsunami was an act of nature that killed over 52,000 people with our warning. But the Tsunami-like act of George W. Bush who intentionally lied about the facts that resulted in the avoidable deaths of 1,326 Americans is far worse.

Click here for your " Ask Huck " comments or questions.

Current Number of Americans Killed or Wounded In Iraq.
Number of Dead is 1,326. Number of Wounded is 9,981.

    I know that talking about this is not going to bring back the 1,326 American Lives lost to date. I know complaining about this won't change the election or anything else George Bush has done to date. Worst of all I now realize that no matter what you or I say, as Americans, is not going to prevent George Bush from doing what ever he pleases regardless of the consequences or continued loss of American lives. The reason is, George W. Bush doesn't care about anyone except George Bush, and the rich that his entire presidency and agenda has been based upon.

    The truth of the matter is you and I don't matter to George Bush. The only things that matter to George W. Bush are those that none of us will ever relate to. Yes President Bush is like an out of control Tsunami. For the next four years we can only sit back and wait for the next Bush Tsunami to rise up, hit, and destroy more of the fabric this country was built upon. With every day that passes. With every American Life that is lost in Iraq. I look at George Bush and ask why. Why would anyone who really cared about this country do everything they could to destroy it.

   

    Why would George Bush allow any American to be killed based on the lies he told you and the world. How can half of this country still sit back and support a man that, if you're going to be honest with yourself, lied to you for the sole benefit of a very small group of his friends and family. It's not lost on me what this was all about from the very beginning.

    I remember back when the polls showed that approximately 10% of you were against going to war in Iraq. That meant that 90% of America supported going to war in Iraq based on the lies of George W. Bush. Now a couple of years later it's fewer than 50% of America that supports this war in Iraq. But at the same time the lies and manipulation by George Bush and the Bush Administration of the American People continues.

    At what point do you admit that George Bush is wrong, he lied, and those dying in Iraq needs to stop today. Is it going to take someone in each and every one of your families to be killed in Iraq before you can relate to the needless and senseless deaths of Americans as a result of George Bush's actions?

    Is it because for most of you that continue to support this war the dead are nothing but numbers you read in the papers and don't have any affect on you. What would your opinion be of this war if it was your son, daughter, mother, or father who wasn't there to pick up your call next time because they were killed in Iraq as the result of a war based on lies?

    It's always easy to go with the flow and not question the answers in life. Less friction results in limited resistance. At what point to you stop taking the "me" approach, and start taking the "we" as a country approach. Do you need to wait until it's too late and someone you care about is among the dead?

    I personally refuse to let George Bush or anyone else intimidate me into supporting what I know is wrong. This doesn't begin or end with the war in Iraq either. The problem with George Bush goes well beyond that. It has to do with the environment, Social Security, tax cuts, healthcare, and a host of other issues that directly affect you.

    I hope if nothing else you learn from your mistakes. I hope you learned that George Bush is not the person to trust and that he doesn't care for you beyond your vote. I hope you realize that things are going to have to change in this country before it's too late, otherwise your next home might have four cardboard walls and flaps on each end.

    Learn from history. Learn from our mistakes. But most of all take a hard look at what your life has deteriorated into since George W. Bush has become president. Now you tell me how Americans died needlessly in wars based on lies before President Bush took office.

    Was your life and economic standing better before 2000 or after? Do you really see anything positive happening for you in the next four years? Don't you think it's time to start caring again?

    You know you really can make a difference if you try. But if you don't try, then George Bush and his rich friends will win. And in the end that means you lose.

    It starts in 2006 when YOU vote Republican control of the House and Senate out. If not, it won't be getting any better for you. That's not a Tsunami like George Bush lie.

    That's the truth.

Ask Huck

    Ask Huck can be found on the s5000 home page next to the What The Huck article. If you have any questions or comments about s5000 just click on the Ask Huck link and fill out the form. Ask Huck questions and comments will be responded to in upcoming What The Huck articles. s5000 provides the What The Huck articles as part of its many features.

    So if you have any Ask Huck questions or comments go to the s5000 homepage and click on the link next to What the Huck. s5000 will also publish photos of interest in the What The Huck article that you can upload through the Ask Huck link. By using the Ask Huck link on the s5000 home page you can have your responses featured in a future What The Huck article.


Iraq

    No additional American lives were reported lost as of Tuesday. The number of reported wounded soldiers has remained the same. We wish that every day in Iraq ended with no additional losses or wounded.

    The current total dead Americans killed in Iraq remained at 1,326. The total number of wounded reported remained at 9,981. Why have so many died for the Bush lies?

    Don't just make a difference, Be The Difference.



~ Huck"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:53 PM

Price of Bush Inauguration Party Is Too Rich for Some
By GLEN JUSTICE

Published: December 31, 2004 in the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 - Planners for President Bush's inauguration next month have scheduled a full lineup of exclusive parties and receptions for top Republican fund-raisers. But some of those V.I.P.'s say the perks come with a price tag they cannot afford.

Attending the entire slate of events during the three days of inauguration festivities could easily top $10,000 in tickets and other expenses for a fund-raiser bringing a spouse or guest. Some who helped bankroll the president's campaign, particularly young fund-raisers or those participating for the first time, are looking for ways to economize or are just planning to skip official events entirely.

...The inauguration package being offered to top Bush and Republican Party fund-raisers asks for up to $2,500 per person, though both the fee and the events vary depending on how much people raised, according to a Web page run by LogiCom Project Management, the company handling the events and travel arrangements.

The money covers admission to the Jan. 20 swearing-in, the parade, a black-tie ball and special events in Washington landmarks like the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the Willard InterContinental Hotel and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Another $2,500 per person is required for admission to one of three candlelight dinners at which the president and vice president will appear the evening before the inauguration. And, of course, there are airfare, hotel and other travel expenses.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:59 PM

From the Politics1 Weblog:

"Contrast these two news stories: (1) The US has pledged $35 million in cash relief for the tsunami ravaged nations. (2) The AP reported this item. "Planned are nine official [inaugural] balls, a youth concert, a parade, a fireworks display and, of course, Bush's second swearing-in ceremony at noon on Jan. 20. The cost will be between $30 million and $40 million, an amount that does not include expenses for security." Do the math: $35 million for humanitarian assistance to a catastrophe that killed over 130,000 people and left over one million people homeless ... and $40 million for a party for rich folks in DC. Good thing to see we've got our priorities right as a "compassionate conservative" nation."

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

From the New York Review of Books, discussing the writing of Stephen Flynn in America the Vulnerable, Harper Collins, 234 pp

In America the Vulnerable, it is not just the movements of American commercial goods that are vulnerable; the Bush administration has failed to safeguard the democratic system, which is its most precious and fragile charge. On one hand, it jiggers with the color-coded alert system, rigs cities with spy cameras, and speaks darkly of secret intelligence that more often than not turns out to have been no real intelligence at all. On the other, it assures us that we are safe in its hands, and that, in Flynn's words, "our marching orders as citizens are to keep shopping and traveling." Government is most to be feared when it treats its people as babies, the way the administration does now.

Flynn is no alarmist. His writing is even-toned to a fault, his manner still that of the unflappable captain on the bridge of the Coast Guard patrol ship, but his warning is explicit: if the war on terror continues to be waged in its present form, it's likely to put democracy itself in peril.

    The secretive, top-down, us-versus-them culture that is pervasive in government security circles must give way to more inclusive processes.... Rather than working assiduously to keep the details of terrorism and our vulnerabilities out of the public domain, the federal government should adopt a new imperative that recognizes that Americans have to be far better informed about the dangers that they face.... How much security is enough? We have done enough when the American people can conclude that a future attack on US soil will be an exceptional event that does not require wholesale changes to how we go about our lives.... We must continue to remind the world that it is not military might that is the source of our strength but our belief that mankind can govern itself in such a way as to secure the blessings of liberty.

These are temperate, wise, and practical thoughts. What is potentially to be feared more, even, than the prospect of another major attack of 9/11 proportions or worse is that, in the second Bush administration now beginning, voices like Flynn's will go unheard, while those of such intemperate terror warriors as Podhoretz and Pipes will be listened to with a respectful attention they in no way deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 08:36 PM

Excerpted from an editorial in the Los Angeles Time entitled

Washington Outlook
Bush Sending the Wrong Message as Chaos Smolders in Iraq

Bush's presidency marks the first time the U.S. has significantly cut taxes while at war. Since the federal budget is already in deficit, that means we are effectively passing the bill for this war onto our children through an increased national debt.

The war's political consequences are unfolding in a comparable spirit of buck passing. Wars always surprise their planners. But even setting aside the debate over whether the threat from Saddam Hussein merited the invasion of Iraq, it's clear this war has been complicated by an unusual concentration of mistakes and misjudgments.

The weapons of mass destruction that provided the central justification for the invasion have never been found, and by the best calculation of the CIA, no longer existed. Foreign countries the Bush administration assumed would fall into line after the U.S. moved against Iraq instead refused to provide meaningful help. And after a brilliant campaign against the conventional Iraqi military, the Pentagon has appeared to be blindsided by the persistence and ferocity of the unconventional resistance that followed the fall of Baghdad.

In June 2003, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the Iraqi insurgency as mere "pockets of dead-enders." Eighteen months later, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens are still dying in large numbers at the hands of those "dead-enders." And the failure to fully plan for the insurgency is still being felt in what many experts consider shortages of combat troops and appropriate supplies (such as armored vehicles).

Yet the only senior administration official who faced any consequences over the Iraq war has been the most prominent skeptic, outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who was politely but firmly shown the door after Bush's reelection.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 08:43 PM

On 9/11 Bush had a choice to make. Protrect America or protect the priviledged... Everything he has done we later see has done nuthing but take resources from the working class and divert them to the rich...

That's why 9/11 looks so fishy to me...

Especially the invasion of Iraq...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 08:51 PM

Rep Henry Waxman maintains a website providing some oversight of the state of science under the current administration. Here's a link: Politics and Science. A rather unsettling post appeared there today:

Saturday, January 1, 2005
HHS Restricts Communications between U.S. Scientists and WHO Officials

A new HHS policy requires the World Health Organization to submit all requests for expert scientific advice to political officials at HHS who pick which federal scientists will be permitted to respond. The new policy and two recent Administration decisions to withdraw federal scientists from major international health conferences are part of a disturbing pattern of political interference in global health issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 09:33 PM

On Native Ground
A DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN CREATED THE SOCIAL SECURITY 'CRISIS'
by Randolph T. Holhut
American Reporter Correspondent
Dummerston, Vt.

DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- I look at how the Bush administration is trying to manufacture a Social Security "crisis," and it looks much like what was done to manufacture the rationale for invading Iraq.

Certainly the steps are the same. Invent a crisis where none currently exists. State only the information (real or not) that benefits your argument, and repeat it often. Ignore all information that might undermine your argument and attack anyone who might disagree. Then, after convincing everyone that there is a crisis and marginalizing your opponents, you come up with the solution to the crisis you manufactured.

Through constant repetition and taking full advantage of the limitations of journalism's objectivity fetish, the Bush administration can bend reality to fit its policy schemes.

As journalism is now practiced, to state the facts is considered an act of bias. In the case of the Iraq war, even though there was abundant evidence that the Bush administration was overstating its case at best and flat-out lying at worst, the cult of objectivity required giving the Bush administration's lies as much weight (and often times, more weight) as the opposing views. Pointing out discrepancies between the facts and the spin is sacrificed in the name of balance.

The Social Security debate has followed the same path. News reports dutifully repeat the claim that the program will go bankrupt in 2042. The reality is that, if nothing is done, Social Security will be taking in more revenue than it pays out until 2018. After 2018, current obligations can be met until 2042. After 2042, there would still be enough money to pay at least 73 percent of benefits. These figures aren't wishful thinking from a liberal think tank, they are the government's own calculations.

Excerpted from The American Reporter.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 09:55 PM

From the same magazine:

        On Native Ground
HOW FUNDAMENTALISM FAILS AMERICA
by Randolph T. Holhut
American Reporter Correspondent
Dummerston, Vt.

DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Can a country where more people believe in the Devil than in evolution maintain its leadership in the sciences?

That's a question that David Baltimore, Nobel laureate and president of the California Institute of Technology, asked in a recent op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times.

Baltimore believes that "Asia has the potential to blow us out of the water" because their scientists and engineers "are as good as ours, as imaginative as ours - they work longer hours and are more dedicated."

The numbers bear him out. India's colleges and universities are turning out more than 40,000 computer science graduates each year, and the enrollments in those programs are rising while U.S. colleges struggle to fill their science programs. And China produces more 325,000 engineers each year, or five times more than the United States.

By contrast, Baltimore wrote that our nation has a "lack of federal leadership in funding schooling that emphasizes math and science" with a "fragmented educational system that leaves much to local control" and an attitude of "general anti-intellectualism."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 10:22 PM

Two stories from Bush Watch for January

BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT: BUSH PLANS TO LEAVE WOMEN BEHIND BY ELIMINATING THEIR EQUAL RIGHTS TO ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIPS "Colleges and universities would be allowed to limit the number of scholarships awarded to female athletes without regard to enrollment under the most controversial recommendation being considered by a national commission studying reform of Title IX, the landmark law that bans sex discrimination in collegiate sports....The proposals, obtained by The Washington Post, are the first indication of the Bush administration's plans for changing Title IX, which is widely credited with increasing female participation in collegiate sports over the past three decades. " 01.24.03
wp | related stories

WAG THE BUSH Someone went to great lengths to ensure the backdrop for President Bush's sales pitch Wednesday on his economic stimulus plan sent all the right messages -- and none of the wrong. Bush delivered his remarks from a warehouse floor at JS Logistics, a trucking, courier and warehouse business that provided a visual image for his argument that his proposal carries economy-boosting benefits for small businesses. The audience was flanked on all sides by piles of cardboard boxes -- with additional piles in front of and behind his podium. Each one of the hundreds of boxes had a piece of paper obscuring its "Made in China" label....A backdrop made-to-order for the White House filled the space directly behind Bush, which is most likely to show up on TV news clips of the event. Blaring a logo of "Strengthening America's Economy," it exactly mimicked the real-life box piles, down to perfectly aligned shelves. Except the boxes on the backdrop were labeled, "Made in the USA." --AP, 01.22.03

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 10:35 PM

Coal Position


Bush admin isn't putting money where its mouth is on "clean coal"
By Amanda Griscom Little writing in GRIST magazine

When pressed on climate change, the Bush administration is fond of citing "clean coal" technology as the wave of the energy future. Even some enviros are starting to grudgingly acknowledge the technology's potential for good.

Coal: Can you dig it?

But all Bush's talk doesn't appear to be translating into the funding needed to really get clean coal rolling.

Given that coal accounts for a whopping 50 percent of U.S. electricity production, it can't realistically be phased out overnight -- or even in the next half-century -- which means that transition technologies are critical. Such technologies are in development, and they could make coal-powered generation almost completely smog-free and easily conducive to capturing and storing carbon-dioxide emissions.

The business community, for its part, is atwitter with excitement over clean-coal developments, particularly given the rising prices of oil and natural gas. Last month, The New York Times published a cover story in its business section titled "Fuel of the Future? Some Say Coal," reporting a huge increase in coal-generation investments. Likewise, a leading business newsletter, Platts, published a report last week on the ballooning demand for clean-coal facilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 10:58 AM

Could some kind clone close the HREF container in the above post right after the word "magazine"?? Thanks.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 12:18 AM

Alright Mudcatters, time to fess up. Is anyone actually reading all the crap Amos is posting on this thread? Be truthful now, or your nose will begin growing! :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Metchosin
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 12:31 AM

yes

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 05:32 AM

I read this all the time. I also copy and send a lot of it to friends. It is a GREAT thread, and I only hope that nothing and NO ONE ever puts off Amos from continuing it.

Happy New Year, Amos.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 08:13 AM

Perhaps you are out of touch, Doug R! Thanks, EllenP!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 08:33 AM

Okay, maybe not all of it... But I scan it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 01:22 PM

Perhaps I am Amos. It appears you have one avid reader, and one scanner. Impressive.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Metchosin
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 01:35 PM

TWO avid readers, one scanner and one who doesn't even have the ability to scan a thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 01:46 PM

I read it, or at least scan it. I don't post to it hardly because I look on it as an information source and I imagine others do too. Amos always gives his sources.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 05:46 PM

Bush administration unveils 2005 pay raise
By Tanya N. Ballard
[e-mail]

President Bush issued an executive order Thursday evening formally
implementing a 3.5 percent average pay raise in 2005 for General Schedule employees.

The pay increase, which will take effect on Jan. 9, will be divided between a 2.5 percent base pay increase for all employees and an average 1 percent locality pay adjustment that varies according to where employees work.

From http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1204/123004t1.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:28 PM

In defense of this thread, Bushites. Would you rather have one place for them our have 15 or 20 threads going at any given time about yet another Bush administaration screw up?

Count your blessings...

Amos oughtta take a Bush screw up a day and throw it out there... Heck, that alone would keep him busy for a life time...

Like I said, count yer blessing...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 08:00 PM

Definitely. I'm doing pretty much what Ellen is doing (read, copy, send to friends, etc), so it's not just the people checking in here who are reading this. It's getting around. I think that's Amos's point. Amos is providing a service, for which I thank him wholeheartedly.

Mid-term elections in 2006, and 2008 is not that far off.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 09:36 PM

I appreciate the occasional support, guys -- it is just what I need.

If you get too bewildered to sleep over what the right-wing dialogue sounds like, here is a vivid representation of mass-think being born and blossoming large.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 09:43 PM

Brownshirts....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 10:04 PM

Once there was a guy name Amos
Who thought he knew enough politics
To make him famous

But no one was there
to read or to care
So he went back to picking his anus.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 10:28 PM

C-...

Nah, make that a solid D+...

"Amos" to "anus" is a stretch...

Come on, Martin, you can do better...

Sorry, pal, we was jus' starting to get along...

But, hey, it's gotta a nice little rythum thing going...

Meanwhile, what do ya get when ya cross a possum with George Bush?

Opps, sorry, but we couldn't find any possums willing to have sex with the guy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:19 PM

Jeeze, Martin....if you're gonna dedicate limericks to me, at least make them scan and rhyme!! This is insulting in its poetic ineptitude!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:31 PM

House G.O.P. Voids Rule It Adopted Shielding Leader
By CARL HULSE

Published: January 4, 2005

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - Stung by criticism that they were lowering ethical standards, House Republicans on Monday night reversed a rule change that would have allowed a party leader to retain his position even if indicted.

Lawmakers and House officials said Republicans, meeting behind the closed doors of the House chamber, acted at the request of the majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay, who had been the intended beneficiary of the rule change.
        
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When they adopted the change in their party rules in November, Republicans said they feared that Mr. DeLay could be subjected to a politically motivated indictment as part of a campaign finance investigation in Texas that has resulted in charges against three of his associates. The decision, coupled with other Republican proposals to rewrite the ethics rules, drew fierce criticism from Democrats and watchdogs outside the government, who said the Republican majority was subverting ethics enforcement.

Those attending the Republican meeting, which was held on the eve of the opening of the 109th Congress, said Republicans unanimously agreed to restore the old rule after Mr. DeLay told them that the move would clear the air and deny Democrats a potent political issue. In the past year, he has been admonished by the ethics panel three times: for his tactics in trying to persuade a colleague to support the Medicare drug bill, for appearing to link political donations to support for legislation and for involving a federal agency in a political matter in Texas.

Some Republicans who originally opposed the rules change greeted the decision not to go through with it enthusiastically.

"It allows the Republicans to focus on the issues, the agenda that is before us and not to have Tom DeLay be the issue," Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee, said. "I feel like we have just taken a shower."

Excerpted from the NY Times:http://nytimes.com/2005/01/04/politics/04cong.html?hp&ex=1104814800&en=8190025ec1760a93&ei=5094&partner=homepage

---

Of course, to really notice that you have taken a shower, you have to have been carrying some heavy dirt around beforehand...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:41 PM

Lieberman says he won't join Bush administration

From CongressDaily via http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0105/010305cdpm3.htm

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Sunday that he is not interested in becoming President Bush's national intelligence director or Homeland Security secretary -- saying he feels he can be more effective staying in the Senate.

Asked on ABC's This Week whether he is interested in a Cabinet post, Lieberman responded: " I'm not. I appreciate the floating. It's a quadrennial game here in Washington when a new administration takes shape."

The possibility of Lieberman -- a centrist who was his party's 2000 vice-presidential nominee -- leaving the Senate has turned into something of a political parlor game in his home state in recent weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:44 PM

From MSNBC:

Social Security formula weighed

Bush plan would cut promised benefits

By Jonathan Weisman and Mike Allen
Updated: 11:11 p.m. ET Jan. 3, 2005

The Bush administration has signaled that it will propose changing the formula that sets initial Social Security benefit levels, cutting promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades, according to several Republicans close to the White House.

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Under the proposal, the first-year benefits for retirees would be calculated using inflation rates rather than the rise in wages over a worker's lifetime. Because wages tend to rise considerably faster than inflation, the new formula would stunt the growth of benefits, slowly at first but more quickly by the middle of the century. The White House hopes that some, if not all, of those benefit cuts would be made up by gains in newly created personal investment accounts that would harness returns on stocks and bonds.

But by embracing "price indexing," the president would for the first time detail the painful costs involved in closing the gap between the Social Security benefits promised to future retirees and the taxes available to fund them. In late February or March, the administration plans to produce its proposed overhaul of the system, including creation of personal investment accounts and the new benefit calculation.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:51 PM

The Guantanamo Gulag

by Mike Whitney

Excerpted from The Progressive Trail


"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

Winston Churchill

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

U.N. Convention Against Torture; Article 2, Section 2

The prison facility at Guantanamo Bay is the brightest star in the Bush firmament. It towers over the political landscape like a monument to human cruelty. That's why the administration chose to slap it up in full view of the world. It's their way of announcing that the fundamental rules of the game have changed.

There's no need for Guantanamo. The United States has plenty of experience concealing political prisoners from the public. The CIA has been transporting enemy suspects to hidden locations since its inception. Certainly, an increase of 600 prisoners or so wouldn't have caused much of a stir if they were tucked away in some remote corner of the earth. But, that's not the purpose of Guantanamo. Guantanamo is intended to send a message that the internationally accepted norms of justice have been rescinded. From now on, all law proceeds from Washington.

The world seems oddly bewildered by this development. Individuals have protested the particularly heinous aspects of the new system, like the use of torture, or detention without charges. But, these are just the trimmings and don't get to the heart of the matter. Guantanamo is a deliberate effort to overturn every legal protection that safeguards the individual from the arbitrary actions of the state. Simply put, it is the end of the law.

What is it that we fail to grasp about Guantanamo? Are we so blinded by the assuring narrative of democracy and personal freedom that we don't recognize the symbols of tyranny when we see them? The reality of Guantanamo is quite stark; a dull-gray world of cinder-block and wire situated beyond the reach of any law or regulation. Is their some doubt about what this really means?

Just yesterday the Washington Post reported that the "Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts." Isn't this conspicuous power grab by the president enough to awaken even the most blasé observer? Remember, these prisoners have never been charged with a crime and, yet, the administration is paving the way for permanent incarceration.

The Washington Post report comes on the heels of last week's article by the ACLU which confirmed that "President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq."

So, now there's a paper trail connecting the President directly to the torture that was "systematically" conducted at Guantanamo.

Torture? Permanent imprisonment without charges? These are the most fundamental violations of the law. How can we continue to ignore the gravity of this situation?(...)

---

By the way, do you recall how strange and alien the concept of a "gulag" was when you first read about it? Was it Nabokov's writing, or some other amazed observation by an American reporter, perhaps, who was incredulous at ther bestiality and feudalism embraced by those thick-skulled Commies. Remember?   That was so different than the way we handled things in our proud country, where we had principles....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:04 AM

A short protest from the New Tork Times Editorial Page:

        EDITORIAL

Leave No Sales Pitch Behind


Published: January 4, 2005

The fine print in President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act is slowly dawning on the parents of high school students across the country as the war in Iraq drags on: military recruiters can blitz youngsters with uninvited phone calls to their homes and on-campus pitches replete with video war games. This is all possible under a little noted part of the law that requires schools to provide the names, addresses (campus addresses, too) and phone numbers of students or risk losing federal aid. The law provides an option to block the hard-sell recruitment - but only if parents demand in writing that the school deny this information to the military.

Hard-pressed recruiters have stepped up the sales pitch to meet wartime manpower shortages. One sergeant filmed by the NewsHour on PBS recently sounded like a salesman from David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross as he exhorted a campus group: "I mean, where else can you get paid to jump out of airplanes, shoot cool guns, blow stuff up and travel, seeing all kinds of different countries?"

The Pentagon insists that it enjoys the same entree to high school students as college and corporate recruiters. But clearly, No Child Left Behind has given the military a thumb on the scale with the threat of lost money. Some students on the cusp of adulthood describe the recruiters as merely offering another option in life; others complain of outright pestering.

Recruiters have learned to focus on the most promising markets - typically lower-middle-class schools. No one can complain of unfairness in a draft-free society where many have found fine careers in the military, with recruitment part of the process. But it is objectionable when the government tucks a decided advantage for its wartime armies' salesmanship into a law invoked in the name of children.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:11 AM

This is part of another essay uncovering an important mathematical distortion in Bushies' mathematics.

The Social Security Fear Factor


Published: January 3, 2005

        
If you've lent even one ear to the administration's recent comments on Social Security, you have no doubt heard President Bush and his aides asserting that a $10 trillion shortfall threatens the retirement system - and the economy itself. That $10 trillion hole is the basis of the president's claim last month that "the [Social Security] crisis is now." It's also the basis of the administration's claim that the cost of doing nothing to reform the system would be far greater than the cost of acting now.

Well, the $10 trillion figure is the closest you can get to pulling a number out of the air. Make that the ether. Starting last year, as the groundwork was being set for the emerging debate, the Social Security trustees took the liberty of projecting the system's solvency over infinity, rather than sticking to the traditional 75-year time horizon. That world-without-end assumption generates the scary $10 trillion estimate, and with it, Mr. Bush's putative rationale for dismantling Social Security in favor of a system centered on private savings accounts. The American Academy of Actuaries, the profession's premier trade association, objected to the change. In a letter to the trustees, the actuaries wrote that infinite projections provide "little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances and indeed are likely to mislead any [nonexpert] into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated."

As it often does with dissenting professional opinion, the administration is ignoring the actuaries. But that doesn't alter the facts or common sense. If the $10 trillion figure is essentially bogus, so is the claim that Social Security is in crisis. The assertion that doing nothing would be costlier than enacting a privatization plan also turns out to be wrong, by the estimates of Congress's own budget agency.

Over a 75-year time frame, Social Security's shortfall is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office at $2 trillion and by the Social Security trustees at $3.7 trillion, a manageable sliver of the economy in each case. If the shortfall is on the low side, Social Security will be in the black until 2052, when it will be able to pay out 80 percent of the promised benefits. If it is on the high side, the system will pay full benefits until 2042, when it will cover 70 percent.

Contrary to Mr. Bush's frequent assertion that Social Security is constantly imperiled by political meddling, it has in fact been preserved and improved by political intervention throughout its 70-year history, most significantly in 1983. The system could - and should - be strengthened again by a modest package of benefit cuts and tax increases phased in over decades.

Instead, the administration wants workers to divert some of the payroll taxes that currently pay for Social Security into private investment accounts, in exchange for a much-reduced government benefit. To replace the taxes it would otherwise have collected - money it needs to pay benefits to current and near retirees - the government would borrow an estimated $2 trillion over the next 10 years or so and even more thereafter.

In effect, the administration's plan would get rid of the financial burden of Social Security by getting rid of Social Security. The plan shifts the financial risk of growing old onto each individual and off of the government - where it is dispersed among a very large population, as with any sensible insurance policy. In a privatized system, you may do fine, but your fellow retirees may not, or vice versa.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Metchosin
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:17 AM

It is my belief that US law was built upon the fundamentals of the Magna Carta and as such The Guantanamo Gulag is in violation of the very basis of law as we understand it and "the good sense of mankind".

The Magna Carta and American Law

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 07:36 AM

Gonzales Nomination Draws Military Criticism

Retired Officers Cite His Role in Shaping Policies on Torture

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A02

A dozen high-ranking retired military officers took the unusual step yesterday of signing a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing "deep concern" over the nomination of White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general, marking a rare military foray into the debate over a civilian post. ...

Although the GOP-controlled Senate is expected to confirm Gonzales to succeed Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, some Democrats have vowed to question him aggressively amid continuing revelations of abuses of military detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The letter signed by the retired officers, compiled by the group Human Rights First and sent to the committee's leadership last night, criticizes Gonzales for his role in reviewing and approving a series of memorandums arguing, among other things, that the United States could lawfully ignore portions of the Geneva Conventions and that some forms of torture "may be justified" in the war on terror. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 05:56 PM

MARGINS OF VICTORY
Republican Presidents Reelected During the Last Hundred Years
        President        Popular Vote        Electoral Vote
1904        Theodore Roosevelt        17%        196
1956        Dwight D. Eisenhower 16%        384
1972        Richard M. Nixon        23%        503
1984        Ronald Reagan               18%        512
2004        George Bush               2%        34

          Source: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17690

This article in the New York Review of Books is an interesting study on the ebb and flow of beliefs behind Bushie's re-election. I recommend it as a good read.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:00 PM

Dad, Don't Go to Work for the Bush Administration
by Hal Cranmer


http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/cranmer1.html   

My father called me a couple of nights ago with an announcement. The US government has asked him to go to Iraq for six months to manage their oil sector. He has an extensive background in the oil industry, having worked as an executive for a major multinational oil company for approximately 30 years. He seemed excited about the position, for reasons that I just cannot understand.

So I am writing this article to try to convince him to turn down the
position....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:03 PM

The Chief Justice Speaks


Published: January 4, 2005




Fighting thyroid cancer, Chief Justice William Rehnquist used the occasion last week of his 19th, and potentially final, report on the state of the federal courts to extend his proud record of defending the independence of the federal judiciary against intrusive attacks by politicians.

Without naming names, Chief Justice Rehnquist spoke of a troubling "new turn" in recent years that has seen some conservative Republicans in Congress cross the line from ordinary criticism of judicial decisions they do not like to trying to intimidate individual judges. In the process, they show disrespect to the constitutional separation of powers and threaten the essential role of an independent judiciary in protecting American rights.

Without singling out the House majority leader Tom DeLay and others, Chief Justice Rehnquist expressed appropriate concern over recent calls by some members of the last Congress for laws limiting the jurisdiction of federal courts to decide constitutional challenges on matters like the use of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. He was also duly critical of threats to impeach so-called "activist" judges for their interpretations of the Constitution.

"A judge's judicial acts may not serve as a basis for impeachment," the chief justice, author of a 1992 book on this theme, stated in a timely reminder to the reconvening Congress. "Any other rule would destroy judicial independence. Instead of trying to apply the law fairly, regardless of public opinion, judges would be concerned about inflaming any group that might be able to muster the votes in Congress to impeach and convict them."

This is a message that Chief Justice Rehnquist, much to his credit, has delivered time and again as head of the nation's court system, even at the risk of offending fellow conservatives. But given current political tensions over the future direction of the federal courts, it has special resonance right now.

(See link for rest of this NYT article.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:46 PM

Stopping the Bum's Rush

The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will do nothing about the real fiscal threat and will instead dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government.

In the next few weeks, I'll explain why privatization will fatally undermine Social Security, and suggest steps to strengthen the program. I'll also talk about the much more urgent fiscal problems the administration hopes you won't notice while it scares you about Social Security.

Today let's focus on one piece of those scare tactics: the claim that Social Security faces an imminent crisis.

That claim is simply false. Yet much of the press has reported the falsehood as a fact. For example, The Washington Post recently described 2018, when benefit payments are projected to exceed payroll tax revenues, as a "day of reckoning."

Here's the truth: by law, Social Security has a budget independent of the rest of the U.S. government. That budget is currently running a surplus, thanks to an increase in the payroll tax two decades ago. As a result, Social Security has a large and growing trust fund.

(Paul Krugman in the NY Times)

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

Iraq Vs. Tsunami: The Duplicity Of The Media
By Mike Whitney
Jan 2, 2005, 11:47

The American media has descended on the Asian tsunami with all the fervor of feral animals in a meat locker. The newspapers and TV's are plastered with bodies drifting out to sea, battered carcasses strewn along the beach and bloated babies lying in rows. Every aspect of the suffering is being scrutinized with microscopic intensity by the predatory lens of the media.

This is where the western press really excels: in the celebratory atmosphere of human catastrophe. Their penchant for misery is only surpassed by their appetite for profits.

Where was this "free press" in Iraq when the death toll was skyrocketing towards 100,000? So far, we've seen nothing of the devastation in Falluja where more than 6,000 were killed and where corpses were lined along the city's streets for weeks on end. Is death less photogenic in Iraq? Or, are there political motives behind the coverage?

Wasn't Ted Koppel commenting just days ago, that the media was restricting its coverage of Iraq to show sensitivity for the squeamishness of its audience? He reiterated the mantra that filming dead Iraqis was "in bad taste" and that his American audience would be repelled by such images? How many times have we heard the same rubbish from Brokaw, Jennings and the rest of their ilk?

Well, it looks like Koppel and the others have quickly switched directions. The tsunami has turned into a 24 hour-a-day media frenzy of carnage and ruin, exploring every facet of human misery in agonizing detail.

The festival of bloodshed is chugging ahead at full-throttle and it's bumping up ratings in the process.

Corporate media never fails to astound even the most jaded viewer. Just when it appears that they've hit rock-bottom, they manage to slip even deeper into the morass of sensationalism. The manipulation of calamity is particularly disturbing, especially when disaster is translated into a revenue windfall. Koppel may disparage "bad taste", but his boardroom bosses are more focused on the bottom line. Simply put, tragedy is good for business.

When it comes to Iraq, however, the whole paradigm shifts to the right. The dead and maimed are faithfully hidden from view. No station would dare show a dead Marine or even an Iraqi national mutilated by an errant American bomb. That might undermine the patriotic objectives of our mission: to democratize the natives and enter them into the global economic system. Besides, if Iraq was covered like the tsunami, public support would erode extremely quickly, and Americans would have to buy their oil rather than extracting it at gunpoint. What good would that do?

Looks like the media's got it right: carnage IS different in Iraq than Thailand, Indonesia or India. The Iraqi butchery is part of a much grander scheme: a plan for conquest, subjugation and the theft of vital resources, the foundation blocks for maintaining white privilege into the next century. (....).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 07:37 PM

The crime of war: from Nuremberg to Fallujah
By Nicolas J S Davies
Jan 3, 2005, 22:16


A review of current international law regarding wars of aggression, and its implications for U.S. policy in Iraq and elsewhere

In September, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told the BBC that the U.S./British invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law [1]. The following week, he dedicated his entire annual address to the U.N. General Assembly to the subject of international law, saying, "We must start from the principle that no one is above the law, and no one should be denied its protection." So, how was the invasion of Iraq illegal? How does that affect the situation there today? And what are the practical implications of this for U.S. policy going forward, in Iraq and elsewhere?

The Secretary General presumed what the world generally accepts, that international law is legally binding upon all countries. In the United States however, international law is spoken of differently, as a tool that our government can use selectively to enforce its will on other nations, or else circumvent when it conflicts with sufficiently important U.S. interests. For the benefit of readers in the U.S., I therefore feel obliged to preface a review of war crime in Iraq with a look at the actual legal status of international law, both in international terms and in terms of our own national framework of constitutional law.

When the president of the United States signs a treaty and it is ratified by the U.S. Senate, our country is making a solemn undertaking. The seriousness of such commitments is exemplified by the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and subsequent international trials, in which individual national leaders have been held criminally responsible for treaty violations and, when convicted, have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or even death by hanging. In our own constitutional system, Article VI Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the "Supremacy Clause," grants international treaties the same "supreme" status as federal law and the Constitution itself. It reads:

    "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

---

The balance of this article can be found here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:27 PM

Isnt 'Bush' 'Administration' a contradiction in terms ?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:28 PM

Or even an Oxy moron ?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:30 PM

Oh - By The Way - Eight Hundred !

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:35 PM

801 and yer on to somethin' with the moron thing, Leadfingers... Might explain a lot...

But keep on firing, Amos...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:37 PM

It's ALIVE! ALIVE, I say! :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: robomatic
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:56 PM

Just to chime in and maybe learn something I'll opine thusly:

Does the Geneva convention apply when only one side is concerned with complying with it and the other side probably can't even read it? (And by other side, I'm talking about the Iraqi resistance).

I still think that the US, Europe and especially the Arab world have a lot at stake in stabilizing and democratizing Iraq. I may think it could have been done better but the US could also have used a little help from our European Allies and we didn't get it, except for the English under Tony Blair, who I believe has been eloquent in expressing our reasons for being there. You can bitch all you want to about Bush, but expressing himself in words that suit you is not very likely.

I agree with a lot of what you say about Tom DeLay and his ilk. To quote the BBC's version of "I Claudius" these people are reason enough to keep mankind from totally losing its sense of smell."

I think there is a real lack of leadership in preparing us for the coming higher cost of energy, and fiscal irresponsibility in the amount of money being spent on useless items (missile defense shield) and the growing national debt.

The war, however, is another matter. Extreme Islamic terrorism is a valid threat, and in recognizing that threat and doing something to deal with it, especially in the face of Democratic indecisiveness, Bush ends up being the guy we've got, and in that if in nothing else he is ahead of most of Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 11:33 PM

I have only recently come to agree with you, robomatic about the scope of the fanatacism of the small faction of extremist Msulims who would like to restore the fla g of Mohammed from SPain to Israel and back. I think they are about as many as the fanatic right-wing Christians in this country. But they have fanatic extremist visions and they are ruthless in pursuing them.

I think it is quite arguable that it was the blundering of the Bush administration in dealing with Iraq that opened up this Pandora's box, and that prior tot hat time there were many options which should have bene pursued in defusing the potential of these extremists. Unfortunately, pugilism was irresistible to the Cowboy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: robomatic
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 12:38 AM

Amos, after I posted I felt I should have phrased it: Extremists using the name of Islam but I think my meaning was clear. Yes there are extremists of every persuasion, but Christianity is so great and powerful that to a great extent it has 'mellowed' and the extremists are miniscule in numbers. Islam is a much younger religion, and has not gone through an 'Enlightenment'.

I appreciate your thoroughness, but I will stand by my position that in a Democratic society you stand by a flawed leader on the big stuff, and fight the good fight with the irreducible minions.

But I guess that to an extent is what you're doing.

Hoping for a better '05

Robo

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 08:11 AM

Acts of God Versus Acts of George W. Bush

Commentary by David Rozelle in the Washington Dispatch
January 4, 2005

"All I know is what I see on TV."

          ‑‑ Will Rogers



George W. Bush sleeps like a baby these days. Never much of a thinker, our president's freeze-dried ideology has spared him the task of thinking up and writing down New Year's resolutions. His goals stand as propounded – deep-rooted in his fallow mind by November's shallow election victory.

And so it is that on the eve of 2005, in the highest office of the mightiest nation in human history, there will be no reflection on, no reconsideration, no revision of policy. George W. Bush claims he has been crowned with a "mandate," albeit by barely fifty-percent of his subjects. And that's that, as far as the Great Mandater is concerned.

But what about the "lesser" half of this president's fellow citizens -- those of us who didn't vote for the man's coronation?   It appears that we can either go along with George II or go to hell. There will be no calling Bush to account for his policies. The late Flip Wilson, a popular comedian, used to duck accountability by quipping, "The Devil made me do it." Everyone laughed. George Bush, an Evangelical Christian, declares, "God made me do it," and at least half of us quake.

Not even during the aftermath of devastating tidal waves does George W. break his clueless, dogmatic stride. The media reports, for instance, that the president first had announced he'll set aside a Scroogian 30 million dollars for victims' relief -- this on the heels of an announced 40 million "donated" by corporations to pay for his inaugural balls in January. (Let the good times roll in tie-and-tails D.C., while a tsunami rolls over Asia's poor.) Where's the moral balance in all this? Where's the "compassion," neoconservative or otherwise. Where's the sense of decency?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 08:13 AM

Tuesday 4th January 2005 (18h34) :
George Bush and the return of Little Black Sambo
3 comment(s).

by Jane Stillwater writing for Bella Ciao

Remember Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney -- and the Civil Rights Summer of 1964? How brave we all were back then as we worked hand in hand for a new world of hope and justice and harmony where "colored people" would be allowed to vote.

It's 40 years later and "colored people" are still being systematically deprived of their right to vote -- only this time on such a grand scale that it would cause even Martin Luther King's jaw to drop.

I marched in Montgomery.

I was at Malcolm X's funeral.

I taught in freedom schools, I picketed, I marched. And for every white person like me out on the line, there were at least five "Negroes" risking their lives to have the right to vote.

Now, 40 years later, George Bush is doing every single thing he can think of to resurrect Jim Crow, Stephen Fetchet and Little Black Sambo.

In predominantly African-American precincts in Florida and Ohio in November 2004, absentee ballots were lost, people were intimidated, voting machines were not provided, legitimate voters were "purged" from voting lists, people were instructed to vote on the wrong day, provisional ballots were "lost," votes disappeared and even dead people were allowed to vote as long as they voted for George W. Bush.

I don't know how African-Americans feel about being placed once again at the back of the bus but I know how I feel. I am totally pissed off!

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 08:19 AM

Tuesday 4th January 2005 (03h58) :
Imagine if Bush -- instead of Eisenhower -- had supervised D-Day
1 comment(s).

Jane Stillwater in Bella Ciao

I'm laughing so hard as I write this, I don't even know where to start! I'm sorry but it IS funny. Can you even BEGIN to imagine Dubya ever replacing Ike?

First, let's go back to before World War II even started (This part is NOT funny): Like Rumsfeld selling missiles to Saddam Hussein, Bush would have kept Hitler supplied with American-made WMDs for over a decade before even Dunkirk.

Like when North Korea BROADCAST far and wide that it had nuclear capabilities and knew how to use them but Bush invaded Iraq instead, our Dubya would have forgotten about Germany and invaded Argentina! "Hey, we need their beef."

"Hitler, is our target, boy," General Eisenhower told him. "H-I-T-L-E-R." But you couldn't tell GWB anything. Instead of Dresden, he fire-bombed New York City.

"Okay, okay." Ike drew a really BIG map with a big X on Normandy. "You pronounce this place EU-ROPE," he told young George.

"I knew that. Karl Rove told me."

FINALLY, George bombed the hell out of Omaha Beach. But then he got bad information from the CIA, forgot to chase the Nazis and started killing off the French. "Hey, they looked like terrorists to me!" After 50,000 French women were blown up, however, the GIs mutinied.

"Ike, the soldiers hate me," Bush whined. "They wanna fight Nazis -- not the French Resistance. They're all mad because we blew up Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer."

How did the D-Day invasion finally turn out? Guess.

Due to voting machine glitches, George Bush was still "Commander in Chief" 50 years later and US troops were still fighting in France. They never even got to Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 12:56 AM

January 5, 2005
American Gothic

By Tom Engelhardt, writing for Mother Jones magazine .

Excerpt:

Here we are, because time has some of the qualities of a tsunami, deposited in 2005, whether we like it or not. As the year changed, nature trumped the Bush administration in an appropriately, if horrifyingly Biblical way, with a preemptive strike against shorelines jammed with rich tourists and poor peasants alike. And even in the midst of the collective horror, much of what the Bush administration is, much of whom we now are becoming, showed through unbecomingly.

Only one small spot in the vast Indian Ocean basin "seems to have received full advanced warning of the waves to come -- the ostensibly British island of Diego Garcia, which is actually a sizeable U.S. military base, a stationary "aircraft carrier" for the war in Iraq. It also houses "Camp Justice," one of the secret little hideaway resorts the administration has set up, or contracted out for, on prime global real estate to hold "high value" prisoners in the war on terror. The camp, named by someone who must have had a yen for the Orwellian, is part of an offshore Bermuda Triangle of injustice set up by the Bush administration -- two interlinked prison systems, in fact; one run by the Pentagon and the other by the CIA, both meant to keep prisoners and practices far from the prying eyes of the American public and its court system; both, as it now turns out, anchored in that jewel-in-the-crown, Guantanamo (or Gitmo to devotees) -- a grim prison camp set up on territory in Cuba that is close at hand, U.S.-controlled, and yet -- or so Bush officials hoped until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise last year -- beyond the reach of our courts.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 01:14 AM

Lynching Social Security

To eliminate nation's safety net, Bush first has to convince us it's bad

Molly Ivins, Syndicated Columnist

AUSTIN, Texas -- In the Texas legislature, they are called "prior-roarities," such a happy coinage. What should come prior?

When the pitter-patter of falling year-end columns comes again, not necessarily next year, but certainly four years from now, I fearlessly forecast a dismal unanimity: that the Bush Administration II suffers from bad and dumb prior-roarities.

Actually, the passage of time is not required for proof -- look around. The Bushies are about to launch a $50 million to $100 million dollar propaganda campaign to convince us the Social Security system is in crisis. Actually, it's not. It's quite robust and has astonishingly low administrative costs, less than 1 percent.

According to President Bush's own Commission to "Strengthen Social Security," the administrative costs of keeping track of private accounts will be 10 to 30 times the cost of administering the current system.

The Social Security System is in no danger whatsoever of going broke, or even of having to pay out less than full compensation for at least 50 years. There are any number of statistical models and premises one can argue about here, but when the administration begins with a premise that requires fixing Social Security based on an extrapolation to infinity, you know you are not dealing with people who argue in good faith. (See link above for rest of article).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 01:17 AM

Thought I'd add this to your thread, Amos:

Bush is not known as a "peacemaker" anywhere in the World, Doug, except within the utterly deluded confines of the USA. You're already living in the Fourth Reich, you just haven't become aware of it yet. Don't feel bad, because most Germans weren't aware of their real situation either, until about 1943 or '44. Then it was way too late.

Germans are essentially good people in the vast majority. So are Americans. Good people can be very badly led.

It is not necessary for people who want to strike at America to come TO America now. They have a whole army to shoot at now on their own home ground, in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have 150,000 live targets now. That's a very good situation for Al Queda, and just what Bin Laden wanted. He wanted a holy war between Islam and America. He's got it, and it will continue until it destroys the Bush administration, and possibly another administration after that. It's rather like Vietnam in that respect. It's a war that cannot be won, because its objectives are unrealistic and unattainable.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 06:12 PM

Thanks, LH. Meanwhile, it is nice to see the acid and accurate wit of Maureen Dowd resurfacing at the NY Times:

Don't Torture Yourself (That's His Job)

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 6, 2005


Washington

The Associated Press headline that came over the wire yesterday said it all: "Gonzales Will Follow Non-Torture Policies."

You know how bad the situation is when the president's choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore.

Alberto Gonzales may have been willing to legally justify something that was abhorrent to everything America stands for, but it's all relative. Given that Mr. Gonzales is replacing the odious John Ashcroft, Democrats didn't seem inclined to try to derail the Hispanic nominee, even though his memo fostered the atmosphere that led to disgusting scandals in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.

Just to get things started on the right foot, though, Mr. Gonzales planned to go the extra mile and offer the quaint, obsolete Senate Democrats a more nuanced explanation of why he called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete."

Before he helped President Bush circumvent the accords and reserve the right to do so "in this or future conflicts," you had to tune in to an old movie with Nazi generals or Vietcong guards if you wanted to see someone sneeringly shrug off the international treaty protecting prisoners from abuse. ("You worthless running dog Chuck Norris! What do we care about your silly Geneva Conventions?")

How are you to believe Mr. Gonzales when he says he's through with torture? His mission is clearly to do whatever he thinks Mr. Bush wants.

All gall is divided into parts, so what's next?

The Commerce Department nominee promising that giveaways to big business will be done with subtlety?

The Environmental Protection Agency nominee promising that the toxin content in water will never rise to Yushchenko level?

It's comforting to start the new year in the hands of a party that cares so much about morals and values... (Follow link for rest...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 06:16 PM

Perhaps equally deserving of scrutiny and even sarcasm is the notion being pushed by Bush about privatizing your Social Security so it follows the rise and fall of the Dow Jones average. Here is an excerpt from another New York Times editorial, this one by Barry Scwarz, defining some of the flaws in the Bush administration reasoning:

Choose and Lose

By BARRY SCHWARTZ

Published: January 5, 2005

Swarthmore, Pa.

THERE are three arguments being made in favor of privatizing part of Social Security. First, the Social Security Trust Fund needs money and privatization will, in the long run, increase the amount of money available to retirees. Second, privatization will give people choice, and choice is good. And third, "it's your money," and you ought to be able to do with it as you wish.

Each of these arguments is dubious, or disingenuous, or both.

Though experts differ on the urgency and the severity of the problem, most everyone agrees that the trust fund will eventually run out of money unless we do something. Two obvious and painful things we can do are decrease benefits or increase payroll taxes. Privatization, it is argued, solves the problem without the pain. Equity investments return about twice as much, historically, as Treasury bills. So by allowing people to put some of their payroll taxes into equity investments, we will increase the value of that part of their retirement account so we can then decrease the benefits paid out by the standard Social Security program and still leave retirees better off.

There are several problems with this argument, however. For starters, there is no guarantee that equities will return more than Treasury bills. One of the reasons that equities have a higher rate of return than other types of investments is that investors have to be compensated for taking risks. Perhaps equities will outperform Treasury bills in the long term but that doesn't mean that they will be outperforming Treasury bills at the specific moment you retire.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 11:10 PM

Dear Editor: I read that our president vows to overhaul Social Security. He claims it is on verge of going bankrupt. I also read that that is not the case at all. I tend to believe the latter after all the lies George Bush has told us so far.

It is estimated the Bush plan would cost the taxpayers $75 billion a year. Of course Bush never met a debt he didn't like. To me a simpler solution would be to raise the ceiling on taxable income, which is now at $87,900.

To quote Jim Hightower: "He has a $10,000 hat on a 10-cent brain." Of course he has to carry water for his buddies and contributors on Wall Street.

I also believe in a quote by William Brenner Jr.: "Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

James Hamer Montello

(Madison, WI, "The Capital Times")

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 01:34 PM

Amos: admittedly, I have not read all of the drivel you have been posting in this thread but I noted one by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. Ms. Dowd is an avowed Bush Basher, as you probably know. I'm writing this post to remind you that there is another writer of Maureen's ilk, and I certainly hope you have posted some of her drivel. Molly Ivens or perhaps it's Ivans. Wouldn't want to neglect her.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 01:38 PM

Most of what I post here is not, as you so rhetorically characterize it, "drivel", DougR. Maureen and Molly both get pretty sarcastic, but then Bush is an ideal target for sarcasm, being a half-wit of little brain and less ethical fiber.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 02:36 PM

Memo reveals Bush OKd torture

by Tim Wheeler


WASHINGTON During confirmation hearings on Alberto Gonzales nomination as Attorney General, senators should question him about a recently uncovered memo that George W. Bush ordered the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other military prisons around the world, several human rights groups suggested last month.

The groups, who joined in an ACLU Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit, which won release of the memo and other incriminating documents, are describing it as the smoking gun implicating Bush in the torture scandal.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero released the memo Dec. 20 in New York. That document, a December 2003 FBI internal e-mail, suggests that Bush issued a secret Executive Order authorizing the use of extreme coercive measures in interrogation, including sleep deprivation, stress positions, attack dogs, and use of hoods to intimidate prisoners. The Geneva Convention Against Torture bans all of these practices.

These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests, Romero said. Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers.

The human rights groups statement called on the Senate to scrutinize Gonzales, the White House Legal Counsel, on a Jan. 25, 2002, memo he wrote to Bush arguing that the Geneva Conventions outlawing torture did not apply to the war in Afghanistan. Gonzales described the conventions as quaint and obsolete.

In August 2002, Gonzales, without consulting military and State Department experts in the laws of torture and war, according to the Washington Post, approved a memo from the Justice Department claiming that unlawful enemy combatants could be detained indefinitely without criminal charges or the right of due process. The memo, the Post said, gave CIA interrogators the legal blessings they sought.

Physicians for Human Rights, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, is one of the groups in the ACLU lawsuit. PHR sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by 150 doctors with expertise in the treatment of torture. There should be no place in the U.S. government for any official who condones the crime of torture, the letter stated.

Gretchen Borchelt, a PHR spokesperson, joined in the call for probing Bushs role in the torture scandal. It would be great to question Gonzales about that memo, she said. There are a number of documents the senators have asked for and have not received yet. We think this is a hugely important issue not just because of the nomination of Gonzales but also because the questions about torture have not been resolved. There has been no accountability.

Gonzales asserted Bushs right to order the torture of detainees, a position that violates U.S. treaty obligations under the Convention Against Torture and other international agreements, PHR said.

Wilson Woody Powell, executive director of St. Louis-based Veterans For Peace, another group in the lawsuit, told the World in a telephone interview that they are now examining the documents, which they recently received.

Since Gonzales was Bushs legal adviser at the time, it would make sense to ask him about that memo, Powell said. It would be a good question: what was Bushs role in the torture?

If our nations highest law enforcement officer is known for abrogating international law in the treatment of detainees, we are just confirming to the world that we dont care about human rights. We would be confirming a criminal, a scofflaw, to be the nations chief prosecutor.

Powell pointed out that the U.S. is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture as a matter of self-protection. I fully anticipate someone is going to capture some American soldiers and do unto them what we have done unto others. We have a deep concern for how our soldiers are going to be treated if they are captured given the record of torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other detention centers, Powell said. Thousands of detainees have been held without trial because the administration lacks evidence to try them or even bring criminal charges.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 05:13 PM

Excerpt from Shayne Corey's commentary column in The Washington Dispatch. For the whole column, click here.

Political Ronin in George Bush's America   

Commentary by Shane Cory
January 7, 2005

"Regardless of his words, the animus of a leader will eventually bleed onto the canvas of history through his own actions."

Since the lead up to the war in Iraq, I have admittedly been suffering from a bit of an identity crisis. Actually, it is more of a branding issue more than an identity crisis.

In 2000, I was a reluctant supporter of George W. Bush. Although I believed that there had to be someone in America who was better qualified than the privileged son of a former president, I had no confidence in the competition.

My support of the president grew after 9/11. Not many can argue that in those trying days, Bush provided comfort and leadership in the face of fear and deep anguish. Little did we know that those attacks may have been prevented had the administration acted upon a single memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within U.S." Hindsight is always 20/20 when lives are at stake.

The invasion of Afghanistan and routing of the Taliban was just and served as a signal to the world that we would seek out those responsible for terrorism at any cost. However, when Bush and his troubled team set their sights upon Iraq, while admitting no connection with 9/11, I was left scratching my head.

While it seems that a majority of Americans bought the WMD fantasy without question, I remained skeptical. Even if Saddam had possessed nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, he had no delivery methods capable of striking far beyond the borders of Iraq. This was widely known and accepted. Essentially the only way that Saddam's Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. is if he Fed-Ex'd over a dirty bomb or two. Any nation or group in the world had those same capabilities. Why would we invade a nation based on a false threat?

I expressed my concern in March of 2003 on these pages and, as a result, I was called ignorant, unpatriotic, un-American and even a traitor for even expressing such thoughts. However, as it turns out, I was right. There was no threat. Instead of owning up to their horrid mistake, the Bush administration attempted to re-write history by changing the reasoning for war. Instead of WMD, it was now the desire to "liberate" the people of Iraq from a brutal dictator. Today, those same people we supposedly went into liberate are killing Americans. So why are we there again?

Over the past two years, George W. Bush and much of his staff have painted their true colors on that canvas of history and their masterpiece is a grim picture of ignorance, arrogance, fraud, pain and death.

As it is obvious that I am no fan of Bush or his apologists, it is automatically assumed by many who do not know me that I am a liberal. However my belief system is ruled by a handful of undeniable absolutes (as a close friend refers to them) that defy a liberal label: the right to life; the right to bear arms; the right to free thought and expression; and a desire for integrity as the cornerstone to life and government.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 05:18 PM

Some views of the Bush Administration are more extreme than others. COnsider Devvy Kidd, writing for World Net Daily...:

President Bush supporting global communist domination

Posted: January 7, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Why are so many informed Americans demanding the United States get out of the United Nations? Isn't the United Nations a benevolent organization that establishes "peace keepers" in troubled spots around the world and has so many programs "for the children"? Nothing could be further from the truth.

The United Nations and it's barbaric butchery is thoroughly documented in G. Edward Griffin's superb work, "The Fearful Master â€" A Second Look at the U.N." Their atrocities have continued over the decades. The United Nations was birthed by communists and its only purpose is to propagate communism.

Alger Hiss was convicted as a communist spy and was a key player in sucking America into the communist-controlled United Nations. At the time, Hiss was the director of the State Department's Office of Special Political Affairs who appointed members of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations. There is a long history there as well as with historical figures like John Foster Dulles.

In 1950, during hearings of the Committee on Foreign Relations regarding Revision of the U.N. Charter, page 494, the following statement was made by James P. Warburg:

    We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent ... I am here to testify in favor (of Resolution 56), if concurrently enacted with the House, would make the peaceful transformation of the United Nations into a world federation the avowed aim of United States policy.

In the same year, the Senate held hearings on Senate Concurrent Resolution 66 for the U.N. Charter. Sen. Thomas stated, among other things:

    Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution.

Less than a decade after the United States partnered with this communist organization, members of Congress were already warning the American people of the real agenda of this anti-American organization:

    What can this country, the United States, do to prevent the United Nations from destroying the Constitution of the United States of America and the constitution and laws of the various States of the Union?

    â€" Congressman Burdick, Congressional Record, 1953, pg 797

Another equally important speech is found in the Congressional Record, April 22, 1953, pages A2080-A2087, by members of Congress warning that our participation in the United Nations represents the greatest threat to our freedom, our right to own private property and the danger of treaties. [snip...]

---

I guess it takes all kinds. I allus thought the UN was a pretty good idea...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 05:31 PM

January 7, 2005

George Bush, Using Your Money to Sell His Programs

(Editorial from the Thousand and One Reasons website

I had never heard of Armstrong Williams before USA Today broke the story about his contract with the Bush administration to sell the No Child Left Behind Act. He must be famous, though, to justify the quarter million he earned by pushing it, surreptitiously, to his audience. And he must have worked hard to earn that kind of money, although USA Today only reported that he had to "regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts" and "encourage the producers to periodically address" NCLB. Williams, whose television show is nationally syndicated, "does not recall disclosing the contract to audiences on the air." Such a trivial thing; no wonder he can't remember

Whether or not such contracts are legal -- and it seems doubtful that they are -- they certainly fail to meet the ethical standards American citizens expect of their government, even the ethically-challenged Bush administration. Remember, these are your tax dollars being spent to promote a government program many educators believe is misguided at best. Obviously, the NCLB program will not sell itself, any more than the Social Security privatization that is also being sold to us now. Any more than the war against Iraq could sell itself: Bush and his hawkish supporters spent months selling that one. That sales job, however, used a different tactic: fear. And the Social Security sales job borrows that idea, scaring us with the threat of lost benefits. Never mind that the proposal being sold will cut our benefits.

I suppose it's the background of the Bushies -- the elite, corporate world was their playground -- that leads them to such tactics. Perhaps they don't understand that people are convinced by reason and logic, with the sheer power of good ideas. On the other hand, perhaps they understand it all too well. If they understood that logic and reason would not support the unnecessary and illegal war against Iraq, then they would have to sell it. And sell it hard, with threats of dirty bombs, mushroom clouds, and biological warfare. If logic and reason would not support the restrictive and punitive aspects of NCLB, nor the unfunded mandate it became, then they would have to sell it. Mr. Williams, we have a deal for you.

I had never heard of Armstrong Williams in part because I watch little television. Too many commercials for me, too much selling. But I wonder about his audience. Did they believe he was giving an honest opinion about a government program? Didn't they think it odd that he would be so high on a program that he would "comment on it regularly"? And did they buy? Did the quarter million lead them to demand NCLB from the local school districts? Did it make them more likely to vote for people like Bush who backed such a program? Of course it did. Karl Rove knows exactly how to spend your money and what it will buy him: more power.

The war in Iraq is a disaster. The No Child Left Behind Act has left millions of children behind and has arbitrarily set standards and then punished schools that failed to meet them. Social Security, if we also buy Bush's "fix" for that, will see a similar fate: it, too, will be degraded. On the horizon are other sales opportunities. But they will come at a high price, much higher than you will be led to believe. Call it deceptive advertising. And demand a refund.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 05:33 PM

From The Mercury News:

Observers: Bush administration plagued by missteps

By KENNETH R. BAZINET

New York Daily News

WASHINGTON - Honeymoon? What honeymoon?

The victory lap is long over for President Bush, tripped up by a series of gaffes since Election Day that were either self-inflicted or made by his own allies, both aides and critics said.

"It's been sloppy. ... People are off message," conceded a senior administration official, who said Team Bush's trademark discipline had crumbled since winning a second term.

"It's the worst I've ever seen it," the official conceded.

In the view of former GOP strategist Marshall Wittman, now a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, "The honeymoon blew over quicker than a Texas thunderstorm on a hot July day." (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 05:38 PM

A satire entry from Unconfirmed Sources -- News You Just Can't Use:

George W. Bush at APEC Summit: A Bruising Experience
Mexican President Vicente Fox beat the crap of American President George W. Bush on the opening day of the APEC Summit. The altercation took place after George Bush, apparently mistaking President Fox for a waiter, asked him for a plate of Arroz con Pollo and a bottle of water, "Real American water, not that South of the Boarder shit."

President Fox inflicted numerous body blows on Bush as well a well placed kick to the groin. " Madre Mio," Fox was quoted as saying, " I just couldn't take it anymore. This is the second time that bastard has done this to me. Once, he asked me if I wanted to sell him my sister."

The Presidents trip to Santiago, Chile was supposed to be a fence mending exercise, but things got off to a rocky start minutes after Air Force one landed. As he stood at the planes cabin door President Bush made a statement that said in part, " I'd like to thank all my little brown brothers south of border for inviting me to your shitty little country. Let's Fiesta!"

Unnamed Administration source Wegman "Pudgy" Waterhouse said, " I guess you could say it was all my fault for not correctly identifying President Fox to President Bush, but man, these guys all look alike."

Several other APEC members were equally insulted by the President. Japans Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi was mistaken by Mr. Bush for a gardener and stood by in shock while Mr. Bush berated him for using the wrong type of fertilizer on the roses.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sported a pair of mirrored sunglasses in a effort to stop the American President from looking into his soul.

As soon as he realized his mistake President Bush, by way of apology, offered President Fox a temporary Green Card so that he could, in the Presidents words, " Come north of the Rio Grande and find himself a real job, one that pays Americano dinero." President Fox had to be pulled away from Mr. Bush again after he then tried to strangle the US President.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 10:32 AM

Bush Paints His Goals As 'Crises'
President Reprises A First-Term Tactic

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 8, 2005; Page A01

President Bush had great success in his first term by defining crises that demanded decisive responses. Now, as he begins a second term, Bush is returning to the same tactic to accomplish three longtime conservative goals.

Warning of the need for urgent action on his Social Security plan, Bush says the "crisis is now" for a system even the most pessimistic observers say will take in more in taxes than it pays out in benefits well into the next decade.

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D): The White House has "made an art of creating crisis where a crisis does not exist." (Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)


He calls the proliferation of medical liability lawsuits a "crisis in America" that can be fixed only by limiting a patient's right to sue for large damages. And Bush has repeatedly accused Senate Democrats of creating a "vacancy crisis" on the federal bench by refusing to confirm a small percentage of his judicial nominees.

This strategy helped Bush win support for the war in Iraq, tax cuts and education policies, as well as reclaim the White House. What is unclear is whether the same approach will work, given the battering to the administration's credibility over its Iraq claims and a new Democratic campaign accusing Bush of crying wolf.

"This White House had made an art of creating crisis where a crisis does not exist," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.)....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 11:21 AM

Promoting Torture's Promoter
By BOB HERBERT
( New York TImes Op-Ed)
Published: January 7, 2005

        


If the United States were to look into a mirror right now, it wouldn't recognize itself.

The administration that thumbed its nose at the Geneva Conventions seems equally dismissive of such grand American values as honor, justice, integrity, due process and the truth. So there was Alberto Gonzales, counselor to the president and enabler in chief of the pro-torture lobby, interviewing on Capitol Hill yesterday for the post of attorney general, which just happens to be the highest law enforcement office in the land.

Mr. Gonzales shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that office. His judgments regarding the detention and treatment of prisoners rounded up in Iraq and the so-called war on terror have been both unsound and shameful. Some of the practices that evolved from his judgments were appalling, gruesome, medieval.

But this is the Bush administration, where incompetence and outright failure are rewarded with the nation's highest honors. (Remember the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded last month to George Tenet et al.?) So not only is Mr. Gonzales's name being stenciled onto the attorney general's door, but a plush judicial seat is being readied for his anticipated elevation to the Supreme Court.

It's a measure of the irrelevance of the Democratic Party that a man who played such a significant role in the policies that led to the still-unfolding prisoner abuse and torture scandals is expected to win easy Senate confirmation and become attorney general. The Democrats have become the 98-pound weaklings of the 21st century.

The Bush administration and Mr. Gonzales are trying to sell the fiction that they've seen the light. In answer to a setup question at his Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Gonzales said he is against torture. And the Justice Department issued a legal opinion last week that said "torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and international norms."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 11:24 AM

Worse Than Fiction

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 7, 2005
Excerpted from the New York Times


I've been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with - they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels.

In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction.

In my bad novel, crusaders for moral values will be driven by strange obsessions. One senator's diatribe against gay marriage will link it to "man on dog" sex. Another will rant about the dangers of lesbians in high school bathrooms.

In my bad novel, the president will choose as head of homeland security a "good man" who turns out to have been the subject of an arrest warrant, who turned an apartment set aside for rescue workers into his personal love nest and who stalked at least one of his ex-lovers.

In my bad novel, a TV personality who claims to stand up for regular Americans against the elite will pay a large settlement in a sexual harassment case, in which he used his position of power to - on second thought, that story is too embarrassing even for a bad novel.

In my bad novel, apologists for the administration will charge foreign policy critics with anti-Semitism. But they will be silent when a prominent conservative declares that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular."

In my bad novel the administration will use the slogan "support the troops" to suppress criticism of its war policy. But it will ignore repeated complaints that the troops lack armor.

The secretary of defense - another "good man," according to the president - won't even bother signing letters to the families of soldiers killed in action.

Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture.

How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

The public became unwilling to believe bad things about those who claim to be defending the nation against terrorism. And the hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels of the right, empowered by the public's credulity, have come out in unprecedented force.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 01:01 PM

Oh, wow, this thread is long. I hadn't read it at all until now (I don't think). Do I have to start at the very beginning or can I skip a dozen pages?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 01:16 PM

Since it totally consists of articles and opinions, all declaring that GWB is a feeble-minded, war monger who delights in killing innocent people, and hasn't the good sense to come in out of the rain, SRS, I doubt you would learn much by reading every post. I think you share Amos' opinion of the President anyway, so what's to learn?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 02:29 PM

DougR, in his usual style of nullification and denigration, has mischaracterized many of the posts in these threads in an effort to just make nothing out of the whole thing.

And Doug, the reason Bush gets associated with murder is because he took decision s that immediately and directly result4ed in the predictable extermination of innocent people by violent force thjat was not justified.

SRS, feel free to scan as many or as few as you find of interest. They are not tied to each other except by a general theme of being observations and thoughts about the Bush adminitration.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 11:55 PM

Tax-Funded White House PR Effort Questioned

A news commentator was paid to promote education policy, which critics call propaganda.



By Tom Hamburger, Nick Anderson and T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writers

Los Angeles Times


WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers called for an investigation Friday into whether the Bush administration misused taxpayer funds by paying a prominent media pundit $240,000 to promote the president's controversial new education policy.

The Education Department on Friday defended its payments to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams as part of a million-dollar contract with the Ketchum public relations firm to promote the No Child Left Behind Act with minority groups.


 
Williams, who is African American, was hired by Ketchum in late 2003 to build support among minorities for the president's education plan. He praised the program in columns and on television without disclosing the payments.

His case is the latest and perhaps most striking example of the Bush administration using government funds to market its agenda to the American public under the guise of journalism. It is also a fresh blow for the media following recent scandals that have raised questions about credibility. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 12:07 AM

The horrible costs of the war in financial terms.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 12:11 AM

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 11:06 AM

Volume 52, Number 1 · January 13, 2005

email icon Email to a friend
Review


The Truth About Terrorism by Jonathan Raban, is a long piece, but wortht he read for the insights it offers into the actual, versus the promoted, nature of terrorism.

The article reviews several important books on modern issues of terrorism. One of the quotes is from a recent book by Stephen Flynn, "America the Vulnerable". Flynn offers these thoughts:

"The secretive, top-down, us-versus-them culture that is pervasive in government security circles must give way to more inclusive processes.... Rather than working assiduously to keep the details of terrorism and our vulnerabilities out of the public domain, the federal government should adopt a new imperative that recognizes that Americans have to be far better informed about the dangers that they face.... How much security is enough? We have done enough when the American people can conclude that a future attack on US soil will be an exceptional event that does not require wholesale changes to how we go about our lives.... We must continue to remind the world that it is not military might that is the source of our strength but our belief that mankind can govern itself in such a way as to secure the blessings of liberty."

I recommend the whole of the article.

Especially to Martin.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 06:26 PM

From Maureen Dowd, of the New York Times:

Defining Victory Down (Click for complete essay)
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 9, 2005

        


The president prides himself on being a pig-headed guy. He is determined to win in Iraq even if he is not winning in Iraq.

So get ready for a Mohammedan mountain of spin defining victory down. Come what may - civil war over oil, Iranian-style fatwas du jour or men on prayer rugs reciting the Koran all day on the Iraqi TV network our own geniuses created - this administration will call it a triumph.

Even for a White House steeped in hooey, it's a challenge. President Bush will have to emulate the parsing and prevaricating he disdained in his predecessor: It depends on what the meaning of the word "win" is.

The president's still got a paper bag over his head, claiming that the daily horrors out of Iraq reflect just a few soreheads standing in the way of a glorious democracy, even though his commander of ground forces there concedes that the areas where more than half of Iraqis live are not secure enough for them to vote - an acknowledgment that the insurgency is resilient and growing. It's like saying Montana and North Dakota are safe to vote, but New York, Philadelphia and L.A. are not. What's a little disenfranchisement among friends?

"I know it's hard, but it's hard for a reason," Mr. Bush said on Friday, a day after seven G.I.'s and two marines died. "And the reason it's hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom." If it's just a handful, how come it's so hard?

Then the president added: "And I look at the elections as a - as a - you know, as a - as - as a historical marker for our Iraq policy."

Well, that's clear. Mr. Bush is huddled in his bubble, but he's in a pickle. The administration that had no plan for what to do with Iraq when it got it, now has no plan for getting out.

The mood in Washington about our misadventure seemed to grow darker last week, maybe because lawmakers were back after visiting with their increasingly worried constituents and - even more alarming - visiting Iraq, where you still can't drive from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone without fearing for your life.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 06:47 PM

I've said it all along. When the US has had enuff of loosing a war it cannot win and leaves, Iraq will slip into a civil war... This is un preventable...

Rhe more I look at Bush's decision to invade Iraq, for political gain only, the more I am seeing this decision as maybe the worst decision that a president has made since Lincoln pushed the Southern Man's buttons some 145 years ago.

In terms of cost in lives it may not compare with Vietnam (yet) but with his ever changing motives for the invasion, one has to wonder just what the Hell the boy was thinking?

Or better put, not........

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 09:49 AM

Charles Holland of Nebo, NC, offers these thoughts:

True Christians aren't deceived by the Bush administration

SPECIAL TO CITIZEN-TIMES
Jan. 8, 2005 10:09 a.m.

I am writing in conjunction with the letter, "Non-Republicans need not apply to run for office," (AC-T, Jan. 3): This letter points out that Republicans see themselves as good and everyone else as evil. The article quoted the Asheville Citizen-Times as President Bush winning a second term (largely by efforts of) the evangelical Christians. Well, those Christians who put Bush back in office need to read their Bible more and find out who the evil ones are. Bush and the Republicans, according to my Bible, are the evil ones. This is what the Bible says in Proverbs 6:16-19: "These six things doeth the Lord hate: yea seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." All this the Republicans have done. People see who the deceivers are. They divided the nation, and the blood of thousands are on their hands. All this God hates and is an abomination unto him. People should read their Bible and get understanding from it, and not be deceived by the Bushes of this world.

Charles Holland,

Nebo

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 10:06 AM

Armstrong Williams Is A Shill For The Bush Administration

By Robert Paul Reyes
Jan. 9, 2005

As a columnist for a small town newspaper, my readers expect me to express my opinion on various and sundry subjects. My editorials are sometimes lauded, sometimes reviled, but everyone knows that I write from my heart.

If it turned out that the Chamber of Commerce was paying me to write essays extolling the virtues of living in Lynchburg, I would expect my newspaper to fire me. As an editorialist if I don't have my integrity -- I don't have anything.

The Education Department paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $250,000 to help promote President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" law on his radio show, TV program and newspaper column.

In pocketing the money, funneled through a public- relations firm, the conservative pundit aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Rod Paige, praised Bush's education policy and urged other talkmeisters to interview Paige. Williams neglected to disclose the contract when talking about "No Child Left Behind" during cable- television appearances or writing about it in his syndicated newspaper column. (....)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Isaac Peon de Tallywhacker
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 10:16 AM

As DougR has placed a request, amidst his scurrilous slurs, for some words from that Belle of Southern Letters, Molly Ivins, some are provided herewith.

I.P de T


Molly Ivins: The Bush Administration II's 'prior-roarities'

By MOLLY IVINS, Creators Syndicate
January 7, 2005

pictureAUSTIN, Texas — In the Texas legislature, they are called "prior-roarities," such a happy coinage. What should come prior?

When the pitter-patter of falling year-end columns comes again, not necessarily next year, but certainly four years from now, I fearlessly forecast a dismal unanimity: that the Bush Administration II suffers from bad and dumb prior-roarities.

Actually, the passage of time is not required for proof — look around. The Bushies are about to launch a $50 million to $100 million dollar propaganda campaign to convince us the Social Security system is in crisis. Actually, it's not. It's quite robust and has astonishingly low administrative costs, less than 1 percent.

According to President Bush's own Commission to "Strengthen Social Security," the administrative costs of keeping track of private accounts will be 10 to 30 times the cost of administering the current system.

The Socialy Security System is in no danger whatsoever of going broke or even of having to pay out less than full compensation for at least 50 years. There are any number of statistical models and premises one can argue about here, but when the administration begins with a premise that requires fixing Social Security based on an extrapolation to infinity, you know you are not dealing with people who argue in good faith.

Even if Social Security were in full-fledged crisis, none of the sensible, cheap, effective ways to fix it would involve the massive trillion-dollar boondoggle this administration contemplates.

Let's get this straight. The Republicans do not want to fix Social Security, they want to kill it. Period. They don't want to "partially privatize" Social Security, they want to end it. What they want is a private pension system like the one their pointy-headed heroes at the University of Chicago dreamed up for Chile, the poster child of why we should not do this.

This same rigid, inflexible, impractical the-market-is-always-best ideology is like a form of mania with these folks. As Paul Krugman patiently points out, "Claims that stocks will always yield high, low-risk returns are just bad economics."

In fact, it's more than passingly reminiscent of another rigid, inflexible, politico-economic orthodoxy: communism. And just as capable of robustly ignoring reality.

And for robustly ignoring reality, you can't hardly beat spending $50 million to $100 million on a propaganda campaign to convince America there's something seriously wrong with Social Security while you ignore the collapse of the American health care system. It is common to begin all discussions of American health care with a complete lie, uttered in this example by President Bush: "We live in a great country that has got the best health care system in the world, and we need to keep it that way."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 01:03 PM

And I DO thank you, Guest Isaac. Wouldn't want the Queen of liberals to be left out in the cold would we?

Slurs? What slurs?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 07:24 PM

Yep, Molly Irvans certainly has a handle on the Bushites... They are a bunch of heathens who are out to screw the working class... Ain't a drop of Christainity in that camp... Not a drop...

And they are out to kill off Social Security, no doubt. The only fix they have in mind is reading about it in the history books...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 08:01 PM

BBC News Reports:


Tanzanians pack George Bush bar
Owner George Charles Mgina (l) and Joseph Haule (R) underneath the bar's sign
Mr Mgina (l) shares his first name with the former US leader
Tanzanian beer drinkers are flocking to the George Bush Social Club, south-east of Dar es Salaam.

Owner George Charles Mgina was nicknamed George Bush by his friends because of his strong support for the first Gulf War in 1991.

Inside, patrons drink beer, play pool and eat roast meat.

The BBC's Vicky Ntetema says that most Tanzanians oppose Mr Bush's son, the current US president, and his war in Iraq but business remains strong.

With the new President Bush, Mr Mgina changed the name of his company to George W Bush Investments Ltd and says he is also planning to venture into new areas, so there could soon be a George W Bush farm or mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 08:08 PM

From Rhodesia's Cape Times:

Striking similarity between McCarthyism and George Bush's USA Patriot Act

January 10, 2005

By Leslie Liddell

The United States is said to be a free country. Its constitution has amendments (Bill of Rights) which, among other things, uphold free speech, the right of people to assemble peacefully, the right to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a speedy and fair trial by an impartial jury if you are accused of a crime.

It also states that "all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people". This is the received and perceived truth that many people who live both inside and outside of the US adhere to.

However, during the period from about 1947-1957, McCarthyism, given its name from Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, maintained that communists had infiltrated the US State Department.

Repressive measures against people labelled as communists were rife. Many Americans had their civil liberties and rights undermined.

Professor Ellen Schrecker, a well-known historian and expert on McCarthyism, has written extensively on the era. She says that through "part myth and part reality, the notion that domestic communists threatened national security... based on a primarily ideological conception of the nature of the communist movement... came... the government's attempt to mobilise public opinion for the Cold War".

During this repressive period, about 150 people were imprisoned, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death. Most of the major punishments were of an economic nature, however.

Schrecker notes: "People lost their jobs. The official manifestations of McCarthyism... the public hearings, FBI investigations, and criminal prosecutions... would not have been as effective had they not been reinforced by the private sector." Targeted people were blacklisted, which meant that they were unable to find employment.

This economic punishment extended to universities, colleges, the media, labour and the entertainment industry.

In all sectors of society, the state got civil society to do its dirty work by firing and blacklisting people. It is estimated that 10 000 people may have lost their jobs during McCarthyism.

The legacy of this period of political repression in the US was extensive. "There were social reforms which were never adopted, some diplomatic initiatives which were never pursued, workers were not organised into unions, some books were not written and some movies were never made."

In addition, the American left was negatively affected and the public space for alternatives to the status quo disappeared. The nation's cultural and intellectual life suffered.

Finally, Schrecker maintains that the anti-democratic practices associated with McCarthyism continued through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s: "McCarthyism alone did not cause these outrages; but the assault on democracy that began during the 1940s and 1950s with the collaboration of private institutions and public agencies in suppressing the alleged threat of domestic communism was an important early contribution."
Click here


More recently, legislative proposals in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were introduced - less than a week after the attacks.

President George Bush signed the final bill, the United States Patriot Act, into law on October 26, 2001. It was introduced with great haste and passed with little debate and without a House, Senate or conference report.

As a result, it lacks background legislative history that often retrospectively provides necessary statutory interpretation. It also doesn't provide for the system of checks and balances that traditionally safeguards civil liberties in the face of such legislation.

The USA Patriot Act introduced a number of legislative changes which significantly increased the surveillance and investigative powers of law enforcement agencies in the US.

The implications for online internet privacy are considerable. For example, the act increases the ability of law enforcement agencies to authorise the installation of pen registers and trap and trace devices, and to authorise the installation of such devices to record all computer routing, addressing and signalling of information.

The act also extends the government's ability to gain access to personal financial information and student information without any suspicion of wrongdoing, simply by certifying that the information likely to be obtained is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.

Many of the foundations of American democracy are violated by the Patriot Act.

It also defines "domestic terrorism" so broadly that political organisations could be subjected to the seizure of property for engaging in civil disobedience, for example.

Non-citizens can be imprisoned without charges, simply on the attorney-general's injunction, without showing a court that they are dangerous or a flight risk.

Once again, the violations against the basic constitutional rights of Americans are being carried out in the name of national security and in the defence of waging a war. During McCarthyism, it was the Cold War. This time, it is the war on terror.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 08:16 PM

January 11, 2005:

    The current total dead Americans killed in Iraq increased to 1,352. The total number of wounded reported remained at 10,252.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 05 - 09:01 PM

The following, a different perspective, is from the Washington Post
(Full article found here.

Iraqi Bloggers, In the News And Critiquing It

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 20, 2004; Page C01

Omar Fadhil says the media are painting far too dark a portrait of Iraq.

Outsiders "think there is fighting at every corner, people can't walk the streets, the economy is devastated and people are starving," he says. "No one is showing the good news coming from Iraq. That's usually ignored. Things are difficult, but life is going on."


Fadhil, 24, is a dentist in Baghdad. He and his two brothers are doing more than just griping about the coverage; they are at the forefront of the first wave of Iraqi Internet bloggers, engaging in a form of expression that was impossible under Saddam Hussein.

On a visit to Washington earlier this month, Omar and his sibling Mohammed, 35, who is also a dentist, found themselves ushered into the Oval Office for a meeting with President Bush after a last-minute invitation. The president asked their views on Iraqi politics and assured them that the United States will not leave until the job is done.

Pretty heady stuff for two men who had never before been outside their country.

In an interview, Omar and Mohammed described their excitement at being able to say what they think and reach about 7,000 people each day. Their English-language blog, IraqtheModel, is part journal, part travelogue and part political soapbox.

"In 35 years under the Saddam regime, we learned to protect ourselves" by not speaking out in public, says Mohammed. In fact, he hid from authorities for six years after refusing to join the Iraqi army. "Now we want to say in a loud and clear voice that we welcome American troops and consider this a liberation, not an occupation."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 02:33 AM

Holy shit!!!
I have reached the end!! (thus far)
I finally decided I would read this thread since I have read other comments about it in somewhere-else land.
Amos my brother, I sat down today and read through the entirety of this thread (admittedly not going into every link),(( I thank you for the portions of articles to get the idea of where they were going)).
Amos, I gotta tell you, after reading this thread all day,... I am bushed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 04:52 AM

Jeeze, RR, I am more impressed stil with your reading it end to end. A Lot of it is history -- I yam surprised you didn't turn into salt or something!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 09:02 AM

IN other news:

Moore is the people's choice
11/01/2005

Michael Moore has won the best film prize at the US People's Choice Awards for Fahrenheit 9/11.

The awards are voted for by the American public, representing a popular win among the masses for the director renowned for his anti-Bush, anti-corporate messages.

A total of 21 million American voters picked the winners over the internet, marking what Moore called "an historic occasion".

"This country is still all of ours, not right or left or Democrat or Republican," he told the award ceremony in California, dedicating his win to the soldiers fighting in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 09:35 AM

The Iceberg Cometh
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 11, 2005

        (From the New York Times)

Last week someone leaked a memo written by Peter Wehner, an aide to Karl Rove, about how to sell Social Security privatization. The public, says Mr. Wehner, must be convinced that "the current system is heading for an iceberg."

It's the standard Bush administration tactic: invent a fake crisis to bully people into doing what you want. "For the first time in six decades," the memo says, "the Social Security battle is one we can win." One thing I haven't seen pointed out, however, is the extent to which the White House expects the public and the media to believe two contradictory things.

The administration expects us to believe that drastic change is needed, and needed right away, because of the looming cost of paying for the baby boomers' retirement.

The administration expects us not to notice, however, that the supposed solution would do nothing to reduce that cost. Even with the most favorable assumptions, the benefits of privatization wouldn't kick in until most of the baby boomers were long gone. For the next 45 years, privatization would cost much more money than it saved.

Advocates of privatization almost always pretend that all we have to do is borrow a bit of money up front, and then the system will become self-sustaining. The Wehner memo talks of borrowing $1 trillion to $2 trillion "to cover transition costs." Similar numbers have been widely reported in the news media.

But that's just the borrowing over the next decade. Privatization would cost an additional $3 trillion in its second decade, $5 trillion in the decade after that and another $5 trillion in the decade after that. By the time privatization started to save money, if it ever did, the federal government would have run up around $15 trillion in extra debt.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 09:40 AM

In an interesting summary of possible future paths in Iraq,
David Brooks says there is a disitinct undercurrent of possibility and hope.

"Can We Save Iraq? No, but the Iraqis Can"
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: January 11, 2005


E-mail: [e-mail]



Is there any way this can still work? Is there any plausible scenario for how Iraq can turn into a functioning society?

These are the questions I've been throwing at government officials, military analysts and other wise heads over the past few weeks. Their answers, both uplifting and depressing, suggest that if we are lucky, the near future in Iraq will come in three phases.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 09:44 AM

Bob Herbert, also writing for the Times, takes a grimmer point of view:


The Scent of Fear
By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 10, 2005

        


The assembly line of carnage in George W. Bush's war in Iraq continues unabated. Nightmares don't last this long, so the death and destruction must be real. You know you're in serious trouble when the politicians and the military brass don't even bother suggesting that there's light at the end of the tunnel. The only thing ahead is a deep and murderous darkness.

With the insurgency becoming both stronger and bolder, and the chances of conducting a legitimate election growing grimmer by the day, a genuine sense of alarm can actually be detected in the reality-resistant hierarchy of the Bush administration.

The unthinkable is getting a tentative purchase in the minds of the staunchest supporters of the war: that under the current circumstances, and given existing troop strengths, the U.S. and its Iraqi allies may not be able to prevail. Military officials are routinely talking about a major U.S. presence in Iraq that will last, at a minimum, into the next decade. That is not what most Americans believed when the Bush crowd so enthusiastically sold this war as a noble adventure that would be short and sweet, and would end with Iraqis tossing garlands of flowers at American troops.

The reality, of course, is that this war is like all wars - fearsomely brutal and tragic. The administration was jolted into the realization of just how badly the war was going by the brazen suicide bombing just a few days before Christmas inside a mess tent of a large and supposedly heavily fortified military base in Mosul. Fourteen American soldiers and four American contractors were among the dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 09:49 AM

The New York Times also debunks some of Bush's legerdemain concerning his terickery with the SOcial Security system:

For the Record on Social Security

Late February is now the time frame mentioned by the White House for unveiling President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security. The timing is no accident. By waiting until then, the president will conveniently avoid having to include the cost of privatization - as much as $2 trillion in new government borrowing over the next 10 years - in his 2006 budget, expected in early February.

In this and other ways, the administration is manipulating information - a tacit, yet devastating, acknowledgement, we believe, that an informed public would reject privatizing Social Security. For the record:

The administration has suggested that it would be justified in borrowing some $2 trillion to establish private accounts because doing so would head off $10 trillion in future Social Security liabilities. It's bad enough that the $10 trillion is a highly inflated figure, intended to overstate a problem that is reasonably estimated at $3.7 trillion or even considerably less. Worse are the true dimensions of the administration's proposed ploy, which were made painfully clear in a memo that was leaked to the press last week. Written in early January by Peter Wehner, the president's director of strategic initiatives and a top aide to Karl Rove, the president's political strategist, the memo states unequivocally that under a privatized system, only drastic benefit cuts - not borrowing - would relieve Social Security's financial problem. "If we borrow $1-2 trillion to cover transition costs for personal savings accounts" without making benefit cuts, Mr. Wehner wrote, "we will have borrowed trillions and will still confront more than $10 trillion in unfunded liabilities. This could easily cause an economic chain reaction: the markets go south, interest rates go up, and the economy stalls out."

At a recent press conference, Mr. Bush exaggerated the timing of the system's shortfall by saying that Social Security would cross the "line into red" in 2018. According to Congress's budget agency, the system comes up short in 2052; according to the system's trustees, the date is 2042. The year 2018 is when the system's trustees expect they will have to begin dipping into the Social Security trust fund to pay full benefits. If you had a trust fund to pay your bills when your income fell short, would you consider yourself insolvent?

In suggesting that 2018 is doomsyear, the president is reinforcing a false impression that the trust fund is a worthless pile of I.O.U.'s - as detractors of Social Security so often claim. The facts are different: since 1983, payroll taxes have exceeded benefits, with the excess tax revenue invested in interest-bearing Treasury securities. (An alternative would be to, say, put the money in a mattress.) That accumulating interest and the securities themselves make up the Social Security trust fund. If the trust fund's Treasury securities are worthless, someone better tell investors throughout the world, who currently hold $4.3 trillion in Treasury debt that carries the exact same government obligation to pay as the trust fund securities. The president is irresponsible to even imply that the United States might not honor its debt obligations. Click for remainder of article

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 10:50 AM

While in other news:

"Drinking Water: How Much Rocket Fuel is Safe for Humans?
Get over 10,000 Screensavers FREE!

The Bush Administration appears to be making an attempt to allow more percholorate, a type of chemical found in rocket fuel, in our drinking water. The goal: to prevent a costly cleanup for military and aerospace companies.

The Pentagon has asked the National Academy of Sciences to create a panal to review how much percholorate is safe in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency had previously ruled that there should be no more than 1 part per billion of percholorate in drinking water to protect public safety. The Academy is trying to have that number increased to 20 times that amount.

Percholorate affects the hormone level in the thyroid gland. According to some studies, even small amounts of the substance can affect the brain development of small children. The affect is even greater if the water is ingested by pregnant women."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 04:41 PM

From the Los Angeles Times (excerpt):
January 11, 2005         
        
Robert Scheer:

Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?

        
        
Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist?

To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical, especially in the context of the U.S. media's supine acceptance of administration claims relating to national security. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this and many other accepted articles of faith in the so-called war on terror.

"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear," a three-hour historical film by Adam Curtis recently aired by the British Broadcasting Corp., argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."

Stern stuff, indeed. But consider just a few of the many questions the program poses along the way:

• If Osama bin Laden does, in fact, head a vast international terrorist organization with trained operatives in more than 40 countries, as claimed by Bush, why, despite torture of prisoners, has this administration failed to produce hard evidence of it?

• How can it be that in Britain since 9/11, 664 people have been detained on suspicion of terrorism but only 17 have been found guilty, most of them with no connection to Islamist groups and none who were proven members of Al Qaeda?

• Why have we heard so much frightening talk about "dirty bombs" when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people?

• Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on "Meet the Press" in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 08:39 PM

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 08:54 PM

Not to change the subject too much but what really has me mad today is the Bushites arrogance in "ordering" the DC government, in direct conflict with tradition going back forever, to pay for setting up grandstands, closing streets, providing police and fire protection, along with all the Homeland Security concerns...

Yup, these things have always been paid for by the US. Not this year as cheapskake, crook Bush is forcing folks, who have NO REPRESENTATION in Congress yet are forced to pay Federal income taxes to pay for the Repubs $17M celebartion.

What a crock!

Not only that but should a DC resident show up with a sign protesting this theft this resident will be turned away from the big ol' Repub circle jerk...

This is about the most arrogant and f**ked up thing that the Bushites have ever thought up to do to a people who have less democratic rights than they *say* they want for the average Iraqi...

If you are reading this, Mr. Bush: Screw you, you crook...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 09:05 PM

It is typical of extreme fascist regimes (whether they be capitalist fascists or socialist fascists) to invent terrifying, shadowy, and largely fictional enemies with which to terrorize their own public into supporting an extremist government which then employs extremist policies and worldwide aggression to further its ends.

That is precisely what the Bush administration has done. They have inflated (and quite possible invented) this Al Queda monster in the public's imagination, when in fact they themselves are the real monster. Terrorism is not a centralized force, it is a collection of scattered, disconnected people in many places, people embittered by the world-affecting policies of an aggressive superpower.

Bin Laden is probably connected intimately with the very neo-Conservative forces which wanted and needed a crisis of some kind in order to launch foreign wars. They got their Reichstage fire when 911 happened. They may have themselves been complicit in organizing it...or letting it happen...because for them it was a dream come true.

They need Bin Laden. He needs them. If they had not had Bin Laden, they would have invented him.

The war is about oil, it's about establishing a gradually extending police state in the USA (and elsewhere if possible), it's about strategic positioning to dominate and control the Middle East and the World, it's about creating an endless conflict that will continue in a variety of locations.

It is not about destroying Al Queda. If Al Queda ceased to exist altogether, the people running American policy would just invent another Al Queda, because it is through fear that they maintain and enlarge their power.

Hitler needed scapegoats. He picked Communists, Jews, and Gypsies...people whom he knew were unpopular already. Easy targets.

Bush's administration needed the same. They picked Islamic fundamentalists. They had to pick someone. The Cold War was over,so there were no more Communists to fight (except Castro and the Chinese). Castro doesn't matter that much. The Chinese are too big and offer too much business to America. A new enemy had to be found.

The new enemy is the Arabs, the Palestinians, the Muslims in general. This is a very dirty game, it's a phony game, it's a lie and a fraud. And it is open aggression by a superpower. Just like Hitler in 1939. No different, in my opinion. Same old routine, new set of faces, that's all.

The "Jew" of today is the Muslim. The Wehrmacht of today is the US Marines, and Tony Blair is their Mussolini, tagging along for the spoils.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 11:14 PM

Uh, "not to change the subject too much", Bobert? You've started a whole new thread on your subject already. That's not enough?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jan 05 - 11:21 PM

Nope, Dougie. It isn't...

Now how do you really feel about this situation?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 09:05 AM

The polarized incompatabilities of Shiites and Sunni in Iraq have made for a deep-rooted failure in nation-building. Our own blundering attempt to bypass and impose ourexpertise on how it should be done, engineered in the great republican spirit of ineptitude and informed by the very best of American know-nothingism, has done little to improve thigs. The greatest hurdle, though, has been the armed insurgency and their (suspiciously) deep supplies of armaments and explosives.

The NY Times discusses the situation in an interesting editorial on this page. Excerpt:

Facing Facts About Iraq's Election

Published: January 12, 2005


When the United States was debating whether to invade Iraq, there was one outcome that everyone agreed had to be avoided at all costs: a civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that would create instability throughout the Middle East and give terrorists a new, ungoverned region that they could use as a base of operations. The coming elections - long touted as the beginning of a new, democratic Iraq - are looking more and more like the beginning of that worst-case scenario.

It's time to talk about postponing the elections.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 09:16 AM

And in the back pages of the Washington Post, this choice milestone of incompetence made manifest:


Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month
Critical September Report to Be Final Word

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 12, 2005; Page A01

The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.

In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas.

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.

Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 03:30 PM

Hitler was seriously disappointed also, no doubt, when he failed to find massive threats to the survival of the German nation in the ruins of Poland! After all, he only attacked the Poles because they were "raping Aryan women", "committing atrocities on East Prussian Aryans", and "planning to attack Germany". Yes indeed! Well, they had to be stopped, by golly. So the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht did the only decent thing a superpower can do when it is menaced by a small, weak country with an outdated military that ain't got a chance...they kicked the shit out of those dangerous Polish fanatics!!! Yup. Everything would have been just jimdandy if Britain and France hadn't declared war over it. Too bad, eh?

Well, by golly, the World has now been "saved" from the terrible danger posed by Iraq, just like Hitler saved us from Poland back in '39. I can't wait till George Bush finds someone else to save us from...maybe Syria or Iran? Maybe Korea? Where is there more oil? Maybe Venezuela?

Hail to the Chief! (Heil der Fuehrer!)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 08:54 PM

U.S. Trade Deficit Hit Highest Figure Ever in November
By ELIZABETH BECKER

Published: January 12, 2005



WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - The United States trade deficit soared to a new high of $60.3 billion in November, the Commerce Department reported today. The figure breaks all previous monthly records and confounds predictions that the deficit would diminish now that the dollar has weakened and the price of oil has eased.


Instead the trade gap has now reached the size of the Grand Canyon, in the words of one analyst, and is putting increased pressure on the dollar to drop even further, pressure that could continue unabated.

The dollar fell sharply on news of the unexpectedly wide trade deficit, dropping to 102.42 Japanese yen by this afternoon, from 103.25 yen late Tuesday. The euro climbed to $1.3266, from $1.3123.

The jump in the trade deficit showed a surprising weakening in American exports across the board, from agricultural products to capital goods like aircraft and semiconductors. The figures released by the Commerce Department showed that the trade deficit is on pace to exceed $600 billion for 2004, up from $496.5 billion last year.

The United States is too deeply in debt, economists said, and several things would have to be changed if the trend was to be reversed. American savings would have to increase. The administration would have to make tough choices to balance the budget. And China would have to make its currency exchange rate flexible rather than tied to the dollar.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 08:58 PM

Laura Bush has made her choice. Ending weeks of speculation on Seventh Avenue about what she would wear on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mrs. Bush said Monday that Oscar de la Renta would design her inaugural ball gown, a dress that for a time at least will be the most scrutinized in the country.

The silver-blue tulle gown, embroidered with bugle beads and outlined in Austrian crystals, is the stately if conventional centerpiece in a wardrobe Mrs. Bush will wear during four days of festivities in Washington, including 10 balls, candlelight dinners, a parade and fireworks.

In addition to Mr. de la Renta, a longtime couturier to the fashionable elite, designers for Mrs. Bush's wardrobe include Carolina Herrera, who fills a similar niche, and Peggy Jennings, a little-known designer who has been quietly wardrobing Mrs. Bush from her apartment at the Waldorf Towers in Manhattan for two years.

The president's daughters, Jenna and Barbara, will be dressed by Badgley Mischka, Lela Rose, Derek Lam and Mr. de la Renta for the inaugural festivities.

The first lady's wardrobe is sure to be studied for clues about her evolving personal style and even for hints about the overall tone of the White House in the next four years. "The first lady is certainly a reflection as to the man holding the office," Mr. de la Renta said. He was reluctant to ascribe special significance to Mrs. Bush's sartorial choices, which are more glamorous than anything the White House has seen since the Reagan years.

But another observer, Catherine Allgor, a historian of first lady style, suggested that in anointing Mr. de la Renta and Mrs. Herrera, mainstays of taste among wealthy women, Mrs. Bush appears to be displaying a growing awareness that "her power is entrenched." "She has gone from being just folks to being a bit imperial, assuming a bit more of a queenly role," said Ms. Allgor, the author of "Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government" (University Press of Virginia, 2002).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 09:08 PM

Subject: Dear Abby


Dear Abby,

My husband has a long record of money problems. He runs up huge credit card bills and at the end of the month, if I try to pay them off, he shouts at me, saying I am stealing his money. He says pay the minimum and let our kids worry about the rest, but already we can hardly keep up with the interest.

Also he has been so arrogant and abusive toward our neighbors that most of them no longer speak to us. The few that do are an odd bunch, to whom he has been giving a lot of expensive gifts, running up our bills even more. Also, he has gotten religious in a big way, although I don't quite understand it.

One week he hangs out with Catholics and the next with people who say the Pope is the Anti-Christ. And now he has been going to the gym an awful lot and is into wearing uniforms and cowboy outfits, and I hate to think what that means.

Finally, the last straw. He's demanding that before anyone can be in the same room with him, they must sign a loyalty oath. It's just so horribly creepy! Can you help?

Signed, Lost in DC

Dear Lost:

Stop whining, Laura. You can divorce the jerk any time you want. The rest of us are stuck with the asshole for four more years!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 09:11 PM

Gol dangit, Amos... I don't care what she wears long as it ain't no crown... That's where I draw the line...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 07:07 PM

From The New Republic, excerpt (subscritpion):

CANNING GAY LINGUISTS.

Stonewalled
by Nathaniel Frank
        

When Ian Finkenbinder served an eight-month combat tour with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq in 2003, he was tasked with human intelligence-gathering, one of the most critical ingredients in the Army's effort to battle the deadly Iraqi insurgency. It is also essential to the U.S. goal of winning support from the Iraqi street. Finkenbinder's job as a cryptologic linguist was to translate radio transmissions, to interview Iraqi citizens who had information to volunteer, and to screen native speakers for possible employment in translation units.

Finkenbinder was a rare and coveted commodity. Having attended the Army's elite Defense Language Institute (DLI) at the Presidio of Monterey, he graduated in the fall of 2002 with proficiency in Arabic at a time when the United States was scrambling to remedy a dire shortage of linguists specializing in Arabic, Farsi, and other tongues critical to the war on terrorism.

So it's not surprising that, according to Finkenbinder, his company commander was "distraught" last month at the prospect of having to start discharge proceedings against him just before the 3rd Infantry, which spearheaded the Iraqi invasion with its "thunder run" to Baghdad, was scheduled to redeploy for a second tour. But he had no choice. The Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay troops makes no exceptions for linguists, and Finkenbinder had revealed he is gay.
        
advertisement

In November 2002, I reported in The New Republic that--despite the importance of trained Arabic speakers to waging the war against terrorism and the critical shortage of these skilled translators in the U.S. military and intelligence agencies--the military fired seven Arabic language specialists from DLI earlier that fall for being gay or lesbian ("Perverse," November 18, 2002). It also booted speakers of Farsi, Korean, and other languages critical to combating the emerging global threats facing the United States.

As Finkenbinder's story illustrates, the Pentagon continues to dismiss trained linguists--people whose skills are desperately needed in Iraq and elsewhere around the world--for being gay. In fact, newly obtained data from the Department of Defense reveals that these firings were far more widespread than previously known. Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi language speakers under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The new data are not broken down by year, but additional figures from other reports suggest that about half the Arabic discharges came after September 11. The data were obtained from the Pentagon following a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where I work, and the office of Massachusetts Democratic Representative Marty Meehan, a vocal critic of the ban on gays in the military, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee. (...)

---

I should think the very thought of canning linguists would make Bush blanche. AHJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 08:15 PM

WMD Hunt Ends; Bush's Spin Goes On

01/13/2005 @ 11:43am

David Corn, writing in The Nation



When White House spokesman Scott McClellan opened up his daily press briefing yesterday, he said, "This will be the only question of the briefing." He was joking. But it turned out that the first question--a response to the news the Iraq Survey Group had ended its hunt for weapons of mass destruction after finding absolutely nothing--was practically the only question of the day. Here's that first query:


The fact that the Iraq Survey Group has now folded up its field operations, can you explain to us if there is any sense of embarrassment or lack of comfort about the fact that after two years of looking, these people found nothing that the President and others assured us they would find?


McClellan did the usual. He did not answer the query.


McClellan: I think the President already talked about this last October in response to the comprehensive report that was released by Charles Duelfer [the Iraq Survey Group chief] at that point. Charles Duelfer came to the White House in December; the President took that opportunity to thank him for all the work that he had done. The two discussed how Saddam Hussein's regime retained the intent and capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, and they also discussed how he was systematically gaming the system to undermine the sanctions that were in place, so that once those sanctions were eliminated -- which was something he was trying to do through the U.N. oil-for-food program -- then he could begin his weapons programs once again. And I think the President talked about the other issues back in October. Nothing has changed from that time period.


And nothing has changed in terms of the White House's response to the absence of WMDs. Bush refuses to address the consequences of having misled the nation and the world. Before the war, he stated that there was "no doubt" that Iraq was loaded to the gills with WMDs. It was Saddam Hussein's possession of these deadly weapons, Bush argued, that rendered him a "direct" threat that had to be neutralized immediately. Bush and his aides repeatedly asserted there was no if about Iraq's WMDs. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported it had found no evidence of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq, yet Bush and Dick Cheney insisted Hussein had reconstituted such a program. The UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said he was concerned about the possibility that Iraq might have kept WMDs hidden from inspectors, but he also stated that discrepancies in Iraq's accounting of its previous WMD material did not mean that Iraq actually possessed such dangerous goods.


But the Bush gang said it knew better. Secretary of State Colin Powell made that now-infamous presentation to the UN; everything he declared as a fact turned out to be wrong. Bush left himself no wiggle room on the subject of Iraq and WMDs. He declared, "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more, and according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated, "There's no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons....We all know that. A trained ape knows that." (Paging that trained ape.) White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer said, "The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."


Really? Well, it was not true. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 10:44 PM

From the Borowitz Report:

   

Winner of the First-ever National Press Club Award for Humor January 12, 2005

Breaking News

BUSH ACCUSES SADDAM OF TELLING TRUTH

Evildoer Knowingly Came Clean on WMD's, President Charges


Just hours after confirming that the search for weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq was over, President George W. Bush leveled his
harshest charge ever at Saddam Hussein, accusing the former Iraqi
dictator of "knowingly telling the truth" about not possessing WMD
in the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"After years of lying about his weapons, Saddam Hussein willfully
decided to tell the truth about them," Mr. Bush said. "His
treachery knows no bounds."

After Mr. Bush excoriated Saddam for his "wanton truth-telling," he
added that "thanks to the work of our coalition, Mr. Saddam Hussein
will never be free to tell the truth again."

Mr. Bush argued that even though the stated reason for invading
Iraq no longer applied, preventing the former Iraqi strongman from
telling the truth in the future was "reason enough" to go to war.

"In the wrong hands, the truth can destabilize regions and even
destroy entire civilizations," Mr. Bush said. "In that respect, the
truth itself is a weapon of mass destruction - one that Mr. Saddam
Hussein will never be able to use again."

The president concluded his remarks with tough words for North
Korea's Kim Jong-Il, whom Mr. Bush accused of telling the truth
about his own weapons program.

Naming Mr. Kim a member of what he called "The Axis of Veracity,"
Mr. Bush urged the North Korean madman to cease and desist telling
the truth and to "join the community of truth-fearing nations."

Elsewhere, organizers of this weekend's tsunami telethon confirmed
that Fox's Bill O'Reilly would participate but would not be allowed
anywhere near the telephones.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 10:58 PM

LOL, Amos....

Maybe Bush will get caught telling the truth during the next 4 years?



























Nah

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 09:39 AM

NYT commentator Frank Rich excoriates the Bushies for corrupt practices and buying sleazy journalistic influence. An excerpt:


"But we now know that there have been at least three other cases in which federal agencies have succeeded in placing fake news reports on television during the Bush presidency. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Census Bureau and the Office of National Drug Control Policy have all sent out news "reports" in which, to take one example, fake newsmen purport to be "reporting" why the administration's Medicare prescription-drug policy is the best thing to come our way since the Salk vaccine. So far two Government Accountability Office investigations have found that these Orwellian stunts violated federal law that prohibits "covert propaganda" purchased with taxpayers' money. But the Williams case is the first one in which a well-known talking head has been recruited as the public face for the fake news instead of bogus correspondents (recruited from p.r. companies) with generic eyewitness-news team names like Karen Ryan and Mike Morris.

Or is Mr. Williams merely the first one of his ilk to be exposed? Every time this administration puts out fiction through the news media - the "Rambo" exploits of Jessica Lynch, the initial cover-up of Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire - it's assumed that a credulous and excessively deferential press was duped. But might there be more paid agents at loose in the media machine? In response to questions at the White House, Mr. McClellan has said that he is "not aware" of any other such case and that he hasn't "heard" whether the administration's senior staff knew of the Williams contract - nondenial denials with miles of wiggle room. Mr. Williams, meanwhile, has told both James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times and David Corn of The Nation that he has "no doubt" that there are "others" like him being paid for purveying administration propaganda and that "this happens all the time." So far he is refusing to name names - a vow of omertà all too reminiscent of that taken by the low-level operatives first apprehended in that "third-rate burglary" during the Nixon administration.

If CNN, just under new management, wants to make amends for the sins of "Crossfire," it might dispatch some real reporters to find out just which "others" Mr. Williams is talking about and to follow his money all the way back to its source"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 09:44 AM

On the stupidity of Bush's privatization campaign:

The British Evasion
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 14, 2005


We must end Social Security as we know it, the Bush administration says, to meet the fiscal burden of paying benefits to the baby boomers. But the most likely privatization scheme would actually increase the budget deficit until 2050. By then the youngest surviving baby boomer will be 86 years old.

Even then, would we have a sustainable retirement system? Not bloody likely.

Pardon my Britishism, but Britain's 20-year experience with privatization is a cautionary tale Americans should know about.

The U.S. news media have provided readers and viewers with little information about how privatization has worked in other countries. Now my colleagues have even fewer excuses: there's an illuminating article on the British experience in The American Prospect, www.prospect.org, by Norma Cohen, a senior corporate reporter at The Financial Times who covers pension issues.

Her verdict is summed up in her title: "A Bloody Mess." Strong words, but her conclusions match those expressed more discreetly in a recent report by Britain's Pensions Commission, which warns that at least 75 percent of those with private investment accounts will not have enough savings to provide "adequate pensions."

The details of British privatization differ from the likely Bush administration plan because the starting point was different. But there are basic similarities. Guaranteed benefits were cut; workers were expected to make up for these benefit cuts by earning high returns on their private accounts.

The selling of privatization also bore a striking resemblance to President Bush's crisis-mongering. Britain had a retirement system that was working quite well, but conservative politicians issued grim warnings about the distant future, insisting that privatization was the only answer.

The main difference from the current U.S. situation was that Britain was better prepared for the transition. Britain's system was backed by extensive assets, so the government didn't have to engage in a four-decade borrowing spree to finance the creation of private accounts. And the Thatcher government hadn't already driven the budget deep into deficit before privatization even began.

Even so, it all went wrong. "Britain's experiment with substituting private savings accounts for a portion of state benefits has been a failure," Ms. Cohen writes. "A shorthand explanation for what has gone wrong is that the costs and risks of running private investment accounts outweigh the value of the returns they are likely to earn."

From here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 03:36 PM

On the unintended consequences of words not meant:

WASHINGTON Jan 14, 2005 — President Bush says he now sees that tough talk can have an "unintended consequence."

During a round-table interview with reporters from 14 newspapers, the president, who not long ago declined to identify any mistakes he'd made during his first term, expressed misgivings for two of his most famous expressions: "Bring 'em on," in reference to Iraqis attacking U.S. troops, and his vow to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

"Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean," Bush said Thursday. "'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence. It kind of, some interpreted it to be defiance in the face of danger. That certainly wasn't the case."

On July 2, 2003, two months after he had declared an end to major combat in Iraq, Bush promised U.S. forces would stay until the creation of a free government there. To those who would attack U.S. forces in an attempt to deter that mission, Bush said, "My answer is, Bring 'em on."

In the week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush was asked if he wanted bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the attacks, dead.

"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

Recalling that remark, Bush told the reporters: "I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, 'Why did you do that for?' I said, 'Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it.'

"I don't know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say. … I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of the words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something."

During his second debate last year with presidential challenger Sen. John Kerry, Bush was asked to name three instances in which he had made a wrong decision. At the time he declined to identify any specific mistakes.

Reporters at Thursday's round-table also asked Bush about the high price tag for his second inaugural celebration and suggestions the $40 million gala, which is being paid for by private donations much of it coming from lobbyists and corporations be scaled down.

"The inauguration is a great festival of democracy," he said. "People are going to come from all over the country who are celebrating democracy and celebrating my victory, and I'm glad to celebrate with them."

---

Yep -- it helps to know that words have meanings. As for inaugaural balls being events of democracy...Doesn't that strike you as a bit twisted? And, last but not least...the lesson that words mean things is supposed to have been fully assimilated by the time you learn to use an opposable thumb, or perhaps a fork -- or at latest, by the time you learn to write an essay. Does anyone else think that learning "lessons of ordinary life" using $6 billion forces of war is a bit late and dangerous?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 04:12 PM

The Ghost of Machiavelli, The WMD Hunt Ends

Excerpted from the OpEd News

By Anthony Wade

 

January 14, 2005

 
Did you see it happen yesterday? Did you catch the news? It was probably buried as the fourth item, or maybe on page 17 of your local paper. The search is over. After two years and thousands of dead bodies, the search is over. What did we find? Nothing. Yesterday, the White House confirmed that the search for weapons of mass destruction was officially over, without finding as much as a used slingshot.

You remember weapons of mass destruction, don't you? It was what we were sold this loser war with. It was rammed down the throat of America, with the image of 911 still burned in our minds. It was the fear card, and it was played quite masterfully. You see, George Bush intended to invade Iraq from the moment he walked in the White House. White House insider Paul O'Neill confirmed this. 911 only provided a convenient backdrop.

But Bush had a problem. Saddam had technically not done anything to deserve invading. He was finally cooperating with inspectors and he certainly had no involvement with 911. The only link to terrorism he had was with Israel, not the US. Bush had to make his case before Congress, to our elected officials, to us. He had to provide a good enough reason to justify the war plans he had from day one. The Bushies tossed around some ideas and came up with one they felt they could sell the best to the American people, fear. Let's take a stroll down memory lane, because we should never forget WHY our kids are dying. It is not freedom, it is not democracy, it is to protect us from a threat that never existed. They are dying because of weapons of mass destruction, that simply did not exist.

---

The following are Bush quotes, for why we needed to go to war with Iraq:


"The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons…And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes." [Source: White House Web site]

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." [Source: White House Web site]

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program…Iraq could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." [Source: White House Web site]

"Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." [Source: White House Web site]

"If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait?" [Source: White House Web site]

"There was a risk – a real risk – that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons, or materials, or information to terrorist networks." [Source: White House Web site]

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." [Source: White House Web site]

"Here's what -- we've discovered a weapons system, biological labs, that Iraq denied she had, and labs that were prohibited under the U.N. resolutions." [Source: White House Web site]

 "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." [Source: White House Web site]

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." [Source: White House Web site]

"From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors." [Source: White House Web site]

From our Vice-President:

"[Saddam] is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." [Source: CNN Web site]

"We believe Saddam has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." [Source: Meet the Press transcript]

"[T]he reporting that we had prior to the war this time around was all consistent with that -- basically said that he had a chemical, biological and nuclear program, and estimated that if he could acquire fissile material, he could have a nuclear weapon within a year or two." [Source: Waxman Database]

 "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." [White House Web site]

---

What do all of these statements have in common? They were lies. These are just examples, there are hundreds more. There is also Colin Powell's lie-infested presentation to the United Nations, which will unfortunately tarnish what was a respectable career. Do you remember back then? Do you remember Condi Rice scaring us with visions of mushroom clouds? Do you remember then, when Bush came to us and explained that we were going to war, to ensure our safety. That safety was never in question, it turns out.

Years later we look back on this as an afterthought. I have listened to the folks on the right who make the argument that Saddam was a bad guy, so who cares if there are no WMD? I assume the mother who has to bury her child for a lie cares that there are no WMD. Here is the point that keeps escaping the war mongers. Without the WMD argument, there is no war. It would never have been approved. That is precisely why the President must make his case before Congress.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 06:39 PM

A Gift for Drug Makers
By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 14, 2005


Vioxx, Celebrex, Prozac. ...

With all the problems and the bad publicity that drug companies have been facing recently, you might think that this would not be a good time for the Bush administration to toss yet another bonanza their way.

But the administration is like an ardent lover in its zeal to shower the rich and powerful with every imaginable benefit. So tucked like a gleaming diamond in proposed legislation to curb malpractice lawsuits is a provision that would give an unconscionable degree of protection to firms responsible for drugs or medical devices that turn out to be harmful.

The provision would go beyond caps on certain damages. It would actually prohibit punitive damages in cases in which the drug or medical device had received Food and Drug Administration approval. We know the F.D.A. has failed time and again to ensure that unsafe drugs are kept off the market. To provide blanket legal protection against punitive damages in such cases is both unwarranted and dangerous.

We learned just last month that Celebrex, the phenomenally popular painkiller from Pfizer, more than tripled the risk of heart attacks, strokes and death among those taking high doses in a national trial. Those findings, as noted in an article in The Times, "raised new questions about how well federal drug regulators protect the public and worsened drug makers' already dismal image."

Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who held hearings on recent F.D.A. actions, said, "At this point, no one can say with confidence whether the worst drug safety problems are behind us or ahead of us."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 06:55 PM

Excerpts from today's Washington Post:

There's been remarkably little follow-up to Bush's comment in that interview that he doesn't "see how you can be president without a relationship with the Lord."

Some British papers took note of it. Francis Harris wrote in the Telegraph: "President George W Bush yesterday placed religion at the very centre of American politics by insisting that all US presidents needed a relationship with God to do their job."

And blogger Andrew Sullivan has written several posts on the topic.

In my Live Online discussion yesterday, one reader wrote: "I'd like to believe that Pres. Bush, as someone who relies heavily on his faith, is simply saying that he can't understand how someone could bear the responsibility of the presidency without help from God, because he couldn't."

But another reader, Regis Sabol, e-mailed me to complain that Bush's comments "further demonstrate his commitment to converting America into a theocracy. It takes a wrecking ball to the hallowed concept of separation of church and state.

"More disturbingly, Bush's claim rests on the premise that only a Christian is sufficiently moral and patriotic to be president."

And reader Kim Jonas writes: "Relationship with the Lord? I'd like to see our President have a relationship with the *facts*. And I'm a born-again Christian."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 07:01 PM

More ineptitude, this time in the FBI's systems development efforts:

The F.B.I.'s Virtual Nonstarter

Published: January 14, 2005



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Frank Rich: All the President's Newsmen

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ne of the most alarming vulnerabilities to emerge after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been the Federal Bureau of Investigation's continuing inability to come up with a computer system that enables field agents to act quickly in sharing information and suspicions about where the next threats may emerge. In Senate hearings soon after the attacks, the bureau admitted that its 1980's computer technology could not search its files for cross-references to two words, like "flight" and "schools" - a lethal shortcoming in light of where some of the terrorists prepared for their suicide mission. But a more effective system was in the works, the bureau promised lawmakers. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the effort, expecting the F.B.I. to meet its goal of having the antiterrorist centerpiece - the Virtual Case File - finally up and running by December 2003, a date already a year behind the original goal.

Well, not only has Virtual Case File slipped another year behind, but it also appears close to a virtual death.

Buyer's remorse is widely reported at the bureau, with some specialists estimating that the Virtual Case File's software effort, running at $170 million and counting, may have to be scrapped in favor of fresh starts in research and design by outside contractors. A prototype is undergoing a limited field test, but apparently only with the goal of measuring how short of the mark the F.B.I. has fallen. For four years, the bureau has been enmeshed in a $580 million project called Trilogy, which is aimed at modernizing all its computer systems for its 28,000 officers and other workers. But the crucial investigative piece to speed ground-level information-sharing remains as elusive as it is urgently needed.

There are suggested root causes, based on whether the F.B.I. was starved for funds in the past, technophobic in its shoe-leather police culture or hobbled by a merry-go-round of five technology chiefs in two years. But they do not really matter in the face of the increasing wiliness of terrorists. While the bureau ponders the ESC button, the new Congress should grill the F.B.I.'s hierarchy about the mysteries and disappointments of Virtual Case File and when the nation can expect something real.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,AJ
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 09:42 AM

From the Washington Post for 1-15-05:

High School Reform

Saturday, January 15, 2005; Page A22

IT WAS SOMEWHAT disconcerting to hear President Bush propose, as he did on Wednesday, to extend to high schools the No Child Left Behind Act's testing and accountability requirements for elementary and middle schools. True, there's plenty wrong with the nation's high schools. According to Achieve Inc., an organization that has looked closely at achievement standards in high schools, more than half of high school graduates need remedial help in college; most employers say high school graduates lack basic skills; and most high school exit exams don't measure those skills anyway. Far too few high school students take the algebra, geometry and English courses they need to get by in adulthood. More accountability and higher standards clearly are in order.

What was disconcerting was the impression a listener might have gotten that the nation can move on to high schools because the first stage of No Child Left Behind reforms is more or less complete. Mr. Bush was, as always, anxious to declare victory in a few selected instances: for example, quoting statistics showing school improvement in Virginia. But Virginia created an accountability system long before the federal one was even contemplated. And Virginia's test-score gains have very little to do with the federal reforms, which themselves have not yet proved universally successful.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 09:48 AM

The Specter at Thursday's Party

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, January 15, 2005; Page A23

Come next Thursday Republicans will dance the night away, as is their due. To the victor goes the right to boogie, and George W. Bush and company earned their evening of fun and frolic at the polls in November. That said, there is a case to be made for a show of restraint and humility during the nation's 55th presidential inauguration. After all, when it comes to the war in Iraq, it's not as if accountability got a fair shake on Election Day.

That Bush won reelection is not at issue. He ran a tough campaign, used the powers of the incumbency to his full advantage and campaigned on issues that appealed to a majority of voters. He bested a Democratic team that had loads of money, an energized party and an experienced campaign organization. Victory belongs to him. He's got a right to strut. But this is not to say the Bush administration should get a pass on the wisdom of launching the Iraq war. It still has something to answer for.

All over America, men, women and juveniles are hauled before the bar of justice to account for things that they may have done wrong. The system isn't perfect. But it's one way of holding people accountable for their behavior. That notion even applies to corporate America, where government and shareholder pressures are causing top executives and boards of directors to answer for their bad business decisions. And every day workers are handed pink slips for failing at their jobs.

Not so, however, in federal Washington, where the calamitous decision to invade Iraq was made. The toll from that costly mistake is still rising. More than 1,300 Americans dead, 10,000 wounded in action, nearly 200,000 National Guard and reservists mobilized, untold numbers of innocent Iraqi civilians killed. A foreign country, now crushed, is at war with itself, with killing and wounding daily fare. Billions of dollars are being spent for war, with more American blood and money expected to be spent in the days ahead. All because of a decision made in the White House to disarm Saddam Hussein, who, we and the rest of the world repeatedly were told, had biological and chemical weapons, was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and had ties to al Qaeda forces that were hungering for weapons of mass destruction to launch against us.

That view of a threatening Iraq was the primary basis for our invasion two years ago. That threat assessment, it now turns out, was wrong. Disastrously wrong. Heartbreakingly wrong.

And still the makers of America's worst foreign policy decision since Vietnam are going to kick up their heels next week at inaugural festivities expected to run up a $40 million tab. Somehow that just doesn't seem right.

But in the nation's capital, right has nothing to do with anything as long as you come out on top.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday is honored on Monday, preached that some things are right and some things are wrong, eternally and absolutely so, no matter if everybody's doing the contrary. How that thought applies to the architects of the Iraq war depends, I suppose, upon where you come out on the decision to invade. But if the biblical injunction "you shall reap what you sow" is right, then the festive occasion to be enjoyed on Thursday may not be the Bush administration's ultimate harvest.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 10:25 AM

There was a time in our lifetimes when Presidents spoke well, thought clearly and reflected their thoughts with the fine art of good rhetoric; when their insights were understandable and consistent with their best decisions and actions.

Such a time was the inauguration of John Kennedy in 1960.

As stirring as the event was, the language of the day was even more so for its clarity, its resonance, and its wealth of virtue.

In Ask How, Thurston Clarke reconstructs that day when we were blessed with a less pretentious inauguration, a more healing administration, and a better President.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 01:51 PM

In a moment of sheer and typical idiocy, Mister Bush dramatizes the pinnacle of circular logic:

Bush Says Election Ratified Iraq Policy
No U.S. Troop Withdrawal Date Is Set

By Jim VandeHei and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page A01

President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

---

Let's see -- everyone got their pants scared off by 9-11, and Bush and his crew of thugs inflated that fear as much as they could and kept pounding about how dangerous it all was. Then they used this and a bunch of absolute falsehoods to justify the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the whole thing, and drove the whole country deep into a war as ill-conceived and ill-managed as Vietnam at its worst. Then, for the sake of re-election, they slam home how terrifying this war is and how the people who we are shooting are actually terrorists. He gets one of the smallest majorities for a second-term election in all history and then claims not only that he has a "mandate", but now claims further that this means retroactive approval from the voters about his having started the war in the first place?

This is the logical capability of our nation's leader?

Do you see anything wrong with his presentation of an altered sequence?

This is not logic, and it is not truth. It is twisting -- self-serving, self-aggrandizing, manipulation alteration intended only to further one's own causes and purposes, no matter how measly they are.

Ptui.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 03:19 PM

Holy Stalinism, Batman!!!!

Opposing Bush - A Form of Mental Illness?
 
By Kurt Nimmo
1-7-5
 
It's not the stolen election or the war crimes committed in my name. It's not the fact Bush is a liar and a criminal. It's not the Strausscons in the White House and the Pentagon, plotting multiple wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. It's not Congress, sold out to neolibs, multinational corporations, and Wall Street loan sharks.
 
It's me.
 
I'm suffering from "political paranoia" and need Paxil, a prescription drug for the treatment of anxiety and depression. It's not the 100,000 dead killed by my government in Iraq. It's not torture or loose talk of nuking enemies. It is a serotonin imbalance in my brain. I suffer from any number of possible maladies­depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (thus writing this blog every day), and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. I suffer from mental illness and need help.
 
Congress may come to the rescue­and soon.
 
"When the 109th Congress convenes in Washington in January, Senator Bill Frist, the first practicing physician elected to the Senate since 1928, plans to file a bill that would define 'political paranoia' as a mental disorder, paving the way for individuals who suffer from paranoid delusions regarding voter fraud, political persecution and FBI surveillance to receive Medicare reimbursement for any psychiatric treatment they receive," writes Hermione Slatkin, Medical Correspondent for the Swift Report. "Rick Smith, a spokesman for Senator Frist, says that the measure has a good chance of passing­something that can only help a portion of the population that is suffering significant distress."
 

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 06:55 PM

The media machinery has been taken over by the Neo-Con fascists. This means that U.S. mainstream media is not to be trusted. If you want any objective reporting, don't look to the U.S. mainstream media. Bush has somehow captured the media like a South American dictator. Bush has managed to create a one Party system very much like any totalitarian regime.
Dissent is attacked by those in power. Dialogue is dead. Read David Brock's books. "Blinded By The Right" is a good start.

The Republican wing of the Democratic Party has made an alternative voice useless. The issues will not be discussed on the major news networks. They have been made irrelevant by a powerful right-wing lobby involving many influential hated talk show hosts. The questions posed on such programs as "Meet The Press" and others are reflective of a stacked deck.

The American people finally have elected a dictator (if he was actually elected and was not a product of fraud).

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 08:10 PM

http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

ANALYSIS:
The Madness of George W. Bush: A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis

Bush's sickness is our own.
by Paul Levy



Bush has a psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It's an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity.
George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It's an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it's an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose.

Bush's malady is quite different from schizophrenia, for example, in which all the different parts of the personality are fragmented and not connected to each other, resulting in a state of internal chaos. As compared to the disorder of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound quite coherent and can appear like such a "regular," normal guy, which makes the syndrome he is suffering from very hard to recognize. This is because the healthy parts of his personality have been co-opted by the pathological aspect, which drafts them into its service. Because of the way the personality self-organizes an outer display of coherence around a pathogenic core, I would like to name Bush's illness 'malignant egophrenic (as compared to schizophrenic) disease,' or 'ME disorder,' for short. If ME disorder goes unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very destructive, particularly if the person is in a position of power.

In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation.We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, the voters that support them, and ourselves as well, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a "field." Instead of relating to any part of this field as an isolated entity, it's important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the 'medium' though which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be contemplated as such. Bush's sickness is our own.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 09:42 PM

From the Toronto Star of 1-15-2005:

Jan. 15, 2005. 08:48 AM
U.S. troops damaged ancient Babylon's remains: report
Archaeological fragments used to fill sandbags, British Museum says

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON — U.S.-led troops using the ancient Iraqi city of Babylon as a base have caused widespread damage and contamination, according to a report by the British Museum.

The report, quoted by the Guardian newspaper toay, said military vehicles had crushed a 2,600-year-old brick pavement and that there were archaeological fragments scattered across the site, including broken bricks stamped by King Nebuchadnezzar.

The dragons at the Ishtar Gate were marred by cracks and gaps where someone tried to remove their decorative bricks, the paper said.

Museum officials were not immediately available for comment today.

John Curtis, keeper of the British Museum's Near East department, who was invited by the Iraqis to study the site, also found that large quantities of sand mixed with archaeological fragments have been taken from the site to fill military sandbags and metal mesh baskets, the newspaper said.

"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," Curtis said in the report.

The remains of Babylon, one of the world's most important archaeological sites, have been occupied since the early days of the invasion by U.S. Marines and, more recently, by soldiers from Poland and other countries. Babylon is 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 03:39 AM

Kennedy says Iraq is 'Bush's Vietnam'


By Michael Kranish, Boston Globe Staff  |  January 17, 2005



WASHINGTON -- Senator Edward M. Kennedy said yesterday that President Bush's Iraq policy is ''ridiculous" and disputed Bush's statement that the 2004 reelection validated the war. Iraq is ''Bush's Vietnam," Kennedy said.

Bush, in an interview with The Washington Post published yesterday, said, ''The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."


Kennedy, asked about Bush's comment on CBS's ''Face The Nation," noted that then-President Lyndon Johnson was easily reelected during the Vietnam War but did not seek reelection in 1968. ''Look what happened," Kennedy said. ''Lyndon Johnson had to basically abdicate the presidency because of Vietnam. . . . This is clearly George Bush's Vietnam."


Bush, in the interview with the Post, said he wanted to withdraw troops ''as quickly as possible," but he did not express agreement with a statement by departing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that troops could begin coming home later this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 07:51 PM

A NYTimes contributor scrutinizes the Enron settlement and finds it disgraceful:

What's $13 Million Among Friends?
By LUCIAN BEBCHUK

Published: January 17, 2005

        
        

Cambridge, Mass. — TEN former directors of Enron have agreed to pay $13 million from their own pockets to settle a class action suit stemming from Enron's collapse in 2001, which wiped out some $60 billion in shareholder value. Because directors almost never have to pay even a penny in such suits, the Enron settlement - announced just days after several former WorldCom directors agreed to a similar deal - was widely viewed as a significant development that could discourage potential directors from serving on corporate boards.

This view is mistaken. A close look at the settlement shows that Enron's directors have still not been held accountable in any meaningful way.

Of the 18 former directors who were defendants in the Enron case, only 10 have to pay under the settlement. More important, according to the complaint against them, these 10 sold Enron shares worth more than $250 million during the period in which Enron was misreporting its financial affairs. According to the lawyer for the lead plaintiffs, the settlement requires each of these 10 to pay an amount equal to 10 percent of his or her pretax profits. They will be able to keep the other 90 percent - which amounts to $117 million - while investors who held their Enron stock lost their shirts.

The other eight Enron directors will not pay a penny but nonetheless have all claims against them settled. These directors did not sell shares before their value evaporated, which is presumably why they are not contributing. But they played important roles in the board's oversight failure. They include three of the six members of Enron's audit committee as well as six of the eight members of the finance committee, which reviewed many transactions that Enron used to deceive investors. Despite their role in the oversight failure, these eight directors emerge from Enron's ruins without having to pay a cent.

In a 2002 report, a Senate subcommittee concluded that by failing to protect shareholders' interests and ignoring questionable business practices, the Enron board "contributed to the company's collapse and bears a share of the responsibility for it." With the cases against them settled without any admission of wrongdoing, determining the directors' precise share of responsibility will be left to the judgment of history. But one thing will be clear: their share of the cost will be trivial. (Balance of article here...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 11:50 PM

From CNN 1-17-2005:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has been criticized for claiming that his re-election in 2004 was a ratification of his policy on Iraq.

In an interview with the Washington Post on Sunday, Bush was asked why no one in his administration had been held accountable for perceived missteps on Iraq policy, including being wrong about weapons of mass destruction.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election," he was reported as saying.

"The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates and chose me, for which I'm grateful."

Some Democrats have flatly dismissed that claim.

"The policy is ridiculous," Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts said.

One of Kennedy's concerns was Bush's decision to launch an invasion of Iraq while Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, remained free.

"It (was) a mistake when we went into this, into Iraq, instead of following Osama bin Laden. They didn't have the number of troops that were necessary. They disbanded the Iraqi army."

Asked in the Post interview why he thought bin Laden had not been found, Bush replied, "Because he's hiding.

Subject: The Sanity of Bush's War Explained By A Participan
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 11:53 PM

This story deserves careful reflection. It is from CNN on 1-17-2005:


HINESVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- A young girl clutching her arm blackened by burns, dogs feeding off bodies in mass graves -- the images still haunt Sgt. Kevin Benderman 15 months after he came home from Iraq.

Witnessing the brutal reality of war, Benderman stunned his commanders when he sought a discharge as a conscientious objector after 10 years in the Army.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the sergeant said he never grasped the misery that war inflicts on civilians as well as combatants until he saw it all firsthand.

"Some people may be born a conscientious objector, but sometimes people realize through certain events in their lives that the path they're on is the wrong one," Benderman said. "The idea was: Do I really want to stay in an organization where the sole purpose is to kill?"

Benderman's decision -- choosing conscience over his commitment to fellow troops -- has meant bearing the insults.

An officer called him a coward. His battalion chaplain shamed him in an e-mail from Kuwait. That's because Benderman, whose unit just deployed for a second combat tour in Iraq, refused to return to war.

Benderman, 40, filed notice in December, and his timing could hardly have been worse for the Army. The Fort Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division began deploying its 19,000 soldiers this month.

Benderman's unit, the 3rd Forward Support Battalion, was leaving for Kuwait on January 5. When commanders ordered him to deploy while they processed his objector application, he refused to show up for his flight.

He said he has his reasons, reflecting on time in Iraq.

Benderman told of bombed out homes and displaced Iraqis living in mud huts and drinking from mud puddles; mass graves in Khanaqin near the Iranian border where dogs fed off bodies of men, women and children.

He recalled his convoy passing a girl, no older than 10, on the roadside clutching a badly injured arm. Benderman said his executive officer refused to help because troops had limited medical supplies.

"Her arm was burned, third-degree burns, just black. And she was standing there with her mother begging for help," Benderman said. "That was an eye opener to seeing how insane it really is."

Now Benderman, a mechanic who has been reassigned to a non-deploying rear detachment unit, could face a court-martial.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:56 AM

'Asked why Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, has not been caught, Bush said simply: "Because he's hiding." ' (Washington Post)

Dang. If we'd of known the son of a bitch was going to hide we could of saved our trouble. Once they get to hiding there's not a damn thing you can do. Can't smoke 'em out of their hole if they won't tell you where the hell their hole is.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 11:51 AM

From Reuters UK:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is drawing heat over a $40 million (21.5 million pound) splurge on inaugural balls, concerts and candlelight dinners while the country is in a sombre mood because of the Iraq war and Asian tsunami.

As Bush prepares for his second-term inauguration on Thursday, his supporters plan to celebrate with fireworks and three days of parties, including a "Black Tie and Boots" ball and nine other balls.

Critics say the lavish celebrations are unseemly when U.S. troops face daily violence in Iraq and Americans are being urged to donate money to alleviate the suffering in Asia, where the December 26 tsunami killed 163,000 people.

"I just think that the sobriety of the times dictate that we be mindful of the imagery of these things," said Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York. In a letter, Weiner urged Bush to ask donors to redirect their inaugural contributions to equipment for troops in Iraq, some of whom have complained of having to scrounge for scrap metal to protect their vehicles.

"Precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be muted -- if not cancelled -- in wartime," Weiner wrote to Bush, saying that the money could pay for 690 Humvees and a $290 bonus for each soldier serving in Iraq.

Weiner cited the example of President Franklin Roosevelt, who celebrated his trimmed-down 1945 inaugural with cold chicken salad and pound cake.

Bush said he rejected such criticism.

"It's important that we celebrate a peaceful transfer of power .... You can be equally concerned about our troops in Iraq and those who suffered at the tsunamis (and) with celebrating democracy," Bush said in a CBS News interview released on Monday.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:09 PM

The Bangor, Maine, News does not think the Graner trial has gone far enough:

Tuesday, January 18, 2005 - Bangor Daily News

R egardless of whether Spc. Charles Graner's 10-year sentence was too harsh or too light - many Iraqis apparently think he should be executed in front of his victims - his trial should be the first of many involving military personnel who took part in or condoned the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Spc. Graner was not a scapegoat.

He abused detainees and directed others to do so. But he and his low-level colleagues who face judicial hearings are not the only ones who should

be punished. In the words of Mr. Graner's lawyer, Guy Womack, "they are going after the order-takers" not "the order-givers."

Pentagon reviews have implicated high-ranking military officials in the abuse scandal. None of them has faced disciplinary action. Instead, Spc. Graner and six of his colleagues from the 372nd Military Policy Co., based in Maryland, were court-martialed. Three pleaded guilty and testified against him and three are awaiting trial. A jury of combat veterans found Charles Graner guilty of abusing prisoners. He was sentenced Saturday to 10 years in prison.

Two reports done this summer blame the leadership failures for the situation at Abu Ghraib, a prison outside Baghdad. One report, done by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, blamed Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, for failing to adequately supervise interrogation techniques. The report also criticized chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for inadequate supervision and for failing to acknowledge and correct the situation sooner. The report did not say these officials should be reprimanded or disciplined.

The Schlesinger report did recommend discipline against five officers. Two of them, Col. Thomas Pappas, the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the prison, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the head of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center

at Abu Ghraib, were implicated by

witnesses during Spc. Graner's trial. The witnesses said the men had either known about or encouraged some of the tactics captured in photographs that shocked the world.

Pentagon reviews are ongoing and

a spokesman said that as wrongdoers are identified, they will be "dealt with appropriately."

While, Mr. Graner should not be executed, Pentagon officials and members of Congress should be mindful of the message the United States has sent to the Middle East. Allowing the abuse to take place, belatedly acknowledging it and downplaying its severity has only fueled animosity toward America, perhaps spawning new terrorists.

That is a good reason to discipline the order-givers.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:12 PM

From the fine folks at ImpeachBush.Org:

The Bush/Cheney Presidential Inaugural Committee is spending $50 million to lavish the President and his "donor base" with gala parties in the next few days. The coronation was supposed to proceed on January 20th with Pennsylvania Avenue scrubbed clean of embarrassing signs calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush. It has all been organized like a Hollywood set piece to shower "legitimacy" on a criminal administration.

Thanks to the incredible support of everyone in this movement, however, Bush (and the world media tracking his every inaugural movement on January 20) will be unable to miss the thousands of people at antiwar bleachers and along the parade route.

Because of the help provided by members of the impeachment movement, the beautiful (and large) black and yellow banners and signs reading "Guilty of War Crimes -- ImpeachBush.org" will be all over Pennsylvania Avenue.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:25 PM

The Washington Post reports on the persistency of political division in the nation:

Political Divisions Persist After Election --

President Bush will begin his second term in office without a clear
mandate to lead the nation, with disapproval of his policies in Iraq and with the public both hopeful and dubious about his leadership, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
(By Richard Morin and Dan Balz, The Washington Post)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 06:19 PM

(From Senator Kerry, whom you may remember as the Democratic candidate for President:

"I have just come back from Iraq. After several months consumed by the campaign trail, I wanted to make contact with our soldiers on the ground there. The first thing I want you to know is that, in very difficult circumstances, our brave soldiers are serving America with enormous skill and great courage.

In the Senate, we have a duty during times like these to hold our Defense Department accountable for the well-being of our troops. It's one of the ways that our democracy makes our military the strongest in the world. And I can't tell you how comforting it is as a soldier to know even if you don't have a say over your own situation, the folks back home do.

I knew our soldiers were still facing hold ups getting the equipment they need, but I wanted to see it for myself. American troops deserve the best gear and equipment we can provide. But adequate vehicle armor remains in short supply.

A soldier who spoke up about these problems was told by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, "you have to go to war with the army you have, not the army you want."1 Well, it's been over two years since Rumsfeld planned this war. And whether he has the army he wants or not, he should at least have basic armor for army vehicles.

I'll say this in the Senate, but I'm asking you to add your voice to mine:

"President Bush, for the sake of our troops, replace Rumsfeld now."

http://www.johnkerry.com/replacerumsfeld

More than 500,000 called for Rumsfeld to resign during the presidential campaign. I'm renewing my call now -- please renew yours too, and forward this email to friends to bring them on board. Add your name to mine here, and add your voice to mine by speaking out in your community as I will do in the US Senate for as long as it takes to remove Secretary Rumsfeld from his post:

http://www.johnkerry.com/replacerumsfeld

It's a question of competence. Poor planning at the Pentagon is letting American soldiers down. According to the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, Iraq is now providing the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, [and] the opportunity for enhancing technical skills."2 Our troops need a capable Secretary of Defense. At the very least, they absolutely need that.

I believe that together, the three million of us who worked together on the campaign can help the troops. We not only have a right to speak out against failed Bush policies: we have a duty to defend this country from a President who refuses to recognize the total inadequacy of his own Defense Secretary. That's how democracy works. And that's why America has worked all these years.

The campaign season is over, but our citizenship continues. I know from personal experience that citizens and Senators standing up for the truth can be a powerful combination. Now, with email and the Web as citizenship tools, we can make ourselves heard even more clearly. And I can't tell you how inspired I am that you and I are using these tools to fight side-by-side for the things we believe in.

One more time: please join me in my call for President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld. He's the man responsible for the well-being of our troops. He's neglected his duty. He's made excuses. It's time for him to go.

Add your voice to mine in the Senate in calling for President Bush to replace Rumsfeld today.


http://www.johnkerry.com/replacerumsfeld

Thank you,

John Kerry"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 12:02 AM

A Diplomatic Hearing for Ms. Rice

Published: January 19, 2005

Anyone who watched the delicate rinse cycle applied to Condoleezza Rice by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, despite a jab here and there, could be forgiven for thinking that the future secretary of state was a newcomer to the Bush administration. With a few exceptions, the hearing was political theater. Ms. Rice acted as if things were going according to plan in Iraq and everywhere else, and the senators acted as if she was not part of the serial disasters of the administration's foreign policy.

The president is entitled to choose his cabinet, and there was never much chance of opposition to Ms. Rice, a trusted member of his inner circle. But confirmation hearings should critically examine the nominee. Another unfortunate choice for a top job, Alberto Gonzales, at least had to endure a few hours' grilling on the torture of prisoners on his way to becoming attorney general.

Yesterday, Democratic senators, and some Republicans, recited the flaws in Mr. Bush's foreign policies - most glaringly on Iraq - and then did little more than politely urge Ms. Rice to check into those things once she's confirmed.

Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, asked Ms. Rice how big an Iraqi security force had actually been trained. When Ms. Rice, the national security adviser, offered an absurdly inflated 120,000, Mr. Biden said the people doing the training put the total at 4,000. He then suggested that Ms. Rice "pick up the phone or go see these folks," as if that has not been her job all along, especially in the year since the administration said that all information on operations in Iraq would flow through her.

Ms. Rice has been an enthusiastic supporter of dismantling international treaties and organizations from the start of Mr. Bush's presidency. The bipartisan panel on the 9/11 attacks and other accounts chillingly exposed her early disregard for the threat of terrorism. And she was so much the public face of the drive to war with Iraq that her appearances on Sunday morning talk shows became a running joke.

That history was barely mentioned yesterday, except when Senator Barbara Boxer reminded Ms. Rice of her apocalyptic remarks about nonexistent Iraqi nuclear weapons and suggested that "your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 05:44 AM

The Barriers Between President and People

By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 19, 2005; Page C01

When President Bush retakes the oath tomorrow, he will be surrounded by a broad buffer zone of protection. You can already feel it in the wire mesh caging in Lafayette Park and the Jersey barriers and portable fencing along downtown avenues.

You may want to get close to the pageantry, to join in the exquisite ritual that defines our nation, but unless you are a close friend or follower of this president, chances are you will have to watch it from afar. He may seem looser, more relaxed this second time around, but no closer to us really.

The multimillion-dollar inauguration -- attended by thousands -- will have the illusion of being a public event, but because of the particular nature of the office and of the moment, the American people will be participating in an exhilarating democratic drama in which the leading character has grown more distant with each new administration. It has been happening for a while.

And now: Maybe it's the sense of uncertainty in the world around him; maybe it's the sense of certainty in the heart within him, but this president has become further and further separated from everyday American life.

On the one hand, this year you have a wartime president who, in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, requires more protection; on the other, a second-term president who believes that he has been commissioned to make tough, unpopular decisions.

The result is a perfect storm of remove.(...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 05:50 AM

Waht all this is about?
i dont understand this thrrad at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 06:16 AM

Read the whole thing, John; it will become clear.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 10:00 AM

The Times decries the falsification of Bush's "accountability moment" crap:

That Magic Moment
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 18, 2005

A charming man courts a woman, telling her that he's a wealthy independent businessman. Just after the wedding, however, she learns that he has been cooking the books, several employees have accused him of sexual harassment and his company is about to file for bankruptcy. She accuses him of deception. "The accountability moment is behind us," he replies.

Last week President Bush declared that the election was the "accountability moment" for the war in Iraq - the voters saw it his way, and that's that. But Mr. Bush didn't level with the voters during the campaign and doesn't deserve anyone's future trust.

I won't belabor the W.M.D. issue, except to point out that the Bush administration, without exactly lying, managed to keep most voters confused. According to a Pew poll, on the eve of the election the great majority of voters, of both parties, believed that the Bush administration had asserted that it found either W.M.D. or an active W.M.D. program in Iraq.

Mr. Bush also systematically misrepresented how the war was going. Remember last September when Ayad Allawi came to Washington? Mr. Allawi, acting as a de facto member of the Bush campaign - a former official close to the campaign suggested phrases and helped him rehearse his speech to Congress - declared that 14 or 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces were "completely safe," and that the interim government had 100,000 trained troops. None of it was true.

Now that the election is over, we learn that the search for W.M.D. has been abandoned. Meanwhile, military officials have admitted that even as Mr. Bush kept asserting that we were making "good progress," the insurgency was growing in numbers and effectiveness, that the Army Reserve is "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force," and oh, by the way, we'll need to spend at least another $100 billion to pay for war expenses and replace damaged equipment. But the accountability moment, says Mr. Bush, is behind us.

Maybe we can't hold Mr. Bush directly to account for misleading the public about Iraq. But Mr. Bush still has a domestic agenda, for which the lessons of Iraq are totally relevant.

White House officials themselves concede - or maybe boast - that their plan to sell Social Security privatization is modeled on their selling of the Iraq war. In fact, the parallels are remarkably exact.

Everyone has noticed the use, once again, of crisis-mongering. Three years ago, the supposed threat from Saddam somehow became more important than catching the people who actually attacked America on 9/11. Today, the mild, possibly nonexistent long-run financial problems of Social Security have somehow become more important than dealing with the huge deficit we already have, which has nothing to do with Social Security.

But there's another parallel, which I haven't seen pointed out: the politicization of the agencies and the intimidation of the analysts. Bush loyalists begin frothing at the mouth when anyone points out that the White House pressured intelligence analysts to overstate the threat from Iraq, while neocons in the Pentagon pressured the military to understate the costs and risks of war. But that is what happened, and it's happening again.

(More here)

---

Interesting -- the pattern is to make the false and exaggerated noise impenetrable until it is a fait accompli and then stonewall and bare your teeth at those who try to identify what really happened. Shameful to think that is a successful formula in our forward-looking and advanced democracy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 06:45 PM

This one takes the cake. Notice CNN's headline.

Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider

Most say inauguration festivities should be toned down

Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 4:19 PM EST (2119 GMT)


(CNN) -- On the eve of President Bush's inauguration, a poll shows the nation is split over whether he has united or divided the nation, but a majority believe his inauguration festivities should be toned down because of the war.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to be a "uniter, not a divider."

Forty-nine percent of 1,007 adult Americans said in phone interviews they believe Bush is a "uniter," according to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday. Another 49 percent called him a "divider," and 2 percent had no opinion.

The results nearly match those of a poll taken in October 2004, which showed 48 percent considered Bush a "uniter" and 48 percent called him a "divider," with 4 percent having no opinion. (Full story)

Bush's inauguration was viewed by 69 percent, more than two-thirds of respondents, as a celebration by the winning presidential candidate's supporters rather than a celebration of democracy by all Americans, as 29 percent saw it. Two percent had no opinion.

And 79 percent of poll respondents said they believe the inauguration ceremony will not do much to heal political divisions in the country. Eighteen percent said it would, and 3 percent had no opinion

---

So we are sharply divided on whether we are united or not?

Hmmmmmm. Way ta go, Little Bush!! That proves it, huh?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 07:34 PM

That's a doozy of a headline! One wonders if the person who wrote it did so with a wry grin or a vacant stare. . . ?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 08:04 PM

LOL! Love that headline...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 10:28 PM

As an additional feature to this small corner, I offer you occasional defintions from The Newspeak Dictionary, based on the work of George Orwell, and recognizable in the trials of modern America.

Crimestop- Orwell's definition: "The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short....protective stupidity."

---

This is the earmark of the Great New Republic; they have learned how the awful intellectualism of the snooty thinkers back in the 30's was so bad for the country, and they aren't going there again! If I had juts practiced a little bit more of this careful protective ignorance, I never would have gotten mad at W. A very important word.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 10:35 PM

Still checking in...

Go, Amos.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 11:17 PM

malreported - When the media reports a fact which the government later deemed untrue. You see, the government is never "wrong", the paper merely reported the facts incorrectly. This term was often used in describing newspaper articles that contained references to unpersons, unfulfilled economic projections, or altered government policies.

"Dan Rather malreported about the documents concerning the National Guard service of W."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 11:19 PM

Try this piece of newspeak on:

Groups Sue for Release of Administration Documents/Records on Censoring
Lincoln Memorial Video



Washington, DC — Arguing that the Bush Administration is illegally withholding documents on its plans to cut scenes of gay rights, pro-choice and anti-war demonstrations from an educational video shown at the Lincoln Memorial, People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a lawsuit in federal court today to force the National Park Service to release the documents.


The groups allege that the documents demonstrate that Park Service officials were planning to change the videotape to satisfy the objections of right-wing organizations, and the lawsuit follows PEER and PFAWF's unsuccessful attempts to obtain the documents under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.


In November 2003, under pressure from right-wing organizations, the Park Service announced that it would alter an eight-minute video containing photos and footage of demonstrations and other historic events that have taken place at the Lincoln Memorial. These far-right organizations reportedly complained that brief seconds of footage showing gay rights, pro-choice and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations implied that "Lincoln would have supported homosexual and abortion 'rights' as well as feminism." In response, the Park Service is reported to have promised to develop a "more balanced" version of the videotape that has been playing at the Lincoln Memorial since 1995.


Alerted to these plans by concerned Park Service employees, PEER and PFAWF requested correspondence and other documents on the subject from the Park Service under FOIA. On January 16, 2004, the Park Service released press reports and a copy of the then-current videotape, but denied the remainder of the groups' request, claiming that even correspondence from outside organizations and members of Congress were internal, pre-decisional records and thus exempt from public records requirements. PFAWF and PEER appealed that denial of documents to the U.S. Department of Interior, of which the Park Service is a component, on January 28, 2004. After nearly a year, Interior has not responded. The groups determined that filing a lawsuit was the only remaining course.


"One of the basic tenets of democracy is that decisions are made in an open and transparent manner. If the Bush Administration wants to rewrite history on the basis of ideology then it should stand up and say so," said PFAWF president Ralph G. Neas. "Stonewalling the public is not an option."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 11:28 PM

The Bush Administration's "Enabling Act"

January 24, 2005 Issue
 
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In early December, without a word of public notice, the Justice Department placed on its website a lengthy September 25, 2001 memorandum entitled "The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them." That document sets out, on behalf of the Bush administration, a plainly totalitarian view of presidential power.


"We conclude that the Constitution vests the President with the plenary authority, as Commander in Chief and the sole organ of the Nation in its foreign relations, to use military force abroad," asserts the memo, composed on behalf of the department by Deputy Assistant Attorney General John C. Yoo. That assertion contains at least two outright falsehoods. First, because of the checks and balances built into our federal system, no branch of the central government enjoys "plenary" authority. Second, since the Constitution specifically assigns to Congress (in Article I, Section 8) the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations," the president could not be considered, in any sense, "the sole organ of the Nation in its foreign relations."


Reviewing the specific text of the Constitution, the Yoo memo makes the interesting discovery that "these provisions vest full control of the military forces of the United States in the President." In fact, Congress, not the president, is authorized "To raise and support armies … To provide and maintain a navy … [and to] provide for calling forth the militia...." It is Congress, not the president, that is given the power "To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces...." Those elements of the militia that are "employed in the service of the United States" are to be trained "according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."


The Yoo memo's treatment of congressional power to declare war is similarly dishonest. "During the period leading up to the Constitution's ratification, the power to initiate hostilities and to control the escalation of conflict had long been understood to rest in the hands of the executive branch," claims the document. This is true only in the sense that the King of Great Britain — that government's chief executive — claimed and exercised that power.


As Alexander Hamilton pointed out in The Federalist, No. 69, "The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States." "In this respect," continued Hamilton, "his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it," since the British monarch's power included "the declaring of war and … the raising and regulating of fleets and armies — all which, by the Constitution … appertain to the legislature."


In defiance of the unambiguous text of the Constitution, the Yoo memo declares: "If the Framers had wanted to require congressional consent before the initiation of hostilities, they knew how to write such provisions." As noted above, the Framers of the Constitution did exactly that — and the most influential among them pointedly reiterated that principle on numerous occasions.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 03:09 AM

NYT reports:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 - While some Democrats are still struggling to find their voices after November's election losses, Senator Barbara Boxer of California is not among them.

Her full-throated and combative questioning of Condoleezza Rice during two days of hearings on her nomination to be secretary of state was a vivid illustration of the aggressive posture that Ms. Boxer, a 64-year-old liberal from Marin County, near San Francisco, brought back to Washington after rolling up a big margin of victory in her re-election to a third term.

Before casting one of two Democratic votes against Ms. Rice on the Foreign Relations Committee - the other was John Kerry's - Ms. Boxer explained bluntly why she had been so persistent in pressing the national security adviser on what Ms. Boxer portrayed as the administration's misleading and misguided rationale for the war in Iraq.

"The fact is we've lost so many lives over it," she said. "So if we do get a little testy on the point, and I admit to be so, it's because it continues day in and day out, and 25 percent of the dead are from California. We cannot forget. We cannot forget that."

Her jousting with Ms. Rice made her the most outspoken foe in the hearings. And it came after Ms. Boxer earlier this month joined a handful of House Democrats in forcing a debate on the legitimacy of the presidential electoral votes from Ohio; she was the only senator to vote to challenge Ohio's votes.

It is clear that she is interpreting her easy win in November, when she accumulated the third-largest number of votes in the nation, behind only the presidential contenders, as a mandate of her own. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 03:14 AM

Maureen Dowd unleashed:

Don't Know Much About Algebra
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 20, 2005
















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awrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has been pilloried for suggesting that women may be biologically unsuited to succeed at mathematics.

He may have a point.

Just look at Condoleezza Rice.

She's clearly a well-educated, intelligent woman, versed in Brahms and the Bolsheviks, who has just been rewarded for her loyalty with the most plum assignment in the second Bush cabinet.

Yet her math skills are woefully inadequate.

She can't do simple equations. She doesn't even know that X times zero equals zero. If you multiply 1,370 dead soldiers times zero weapons of mass destruction, that equals zero achievement for Ms. Rice, who helped the president and vice president bamboozle the country into war.

Was Condi out doing figure eights at the ice skating rink when she should have been home learning her figures? She couldn't have spent much time studying classic word problems: If two trains leave Chicago at noon, one going south at 20 miles an hour and one going north at 30 miles an hour, how far will each have gotten by midnight?

Otherwise, she might have realized that if two cars leave the Baghdad airport at noon on the main highway into the capital of Iraq, neither one is going to get there with any living passengers. Our 22 months at war have not added up to that one major highway's being secured.

It's lucky for Ms. Rice that she's serving with men who are just as lame at numbers as she is. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz couldn't be bothered to tally correctly the number of dead soldiers when he testified before Congress. And his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, didn't realize that using an autopen signature on more than 1,000 letters to the relatives of fallen troops added up to zero solace.

Our new top diplomat has obviously not mastered fractions. When she asserted during her confirmation hearing that 120,000 Iraqi troops had been trained, Senator Joe Biden corrected her, saying she was off by a bit. His calculation of trained Iraqi troops was actually 4,000 - hers was 30 times that. Maybe she's confusing hyperbole and hypotenuse.

Her geometry is skewed if she thinks she'll now be more powerful than Rummy and Dick Cheney. Doesn't she know that the Pentagon has more sides than her Crawford triangle with George and Laura?

She could at least have read "The Da Vinci Code." Then she would have learned about Fibonacci numbers, a recurring mathematical pattern in nature. When you invade a country, you should expect an insurgency. Or, as Fibonacci might have calculated it, if you kill one jihadist, two more arrive to take his place; if you kill three, five more pop up; if you get five, eight more appear, and so on.

The incoming secretary of state and her colleagues are, alas, also lousy at economics. After Bush officials promised that the postwar expenses would be covered by Iraqi oil revenues, we find ourselves spending $1 billion a week of our own money.

Ms. Rice and her fellow imperialists know so little about physics that they arrogantly jumped into "spooky action at a distance," turning the country they had hoped to make into a model democracy into a training ground for international terrorists, a nucleus for a new generation of radioactively dangerous fanatics.

How could they forget Newton's third law: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction?

The administration needs a lesson in subtraction. How do we subtract our troops and replace them with Iraqi troops while the terrorists keep subtracting Iraqi troops with car bombs and rocket-propelled grenades?

Condi may not know Einstein's theory of relativity, but she has a fine grasp of Cheney's theory of moral relativity. Because they're the good guys, they can do anything: dissembling to get into war; flattening Iraqi cities to save them; replacing the Geneva Conventions with unconventional ways of making prisoners talk. The only equation the Bushies know is this one: Might = Right.

It is puzzling that if you add X (no exit strategy) to Y (Why are we there?) you get W²: George Bush's second inauguration.

At Condi's hearing, she justified the Bush administration's misadventures by saying history would prove it right. "I know enough about history to stand back and to recognize that you judge decisions not at the moment, but in how it all adds up," she told a skeptical Senator Biden.

Problem is, she's calculating, but she can't add. For now, Sam Cooke is right about the Bushies. They don't know much about history.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 03:40 AM

From Senator Kerry:

Earlier today, I voted in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State. This vote is an expression of my determination that we hold the Bush administration accountable.

Dr. Rice is a principal architect, implementer, and defender of a series of Administration policies that have not made our country as secure as we should be and have alienated much-needed allies in our common cause of winning the war against terrorism. Regrettably, I did not see in Dr. Rice's testimony before our committee any acknowledgment of the need to change course or of a new vision for America's role in the world.

On Iraq, on North Korea, on Iran, to name just a few of the most critical challenges, it seems to be more of the same. I hope I am proven wrong. I hope the course will change. And I hope that the Administration will recognize the strength of a foreign policy that has bipartisan support.

I am prepared to work with Dr. Rice and others in the Administration to try to reach agreement on policies that will truly strengthen our security and restore America's credibility on the world stage. And I am confident colleagues on both sides of the aisle are prepared to do so as well.

But, we've got to remain firm in our insistence that those who create policies that don't work have the courage to admit their mistakes and the wisdom to change course. Our johnkerry.com community has been expressing that determination in huge numbers.

Over 700,000 people have called on President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

If you haven't signed the Rumsfeld petition, please do so immediately.

http://www.johnkerry.com/ReplaceRumsfeld

And, please forward the petition right now to friends and colleagues, urging them to join in this effort.

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 04:08 AM

Anyone else hoping a blizzard hits DC today?

Got any facts on just how much is being spent on that little shindig, Amos?

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 10:05 AM

Times editorialist Frank Rich does some careful thinking about how little coverage the media have given the torture of others by Americans in many locations, and why. A brief excerpt follows but the whole is a good read. It can be found here.

"Maybe we don't want to know that the abuses were widespread and systematic, stretching from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to unknown locales where "ghost detainees" are held. Or that they started a year before the incidents at Abu Ghraib. Or that they have been carried out by many branches of the war effort, not just Army grunts. Or that lawyers working for Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales gave these acts a legal rationale that is far more menacing to encounter in cold type than the photo of Prince Harry's costume-shop armband.

As Mr. Danner shows in his book, all this and more can be discerned from a close reading of the government's dense investigative reports and the documents that have been reluctantly released (or leaked). Read the record, and the Fort Hood charade is unmasked for what it was: the latest attempt to strictly quarantine the criminality to a few Abu Ghraib guards and, as Mr. Danner writes, to keep their actions "carefully insulated from any charge that they represent, or derived from, U.S. policy - a policy that permits torture."

The abuses may well be going on still. Even as the Graner trial unfolded, The New York Times reported that a secret August 2002 Justice Department memo authorized the use of some 20 specific interrogation practices, including "waterboarding," a form of simulated drowning that was a torture of choice for military regimes in Argentina and Uruguay in the 1970's. This revelation did not make it to network news.

"Nobody seems to be listening," Mr. Danner said last week, as he prepared to return to Iraq to continue reporting on the war for The New York Review. That so few want to listen may in part be a reflection of the country's growing disenchantment with the war as a whole. (In an inauguration-eve Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 44 percent said the war was worth fighting.) The practice of torture by Americans is not only ugly in itself. It conjures up the specter of defeat. We can't "win" the war in Iraq if we lose the battle for public opinion in the Middle East. At the gut level, Americans know that the revelations of Abu Ghraib coincided with - and very likely spurred - the ruthlessness of an insurgency that has since taken the lives of many brave United States troops who would never commit the lawless acts of a Charles Graner or seek some ruling out of Washington that might countenance them.

History tells us that in these cases a reckoning always arrives, and Mr. Danner imagines that "in five years, or maybe sooner, there will be a TV news special called 'Torture: How Did It Happen?' " Even though much of the script can be written now, we will all be sure to express great shock."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 10:09 AM

Thomas Friedman describes the European perspective of the inauguration:

An American in Paris
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: January 20, 2005

Watching George Bush's second inaugural from a bistro in Paris is like watching the Red Sox win the World Series from a sports bar in New York City. Odds are that someone around you is celebrating - I mean, someone, somewhere in Europe must be happy about this - but it's not obvious.

Why are Europeans so blue over George Bush's re-election? Because Europe is the world's biggest "blue state." This whole region is a rhapsody in blue. These days, even the small group of anti-anti-Americans in the European Union is uncomfortable being associated with Mr. Bush. There are Euro-conservatives, but, aside from, maybe, the ruling party in Italy, there is nothing here that quite corresponds to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-tax, anti-national-health-care, anti-Kyoto, openly religious, pro-Iraq-war Bush Republican Party.

If you took all three major parties in Britain - Labor, Liberals and Conservatives - "their views on God, guns, gays, the death penalty, national health care and the environment would all fit somewhere inside the Democratic Party," said James Rubin, the Clinton State Department spokesman, who works in London. "That's why I get along with all three parties here. They're all Democrats!"

While officially every European government is welcoming the inauguration of President Bush, the prevailing mood on the continent (if I may engage in a ridiculously sweeping generalization!) still seems to be one of shock and awe that Americans actually re-elected this man.

Before Mr. Bush's re-election, the prevailing attitude in Europe was definitely: "We're not anti-American. We're anti-Bush." But now that the American people have voted to re-elect Mr. Bush, Europe has a problem maintaining this distinction. The logic of the Europeans' position is that they should now be anti-American, not just anti-Bush, but most Europeans don't seem to want to go there. They know America is more complex. So there is a vague hope in the air that when Mr. Bush visits Europe next month, he'll come bearing an olive branch that will enable both sides to at least pretend to hold this loveless marriage together for the sake of the kids.

"Europeans were convinced that Kerry had won on election night and were telling themselves that they knew all along that Americans were not all that bad - and then suddenly, as the truth emerged, there was a feeling of slow resignation: 'Oh well, we've been dreaming,' " said Dominique Moisi, one of France's top foreign policy analysts. "In fact, real America is moving away from us. We don't share the same values. ... In France it was a very emotional issue. It was as if Americans were voting for the president of France as much as for president of the United States." ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 10:19 AM

From SFGate:

Boxer on the offensive

Thursday, January 20, 2005

SEN. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., asked the right questions in the confirmation hearing of Secretary of State-nominee Condoleezza Rice.

To be sure, Boxer did not score any points on style or diplomacy. The edge in her voice was a bit jarring to those who are accustomed to the more genteel rythyms of the U.S. Senate. Her relentlessness was off-putting to those who are more comfortable with collegiality at any cost. Boxer is drawing criticism for her alleged abrasiveness.

But they were the right questions at the right time at the right place.

As national security adviser, Rice should be forced to answer questions about the misinformation used to justify the invasion of Iraq -- and the administration's serious misjudgments about the complexity of the occupation. Boxer did not flinch in pointing out the inconsistencies and exaggerations in Rice's statements.

On Wednesday, Boxer accused Rice of an "unwillingness to give Americans the full story because selling the war was so important to Dr. Rice. That was her job."

There is no doubt that Rice will be confirmed, given the presumption of deference to the president on Cabinet selections. But that does not immunize appointees from accountability for their past actions and statements.

Boxer did her job.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 02:08 PM

Barbara Boxer would like to hold Condi Rice responsible for her statements and her actions. Help her out here

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 06:01 PM

Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER

Published: January 20, 2005

On the eve of President Bush's second inauguration, most Americans say they do not expect the economy to improve or American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House, and many have reservations about his signature plan to overhaul Social Security, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Seventy percent, however, said they thought Mr. Bush would succeed in changing the Social Security system. The poll found that 43 percent of respondents expect most forms of abortion to be illegal by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House, given Mr. Bush's expected appointments to the Supreme Court.

The Times/CBS News Poll offered the kind of conflicting portrait of the nation's view of Mr. Bush that was evident throughout last year's presidential campaign. Nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were generally optimistic on the eve of Mr. Bush's swearing-in about the next four years, but clear majorities disapproved of Mr. Bush's management of the economy and the war in Iraq.

Nearly two-thirds said a second Bush term would leave the country with a larger deficit, while 47 percent said that a second Bush term would divide Americans. A majority of those surveyed said that they did not expect any improvement in health care, education, or in reducing the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly by January 2009.

Just under 80 percent, including a majority of those who said they voted for Mr. Bush in November, said it would not be possible to overhaul Social Security, cut taxes, and finance the war in Iraq without increasing the budget deficit, despite Mr. Bush's promises to the contrary.

The findings, coming after a tensely competitive election, suggest that Mr. Bush does not have broad popular support as he embarks on what the White House has signaled would be an extraordinarily ambitious second term, which in many ways will commence with Mr. Bush's swearing-in and speech on Thursday. That could undermine his leverage in Congress, where even some Republicans have expressed concern about major aspects of Mr. Bush's Social Security plans.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 06:09 PM

In the interests of counterpoint, see this essay by Daniel Gilbert.. Excerpt:

Things do seem to turn out for the best - but studies suggest that this has less to do with the way things turn out than with our natural tendency to seek, notice, remember, generate and uncritically accept information that makes us happy.

Our ability to spin gold from the dross of our experience means that we often find ourselves flourishing in circumstances we once dreaded. We fear divorces, natural disasters and financial hardships until they happen, at which point we recognize them as opportunities to reinvent ourselves, to bond with our neighbors and to transcend the spiritual poverty of material excess. When the going gets tough, the mind gets going on a hunt for silver linings, and most linings are sufficiently variegated to reward the mind's quest.

So when President Bush puts his hand on the Bible today and begins his second term, Republicans will not be the only ones thinking about how lucky they are. Democrats will surely remind one another that the dollar is down, the deficit is up, foreign relations are in disarray and the party that presides over this looming miasma may well have elected its last president for decades to come.

At the same time, Democrats will tell themselves that they did everything they could - they wrote more checks and cast more ballots than ever before - so if the president and his party insist that Democrats now enjoy a fat tax break, then why feel guilty? And they will inevitably note that if just over half the fans at an Ohio State football game had voted for John Kerry instead of the president, a different man would be taking the oath of office today.

In short, Democrats will realize that winning isn't always such a good thing - and besides, they almost won.

Of course, not everyone will be happy today, because not everyone has this talent for reasoning his way to happiness. Throughout history, there have always been a few unfortunates who found it impossible to reframe negative events in positive ways, and these poor souls were predictably less happy than the rest of us. Lincoln, for example, was perpetually melancholic. Martin Luther King Jr. had more bad than good days. "Suffering and evil often overwhelm me," said Gandhi from the midst of a depression, "and I stew in my own juice."

Many of the heroes and redeemers we most admire were unhappy people who found it impossible to change how they felt about the world - which left them no choice but to change the world itself. Outrage, anger, fear and frustration are unpleasant emotions that most of us vanquish through artful reasoning; but unpleasant emotions can also be spurs to action - clamorous urges that we may silence at our peril.

As we watch the inauguration today, Republicans will take satisfaction in their victory and Democrats will find satisfaction in their defeat. But tomorrow it will be a nation - and not a party - that faces the dire problems of war, terrorism, poverty and intolerance. Perhaps over the next four years we would all be wise to suppress our natural talent for happiness and strive instead to be truly, deeply distressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 06:18 PM

A humorous quip from The New Republic after the Inaugural:

"Pageants are interesting for two reasons: what they try to say, and where they fail to say it. This afternoon's inaugural ceremony conveyed plenty of meaning, and in spots went plenty awry. It was engineered to highlight certain shared values, like respect for our armed forces and the breadth of our diversity. Singers of different colors performed, and preachers of different creeds prayed. It was bracing to hear Revered Luis Leon set the tone when he referred to our "good and generous" people and cited Martin Luther King. But Kirbyjon Caldwell's closing prayer, which asked God, the "true power broker," to deliver unto us "clean financial statements" is the sort of thing a preacher in a middling Washington satire might say...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Com Seangan
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 07:44 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Com SEangan
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 07:49 PM

Long live free America. I just hate being dubbed anti-American for being against the US foreign policy as adopted by President Bush. But on this site, I am preaching to he converted.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 08:10 PM

Well, you go on wid it, Barbara...

Hey, nice to see the Dems kickin' up a little dust and not let another member ot Boss Hog's priveledged few get a *free pass* like her boss has gotten all his life...

With 56% of Americans now saying that the invasion of Iraq wasn't worth it, Bush's free ride is gonna get a little bumpier. Good...

This man shouldn't be allowed a free ride all the way to the grave but if he does, I'm here to tell ya that with all the deaths on his hands, St. Peter gonna put him the the express bus to Hell...

Guarenteed...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 09:02 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Anti-Bush demonstrators waving signs that said "Worst President Ever" and "the American Nightmare" jeered the president's motorcade during the inaugural parade Thursday.

The procession of cars speeded up as President Bush neared the designated location for protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Two rows of police lined the street in front of the main protest site. Officers stationed atop buildings along the route kept close watch on the crowd.

Boos rained down from the crowd and some demonstrators shouted, "No justice, no peace." In some places in the protest area, the crowd was about six rows deep.

Details can be found in this CNN coverage.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 09:26 PM

No, Com Seangan. On this site, you are preaching to the choir.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 09:41 PM

doublethink - Reality Control. The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them. An excellent example of doublethink in modern society is the war on drugs. If you ask people their opinion on alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, most people would agree that it was a complete failure. People agree that it only caused more crime, it made gangsters rich, it corrupted politicians, and most importantly ... it didn't keep people from drinking.

Yet, we have almost the exact same situation today with war on drugs, yet most people think that our modern prohibition is a good idea ... and more than that, they believe that anybody that thinks that the war on drugs isn't a good idea must be completely out of their minds. In order for a person to be effective at doublethink, they must master the art of crimestop.

This word has made its way into the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

dou•ble•think ('d&-b&l-"thi[ng]k), noun, Date: 1949 : a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas.

Here is how Winston Smith described doublethink in the novel:

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.'

---

Hmmmmmmm?????


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 10:30 PM

Yeah, Amos, I heard on TV there may have been as many as a thousand protestors. Down about from the 10,000 predicted to show up. Probably too cold there to protest.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 01:00 AM

Oh it was cold, all right, Doug.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 01:21 AM

The Bush administration has been repeatedly criticised by its opponents for not admitting mistakes were made in the handling of the occupation of Iraq.

On Wednesday, President George W Bush's nominee for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a rare acknowledgment that some "bad decisions" were made, while defending the overall invasion.

"We didn't have the right skills, the right capacity, to deal with a reconstruction effort of this kind," she told the US Senate Foreign Relations committee.


(BBCNews Jan 20 05)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 03:34 AM

I don't have time to do all the blue clicky's but here is something I was sent and am passing along..xx..e)


AMERICAN PROGRESS ACTION FUND

The Progress Report

by Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin with Nico Pitney and
Mipe Okunseinde
www.progressreport.org

1/20/2005



Inauguration: Lifestyles of the Rich and Heartless



Due to $17 million worth of inaugural security -- paid for by the city
of Washington, D.C. -- the Progress Report is unable to access its
office. Never fear -- it takes a lot more than that to keep us down. We put
this list together for you ahead of time. Your regularly scheduled
Progress Report returns tomorrow.



A look at this week's festivities by the numbers:



$40 million:
(http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscost0118,0,4726940.story?coll=ny-nation-big-pix)
Cost of Bush inaugural ball festivities, not counting security costs.



$2,000: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0119/p03s01-uspo.html) Amount
FDR spent on the inaugural in 1945...about $20,000 in today's dollars.



$20,000:
(http://www.ritzcarlton.com/hotels/washington_dc/overview/pressreleases/inaugural_amenities.html)
Cost of yellow roses purchased for inaugural festivities by D.C.'s Ritz
Carlton.



200:
(http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/20050114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inaugural_price_tag_3&printer=1)
Number of Humvees outfitted with top-of-the-line armor for troops in
Iraq that could have been purchased with the amount of money blown on the
inauguration.



$10,000: (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/10678137.htm)
Price of an inaugural package at the Fairmont Hotel, which includes a
Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon reception, a chauffeured Rolls Royce and
two actors posing as "faux" Secret Service agents, complete with black
sunglasses and cufflink walkie-talkies.



400: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0119/p03s01-uspo.html) Pounds of
lobster provided for "inaugural feeding frenzy" at the exclusive
Mandarin Oriental hotel.



3,000: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0119/p03s01-uspo.html) Number
of "Laura Bush Cowboy cookies" provided for "inaugural feeding frenzy"
at the Mandarin hotel.



$1: (http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_014105652.html)
Amount per guest President Carter spent on snacks for guests at his
inaugural parties. To stick to a tight budget, he served pretzels, peanuts,
crackers and cheese and had cash bars.



22 million:
(http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/20050114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/inaugural_price_tag_3&printer=1)
Number of children in regions devastated by the tsunami who could have
received vaccinations and preventive health care with the amount of
money spent on the inauguration.



1,160,000: (http://www.worldonfire.ca/donations.html) Number of girls
who could be sent to school for a year in Afghanistan with the amount
of money lavished on the inauguration.



$15,000:
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4282216) The down payment to rent a fur coat paid by one gala attendee who
didn't want the hassle of schlepping her own through the airport.



$200,500:
(http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2005-01-06-inauguration_x.htm)
Price of a room package at D.C.'s Mandarin Oriental, including
presidential suite, chauffeured Mercedes limo and outfits from Neiman Marcus.



2,500: (http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=63696)
Number of U.S. troops used to stand guard as President Bush takes his
oath of office



26,000:
(http://www.oregonlive.com/letters/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1106139753241490.xml)
Number of Kevlar vests for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that
could be purchased for $40 million.



$290: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4187023.stm) Bonus that
could go to each American solider serving in Iraq, if inauguration funds
were used for that purpose.



$6.3 million: (http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1860)
Amount contributed by the finance and investment industry, which works
out to be 25 percent of all the money collected.



$17 million: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4187023.stm) Amount
of money the White House is forcing the cash-strapped city of
Washington, D.C., to pony up for inauguration security.



9: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0119/p03s01-uspo.html) Percentage
of D.C. residents who voted for Bush in 2004.



66: (http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/972a1BushPreInaugural.pdf)
Percentage of Americans who think this over-the-top inauguration should
have been scaled back.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 08:32 AM

Thanks, Ellen! We're a pricy little banana republic, aren't we?

A

---

Tough-sounding address makes no mention of Iraq (San Diego Union Tribune)


By George E. Condon Jr.
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

January 21, 2005

WASHINGTON – President Bush delivered one of the more muscular, foreign-policy-dominated inaugural addresses in recent American history, using the speech to put leaders overseas on notice that he will be aggressive about spreading democracy and promoting human rights during his second term.


But with the nation embroiled in an increasingly unpopular war, he did not talk specifically about it, declining to mention the word "Iraq."

While the war's costs mount, the president pointedly did not ask the country for sacrifices to win the victory he promises. All he asked for was more patience.

In a country still divided over the Bush presidency and Iraq, Bush said little about healing in his speech yesterday.

For Bush partisans, however, there was everything they love – high-sounding proclamations of fealty to global democracy and spreading Western-style freedom and tough-sounding promises to use "force of arms when necessary" to protect U.S. interests.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 11:36 AM

Just this once, a reference to one of Donuel's creations. Terrific!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 12:15 PM

he President's Speech Focuses on Ideals, Not the Details
By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: January 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 - President Bush began his second term without uttering the words "Iraq," "Afghanistan," "Sept. 11" or "terrorism." But those omissions seemed to be precisely the point, allowing him to cast the crises and controversies of his first four years - and the ones he welcomes in the next - as a seamless struggle in defense of the nation's founding creed: freedom.

"The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world," Mr. Bush proclaimed, pledging himself to "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" in terms that deliberately echoed both Woodrow Wilson and John F. Kennedy, who summoned the world 44 years ago to ask "what together we can do for the freedom of man."

It is for historians to judge how well Mr. Bush's actions have fit, or may yet fulfill, his words. There remains a wide gulf between his eloquent aspirations and the realities on the ground, from Capitol Hill to the Middle East. Executing his ideas will not be easy, at home or abroad.

His tone was proud, unapologetic, even defiant, and his emphasis on foreign policy muffled his outline of the domestic agenda that he and his aides have said is so important to the success of his second term.

But his speech's very loftiness and its missionary zeal also amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that he believes that much of the world and perhaps many of his fellow citizens have misunderstood his actions in invading Iraq and threatening authoritarian governments in Iran and North Korea. He himself has not always described his motives in such idealistic terms, so the speech was a chance to hit the reset button.

---

BALLS!!, said the Emperor!!

And the Empress swiftly kicked him in the crotch and said, "How's that for a couple of acres?"

Seriously -- does anyone else feel that Bush's disconnection from the ground truth is something akin to classic fugue-state mentality, skipping joyfully into the bright clouds of jolly generalization while your hand holds a blood-drenched carving knife?

The State ofd the Nation, of course, is "42".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 12:46 PM

The differing views of Bush's Inaugural address (actually his first -- the earlier event was just a gussied up eviction notice) are interesting in the range of their opinions.

William Safire, an adamant Bushite, qwrites in the New York Times:

Yesterday's strongly thematic address was indeed "the freedom speech." Not only did the words "freedom, free, liberty" appear 49 times, but the president used the world-watched occasion to expound his basic reason for the war and his vision of America's mission in the world.

I rate it among the top 5 of the 20 second-inaugurals in our history. Lincoln's profound sermon "with malice toward none" is incomparable, but Bush's second was better than Jefferson's mean-spirited pouting at "the artillery of the press."

In Bush's "second gathering" (Lincoln called it his "second appearing"), the Texan evoked J.F.K.'s "survival of liberty" phrase to convey his central message: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." Bush repeated that internationalist human-rights idea, with a slight change, in these words: "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

The change in emphasis was addressed to accommodationists who make "peace" and "the peace process" the No. 1 priority of foreign policy. Others of us - formerly known as hardliners, now called Wilsonian idealists - put freedom first, recalling that the U.S. has often had to go to war to gain and preserve it. Bush makes clear that it is human liberty, not peace, that takes precedence, and that it is tyrants who enslave peoples, start wars and provoke revolution. Thus, the spread of freedom is the prerequisite to world peace.

It takes guts to take on that peace-freedom priority so starkly. Bush, by retaliatory and pre-emptive decisions in his first term - and by his choice of words and his tall stance in this speech, and despite his unmodulated delivery - now drives his critics batty by exuding a buoyant confidence reminiscent of F.D.R. and Truman.

He promised to use America's influence "confidently in freedom's cause." He jabbed at today's Thomases: "Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty, though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt."

Bush has seen the enemy and it is not us. Nor is it only a group of nations (the "axis of evil"). Nor is the prime enemy the tactic of terrorism.

The president identified the enemy (and did not euphemize it, as Nixon's writers did, as "the adversary") a half-dozen times in this speech. The archenemy of freedom, now as ever, is tyranny.

---

Another New York Times writer, a bit more sensitive tot he inherent contradictions (not to say hypocrisies) of the moment, Bob Herbert, decries the gala extravagance in the face of blood, toil, death and misery to which the party-goers seemed immune and disconnected:

"Dancing the War Away
By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 21, 2005



Watching the inaugural ceremonies yesterday reminded me of the scenes near the end of "The Godfather" in which a solemn occasion (a baptism in the movie) is interspersed with a series of spectacularly violent murders.

Even as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war, one of the worst presidential decisions in American history.

Incredibly, with more than 1,360 American troops dead and more than 10,000 wounded, and with scores of thousands of Iraqis dead and wounded, the president never once mentioned the word Iraq in his Inaugural Address. He avoided all but the most general references to the war. Lyndon Johnson used to agonize over the war that unraveled his presidency. Mr. Bush, riding the crest of his re-election wave, seems not to be similarly bothered.

In January 1945, with World War II still raging, Franklin Roosevelt insisted on a low-key inauguration. Already gravely ill, he began his address by saying, "Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends, you will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief."

Times have changed. President Bush and his equally tone-deaf supporters spent the past few days partying hard while Americans, Iraqis and others continued to suffer and die in the Iraq conflagration. Nothing was too good for the princes and princesses of the new American plutocracy. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on fireworks, cocktail receptions, gala dinners and sumptuous balls.

Ten thousand people, including the president and Laura Bush, turned out Wednesday night for the Black Tie and Boots Ball. According to The Associated Press, one of the guests, Lorian Sessions of San Antonio, "donned a new pair of black kangaroo boots, decorated with a white star and embroidery, with an aqua-colored mink wrap she bought on sale at Saks."

An article in The Washington Post mentioned a peace activist who complained that the money lavished on the balls would have been better spent on body armor for under-equipped troops in Iraq.

As the well-heeled Bush crowd was laughing and dancing in tuxedos and designer gowns, the situation in Iraq was deteriorating to new levels of horror. The Black Tie and Boots Ball was held on the same day that 26 people were killed in five powerful car and truck bombs in Baghdad. With the elections just a week and a half away, American commanders, according to John F. Burns of The Times, are seeking "to prepare public opinion in Iraq and abroad for one of the bloodiest chapters in the war so far."

---

Meanwhile, ignoring the fine gaseous fiber of non-inspiring groundless generalizations, another Times writer excoriates the double-talk and falsity inherent in the Social Security attack:

The Free Lunch Bunch
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 21, 2005



Did they believe they would be welcomed as liberators? Administration plans to privatize Social Security have clearly run into unexpected opposition. Even Republicans are balking; Representative Bill Thomas says that the initial Bush plan will soon be a "dead horse."

That may be overstating it, but for privatizers the worst is yet to come. If people are rightly skeptical about claims that Social Security faces an imminent crisis, just wait until they start looking closely at the supposed solution.

President Bush is like a financial adviser who tells you that at the rate you're going, you won't be able to afford retirement - but that you shouldn't do anything mundane like trying to save more. Instead, you should take out a huge loan, put the money in a mutual fund run by his friends (with management fees to be determined later) and place your faith in capital gains.

That, once you cut through all the fine phrases about an "ownership society," is how the Bush privatization plan works. Payroll taxes would be diverted into private accounts, forcing the government to borrow to replace the lost revenue. The government would make up for this borrowing by reducing future benefits; yet workers would supposedly end up better off, in spite of reduced benefits, through the returns on their accounts.

The whole scheme ignores the most basic principle of economics: there is no free lunch.

---

There's no question that George and Laura are having a rich and wonderful time of it. See them dance?

Those on whose backs they are climbing -- the wounded, the lamed, the beggared, the dead, and the morally traumatized who carried out George's will -- they are not doing so well. Taking the failed war on terror and re-casting it in the golden garb of high-flown ideals like "exporting liberty" doesn't do a thing to change this fundamental inequity. It just makes the falsehoods more glaring, the incompetence more actionable, and the duplicity more immoral.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 04:48 PM

The Christian Science Monitor offers a survey of international takes on the Inaugural Address. The range of opinions found is wide.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 04:54 PM

Excerpted from a thoughtful essay in the Christian Science Monitor, To the Founders, Congress was king

By John Dillin | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor



AMERICA'S expanding involvement abroad, and the need to maintain a large peacetime US military force in dozens of other nations, has also added to presidential power. Berkin says America's modern presidency, with all its trappings, would be "unimaginable" to men like Madison, Washington, and Franklin. Of all those historic figures at the 1787 Convention, perhaps only Alexander Hamilton would relish today's playing of "Hail to the Chief."

The great concern of the Founders was tyranny. After all, they had just barely escaped the clutches of King George, who would have happily drawn and quartered Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, or George Mason if his Redcoats could have seized them during the American Revolution. The last thing they wanted was a power-hungry president, a domestic King George, to replace the English one. The Founders did not trust men's natural inclinations.

As Berkin notes, the chief "truth" that guided the Founders was "that men were corruptible and that power always corrupted." They believed that "greed and lust for power ... were inquenchable in mortal men." Although he was ordinarily known for his buoyant optimism, Franklin observed during the debates that even with good fortune, the new government might succeed for only a decade. Franklin warned of the "inevitable decline" of the Republic "into a tyranny of one, a tyranny of a few, or a tyranny of the majority."

Jefferson, who was ambassador to France, and Adams, the ambassador to Britain, did not attend the Convention. But each shared this concern over tyranny. For Jefferson, the chief concern was the "tyranny of one." For Adams, the tyranny of the aristocracy, or the monied classes, was the great risk.

Looking at today's politics, Berkin says: "The Founders would be appalled, perhaps the most, in that the president presents a program to the Congress, and the Congress is expected to argue over it. This is the tail wagging the dog. Their view was just the opposite - with the president executing [the policies proposed and approved] by Congress."

Yet most "modern Americans" assume the president is the leader, Berkin says. This was reflected in a comment this week on Washington's CBS-TV affiliate, where anchorman Todd McDermott said authoritatively, "On Inauguration Day, the president sets the path for America's future."

Franklin would hardly believe his ears.

Berkin says the two major political parties have been a driving force in turning the original system upside down. Big, strong parties reduce the effectiveness of the check-and-balance system, in which Congress and the president are supposed to watchdog one another. Instead, parties "weave together all three branches of government. Even the [Supreme] Court is subject to the influence of parties."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:09 PM

The English edition of Der Spiegel offers an amazing story called ABDUCTED IN IRAQ--Four Months on Planet bin Laden -- the perspective of two French reporters held captive by the binLaden machinery for four months, what they learned, and how they see the scale and vision of the Islamist extremist underground army.

It is telling that these people describe the American policy in Iraq as heading straight for a wall.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 05:19 PM

Der Spiegel's "Fishwrap" section offers a survey of various German papers on the Bush Administration. The Idol Worship of George W. Bush.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 09:59 AM

From today's NYTimes:


Bush's Smiles Meet Some Frowns in Europe

By ROGER COHEN

Published: January 22, 2005

(Excerpt):

The start of President Bush's second term has been marked by conciliatory gestures toward Europe: a promised visit to the headquarters of the European Union, the selection of a top State Department team deeply versed in European affairs, restraint on trade, cooperation on the Ukrainian crisis and bold commitments to the active Middle Eastern diplomacy that Europeans want.

All of this amounts to a presidential gamble that the Atlantic community is alive and well, despite the divisive trauma of Iraq. But Mr. Bush will want results. As his secretary of state-designate, Condoleezza Rice, said this week: "When judging a course of action, I will never forget that the true measure of its worth is whether it is effective."

By this yardstick, can European-American cooperation still deliver? Can it usher in the freer world to which the president is committed? Promising to listen to the counsel of allies, Mr. Bush declared Thursday, "The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is the prelude to our enemies' defeat."

The initial reaction was generally cool. European commentators asked what new war Mr. Bush might embark on in the name of his idealism, and portrayed his global bid to eliminate tyranny as hubris or hypocrisy. But a few newspapers, like the conservative German daily Die Welt, suggested, "A little bit of this spirit would do the Old World good and help it to renew itself."

---

The natural bonds between the English, the United States and Europe are generated by the participants because of a sense of common values. That sense has never been so strained, so close to giving way to sullen separtism between nations, as a result of Bush's intransigent arrogance.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 10:20 AM

In 1931, Thomas Mann spoke out against the rising tide of unreason which was sweeping his country, a movement which derided intellectualism and espoused the heavy handed nationalism which characterized the National Socialist propaganda mill. He expressed his thoughts in a tract entitled "In Defense of Reason".Among other things, he said:

"This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervishlike repetition of monotonous catch-words, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstacy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, . . . and reason veils her face."

Startling, now 74 years later, to read this description and compare it to the mindless applause that was being generated by the frozen chosen at the Inaugural event, ringed by steel and carefully covered by lead.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 10:36 AM

In fairness, there were better opinions than mine of the Inaugural Speech, and this is one of them:

Ideals and Reality
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: January 22, 2005

Excerpt:

If you want to understand America, I hope you were in Washington on Thursday. I hope you heard the high ideals of President Bush's inaugural address, and also saw the stretch Hummer limos heading to the balls in the evening.

I hope you heard the president talk about freedom as "the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul," and also saw the drunken, loud and privileged twentysomethings carrying each other piggyback down K Street after midnight.

What you saw in Washington that day is what you see in America so often - this weird intermingling of high ideals with gross materialism, the lofty and the vulgar cheek to cheek.

The people who detest America take a look at this odd conjunction and assume the materialistic America is the real America; the ideals are a sham. The real America, they insist, is the money-grubbing, resource-wasting, TV-drenched, unreflective bimbo of the earth. The high-toned language, the anti-Americans say, is just a cover for the quest for oil, or the desire for riches, dominion and war.

But of course they've got it exactly backward. It's the ideals that are real.

Two years from now, no one will remember the spending or the ostrich-skin cowboy boots. But Bush's speech, which is being derided for its vagueness and its supposed detachment from the concrete realities, will still be practical and present in the world, yielding consequences every day.

With that speech, President Bush's foreign policy doctrine transcended the war on terror. He laid down a standard against which everything he and his successors do will be judged.

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 11:00 AM

The Globalist, an international magazine, offers this essay:

Madison Versus Bush

 

Edward Goldberg | Monday, May 19, 2003
 
The United States is at a crossroads. It can either continue in a policy of unilateralism and projection of raw power. Or it can realize that it needs to coexist within a multilateral world framework. Edward Goldberg explains how the origins of the U.S. constitution play into this choice.

Americans like to see their country as earnest, optimistic and youthful, individualistic, idealistic — and a team player. "We give the underdog a chance" and "We play by the rules," Americans tell themselves.

Preserving liberty

Fortunately for America, a wise group of men came together 214 years ago to establish the rules that would make it safe for these attractive traits to blossom.

Madison argued that for large states to prosper, they needed to share power with small states.

The checks and balances in the Constitution which these men created would not only protect the rights of the individual.

But, it would also force conflicting power bases within society toward compromise in order for society as a whole to be able to move forward.

Not relevant?

The U.S. Constitution safeguarded the political system from abuse of power and from abuse of dogma. It forced each side's concepts to face the light of pragmatic concerns. James Madison and his friends knew well that, to preserve liberty, power needed to be balanced and checked.

This concept of checks and balances is integral to American political philosophy. But strangely, it is apparently not considered relevant by the Bush Administration in the formation of its foreign policy.

Power beyond challenge

Instead the administration has an overriding goal — which is to place America's power beyond challenge.

America cannot continue as a nation that values the check on power as a protection of liberties within its own borders — but feels constrained by the same values internationally.

There is an almost celebratory feeling that America is now free to use its power in the world as it wishes — and that it is no longer shackled by the balancing forces of the Cold War.

Madison knew better. During the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787 — and later in the Federalist Papers — he argued that for the large states (such as Virginia or New York) to prosper, they needed to be courageous enough to share some power with the smaller states.

(Rest of this article can be found at The Globalist)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:31 PM

The Speech Misheard Round the World
By ORLANDO PATTERSON

Published: January 22, 2005, New York Times


Cambridge, Mass. — SINCE 9/11, President Bush and his advisers have engaged in a series of arguments concerning the relation between freedom, tyranny and terrorism. The president's inaugural paean to freedom was the culmination of these arguments.

The stratagem began immediately after 9/11 with the president's claims that the terrorist attacks were a deliberate assault on America's freedom. The next stage of the argument came after no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, thus eliminating the reason for the war, and it took the form of a bogus syllogism: all terrorists are tyrants who hate freedom. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who hates freedom. Therefore Saddam Hussein is a terrorist whose downfall was a victory in the war against terrorism.

When this bogus syllogism began to lose public appeal, it was shored up with another flawed argument that was repeated during the campaign: tyranny breeds terrorism. Freedom is opposed to tyranny. Therefore the promotion of freedom is the best means of fighting terrorism.

Promoting freedom, of course, is a noble and highly desirable pursuit. If America were to make the global diffusion of freedom a central pillar of its foreign policy, it would be cause for joy. The way the present administration has gone about this task, however, is likely to have the opposite effect. Moreover, what the president means by freedom may get lost in translation to the rest of the world.

The administration's notion of freedom has been especially convenient, and its promotion of it especially cynical. In the first place, there is no evidence to support, and no good reason to believe, that Al Qaeda's attack on America was primarily motivated by a hatred of freedom. Osama bin Laden is clearly no lover of freedom, but this is an irrelevance. The attack on America was motivated by religious and cultural fanaticism.

Second, while it may be implicitly true that all terrorists are tyrants, it does not follow that all tyrants are terrorists. The United States, of all nations, should know this. Over the past century it has supported a succession of tyrannical states with murderous records of oppression against their own people, none of which were terrorist states - Argentina and Brazil under military rule, Augusto Pinochet's Chile, South Africa under apartheid, to list but a few. Today, one of America's closest allies in the fight against tyranny is tyrannical Pakistan, and one of its biggest trading partners is the authoritarian Communist regime of China.

Third, while the goal of promoting democracy is laudable, there is no evidence that free states are less likely to breed terrorists. Sadly, the very freedoms guaranteed under the rule of law are likely to shelter terrorists, especially within states making the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule. Transitional democratic states, like Russia today, are more violent than the authoritarian ones they replaced.

And even advanced democratic regimes have been known to breed terrorists, the best example being the United States itself. For more than half a century a terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, flourished in this country. According to the F.B.I., three of every four terrorist acts in the United States from 1980 to 2000 were committed by Americans.

The president speaks eloquently and no doubt sincerely of freedom both abroad and at home. But it is plain for the world to see that there is a discrepancy between his words and his actions.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:34 PM

Divided We Stand
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: January 23, 2005


Paris — There's only one thing you can say about the elections in Iraq: They are either going to be the end of the beginning there or the beginning of the end.

Either Iraqis turn out in large numbers to take control of their own future and write their own constitution - and I think they will - or the fascist insurgents there prevent them from doing so, in which case the Bush team will have to move to Plan B. What's sad is that right when we have reached crunch time in Iraq, the West is totally divided. All that the Europeans care about is being able to say to George Bush, "We told you so." What happens the morning after "We told you so" ? Well, the Europeans don't have a Plan B either.

Ever since 9/11, I've argued the war on terrorism is really a war of ideas within the Muslim world - a war between those who want to wall Islam off from modernity, and defend it with a suicide cult, and those who want to bring Islam into the 21st century and preserve it as a compassionate faith. This war of ideas is not one that the West can fight, only promote. Muslims have to fight it from within. That is what is at stake in the Iraqi elections. This is the first great battle in the post-9/11 war of ideas.

This war also can't be won with troops - only with turnout. This is a war between Iraqi voters and insurgents - ballots versus bullets. And the people who understand that best are the fascist insurgents. That is why they are not focusing their attacks on U.S. troops, but on Iraqi election workers, candidates, local officials and police. The insurgents have one credo: "Iraqis must not vote - there must be no authentic expression of the people's will for a modern, decent Iraq. Because, if there is, the world will see that this is not a war between Muslims and infidel occupiers, but between Muslims with bad ideas and Muslims with progressive ideas."

And at this key juncture the West stands disunited. Condi Rice told the Senate that the "time for diplomacy is now." Give me a break. The time for diplomacy was two years ago. We would be so much better off now if the entire European Union was actively urging Iraqis to vote, and using its own moral legitimacy in the Arab world to delegitimize the insurgents. The divided West is a real liability.

"The most important threat [to the West] is Islamic terrorism," said Bernard Kouchner, the founder of Doctors Without Borders, and one of the few French intellectuals to support the ouster of Saddam. This is not a war with the Muslim religion, he stressed, but with a violent "fascist" Muslim minority. "We [in the West] have always been allied against fascism since the Second World War," he said. "We have to be together, America and Europe, because our enemies are the same, Muslim extremism and fascism," but right now, unlike in Bosnia, "we are apart."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:39 PM

Maureen Dowd, from her bully pulpit in the New York Ties editorial staff room, draws parallels between Spongebob Squarepants and the President of the United States. Good ones, too!

A Bunch of Krabby Patties
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 23, 2005



I should have known.

I can't believe I thought he was just an innocent little sponge wearing tight shorts.

What in the name of Davy Jones's locker would a sponge be doing holding hands with a starfish or donning purple and hot-pink flowered garb to redecorate the Krusty Krab if he weren't a perverted invertebrate?

Before this is over, we're going to find out that SpongeBob is the illicit spawn of the Tampa shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge. Who knew SpongeBob would become as fraught as the cover of "Abbey Road"?

It took Dr. James Dobson, the conservative Christian leader and gay marriage opponent, who claims the president's re-election was more a mandate for his ideas than George Bush's, to point out the insidious underside of the popular cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. It takes a sponge to brainwash a child.

Holy Abe! Dr. Dobson outed SpongeBob at a black-tie inaugural fete last week for members of Congress and political allies. He said that a "pro-homosexual video" - starring SpongeBob, Barney, Jimmy Neutron, Winnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy - was set to go to elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge," including tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."

Hoppin' clams, as they say in Bikini Bottom, the den of epicene iniquity where SpongeBob lives. Nothing good can come of tolerance.

Dan Martinsen, a spokesman for Nickelodeon, where SpongeBob beats the pants off the competition, was flummoxed: "It's a sponge, for crying out loud. He has no sexuality."

Dr. Dobson has done the country a service by reminding us to watch out for the dark side of lovable but malleable sponges. He inspired me to fish through the president's Inaugural Address with a more skeptical eye.

Mr. Bush's epic pledge to support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and to end "tyranny in our world" may seem wildly pie-in-the-sky, given that the Iraq vortex has drained our military.

Although his incendiary speech about "the untamed fire of freedom" has been widely interpreted as a code-red warning to both foes and friends, I wonder if the president knew he was literally promising to stamp out undemocratic governments across the globe, which would include some of our top allies. He probably thought it was a fancier way of repackaging the Iraq invasion, not as a failed search for W.M.D., but as a blow for freedom (a word used 27 times) and liberty (used 15 times).

I wonder if W. is surprised that people took it literally. The Bushes don't always understand that they're being held to their rhetoric in major speeches. (Read my warships.) For such a brass-knuckled vision, the president's delivery was curiously unemotional.

Some of the same advisers who filled Mr. Bush's brain with sugary visions of a quick and painless Iraq makeover did mean the speech to be literal; they are drawing up military options for the rest of the Middle East. Once again, the lovable and malleable president seems to be soaking up the martial mind-set of those around him, almost like ... a sponge.

SpongeBush SquarePants!

We can only hope that Dr. Dobson doesn't pick up on the resemblance. SpongeBob, as his song goes, "lives in a pineapple under the sea/absorbent and yellow and porous is he!" SpongeBush lives in a bubble in D.C./absorbent and shallow and porous is he!

SpongeBush ensnared the country in a whale of a mess in Iraq because he guilelessly absorbed the neocons' dire warnings about Saddam's weapons capabilities and their rosy assumptions about Ahmad Chalabi's leadership capabilities.

Dick Cheney is a gruff Mr. Krabs taskmaster to SpongeBush, but SpongeBush is crazy about him anyhow. W. trustingly let his vice president make the worst-case scenario about Iraq a first-case scenario.

Mr. Bush might have thought he was just blowing pretty bubbles full of lofty ideals about freedom and liberty in his speech, but Mr. Cheney and the neocons seem intent on filleting Iran and Syria. (Doesn't Richard Perle remind you of the snarky and pretentious next-door neighbor to SpongeBob, Squidward Tentacles?)

The vice president told Don Imus that Iran was "right at the top of the list" of trouble spots, and that Israel "might well decide to act first" with a military strike.

Even if he's a little light in the flippers, SpongeBob has brought children good, clean fun. SpongeBush has brought the world dark, endless fights.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 03:53 PM

In this article the ACLU implies that the Bush Administration is deliberately covering up, suppressing and/or falsifying the picture of US practices of torture.

Probably not covering up as much as the terrorists in Iraq, but that's a different standard, I suppose.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 04:06 PM

My Gawd! First Tinky Winky, now SpongeBob! The whole world is being taken over by the sexually indefinite!!

We need a Constitutional Amendment!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 05:11 PM

NYTimes on Bush and Techno Legacy

http://nytimes.com/2005/01/23/business/yourmoney/23techno.html

Bush Didn't Invent the Internet, but Is He Good for Tech?
By JAMES FALLOWS

Published: January 23, 2005

GEORGE W. BUSH probably won't be remembered as "the high-tech
president." The strongholds of the biotech and infotech industries, on
the East and West Coasts, voted against him. If his State of the Union
address next week, his fourth, is like the previous three, it will say
next to nothing about the role of science or advanced technology in the
nation's economic and social future. The symbol of Al Gore's
relationship with gizmos was the early-model BlackBerry he wore on his
belt. The symbol of Mr. Bush's was his tumble from a Segway computerized
scooter in 2003.

Yet the Bush administration could end up being known for some technology
advances that occurred on its watch. I am speaking not only of purely
private developments - the renaissance of Internet-based businesses in
this age of Google - or of the heavy public spending for military and
surveillance systems, which is creating a vast new
antiterrorism-industrial complex.

Instead, as in many chapters of American technological history, some of
the most significant innovations have been made where public and private
efforts touch. In its first term, the Bush team made a few important
pro-technology choices. Over the next year it will signal whether it
intends to stand by them.

There is a long historical background to the administration's choices,
plus a variety of recent shifts and circumstances. The history stretches
to the early days of the republic, and the idea that
government-sponsored research in science and technology could bolster
private business growth. Progress in farming, led by the land-grant
universities, demonstrated this concept in the 19th century. Sputnik-era
science, culminating in the work that led to the Internet, did the same
in the 20th century.

In the last two decades, this old idea has been dressed up with concepts
like "network economics" and "increasing return to scale." The results
include the widely accepted understanding that the relationship of
public science and private business is more important than ever. An
environment in which the exchange of information is timely and
inexpensive, rather than slow and costly, can foster the growth of many
industries.

That sounds obvious. But it has political consequences. For one, it
helps explain why the United States has been so fertile an incubator for
tech companies, compared with most of Europe: government-sponsored
information has been much cheaper here. (The United States government
sells a CD set containing all weather readings taken in the last 50
years for $4,290; the German government data costs $1.5 million.)
American dynamism also creates an ever-changing set of winners and
losers. In fostering many new companies, the government often dislodges
a few old ones; dealing with the resulting protests is each
administration's problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 06:35 PM

Secret Unit Expands Rumsfeld's Domain


New Espionage Branch Delving Into CIA Territory



By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page A01



The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.


The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 06:38 PM

Analysis


Bush Doctrine Is Expected to Get Chilly Reception

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page A01

When President Bush flew to Canada in his first international trip following his reelection, the White House portrayed it as the beginning of a fence-mending tour to bring allies back into the fold after a tense first term. But after Bush left, the Canadians were more furious than before.

They were stunned when Bush leaned across a table in a private meeting and lectured Prime Minister Paul Martin about opposing the U.S. missile defense system. And they were later taken aback by a speech filled with what they considered the same "old Bush" foreign policy pronouncements that opened the divide with the allies in the first place.

"If he's going to take that speech to Europe," said a top Canadian official who attended the meeting between Bush and Martin, "he's not going to get a good reception."

For all the talk of fresh diplomacy and rebuilding frayed alliances, Bush heads into his second term still demanding that the rest of the world meet him on his terms -- and now he has redefined those terms to an even more provocative degree with an inaugural address articulating a grand vision for spreading democracy and "ending tyranny" in "every nation." With his eye on history, Bush wants to change the world. The rest of the world is not necessarily so eager to be changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 10:14 AM

From today's Washingtonpost:

After the 'Freedom' Speech

Reporters at some of the inaugural balls are steamed that they could not interview the partygoers without an official minder trailing them, lest they get insufficiently fulsome praise from President Bush's supporters. Washington Post reporter Peter Carlson, who was escorted to and from the men's room, likens the restrictions to "Saddam-era Iraq."


"It's hard to get people to be frank with you," says Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Zeleny, who gave up at one ball. "It seems like a baby-sitting exercise. It's just one more example of how the Bush administration likes to control the story."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 10:37 AM

Todays New York Times warns against the misleading assertions of the Bush Administration concerning Social Security:

A Bridge to Sell

Published: January 24, 2005


One of the main talking points in the administration's drive to privatize Social Security is that retirees have nothing to fear. "If you're a senior receiving your Social Security check, nothing is going to change," President Bush said recently. Mr. Bush seems to presume that older Americans are indifferent to the future retirement security of their children and grandchildren. But even taken on its face, the argument does not hold up.

The president promises that under a private retirement scheme, anyone age 55 or older would continue to receive full Social Security benefits. What he repeatedly fails to mention is that privatization would require some $2 trillion in new borrowing over the next 10 years and an additional $4.5 trillion in the decade thereafter. That's on top of the trillions that need to be found to cover the costs of Medicare and Medicaid and - if the president gets his way - to make this decade's tax cuts permanent. It's foolhardy to assume that the government could continue to meet all of its obligations, including the payment of Social Security benefits, under such a mountain of debt.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 10:49 AM

To the Editor:

Dr. Joshua Freedman calls on Democrats to admit that they admire President Bush's "confidence and decisiveness." This requires us to ignore the vast gap of facts and background-delving that the president has either chosen to leapfrog over or has determined is too difficult or too time-consuming or perhaps, in his mind, somewhat irrelevant.

Without deep understanding, "confidence and decisiveness" are nothing more than Republican "team" colors.

When we have a leader who believes that he doesn't need to pay attention to dissenters and protesters and who cloaks meetings in layers of secrecy, it is time for the public to hook up to its own brain imager. It is time to advance from the cheerleader phase and light up not only the cortex but more important, bring light to the realities facing the country.

Leona Mahler

Cedar Grove, N.J., Jan. 20, 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 01:06 PM

EDITORIAL (Los Angeles Times)

Transition to Nowhere



President Bush's notion — it is not yet a plan — of partly privatizing Social Security has three large flaws. First, it is a cure in search of a disease. Second, it is a cure that won't work. And third, it is a cure that requires the disease to be gone before the cure can start.

This editorial concerns the third flaw. But to recap the others: The Bush administration calculates that Social Security will run out of cash in the year 2042. That's the crisis. It might seem refreshingly farsighted for the president to be dealing with this crisis 37 years in advance — if a prediction about the economy 37 years from now was dependable, and if there was nothing else worth worrying about between now and then. To be sure, the gap between Social Security income and outgo is a problem. But to call it a crisis, to pencil it in for the year 2042 and to make this the major domestic focus of a presidency in 2005 is absurd. That's the first flaw.

The core argument for privatization is that investment in the private economy pays better than the Social Security trust fund's investment in government bonds. But even if this were true for sure and for everybody, privatization won't actually increase total private investment. Unless the government cuts spending — which has nothing to do with Social Security privatization — it will have to raise its dollars from the private economy. Every time privatization denies the government a dollar and puts that dollar into the private investment pool, the government will have to replace it by borrowing a dollar from that same pool. (For the full argument, go to http://www.latimes.com/proof .) This is the second flaw.

The third flaw involves the "transition." Right now, most of the money that comes in from current workers is paid out to current retirees. But privatization assumes that the money you put in will be available for your own retirement. In order to get from here to there, the cost of paying current retirees will have to come from somewhere else for a while. How much are we talking? Well, the administration acknowledges that this number is somewhere in the trillions. The Bush people say that they can borrow these trillions, and that they don't have to count it in the budget or the national debt because it is money the government implicitly owes already to future retirees.

This is a wonderful recipe for what might be called "bootstrap irresponsibility": a government program (Social Security in this case) costs far more than the government is willing to acknowledge. Instead of fixing it, it acknowledges the cost after all, borrows it and says that this doesn't count because we actually owed the money all along.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 01:14 PM

Ramsey Clark, once the aAttorney General of the United States, has written an interesting essay in the Los Angeles Times concerning his reaning for being willing to defend Saddam Hussein in legalproceedings:

Excerpt:

o let me explain why defending Saddam Hussein is in line with what I've stood for all my life and why I think it's the right thing to do now.

That Hussein and other former Iraqi officials must have lawyers of their choice to assist them in defending against the criminal charges brought against them ought to be self-evident among a people committed to truth, justice and the rule of law.

Both international law and the Constitution of the United States guarantee the right to effective legal representation to any person accused of a crime. This is especially important in a highly politicized situation, where truth and justice can become even harder to achieve. That's certainly the situation today in Iraq. The war has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and the widespread destruction of civilian properties essential to life. President Bush, who initiated and oversees the war, has manifested his hatred for Hussein, publicly proclaiming that the death penalty would be appropriate.

The United States, and the Bush administration in particular, engineered the demonization of Hussein, and it has a clear political interest in his conviction. Obviously, a fair trial of Hussein will be difficult to ensure — and critically important to the future of democracy in Iraq. This trial will write history, affect the course of violence around the world and have an impact on hopes for reconciliation within Iraq.

Hussein has been held illegally for more than a year without once meeting a family member, friend or lawyer of his choice. Though the world has seen him time and again on television — disheveled, apparently disoriented with someone prying deep into his mouth and later alone before some unseen judge — he has been cut off from all communications with the outside world and surrounded by the same U.S. military that mistreated prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Preparation of Hussein's defense cannot begin until lawyers chosen by him obtain immediate, full and confidential access to him so they can review with him events of the last year, the circumstances of his seizure and the details of his treatment. They must then have time to thoroughly discuss the nature and composition of the prosecution and the court, the charges that may be brought against him, and his knowledge, thoughts and instructions concerning the facts of the case. And finally, they must have the time for the enormous task of preparing his defense.

The legal team, its assistants and investigators must be able to perform their work safely, without interference, and be assured that their client's condition and the conditions of his confinement enable him to fully participate in every aspect of his defense.

International law requires that every criminal court be competent, independent and impartial. The Iraqi Special Tribunal lacks all of these essential qualities. It was illegitimate in its conception — the creation of an illegal occupying power that demonized Saddam Hussein and destroyed the government it now intends to condemn by law.

The United States has already destroyed any hope of legitimacy, fairness or even decency by its treatment and isolation of the former president and its creation of the Iraqi Special Tribunal to try him.

---

Saddam's own actions have done more to demonize him -- as far as I know -- than Bush's have, or Bush's father's. But a fair and open trial is in the interest of peaceful resolution of all charges and damages of which Saddam stands accused. ANd there is no question that the politicized and war-torn ambience which has resulted from Bush's invasion make achieving the ideal of a process under law extremely difficult.

A

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 05 - 01:08 AM

TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2005

Inadequate information


from http://www.outragedmoderates.org

President Bush is a "fiscal conservative" who has run up the largest federal budget deficit in American history.  And he's a "war president" who repeatedly shrugged off the military establishment's warnings, invading Iraq on the advice of neocon ideologues with more powerpoints to their names than Purple Hearts. 

If the American political process is a marketplace of ideas, in which the winner earns political capital, many aspects of Bush's re-election are comparable to the market failure that economists call inadequate information.  In short: "For competitive markets to work well, consumers need information with which to evaluate competing products.  If consumers lack important information, markets will fail." [Stephen Breyer, Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy]
 
According to a nationwide poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) on the eve of the election, 72% of Bush supporters believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and 57% incorrectly believed that the Duelfer report had concluded Iraq had a major WMD program.  And despite the 9/11 Commission Report's findings to the contrary, 75% of Bush supporters believed that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believed that clear evidence of this link had been found. [PIPA] 

Steven Kull, the director of PIPA, said that "the roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters--and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war." [PIPA]

I would also argue that this "resistance to information" was facilitated by broader changes in the media landscape.  During the 2004 election season, conservative commentators, blogs, and email forwards provided a 24-hour-a-day defense of the Bush administration.  When the 9/11 Commission Report was released, they ignored the section that directly contradicted the administration's claim of an Iraq-al Qaeda link.  When the Duelfer report was released, they somehow managed to spin it as supporting Bush's case for war.

(...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Vivaldi
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 07:52 AM

Speaking of liars, and the fat lies they tell, or whatever, anyway, this was the take reported on the Wednesday Washington post.

"Democrats Criticize Rice Over Iraq War


Senate Confirmation Is Expected Today



By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 26, 2005; Page A01



Senate Democrats delivered one of the sharpest critiques yet of the Bush administration's credibility and its handling of the Iraq war yesterday, as the Senate prepared to confirm Condoleezza Rice's nomination to be secretary of state today.

Seizing on a nine-hour debate that Republicans had hoped to avoid, several Democrats excoriated the administration's prewar claims about Iraqi weapons and its handling of the ongoing war and transition. Both parties agreed that Rice, 50, will be confirmed, but that did not stop a cross section of Democrats from questioning her truthfulness in terms that until yesterday were used only by liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Some of the most critical Democrats were centrists from states that President Bush won or nearly won in November. Their comments came as recent polls have shown growing public disenchantment with the situation in Iraq.

Too many Republican senators allow Bush's top aides "to get away with lying," said Sen. Mark Dayton, a Democrat who opposed the war and will face reelection next year in the swing state of Minnesota. "Lying to Congress, lying to our committees and lying to the American people. It's wrong, it's immoral." The only way to stop it, Dayton said, is to keep the administration from promoting officials "who have been instrumental in deceiving Congress and the American people, and regrettably that includes Dr. Rice."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Haydn
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 08:19 AM

The Washington Post also feels very uncomfortable with the latest piece of the Bush machine:

A Degrading Policy

Wednesday, January 26, 2005; Page A20

ALBERTO R. GONZALES was vague, unresponsive and misleading in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Bush administration's detention of foreign prisoners. In his written answers to questions from the committee, prepared in anticipation of today's vote on his nomination as attorney general, Mr. Gonzales was clearer -- disturbingly so, as it turns out. According to President Bush's closest legal adviser, this administration continues to assert its right to indefinitely hold foreigners in secret locations without any legal process; to deny them access to the International Red Cross; to transport them to countries where torture is practiced; and to subject them to treatment that is "cruel, inhumane or degrading," even though such abuse is banned by an international treaty that the United States has ratified. In effect, Mr. Gonzales has confirmed that the Bush administration is violating human rights as a matter of policy.


Mr. Gonzales stated at his hearing that he and Mr. Bush oppose "torture and abuse." But his written testimony to the committee makes clear that "abuse" is, in fact, permissible -- provided that it is practiced by the Central Intelligence Agency on foreigners held outside the United States. The Convention Against Torture, which the United States ratified in 1994, prohibits not only torture but "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment." The Senate defined such treatment as abuse that would violate the Fifth, Eighth or 14th amendments to the Constitution -- a standard that the Bush administration formally accepted in 2003.


But Mr. Gonzales revealed that during his tenure as White House counsel, the administration twisted this straightforward standard to make it possible for the CIA to subject detainees to such practices as sensory deprivation, mock execution and simulated drowning. The constitutional amendments, he told the committee, technically do not apply to foreigners held abroad; therefore, in the administration's view the torture treaty does not bind intelligence interrogators operating on foreign soil. "The Department of Justice has concluded," he wrote, that "there is no legal prohibition under the Convention Against Torture on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to aliens overseas."


According to most legal experts, this is a gross distortion of the law.

---

Haydn

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 08:44 AM

The NY Times likewise mistrusts him, which gives even surer grounds for the right to huddle around and protect their red-necked boy:

---

The Wrong Attorney General

Published: January 26, 2005

Alberto Gonzales's nomination as attorney general goes before the Senate at a time when the Republican majority is eager to provide newly elected President Bush with the cabinet of his choice, and the Democrats are leery of exposing their weakened status by taking fruitless stands against the inevitable. None of that is an excuse for giving Mr. Gonzales a pass. The attorney general does not merely head up the Justice Department. He is responsible for ensuring that America is a nation in which justice prevails. Mr. Gonzales's record makes him unqualified to take on this role or to represent the American justice system to the rest of the world. The Senate should reject his nomination.

The biggest strike against Mr. Gonzales is the now repudiated memo that gave a disturbingly narrow definition of torture, limiting it to physical abuse that produced pain of the kind associated with organ failure or death. Mr. Gonzales's attempts to distance himself from the memo have been unconvincing, especially since it turns out he was the one who requested that it be written. Earlier the same year, Mr. Gonzales himself sent President Bush a letter telling him that the war on terror made the Geneva Conventions' strict limitations on the questioning of enemy prisoners "obsolete."

These actions created the legal climate that made possible the horrific mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners being held in Abu Ghraib prison. The Bush administration often talks about its desire to mend fences with the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world. Making Mr. Gonzales the nation's chief law enforcement officer would set this effort back substantially.

Other parts of Mr. Gonzales's record are also troubling. As counsel to George Bush when he was governor of Texas, Mr. Gonzales did a shockingly poor job of laying out the legal issues raised by the clemency petitions from prisoners on death row. And questions have been raised about Mr. Gonzales's account of how he got his boss out of jury duty in 1996, which allowed Mr. Bush to avoid stating publicly that he had been convicted of drunken driving.

Senate Democrats, who are trying to define their role after the setbacks of the 2004 election, should stand on principle and hold out for a more suitable attorney general. Republicans also have reason to oppose this nomination. At the confirmation hearings, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, warned that the administration's flawed legal policies and mistreatment of detainees had hurt the country's standing and "dramatically undermined" the war on terror. Given the stakes in that war, senators of both parties should want an attorney general who does not come with this nominee's substantial shortcomings.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:01 AM

Democrats Call Rice a Liar, Bush Apologist
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2005


One Senate Democrat called Condoleezza Rice a liar Tuesday and others said she was an apologist for Bush administration failures in Iraq, but she remained on track for confirmation as secretary of state.

Rice, who has been President Bush's White House national security adviser for four years, was one of the loudest voices urging war, Democrats said. She repeatedly deceived members of Congress and Americans at large about justifications for the war, said Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.


``I don't like impugning anyone's integrity, but I really don't like being lied to,'' Dayton said. ``Repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally.''

Rice is expected to win confirmation on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that Rice would have ``an overwhelming majority'' of votes.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., cautioned against ``inflammatory rhetoric that is designed merely to create partisan advantage or to settle partisan scores.''

Rice would succeed Colin Powell, who often found himself on the outside looking in with Bush's close circle of war and national security advisers.

By contrast, Rice is a trusted Bush loyalist. As a principal architect of the Iraq invasion and the administration's war on terrorism, she shares blame for overstating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Democrats said.

``My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration's lies must stop now,'' Dayton said in opposing Rice's nomination on the Senate floor.

Politicians rarely use the word ``lie,'' preferring some of the milder terms other Democrats used Tuesday.

``There was no reason to go to war in Iraq when we did, the way we did and for the false reasons we were given,'' said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Rice is not directly responsible for intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war that overestimated Saddam's nuclear capability, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. ``But she is responsible for her own distortions and exaggerations of the intelligence which was provided to her,'' Levin said.

``Dr. Rice is responsible for some of the most overblown rhetoric that the administration used to scare the American people,'' Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said.

The Senate set aside most of the day Tuesday to debate the Rice nomination after Democrats revolted against a plan to confirm Rice last week, on the same day that Bush took his oath for a second term.

``We should have been done last week,'' Frist said. ``I was disappointed that we are having to march through the debate today. But ultimately the vote will occur.''

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 12:45 PM

I thought it was heartwarming to see a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, who now occupies a seat in the United States Senate, voting to block the nomination of the first Black woman to the office of Secretary of State.

I assume Bobert is proud of his Senator's vote against confirmation.

Fortunately, a majority of senators recognized the time-honored tradition that a president chooses his cabinet members and she was confirmed.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 01:10 PM

As usual, DougR you are twisting the reality of the situation so violently it is likely to cause another earthquake. If the woman is a sociopathic liar, which appears to be the case, what difference does her skin color make? Why are you making it a racial issue? Trying to distort the issue? Do you have any evidence that the reluctance of some peopel to trust the Dept of State to her has a racial basis? Or are you just slandering?

It was Condoleeza Rice, no other, who asserted there was a risk that the smoking gun of Iraq could well turn out to be a mushroom cloud, on no evidence, purely because it was "on-message" for her to do so.

Is that your idea of integrity? Or do you think I am biased against her because of her skin, also?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 06:30 PM

And, Dougit, you can take it to the bank that I'm proud of Robert Byrd. But not so much for his vote today but for the courage he has shown in his life in overcoming scultuarl and socail obstickles, and overcoming hatred, and becoming such an independent thinker. He was a lone voice in the Senate as Bush used lies and fresh memories of 9/11 to gain support for what many allready knew and many more have figured out would be an immoral and unwinable war...

Yes, I can't think of another Senator who better represents my vies than Senator Byrd. He is unique and when it is time for him to leave the Senate, IMO, the Senate and the country will looze someone special.

Meanwhile, looks as if the Dems couldn't stop Condi Rice's appointment but they sure did give her some things to thik about and maybe some of the citicism will have some positive effects on her deeper self.

But I am disappointed by her appointment. Bush jsut doesn't seem to get it... (Nah, Bobert, he get's it all too well...). I mean, it seens that he knows he is going to need international cooperation and talks the talk. ButCondi Rice ain't exactly like walkin' the walk. She is a very dogmatic oil woman who folks around the world just flat out don't trust. How Bush thinks that she is *the one* who can sell internationalism is way beyond me. When I heard her testify before the 9/11 Comission she came off as arrogant and combative (sound like anyone else we know?) Arrogant and combative isn't going to get anyone on board who allready things we are, ahhh, arrogant and combatant... Bush should have done everything in his powers, which according to some aren't very much with Don Rumsfeld and his bud Dickleberry Cheney really runnin the show, to get Powell to stay on. Or if not possible, at least a moderate, rather than an ideologue...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 06:44 PM

Doug R, think of something stupid that you did when you were much younger. How would you like to be judged by that now?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 06:47 PM

" I thought it was heartwarming to see a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, who now occupies a seat in the United States Senate, voting to block the nomination of the first Black woman to the office of Secretary of State."

I like that kind of thinking. I think it cute to see a former three-year-old like Doug attempting to post to an adult forum.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 07:12 PM

The colour of a person's skin is not relevant in any way to whether or not one should point it out when that person has lied on the public record. If you think it is, Doug, then you are the one who is encouraging racism, not Senator Byrd.

When people are deemed to be above criticism (regardless of their own actual behaviour) due merely to their membership in a race or a group of people that has suffered notable discrimination in the past...such as a Negro, a Native American, a woman, or a Jew, for example...then what is actually occurring is an Orwellian form of thought control which is tantamount TO racism, bigotry, and prejudice of the worst sort.

And that appears to be what you are recommending Doug. You want Condoleeza Rice to be excused for what a white person would (I hope!) not be excused for, merely because she is black! That is asinine and totally wrong, and it does not enhance your credibility one bit to put forward such a viewpoint.

It is ironical that a Republican Party which has virtually NO support among American blacks found 2 key blacks to put high in its administration. My, my, WHAT a coincidence! Can anyone say "token"? Well, one can always find a token person of the right political category AND color/etc to betray their own, if one looks hard enough, Doug. Yes indeed. Hitler found his Quislings, don't forget. He found them everywhere that he took over. He even found Jews who willingly helped exterminate other Jews. It proves nothing but this...people of any race, culture, or other distinguishing outer characteristic are capable of the worst acts.

No one is sacrosanct on the basis of colour or anything else like that. If they were, my, wouldn't it be a simple little World! You could just line up all the "bad" people and exterminate them, on the basis of their obvious outer distinguishing features. Hmmmm...where have I heard of that before? At Nuremberg? Or at Dachau?

Your defence of Condoleeza Rice on the basis that she is black, of all things, is really astounding to me. Sounds like O.J. Simpson all over again. A liar is still a liar, regardless of the color of her skin.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 07:42 PM

Not to split hairs, LH, but I think that "token" is a tad threadbare. And it really doesn't covey how Condi and Colin have served the massa. They are "house negroes", very much in the tradition of the Old South. They are like white people in that they are of privildge. During the days of slavery they were generally the cruelest people on the plantation.

Token I'd take. "House negroes" is a differnt story becuase they themselves are dangerous people...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 07:55 PM

Point well taken, Bobert. People of privilege is what they are, all right, and that is the key to it all right there. O.J. was a person of privilege too, and he got away with murder because of it. If he'd been some poor unknown schmuck from the ghetto they would have executed him.

It doesn't matter much what skin color you have if you're a person of privilege, except for this: if it's a discriminated-against skin color then you can even be a crook or a murderer and still use that skin colour to emotionally blackmail people into looking the other way...for fear they might be accused of racism if they go after you! Very handy to be the right colour when one is a person of privilege, to be sure. Too bad for Martha Stewart that she wasn't black...she would've got a lot more sympathy, I'm sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 08:08 PM

Yup. That's what I meant by pointing out that the house negtoes were ofter the most cruel people on the plantation....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 08:11 PM

Sad but true. Kind of like the Sonderkommando (Jewish executioners) at the Nazi death camps.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 10:16 PM

Rumsfeld Quits Trip to Germany: Human Rights Groups ask German Government to prosecute him for war crimes.
By News Report
Jan 22, 2005, 00:57


Rumsfeld cancels trip after accusations

Friday 21 January 2005, 13:23 Makka Time, 10:23 GMT 

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cancelled a planned visit to Germany after a US human rights organisation asked German authorities to prosecute him for war crimes, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) has learned.

Rumsfeld has informed the German government via the US embassy that he will not take part in the Munich Security Conference in February, conference head Horst Teltschik told dpa on Thursday.

The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights filed a
complaint in December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Rumsfeld made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action.

German legislation violations

The organisation alleges violations of German legislation, which
outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused.

The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe reportedly is examining the
roughly 170-page complaint to see whether an investigation is warranted.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights said it and four Iraqis allegedly tortured in US custody filed a complaint with German authorities against Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet and eight other senior military and civilian officials over abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 10:53 PM

Post number 969 represents three people together having oral sex.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:00 PM

Bush Administration Paid Media Supporter of Gay Marriage Ban



Just weeks after accusations surfaced of the Bush administration paying a conservative commentator to plug education policies, a second commentator has now been discovered to have taken funds for work on promoting the administration's marriage policy.

In a Tuesday report in the Washington Post, it was revealed that columnist Maggie Gallagher was paid $21,500 in 2004 by the Department of Health and Human Services to write magazine articles on the administration's program encouraging marriage and to help promote the program. Gallagher also received $20,000 in 2002 and 2003 to write a report on government initiatives to strengthen marriage.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:01 PM

Bad arithmaticin', Martin. Accordin' to the Wes Ginny Slide Rule it's 9 folks havin' oral sex, which means that one of them must be a dog, or radical contortionist...

B;)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:02 PM

Bush Administration Shamed by Venezuelan Democracy


by Stan Moore

(Wednesday 26 January 2005)



"...Venezuela's poor and needy are experiencing the good of democracy, while America's underclass are experiencing exploitation and intentional neglect because of the suppression of democracy in America at polling time."

It should be no big surprise that Condoleeza Rice could find nothing good to say about President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or the politics of that country in her recent confirmation hearings. Rice, a foreign policy protector of President George W. Bush, is shamed by the beautiful expression of democracy in Venezuela, resulting in the overwhelming confirmation of legitimacy of President Chavez, which stands in stark contrast to the willful suppression of democracy, by the Bush cabal.

President Chavez was rewarded with a landslide victory by Venezuelan voters because of his support of the underclass, the neglected, and the needy in Venezuelan society. Chavez has earned the ire of the greedy for aiding the needy. Chavez has enacted programs to aid the needy at the expense of Venezuela's greedy. Chavez has withstood U.S.-backed attempts to drive him from power because the U.S. ALWAYS supports the greedy at the expense of the needy, and often seeks to drive populist rulers from power who follow the opposite course. Just ask President Aristide of Haiti.

On the other hand, George W. Bush and his political supporters attempted with great success to suppress expression of democracy by the American underclass, the neglected, and the needy in places like Ohio and Florida in the past two U.S. presidential elections. The underclass was purged from voter rolls. The needy were challenged regarding their eligibility to vote at the polls, resulting in their being forced to vote on provisional ballots that were discarded or not counted. Bush' Brain engineered campaign and election tactics designed to disenfranchise the underclass so that they could not express their franchise by voting in national elections.

As a result, Venezuela's poor and needy are experiencing the good of democracy, while America's underclass are experiencing exploitation and intentional neglect because of the suppression of democracy in America at polling time. America's underclass is scorned and held in derision by the ruling class, as if their needs and desires are irrelevant -- just witness the spoken remarks at the Congressional challenge to the electoral vote in Ohio.

However, rather than confess to shame, Condoleeza Rice, true to character, resorts to character assassination of President Chavez in order to save face. Rice' tactic of lying under oath is nothing new. The gullible may actually believe her, because America's gullible public is easily deceived and rarely has access to accurate information.

Much of the world now understands the feeble nature of American democracy. Much of the world now understands that any apparent altruism by America is always conditional -- we will help you if it is perceived in our interest, and we will harm you if that is perceived to be in our interest. America does no good in this world based on principle, except for the principle of self-interest.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:06 PM

Demand Full Disclosure and Investigation of Bush Administration Torture Policies

January 25, 2005




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Senate leadership is trying to steamroll the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, but your senators still have an opportunity to demand that Gonzales appoint an independent special counsel to investigate the development and implementation of U.S. interrogation and torture policies and to fully release all torture-related documents.

Until senators get those commitments, they should oppose voting on the Gonzales nomination. They cannot fully exercise their constitutional duty to "advise and consent" on the Gonzales nomination until they have critical information on his record on torture and until a commitment is made to an independent investigation. Otherwise the Senate would be setting up a situation where Gonzales would be investigating matters in which he himself participated.

Last week, members of the ACLU Action Network generated tens of thousands of letters to Congress in support of freedom and equality. We need to keep up the pressure and ensure Congress commits to accountability and responsibility for the torture and abuse of prisoners.

America is a land of laws and we cannot let the actions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay cripple our credibility and moral standing at home and abroad. Let Congress know that you consider the use of torture to be a grave injustice that needs to be stopped.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:15 PM

Yeah like here is the quesrioning of Gaonzalez in Congress:

Senator Smith: "Mr. Gonzalez, do you believe that since internatinal law opposes torture that it is wrong?"

Ginzalez: "Yeah"

Senator Smith: Did you advise the president that torture was hunky dory just so long as it was the US doing the torturing?"

Gonzalez: "Yeah"

Go figure???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 05 - 11:16 PM

Secret Documents Prove Bush Administration Wanted High Unemployment!

(From Unconfirmed Sources...)


Unconfirmed Sources report documents prove Bush wanted high unemployment. Secret files detail an amazingly successful plan called "Staying Home for America to keep Us Safe From Godless Heathens Forever!" Under the plan Bush and his economic team purposely depressed employment to keep people at home where they could defend America form terrorists!

"It is a brilliant plan. A true master stroke!" said one Washington insider. "Who could have guessed that high unemployment is what has kept America safe and strong since 911. We didn't know it but the president gave us an army of 2.5 million people to defend our country."

"Its true." said Karl Rove, who leaked the plan documents. "We knew we needed thousands of people to protect the country from terror so we launched the plan right after 911. Who could have guessed it would be so successful for so long.

Fred Johnson, an unemployed auto worker, said the revelations put things in a whole new light. "Before I heard about the 'Staying Home for American' plan, I was pissed off at the president for letting the economy slide and causing me to get fired. But now I understand and i'm proud to be unemployed! It makes me feel good to know that this last year I've been doing my part for America. My friends and family have been telling me i'm a bum, but now I know i'm a hero!"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos at Dawn
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 08:39 AM

The reliable redhead rides again:

Love for Sale

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 27, 2005



I'm herewith resigning as a member of the liberal media elite.

I'm joining up with the conservative media elite.

They get paid better.

First comes news that Armstrong Williams got nearly a quarter of a million from the Education Department to plug No Child Left Behind.

The families of soldiers killed in Iraq get a paltry $12,000. But good publicity? Priceless.

Mr. Williams helped out the first President Bush and Clarence Thomas during the Anita Hill scandal. Mr. Williams, who served as Mr. Thomas's personal assistant at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission when the future Supreme Court justice was gutting policies that would help blacks, gleefully attacked Professor Hill, saying, "Sister has emotional problems," and telling The Wall Street Journal "there is a thin line between her sanity and insanity."

Now we learn from media reporter Howard Kurtz that syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher had a $21,500 contract from the Health and Human Services Department to work on material promoting the agency's $300 million initiative to encourage marriage. Ms. Gallagher earned her money, even praising Mr. Bush in print as a "genius" at playing "daddy" to the nation. "Mommies feel your pain," she wrote in 2002. "Daddies give you confidence that you can ignore the pain and get on with life."

Genius? Not so much. Spendthrift? Definitely. W.'s administration was running up his astounding deficit paying "journalists" to do what they would be happy to do for free - just to be friends with benefits, getting access that tougher scribes are denied. Consider Charles Krauthammer, who went to the White House on Jan. 10 for what The Washington Post termed a "consultation" on the inaugural speech and then praised the Jan. 20th address on Fox News as "revolutionary," said Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group.

I still have many Christmas bills to pay. So I'd like to send a message to the administration: THIS SPACE AVAILABLE. I could write about the strong dollar and the shrinking deficit. Or defend Torture Boy, I mean, the esteemed and sage Alberto Gonzales. Or remind readers of the terrific job Condi Rice did coordinating national security before 9/11 - who could have interpreted a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" as a credible threat? - not to mention her indefatigable energy obscuring information undercutting the vice president's dementia on Iraq.

My preference is to get a contract with Rummy. It would be cost effective, compared with the latest $80 billion he needs to train more Iraqi security forces to be blown up. For half a mil, I could write a doozy of a column promoting Rummy's phantasmagoric policies.

What is all this hand-wringing about the 31 marines who died in a helicopter crash in Iraq yesterday? It's only slightly more than the number of people who died in traffic accidents in California last Memorial Day. The president set the right tone, avoiding pathos when asked about the crash. "Obviously," he said, "any time we lose life it is a sad moment."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 09:21 AM

Thomas Friedman's advise to Bush in Europe deserves a good close read:

Read My Ears
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: January 27, 2005

Berlin

Having spent the last 10 days traveling to Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, I have one small suggestion for President Bush. I suggest that when he comes to Europe to mend fences next month he give only one speech. It should be at his first stop in Brussels and it should consist of basically three words: "Read my ears."

Let me put this as bluntly as I can: There is nothing that the Europeans want to hear from George Bush, there is nothing that they will listen to from George Bush that will change their minds about him or the Iraq war or U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history. Some people here must have a good thing to say about him, but I haven't met them yet.

In such an environment, the only thing that Mr. Bush could do to change people's minds about him would be to travel across Europe and not say a single word - but just listen. If he did that, Mr. Bush would bowl the Europeans over. He would absolutely disarm and flummox people here - and improve his own image markedly. All it would take for him would be just a few words: "Read my ears. I have come to Europe to listen, not to speak. I will give my Europe speech when I come home - after I've heard what you have to say."

If Mr. Bush did that none of the European pundits would be able to pick apart his speeches here and mock the contradictions between his words and deeds. None of them would comment on his delivery and what he failed to mention. Instead, all the European commentators, politicians and demonstrators would start fighting with one another over what to say to the president. It might even force the Europeans to get out of their bad habit of just saying, "George Bush," and everybody laughing or sneering as if that ends the conversation, and Europe doesn't have to declare what it stands for.

Listening is also a sign of respect. It is a sign that you actually value what the other person might have to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 11:36 AM

Editorial: Mounting War Bill

27 January 2005

 From Arab News


THOUGH Iraqis are paying the highest price by far for George Bush's invasion of their country, the United States is making its own significant contribution in both blood and coin. Yesterday's crash of a US Marine helicopter near the Jordanian border claiming 31 lives was the largest single casualty figure in Iraq. Even as detailed news of this latest loss broke, the administration in Washington was announcing the need for at least an extra $80 billion in funding, largely to pursue US policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. This amount will propel war spending since 9/11 to $300 billion.

Is the world really $300 billion safer or are all those dollars simply being hurled by the fistful onto the blaze that Bush ignited in Iraq? Couldn't a good part of so vast a sum of money have been better used addressing injustice, despair and poverty, the very things on which terrorism feeds so hungrily? We shall of course never know. Yet it ought to give pause for thought that this very week, the world's richest man, Microsoft boss Bill Gates, has pledged $750 million of his own money to fund a global campaign of immunization against childhood diseases. He has pointed out that his contribution dwarves the combined total already offered by America and Europe.

The Pentagon, whose 2005 budget this year — not including the extra money — is $400 billion, says that part of the cash is earmarked for the training and provision of equipment to Iraqi and Afghani forces to whom Washington intends to hand over when it is deemed that US troops have "completed their mission."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 11:40 AM

The Best Coverage Money Can Buy

Published: January 27, 2005

New York Times Editorial

President Bush says he has ordered his cabinet not to rent any more journalists to promote his policies, which was certainly the right thing to do. But he still seemed as much bemused as discomfited yesterday that administration officials have been caught making payoffs for positive "news coverage" from ostensibly independent journalists. At his news conference, Mr. Bush said that the White House had no knowledge of the arrangements with sellout members of the Fourth Estate and that he has reminded his cabinet secretaries that "our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."

Still, we were puzzled as to why Mr. Bush had not said that earlier; his administration was caught hiring a public relations specialist last year to pose as a news reporter and peddle propaganda spots. The president also did not say whether his new policy of an "independent relationship" between the White House and the press corps extended to staff members who deny airplane seats and other access to reporters as punishment for their coverage.

Mr. Bush was plainly irritated by having to field questions about administration officials who tapped taxpayers to finance spin-for-money deals. The most prominent sellout was Armstrong Williams, the conservative television commentator who took $240,000 to do administration bidding on behalf of the No Child Left Behind Act while making a show of tough-minded candor.

The latest is the syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher, who did not disclose a $21,500 government writing contract for her promotion of Bush policy on strengthening marriage. Last year, there was the propaganda video on behalf of the Medicare drug program offered to budget-pressed TV stations. Full disclosure at signoff might have said, "Reporting live and in the tank!"

Loss of credibility works both ways. The exposed spinners deservedly suffer shame. But the administration's believability comes into question when officials like Rod Paige, the outgoing education secretary, defend buying faked coverage.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 11:51 AM

This is an excerpt from an article in a web-page called The Arab News,www.arabnews.com, entitled "The New King George":

"In his coronation speech, Bush promised to bring freedom and democracy to every corner of the world. No less, no more. He cited the two countries in which he has already achieved this aim: Iraq and Afghanistan. Both have been devastated by American planes that dropped the message from their bomb doors. Recently, the American soldiers wiped a large city from the face of the earth in order to convince the opponents of "American values". Now Fallujah looks as if it had been struck by a tsunami.

It is no secret that the neo-cons intend to "bring democracy" to Iran and Syria, thereby eliminating two more traditional enemies of the USA and Israel. Dick Cheney, the vice president, has already said that Israel may attack Iran, as if threatening to unleash a Rottweiler.

It could have been hoped that after the total debacle in Iraq and the less obvious but equally serious failure in Afghanistan, Bush would shrink from more such actions. But as almost always happens with rulers of this type, he cannot admit defeat and stop. On the contrary, failure drives him on to more extremes, vowing, rather like the captain of the Titanic, "to stay the course."

There is no way to guess what Bush may perpetrate, now that he has been re-elected by his people. His ego has been blown up to giant proportions, reaffirming what the Greek fabulist Aesop said some 27 centuries ago: "The smaller the mind the greater the conceit."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 12:06 PM

January 27, 2005
E-mail story   Print   Most E-Mailed

Margaret Carlson:

Boxer's Spine Gets Her Cut Off at the Knees


 

 


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You wouldn't know it from reading the newspapers, but Sen. Barbara Boxer served her country valiantly last week. In her grilling of Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, Boxer finally named the elephant in the hearing room, which is more than the war itself. It's the lies that got us there.

Finally, a national television audience could watch a member of Congress ask tough questions in language that didn't pussyfoot around. From all the commissions, studies and news reports, we now know pretty much what Rice knew and when she knew it. What we don't yet have is an explanation for why Rice didn't tell us what she knew and at times even told us the opposite.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 12:07 PM

Sorry -- the damn thing flipped into submit mode on its own, honest!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 02:30 PM

US doubts Bush's Iraq optimism


By Jill McGivering
BBC News, Washington

The Iraq elections are being watched closely in the United States by both the Bush administration and the public. Americans are concerned about the violence in Iraq


The White House is hailing the process as a milestone in Iraq's journey to greater freedom as evidence that life for ordinary Iraqis has improved since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

But, with the continuing violence still causing concern and no signs yet of the US scaling back its presence, public optimism about the elections is not high.

Upbeat administration

Iraq still makes daily headlines across America. The violence is at odds with the endlessly upbeat message from members of the Bush administration.

They justify the invasion by stressing the country's new freedoms.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasised the importance of the elections not only to Iraq but also as a key part of the president's vision of spreading democracy across the Middle East:

"The election later this month will be an important first step as the people of Iraq prepare to draft a constitution and hold the next round of elections, elections that will then create a permanent government," Ms Rice said.

"The success of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq will give strength and hope to reformists throughout the region and accelerate the reforms already underway," she added.

Public pessimism

But that optimism is not shared by the American public, which is increasingly concerned about the violence.

The latest findings of the Washington-based Pew Research Centre found about half of those polled thought the elections would not do much to improve stability in Iraq.

Carroll Doherty of Pew Research says the figures in part mirror the general political divide, with Democrats most anxious about Iraq and Republicans slightly less so: "Most people say that, even after the election, Iraq will be no more stable or no less stable for that matter, it'll be the status quo."

The levels of support and opposition have remained stable for the past few months.

"We haven't seen a big drop off in support for the war. Democrats still largely oppose the war, Republicans still largely support it," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 02:35 PM

From the BBC:

Fox News 'propaganda' says mogul

Ted Turner said media companies were not being critical enough


CNN founder Ted Turner attacked US TV network Fox News on Tuesday, labelling it "propaganda" for its stance towards the Bush administration.

Turner also likened the network's current popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Germany.

"Just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're right," Turner said in a speech to the National Association of Television Programming Executives.

Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is currently leading CNN in TV ratings.

Mr Turner also attacked "gigantic companies whose agenda goes beyond broadcasting" for not criticising the Bush administration enough.

'Problems'

"There's one network, Fox, that's a propaganda voice for them," the 66-year-old media mogul said.

"It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy when the news is 'dumbed-down'."

Fox News issued a statement, saying: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind - we wish him well."

During a question-and-answer session, Mr Turner, who stood down as the chairman of AOL Time Warner in 2003, said it was "not necessarily a bad thing" that CNN and other news networks were behind Fox in the ratings.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 05:50 PM

Barbara Bush wears army boots...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 07:39 PM

As does Laura but not George... But he'll strap on a flight suit, pretend to land on an aircraft carrier with a message of "Mission Accomplished" then lie about it all???

Like other than me and Amos and few others who frequent this thread, does Bush's pathological lieing bother you? If not, why?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 09:50 PM

Which Way Out?


 

 

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On the deadliest day of the Iraq war, with 31 troops killed in a helicopter crash and six more in insurgent ambushes, President Bush's response was that the crash would be "very discouraging to the American people." The president has a gift for understatement when it comes to the war; discouragement has long since given way to anger, both at the Iraqi insurgents and the U.S. administration that got us into this mess.

After nearly two years, the deaths of more than 1,400 troops and the expenditure of well over $200 billion, Bush still refuses to spell out an exit strategy. Instead, he speaks of bringing the troops home "as soon as possible" and hails Sunday's election for an interim national assembly.

The onetime goal of ridding the country of weapons of mass destruction went by the boards when it turned out there were no such weapons. The new target is Iraq as a launching pad for democracy in the Middle East. But the more immediate result has been to create a new rallying point for Islamic fundamentalists.



(Los Angeles Times Editorial)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:05 PM

Little Black Lies

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: January 28, 2005



ocial Security privatization really is like tax cuts, or the Iraq war: the administration keeps on coming up with new rationales, but the plan remains the same. President Bush's claim that we must privatize Social Security to avert an imminent crisis has evidently fallen flat. So now he's playing the race card.


This week, in a closed meeting with African-Americans, Mr. Bush asserted that Social Security was a bad deal for their race, repeating his earlier claim that "African-American males die sooner than other males do, which means the system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people." In other words, blacks don't live long enough to collect their fair share of benefits.

This isn't a new argument; privatizers have been making it for years. But the claim that blacks get a bad deal from Social Security is false. And Mr. Bush's use of that false argument is doubly shameful, because he's exploiting the tragedy of high black mortality for political gain instead of treating it as a problem we should solve.

(See link for rest of article)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 05:08 PM

EDITORIAL

America's Promises

Published: January 28, 2005



Three years ago, President Bush created the Millennium Challenge Account to give more money to poor countries that are committed to policies promoting development. Mr. Bush said his government would donate billions in incremental stages until the program got to a high of $5 billion a year starting in 2006. While $5 billion is just 0.04 percent of America's national income, President Bush touted the proposal as proof that he cares about poverty in Africa and elsewhere. "I carry this commitment in my soul," the president said.

For the third straight year, Mr. Bush has committed a lot less than he promised. Michael Phillips of The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House has quietly informed the managers of the Millennium Challenge Account to expect about $3 billion in the next budget. This follows a sad pattern. Mr. Bush said he would ask Congress for $1.7 billion in 2004; he asked for $1.3 billion and got $1 billion. He said he would ask for $3.3 billion in 2005; he asked for $2.5 billion and got $1.5 billion.

So if past is prologue, the Republican Congress will cut the diluted 2006 pledge even further.

None of that appears to bother the Bush administration, which continues to send high-ranking officials into the world to promote the anemic Millennium Challenge Account to poor nations. The program - not the money, since the account has yet to pay out a single dollar - is high on the list of talking points for cabinet officials like the United States trade representative, Robert Zoellick, who visited Africa in December and cited the program every chance he got. Speaking to Latin American ambassadors in Washington this month, a Treasury under secretary, John Taylor, hailed it as a "major way in which we are working with countries to meet the challenge of increasing productivity growth."

Officials at the Millennium Challenge Account are quick to list the countries that, through good governance, have qualified for the aid program. They are not as quick to list the countries that have received a dime: there aren't any. Still, Paul Applegarth, chief executive of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, assured us last week that President Bush's program is "really moving at an extraordinarily quick pace."

Maybe the administration should tell that to the 300 million Africans who lack safe drinking water, or the 3,000 African children under the age of 5 who die every day from malaria, or the 1 in 16 African women who die in childbirth, or the 6,000 Africans who die each day of AIDS. But wait. Maybe the president is planning to deal with the African AIDS catastrophe through his 2003 proposal to increase AIDS funds by $10 billion over the following five years?

Not unless he is planning to finish with a bang, because the White House is expected to ask Congress for only $1.6 billion more next year. When added to the amount that AIDS funds increased in 2004 and 2005, that would leave a whopping more than $6 billion to get out of Congress in the next two years to meet Mr. Bush's pledge. Congress and Mr. Bush will point to the ballooning deficit and say they don't have the money. But that was a matter of choice. They chose to spend billions on tax cuts for the wealthy and the war in Iraq. They can choose to spend it instead to keep America's promises. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 07:32 PM

Ten....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:43 PM

Another columnist was paid to help Bush administration agency




SIOBHAN McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer


Friday, January 28, 2005


 





Printable Version

Email This Article













(01-28) 14:47 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that a third conservative columnist was paid to assist in promoting a Bush administration policy.

Columnist Mike McManus received $10,000 to train marriage counselors as part of the agency's initiative promoting marriage to build strong families, said Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families.

The disclosure came as the Government Accountability Office sent a letter to the Education Department on Friday asking for all materials related to its contract dealings with a prominent conservative media commentator.

That department, through a contract with the public relations firm Ketchum, hired commentator Armstrong Williams to produce ads that featured former Education Secretary Rod Paige and promoted President Bush's No Child Left Behind law. The contract also committed Williams, who is black, to provide media access for Paige and to persuade other black journalists to talk about the law.

Federal law bans the use of public money on propaganda.

(Excerpted from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/01/28/national1747EST0661.DTL)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:43 PM

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/209718_fccmedia28.html

Bush administration quits fight over media ownership


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

WASHINGTON -- Media companies hoping to expand their TV station holdings and to own TV stations and newspapers in the same markets suffered a setback yesterday when the Bush administration decided to abandon its challenge of a ruling that blocked the relaxation of media ownership rules.


The Justice Department will not ask the Supreme Court to review a decision last year by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia that sharply criticized the attempt to deregulate and ordered the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its action. The decision is a final slap at Michael Powell, the outgoing chairman of the FCC, who had advocated the changes.


The dispute over media ownership rules has been closely watched in Seattle, where owners of the city's two major newspapers -- locked in a continuing legal dispute over their joint publishing agreement -- have expressed diametrically opposed views on the issue.


In filings with the FCC, both The Hearst Corp., which owns the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Hearst-Argyle Television Inc., which owns 25 TV stations and is majority owned by The Hearst Corp., have supported lifting restrictions on media ownership.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:44 PM

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/Tensions-grow-with-Bush-Administrations-inertia-on-sliding-greenback/2005/01/28/1106850109364.html?oneclick=true

Tensions grow with Bush Administration's inertia on sliding greenback

By David Sanger, Mark Landler, and Keith Bradsher
January 29, 2005




Page Tools











Washington: After a first term in which terrorism and war dominated President George W. Bush's foreign policy agenda, his allies in Europe and Asia suspect that his next confrontation with the world could take on a very different cast: a potential monetary crisis, in which a steep plunge in the value of the US dollar touches off economic waves around the world.


Already, the tensions about the US dollar are becoming a recurring source of friction, a conflict that does not reverberate as loudly as the differences over Iraq but may be as deeply felt. At a meeting in Paris on Monday, the finance ministers of Germany and France complained that Europe had unjustly borne the brunt of the US dollar's downward slide and called for co-ordinated action to stop it.


"Europe has until now paid too big a share in this readjustment," Herve Gaymard, the French finance minister, said bluntly. His German counterpart, Hans Eichel, said the US needed to reduce its deficits, adding "each one has to play its role".


Two months ago, similar sentiments came from China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, whose nation is at the centre of a struggle with Washington about currency policy. He complained about the fall of the US dollar, asking, "Shouldn't the relevant authorities be doing something about this?"


In an interview just before President Bush's inauguration, Treasury Secretary John Snow played down the tensions. "We understand that deficits matter," he said, insisting that the tight budget Bush is expected to send to Congress next month should give foreigners and the financial markets the solace they seek.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:46 PM

http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?filename=us128.htm

Bush Administration Backs Off Media Ownership Rules




WASHINGTON, D.C., January 28: President George W. Bush's administration has abandoned its challenge to a ruling that blocked the relaxation of media ownership rules, delivering another set back to companies that are seeking to expand their TV station holdings and own newspaper and TV assets in the same market.


According to wire reports, the Justice Department will not ask the Supreme Court to consider a judgement by a Philadelphia federal appeals court last year that ordered the FCC to reconsider its plan to liberalize media ownership rules. The FCC, led by outgoing chairman Michael Powell, had sought to increase the television station ownership cap to 45 percent, from the previous 35 percent. The new ownership rules would have also allowed a media company to own television and newspaper assets in the same market.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:52 PM

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/1363256.html

Bush Administration Wants Another $80 Billion For War In Iraq



The Bush administration will announce plans Wednesday to request another $80 billion to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional aides say, but won't be formally presented to Congress until after President Bush has introduced his new budget on Feb. 6.



The announcement will come a day after the Congressional Budget Office projected that the government will run an $855 billion deficit over the next 10 years, excluding the costs of the war and the President's Social Security Plan.


The Army said Monday it expects to keep its troop strength in Iraq at the current level of about 120,000 for at least two more years.


The Army's top operations officer, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace, Jr. told reporters Monday that represents "the most probable case"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:53 PM

http://www2.townonline.com/winchester/opinion/view.bg?articleid=171390

Frenkel: Bush administration's use of Social Security trust unlawful
By David Frenkel/ Guest columnist
Thursday, January 27, 2005

At last we have found the dreaded WMD, and they are right here in the United States. WMD: Whoppers of Mass Disinformation.

     President George W. Bush and an entire army of GOP players, including Vice President Dick Cheney, are out shilling for the ultimate destruction of Social Security. They have perfected the art of dressing up, in a benign disguise, acts designed to favor their campaign donors, in this case brokerage houses. They even have the gall to use Department of Social Security trust funds to defray the depletion of the trust funds, as they promote this change - in spite of it not yet being law.

     This represents more unlawful use of public funds and it is enraging many staff members of the Department of Social Security.

     For those in Winchester who are dependant on Social Security, or plan to retire any time soon, you will be pleased to know that this "crisis" is just one more manufactured problem by the Bush conservative radicals, who have learned people will accept unpleasant solutions if they think that they must make an instant decision driven by a crisis. So when you want to pay off your brokerage campaign donors and please your ideologues - all in one post-election victory-glow glorious moment - here is the golden opportunity.

     Never mind that only 9 percent of the people polled by Associated Press last week felt that Social Security should be a high priority topic for the president. Never mind that the receipts from SS taxes are in surplus at present and for many years to come and that Bush is spending our contribution surplus while borrowing even more to pay for his Iraq war and to make up for his massive ill-timed tax cuts for the very wealthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:54 PM

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501270012

Media is advancing Bush administration's faulty argument on Social Security's race inequalities


Reporters and commentators have unquestioningly presented, or even promoted, the Bush administration's faulty argument for Social Security privatization that blacks are disadvantaged under the current system and that Bush's proposal for private accounts would address that purported inequity. But the General Accounting Office (GAO) and two Social Security Administration (SSA) actuaries have undermined that claim.


In covering President Bush's January 25 meeting with black leaders, several news reports repeated the administration's claim that the current Social Security program is unfair to blacks, but did not note any of the evidence debunking it. On January 25, Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler provided the administration's account while neglecting to report evidence refuting the claim that private accounts will especially benefit blacks; New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller continued the trend January 26.


Los Angeles Times staff writers Peter Wallsten and Richard Simon, on the other hand, noted in a January 26 article some of the reasons private accounts could hurt blacks: "[Congressional Black] Caucus leaders contend that blacks rely disproportionately on disability and survivors benefits paid by Social Security, and that Bush's changes would jeopardize the entire system -- hurting black beneficiaries far more than the private accounts might help them."


In a January 25 report on FOX News' Special Report with Brit Hume, chief White House correspondent Carl Cameron reported the "administration selling point" that "because blacks on average do not live as long as whites, African Americans could get a fairer share of the retirement pie with the investment nest egg." On the January 24 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, nationally syndicated radio host Limbaugh declared: "If Social Security is all screwed up here because it discriminates on race and gender, it's broken! ... Can we all admit we need to fix it?"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:56 PM

http://www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/brummett.html

By JOHN BRUMMETT



If you didn't know better, you'd think that George Bush and his people admire Bill Clinton. For the last couple of weeks they've fallen over themselves quoting Clinton as having said in the 1990s the very thing Republicans are saying now to Democratic ridicule.

You know, that Social Security is in a crisis, which it isn't, technically speaking.

One of my favorite bloggers calls this "cherry-picking," meaning the selection of an occasional Clinton quote to suit one's purposes, never mind one's objections to the extensive balance of what the man ever said.

If you call a guy a liar and impeach him, it ought to follow that you would impair your ability to embrace him credibly for your advantage later.

Anyway, Social Security's actuarial projection was grimmer in Clinton's '90s than Bush's '00s. And on at least one of those occasions, and perhaps all of them, Clinton was talking specifically about a crisis not in Social Security itself, but in the federal budget owing to its obligations to Social Security.

That came, you might recall, as Clinton was endeavoring without a single Republican ally to get the Reagan-Bush deficits down and save us from being bankrupted and owned lock, stock and barrel by foreign owners of our debt.

The Bush administration talks of a Social Security doomsday in 2018. But the experts say Social Security will have plenty of assets for all its liabilities until sometime between 2043 and 2052.

The problem in 2018 is specifically a federal budget problem, not a Social Security problem. That's when the federal general fund's IOUs to the Social Security surplus start coming due. So, Social Security would have a problem in 2018 only if a key asset was rendered worthless by the system's having involuntarily extended credit to the United States government.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:57 PM

Illegeal activities and these crooks go hand in hand...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:58 PM

George Bush Spin On Iraq Is Dizzying As 37 Americans Die In Iraq

http://www.s5000.com/what_the_huck/718/george_bush_iraq.php
1/27/05: © www.s5000.com



      George Bush keeps spin on Iraq going.  George Bush is in his own Iraq.  George Bush doesn't have a clue about Iraq or what is going on there.  George W. Bush tried to spin Wednesday's news in a positive light.  George W. Bush is the one who is spun.  George W. Bush must think that you and I are stupid, and will believe anything he has to say.  As I listened to the reports and read George Bush's statements and representations regarding American losses, and the upcoming elections in Iraq, I couldn't help but think Bush is a candidate for the nut house.  If George Bush believes even an eighth of what he's telling us, we're all in a lot of trouble.  George Bush asked for your patience and understanding on what he claims was a "very discouraging day" of death and violence in Iraq for our soldiers.  Wake up George.  It's been a ridicules two years of "death and violence" in Iraq for everyone since you needlessly invaded that country. Tell Huck what your feelings are. 

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 10:58 PM

Beat ya

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:00 PM

Well, fittingly, I didn't. But at least it was to mah main man, Amos, and not to Martin...

Now, on to 2000, Amos...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:01 PM

Taddddaaaaaa!!!!

And to top it off, the last piece of masterful research and report for this thread is from Yale University, his old Skull and Bones stomping ground:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=28052

Bush's lip service to liberty isn't serving anyone







Most Recent Columns

THE LOW-DOWN | ROGER LOW

Bush's lip service to liberty isn't serving anyone (Thursday, January 27, 2005)


 







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There was something nauseatingly depressing about George Bush's second inauguration -- and not just because it was George Bush's second inauguration. His face a studied mask of optimistic determination, our president looked into the cameras squarely and vowed, as he has vowed so many times before and as so many past presidents have vowed before him, to fight tyranny and champion liberty. The United States will use its influence to back democracy everywhere with the "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," he said during a 20-minute speech in which he used the words "liberty" or "freedom" a total of 42 times. The assembled audience of Washingtonians, eager to get started on their weekend of schmoozing, clapped politely.

I'm glad to know that the president really, really supports freedom. I do, too. Now that Bush has been safely re-elected and never has to run for another office in his life, however, I was naively hoping that he would drop his folksy platitudes for an hour, seize the national microphone and give the country some idea of how he intends to make the world safe for democracy. Because so far, his master plan seems to be blowing other countries up.

This is not idle sarcasm. To those few, those happy few, Republican Yalies currently salivating over the prospect of four more years, I would ask one simple question: Can you explain what our president's foreign policy strategy is? Let us set aside, for the moment, the wisdom of invading Iraq. Even supposing that somehow, miraculously, a stable democracy does manage to crystallize in that country, surely we can all agree that the strategy is not repeatable. The Iraq mission, when all is said and done, will cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives and will tie down vast portions of our military for years to come. With the United States already facing its largest deficit in history and with army recruitment at a dangerously low level, no serious politician can talk with a straight face about America undertaking another large-scale military venture in the foreseeable future.
...

---

Well, thanks, boys and girls. It has been fun, I must admit, and I have really enjoyed being baited by the rednecks in these parts, accused of loose screws and obsessive compulsive what-nots.

IF he acts up again, you can be sure I will let you know. :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Jan 05 - 11:20 PM

I'm so sick of hearing Bush and his peons tout "freedome & liberty" since they don't even know what those words mean, let alone have any particular interest in it...

But they'll wave their flags and talk of grandeuos visions of freedom and liberty while stickin' their hands into working America's pocketbook. These guys are nuthin' more than rag team carnival pick-pockets...

Meanwhile, if you needed a standardized national IQ test all you'd need to do was figure that anyone who is happy gettin' pick-pocketed by these thugs should be the standard for retardation...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 01:31 AM

Congratulations Amos ( I guess). You managed to keep this thread going for a thousand plus posts. The fact that most of them were your own probably shouldn't enter into the equation I guess because you probably hold some kind of record. That record (a single contributor writing the most posts in a single thread)is ...ah ...laudable ...probably ...I guess ... At least it speaks well of your ...stick-to-it-ness.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 08:57 AM

Very kind words, Dougie, but, hey, you hung in their with the few of us that comprised the supporting cast so I congratulate you as well...

Sniff...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 10:20 AM

Dougie:

There well over 1000 opportunities to uncover hypocrisy, two-faacedness, rampant ignorantism, barbarian offenses against civilized codes, and plain old stupidness on the part of "the President".

My stick-to-itness is equalled only by his dull-witted obdurance.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:27 AM

You just reached post 1007. This will be post 1008.

This gives me an opportunity to mention the Cant. Z 1007 Italian bomber of WWII! It was quite a nice looking plane, though not as famous as the Savio-Marchetti Sparviero, another Italian bomber of the day.

Here's a picture of it:

Cant. Z 1007

The Cant. Z 1007 was, like many Italian planes of the time, a trimotor aircraft. Like the English Mosquito fighter/bomber it was made almost entirely out of wood. It proved reasonably successful in North Africa and the Med. Over 500 were built.

Thank you very much. Resume your discusssion of G.W.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:37 AM

Talk about being a thread creep, LH!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Jan 05 - 11:38 AM

I liked the Ford Trimotor, myself 'cause it didn't drop nuthin' on no one...

Now back to G.W., as in wuss...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 05 - 01:49 PM

Some lines are just too good not to pass on.

Here's an excerpt from Maureen Dowd's latest essay in the New York Times:

"I misunderestimated this ambitious president. His social engineering schemes in the Middle East and America are breathtakingly brazen.

He doesn't just want to dismantle the 60's. He wants to dismantle the whole century - from the Scopes trial to Social Security. He can shred one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal and then go after other big safety-net Democratic programs, reversing the prevailing philosophy of many decades that our tax and social welfare systems should equalize the distribution of wealth, just a little bit. Barry Goldwater wouldn't have had the brass to take a jackhammer to that edifice.

The White House seems to think Social Security was corrupt from the moment it was enacted in 1935. It wants to replace it with private accounts that will fatten the wallets of stockbrokers and put the savings of Americans who didn't inherit vast fortunes at risk.

Mr. Bush and his crew not only want to scrap the New Deal. By weakening environmental and safety protections and trying to flatten the progressive income tax, they're trying to eradicate not just one Roosevelt but two, going after the progressive legacy of Theodore.

With their brutal assault on history and their sanctimonious manner, they give a whole new meaning to Teddy's philosophy of the presidency. Bully pulpit, indeed."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 05 - 07:49 PM

Nightmare come true?


Globalist Perspective > Global Politics
George W. Bush: My Life as a Democrat
 
By The Globalist | Wednesday, February 02, 2005
 
Freshly sworn in for a second term, President Bush is looking forward to implementing his agenda with fellow Republicans in charge in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. One of our readers engaged in an intriguing thought experiment: What if the president woke up a Democrat — and all his old allies viewed his current policies through a different political lens entirely?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 04:03 PM

Having seen a report that GWB said "We're gonna catch those suicide bombers, and bring them to American justice", I feel that he is now eligible for canonisation, the primary qualification being the ability to perform miracles.

The new Saint George would then be quite safe, as the other qualification is that the candidate be dead (which he is, from the neck up at least).

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 10:33 AM

The following article is one of the more interesting commentaries on Mister B., and is not hateful. I recommend the whole piece. It is polite.

A

---

---

The Thinker

The Washington Post


By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, February 6, 2005; Page B07



The strangest aspect of President Bush's new War on Tyranny is the connection he draws between tyranny and terrorism. It's not the connection you would suspect, or the one Bush was making during his first term. When Saddam Hussein was still in charge of Iraq, it was enough to say that bad guys are bad guys. A sadistic dictator is just the type of person who would also harbor terrorists and stockpile weapons of mass destruction.


But now Bush says that terrorists are actually the victims of tyranny. In his inaugural address, this seemed like a bit of transitory, use-once-and-discard highfalutinism. But Bush returned to the theme in his State of the Union address Wednesday. "In the long term," he said, "the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America. . . . "


The legendary anarchist writer Emma Goldman said much the same thing in a 1917 essay, "The Psychology of Political Violence." It is "the despair millions of people are daily made to endure" that drives some of them to acts of terror. Can one question the tremendous, revolutionizing effect on human character exerted by great social iniquities?" She quotes a pamphlet from British-ruled India: "Terrorism . . . is inevitable as long as . . . tyranny continues, for it is not the terrorists that are to be blamed, but the tyrants who are responsible for it."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 01:00 PM

All fine and well, but when the bomb goes off, does anybody believe that it will kill even one of the actual oppressors. Blowing up a bus that may contain up to 50% muslims seems a rather dumb thing to do in support of Islam. Ditto for Basques in Spain, and in fact almost all of these "Freedom fighters", who risk killing their own, while having a negligible chance of scoring one of the people they are fighting against.

Remove oppression, they'll fight about religion; solve that, they'll fight about land; and so on and so on............ad nauseam.

I've come to the bitter conclusion that the last two humans left on earth will find something to fight over, and the survivor will say "God, what do I do now"? And God will take one of his ribs,














AND BEAT HIM TO DEATH WITH IT, and good riddance.

DT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Feb 05 - 01:46 PM

I just started another thread, "Christians – Moral vs 'Moral'" (just what the world needs! Another thread on that subject!) with THIS link, but I think it's also appropriate here. It's a speech given by a minister, and it begins as follows:

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.

But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.

Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian.

We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean what are we talking about?

And he goes on from there. It needs to be said, loud, clear, and often.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 12:26 PM

waht all this is about?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 02:56 PM

JhOn:

PleezE reed All the thdread frits and tHeN aks.

Amso

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 06:03 PM

Bush's Budget: The Bad Math Is No Secret

02/07/2005 @ 4:47pm


If it's budget time, it must be disinformation time. That's how it goes in the Bush II era. George W. Bush released a budget today that he claims is responsible, honest, and designed to cut the $400 billion-plus deficit in half by 2009. Not so. By now, you probably have heard the obvious criticisms. The budget does not include the $80 billion Bush is asking for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And that probably won't cover the full tab.) It doesn't account for the $1 trillion to $2 trillion that Bush needs to pay for the private investment accounts he wants to carve out of Social Security. It also doesn't recognize that several hundred billion dollars will disappear from the revenue stream when the government rejiggers the alternative minimum tax--which it must--to prevent this tax (written to apply to corporations that make creative use of loopholes) from hitting middle-class individual tax filers.


There are few secrets about Bush's budgetary shenanigans. While the military gets a hefty boost, housing, education and environmental protection gets hammered. Every advocacy group concerned with federal spending was issuing press releases today. Folks on Capitol Hill were doing the same. Senator Jim Jeffords, the Republican-turned-independent from Vermont, put out a short list of the worst of Bush's proposed cuts. Here it is:


* Environment. Cuts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget by 5.6 percent from $8.02 billion to $7.57 billion, culminating in an almost 10 percent cut over two years. Most cuts come in efforts to maintain and improve the nation's clean water infrastructure.


* Veterans. More than doubles the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using the Veterans health care system.


* Health Care. Cuts Medicaid funding by $45 billion over 10 years and eliminates 28 health programs, totaling $1.36 billion. These programs range from rural hospital grants (cuts $39.5 million) to emergency medical services for children (cuts $20 million).


* Job Training. Cuts federal spending on job training by a half-billion dollars. Federal job training programs, including dislocated-worker training, will be cut by $200 million. Federal aid to states for job training, including funding to train veterans, will be cut by $300 million.


* Amtrak. Eliminates all funding for Amtrak, calling bankruptcy proceedings as the solution for our nation's rail system.


* Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP). Cuts LIHEAP by over 8 percent, from $2.2 billion to $2 billion.


* Parks. Cuts the National Park Service by 3 percent from $2.31 billion to $2.24 billion.


The Bush White House defends its cuts, claiming it is targeting programs that don't work. Could it be that the Bushies are right? That those darn bureaucrats running the clean water programs at the EPA are flushing taxpayer dollars down the drain? Perhaps. But here's the thing: if Bush is not being honest about the macro dimensions of his budget--and he's not--then how can he be trusted on the details? Short answer: he cannot. I am willing to believe waste and unnecessary spending can be found throughout government. Maybe even at the Pentagon. (Gosh, no!) But I am not willing to hand the scalpel to Bush and his lieutenants when they spin numbers and refuse to acknowledge the true budgetary problems that they have caused and overseen.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 12:32 PM

Editorial: Bush's lies won't catch up to him, they'll get you in the end


Will you trust your future to a man with four failed companies, an endless trail of lies and a history of deficit spending to his credit?

by Brian Richards



WASHINGTON, D.C. -- (OfficialWire) -- 02/04/05 -- Anyone who has read The Lies of George W. Bush (David Corn, Three River Press) already knows that the current President of the United States is a liar.

What is truly amazing is that despite his lies, George W. Bush continues to occupy a space in the White House.

It is perhaps a measure of the true state of the Union, that the American public have been able to forget that they didn't vote this man into office, that he lied to the world about the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, that he has illegally kidnapped and continues to imprison hundreds of innocent men (he thinks) outside the jurisdiction of any law or country and all the while touting the red, white and blue banner of freedom.

In just four years, the Bush administration has raped and pillaged the U.S. Treasury in support of those who brought them to power. Now in his second term, having retained his post under a further cloud of deceit and trickery, President Bush II now prepares to dismantle an American institution: Social Security as we know it. As this man lies his way through the process, consider that "The Bush Plan" will not fix the problem, it will make it worse.

Americans have become brain-dead

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:43 PM

Rove Is Promoted To Deputy Staff Chief


Job Covers a Broad Swath of Policy



By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A21

During President Bush's first term, outsiders often suspected that Karl Rove was really behind virtually everything. Now it's official.


Rove, the political mastermind behind two presidential elections, yesterday was named White House deputy chief of staff in charge of coordinating domestic policy, economic policy, national security and homeland security.

Karl Rove has long been a close confidant to George W. Bush. (Susan Walsh -- AP)


For a man who spent a lifetime in the business of polls and campaign strategy, it is an expansive portfolio cutting across virtually the entire policy spectrum. But many in the White House said the new position largely formalizes what was already true, noting that Rove has quietly played a vital role in shaping domestic policy from the inception of the Bush presidency. Now, for the first time, he will have a formal hand in foreign policy as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:49 PM

Bush Request to Fund Nuclear Study Revives Debate

Administration Wants to Research 'Bunker Buster,' but Critics Seek to Reassess U.S. Readiness



By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A09


The Bush administration is seeking $8.5 million to resume a study by the Energy and Defense departments on the feasibility of a nuclear "bunker buster" warhead, but the proposal is generating opposition in Congress and some leaders are pushing for a broader review of the nation's multibillion-dollar nuclear weapons programs.

Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that handles the $6 billion-plus annual budget of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, says he wants to raise fundamental questions this year about the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile and why so many weapons remain on high levels of alert.

---

Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government

Some Conservatives Express Concern at Agenda



By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A01



President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.


In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.


Bush is calling for new federal accountability and testing requirements for all public high schools, after imposing similar mandates on grades three through eight during his first term. To limit lawsuits against businesses and professionals, he is proposing to put a federal cap on damage awards for medical malpractice, to force class-action cases into federal courts and to help create a national settlement of outstanding asbestos-related cases.


On social policy, the president is pushing a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage in the states and continuing to define and expand the federal government's role in encouraging religious groups to help administer social programs such as community drug-rehabilitation efforts.


"We have moved from devolution, which was just pushing back as much power as possible to the states, back to where government is limited but active," said John Bridgeland, director of Bush's domestic policy council in the first term. Bridgeland and current White House officials see Bush's governing philosophy as a smart way to modernize the government, empower individuals and broaden the appeal of the GOP.


Bush maintains a stated desire to streamline the government. On Monday, he sent Congress a budget that would eliminate or consolidate 150 programs. But a growing number of conservatives are uneasy with what they deride as "big-government conservatism."


"He keeps expanding the federal involvement into state and local affairs," said Chris Edwards, a tax and budget expert at the Cato Institute, a think tank that often supports the president's agenda. "My hope would be that there would be an electoral rebuke of big [-government] Republicans like there was when the tectonic plates shifted in 1994."


Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said: "The Republican majority, left to its own devices from 1995 to 2000, was a party committed to limited government and restoring the balances of federalism with the states. Clearly, President Bush has had a different vision, and that vision has resulted in education and welfare policies that have increased the size and scope of government."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 03:05 PM

Three things stand out in President Bush's proposed budget:

¶He would rather continue the tax cuts for a few rich Americans than save government programs that affect much more needy Americans.

¶By stating that spending cuts are necessary to rein in the growing deficit, he conveniently ignores that his previous two irresponsible tax cuts are the primary reason for that deficit.

¶The savings from all the proposed spending cuts barely add up to a fraction of what we will spend in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president's budget reveals his true priorities. But we need not worry, as the budget provides plenty of instant-gratification rhetoric and clever use of the English language.

Ravishankar Palanivelu
Chicago, Feb. 8, 2005

---

President Bush is proposing a tight budget in which the poor, the police and the sick will take up the burden of balancing the budget so that wealthy Americans won't have to pay fair taxes.

If Mr. Bush were a fair president, he would make sure that the burden of taxation would be shared. But of course he doesn't pretend to be fair, only moral.

I wonder about the morality of this country, both domestically and internationally, when a deficit of Mr. Bush's own making promotes a dismantling of the federal government's duty to people who don't have trust funds to see them through life.

Mr. Bush seems to want the safety net in this country to have worm holes so that he can make an unfair tax cut permanent. Perhaps the majority of people in this country want more of our goods to be made by cheap labor, want more of our legislators to be in the pay of lobbyists for multinational companies, and want to throw away the First Amendment.

This is not the United States I once knew and felt great pride in.

Phyllis Berlant Abrams
Plymouth Meeting, Pa., Feb. 8, 2005

•

---

When I look at President Bush's budget cuts, I find exactly what I have been expecting - a set of priorities that provide for grandiose war games at the expense of the fundamental needs of our society.

I suspect that we are about to discover the real cost of our unnecessary war and the extent to which our insensitive and well-insulated leadership will go in its search for scripted adventure and personal adulation.

I have never been more concerned about the future of this country.

Frank Reardon
Olathe, Kan., Feb. 8, 2005

---

To the Editor:

President Bush's proposed budget is a blatant example of his disdain for the poor and middle class. He proposes cuts in Medicare, Amtrak and programs for veterans, students, the police and others that mostly benefit the poor and middle classes.

But the president adamantly defends all the tax cuts for the rich. There is no equal sharing in this one!

None of these proposed cuts would need to be discussed if the tax cuts for the top 10 percent were rescinded. After Afghanistan and Iraq, is class warfare Mr. Bush's third war?

Frank Zaski
Franklin, Mich., Feb. 8, 2005

---

A few voices among millions who are protesting Bush' dramatizations.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:41 PM

Hey, Amos, I just figured out why this thread is of value to some folks. They can read it and find out all the left-wing crap the liberals are writing these days without subscribing to one of the left-wing newspapers like New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, etc., etc.

You're doing a community service! But hurting circulation. :>)
DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:55 PM

Haha.............ha, Dougie...................................................................................................................................................

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 10:54 PM

Thanks, Dougie. It always tweaks my fancy to notice that getting close to an issue gets you tuh snarling and cussing instead of talking up and speaking to the issues.

Not just you, it seems to be a fall-back position fer a lot of them right-wingers. Kinda like a substitute for confronting the factors.

But thanks for the kind thoughts, anyway.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 12:51 PM

Today's NYT has a column from my favourite redhead, Maureen Dowd, excerpt below.

"...This guy should be on the Bush team. Controlling what does not need to be controlled is its specialty.

Condoleezza Rice plays hardball with foes and allies around the world. But she's afraid of a few French schoolkids?

Keith Richburg reported in The Washington Post that the Bushies ensured that Condi's appearance at the elite Institute of Political Sciences was more sheep pen than lion's den. "Only a handful of the school's 5,500 students were allowed near the auditorium where Rice spoke," he wrote, "and the initial questions were vetted in advance by the school and the State Department."

The article said Benjamin Barnier, the son of Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, asked the first question, about the possibility of a theocratic government in Iraq. But the real question he wanted to ask was vetoed after he submitted it to the school on Monday. It was: "George Bush is not particularly well perceived in the world, particularly in the Middle East. Can you do something to change that?"

Surely, the "princess warrior" and "Madame Hawk," as she has been dubbed in France, could have handled that one.

But Bush officials prefer to write the script, or "create their own reality," as one Bushie put it, whenever they can. Besides the W.M.D. scare, there was the Kabuki "Ask President Bush" campaign sessions where voters had to take written pledges of support before they were allowed in, and the micromanaged town hall debates, where Bush strategists would not allow truly undecided voters to ask W. questions. And don't forget the administration's payments to conservative "journalists" to sell programs they would have promoted anyway.

The administration is obsessed with controlling the script in ways it doesn't need to, while it drops the ball on controlling the script in ways it should. With the occupation plan in Iraq and the approach to Iran and North Korea, the Bush team often seems to be improvising.

The smug French, who have been riveted by what they regard as American self-delusion, were also riveted by Condi's lèse-majesté seduction in pumps and pearls. Her message boiled down to a silky version of: "Now that we've blown you off and ignored you, we're going to give you an opportunity to admit we were right all along and join us on the ramparts to crush Islamic fundamentalism."

As Elaine Sciolino wrote in The Times, the new secretary of state sent a frisson through the American ambassador's residence yesterday at breakfast with six French intellectuals when she referred to Iran as a "totalitarian state," rather than an "authoritarian" one - since totalitarian is a term ordinarily reserved for violent regimes like Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union.

"It was scary," said one guest, François Heisbourg, and it inflamed French fears that the U.S. is eyeing regime change in Iran next."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 11:32 PM

Torture, American Style (New York Times)
By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 11, 2005



Maher Arar is a 34-year-old native of Syria who emigrated to Canada as a teenager. On Sept. 26, 2002, as he was returning from a family vacation in Tunisia, he was seized by American authorities at Kennedy Airport in New York, where he was in the process of changing planes.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was not charged with a crime. But, as Jane Mayer tells us in a compelling and deeply disturbing article in the current issue of The New Yorker, he "was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet."

In an instant, Mr. Arar was swept into an increasingly common nightmare, courtesy of the United States of America. The plane that took off with him from Kennedy "flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan."

Any rights Mr. Arar might have thought he had, either as a Canadian citizen or a human being, had been left behind. At times during the trip, Mr. Arar heard the pilots and crew identify themselves in radio communications as members of "the Special Removal Unit." He was being taken, on the orders of the U.S. government, to Syria, where he would be tortured.

The title of Ms. Mayer's article is "Outsourcing Torture." It's a detailed account of the frightening and extremely secretive U.S. program known as "extraordinary rendition."

This is one of the great euphemisms of our time. Extraordinary rendition is the name that's been given to the policy of seizing individuals without even the semblance of due process and sending them off to be interrogated by regimes known to practice torture. In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by side with contract killings.

Our henchmen in places like Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Jordan are torturing terror suspects at the behest of a nation - the United States - that just went through a national election in which the issue of moral values was supposed to have been decisive. How in the world did we become a country in which gays' getting married is considered an abomination, but torture is O.K.?

As Ms. Mayer pointed out: "Terrorism suspects in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East have often been abducted by hooded or masked American agents, then forced onto a Gulfstream V jet, like the one described by Arar. ... Upon arriving in foreign countries, rendered suspects often vanish. Detainees are not provided with lawyers, and many families are not informed of their whereabouts."

Mr. Arar was seized because his name had turned up on a watch list of terror suspects. He was reported to have been a co-worker of a man in Canada whose brother was a suspected terrorist.

"Although he initially tried to assert his innocence, he eventually confessed to anything his tormentors wanted him to say," Ms. Mayer wrote.

The confession under torture was worthless. Syrian officials reported back to the United States that they could find no links between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was released in October 2003 without ever being charged and is now back in Canada.

Barbara Olshansky is the assistant legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing Mr. Arar in a lawsuit against the U.S. I asked her to describe Mr. Arar's physical and emotional state following his release from custody.

She sounded shaken by the memory. "He's not a big guy," she said. "He had lost more than 40 pounds. His pallor was terrible, and his eyes were sunken. He looked like someone who was kind of dead inside."

Any government that commits, condones, promotes or fosters torture is a malignant force in the world. And those who refuse to raise their voices against something as clearly evil as torture are enablers, if not collaborators.

There is a widespread but mistaken notion in the U.S. that everybody seized by the government in its so-called war on terror is in fact somehow connected to terrorist activity. That is just wildly wrong.

Tony Blair knows a little about that sort of thing. Just two days ago the British prime minister formally apologized to 11 people who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for bombings in England by the Irish Republican Army three decades ago.

Jettisoning the rule of law to permit such acts of evil as kidnapping and torture is not a defensible policy for a civilized nation. It's wrong. And nothing good can come from it.



E-mail: [e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 11:36 PM

Yet another analysis of the scandalous budget irresponsibility:

When Math Is Worse Than Fuzzy

Published: February 10, 2005


Whenever the Bush administration wants to sell a costly new program, look carefully before you accept any numbers it puts out. The math isn't just fuzzy, as the current euphemism would have it - it is often downright misleading, and deliberately so.

The latest example is the newly acknowledged cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill, which the administration bulled through Congress in late 2003 over the objections of conservatives who railed that the price tag would be too high. The number that had deficit hawks choking then was a projection that the drug benefit would cost $400 billion over 10 years, from 2004 through 2013. The administration already had an internal estimate that the cost would exceed $500 billion for that period. But it made sure to suppress that figure as it strong-armed Republicans who had already approved irresponsible tax cuts and an expensive war in Iraq, whose true costs were also being hidden.

Now it turns out that the earlier discrepancy was small beer compared with the latest upsurge in the projected 10-year cost of the drug benefit. As pointed out in an article yesterday by Robert Pear in The Times, the drug benefit is actually expected to cost some $720 billion over the first 10 years, from 2006, when the benefit kicks in, through 2015. The previous numbers were lower because they included in the 10-year projections two years when the program would not yet be up and running.

The higher numbers are bound to infuriate conservative Republicans who feel that they were bullied into supporting an expansion of Medicare despite their deep misgivings. But even those of us who supported the Medicare drug benefit as a needed modernization of the program have a right to feel duped. Congress went out of its way to deny Medicare officials the right to negotiate for lower drug prices from manufacturers. That was a mistake when the costs were projected at $400 billion. It is doubly disastrous at $720 billion. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:05 AM


GENERATION RED, WHITE AND GRAY

If the children are the future, we're screwed.


By Alexander Zaitchik

Excerpt:

Last week was a busy one on the creeping-fascism index. So busy, in fact, that I finally accepted there is even such a thing as a creeping-fascism index.




Over the past few years, I've held fast to a belief that America is too sprawling, too diverse and too fundamentally committed to its Constitution to ever change its flag to red, white and black. Now I'm not so sure. It wasn't a delayed reaction to the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, Iraq or the confirmation of torture hombre Alberto Gonzalez that did it, but a modest blip on the post-9/11 radar: a poll finding that a third of high school students think the First Amendment "goes too far."




At least that's what they think of the First Amendment once it's explained to them. After interviewing 100,000 teens in the largest study of its kind, the John S. and James C. Knight Foundation reports fast shrinking respect for bedrock constitutional freedoms of speech, press and assembly. Among the findings widely commented on last week—but not widely enough—only 51 percent said newspapers should be allowed to publish content without state approval. Three-quarters actually thought flag burning was illegal—and didn't care—while almost one-fifth said Americans should not be allowed to express unpopular views.




News of the poll triggered a few easy comparisons to the fear-driven conformity of the early Cold War. But that analogy is wishful thinking. Even at its worst, the paranoid patriotism of the 1950s existed uneasily alongside a respect for and knowledge of American history and the Constitution. Even as critics were stripped of their passports and driven out of the academy and Hollywood, and even as the CIA subverted popularly elected governments abroad, in U.S. high schools one of the most frequently assigned books was Howard Fast's Citizen Tom Paine. However airbrushed that era's celebratory view of America's past, kids still had a sense of that past as something to honor, if only in theory. However dramatically the country deviated from its stated ideals, the baseline culture still instilled a reverence for the founding fathers and the Bill of Rights. Every teenager at least knew what those things were.

What we have now is the worst elements of the 1950s without the literacy and understanding of the American creed that made possible the corrective revolts of the 1960s. Last week's Knight poll is an ominous sign of more than just another paranoid burst of American politics, one that will flame out or be eclipsed by some inevitable Aquarian renewal. It is a glimpse into the brain of the first videogame generation to come of age during the war on terror. Post-9/11 political culture plus ADD equals those poll results. There is no good reason to expect the trend to reverse on its own.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teresa
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 02:05 AM

Scary stuff, Amos; mighty scary.

And uh, Doug ... I don't bother with the moderate press like the Los Angeles Times. I go right to The Nation and Indymedia.org, yes I do. :)

teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 07:07 PM

Bush's Class-War Budget

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 11, 2005



It may sound shrill to describe President Bush as someone who takes food from the mouths of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends. Yet his latest budget proposal is top-down class warfare in action. And it offers the Democrats an opportunity, if they're willing to take it.


First, the facts: the budget proposal really does take food from the mouths of babes. One of the proposed spending cuts would make it harder for working families with children to receive food stamps, terminating aid for about 300,000 people. Another would deny child care assistance to about 300,000 children, again in low-income working families.

And the budget really does shower largesse on millionaires even as it punishes the needy. For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities informs us that even as the administration demands spending cuts, it will proceed with the phaseout of two little-known tax provisions - originally put in place under the first President George Bush - that limit deductions and exemptions for high-income households.

More than half of the benefits from this backdoor tax cut would go to people with incomes of more than a million dollars; 97 percent would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000.

It so happens that the number of taxpayers with more than $1 million in annual income is about the same as the number of people who would have their food stamps cut off under the Bush proposal. But it costs a lot more to give a millionaire a break than to put food on a low-income family's table: eliminating limits on deductions and exemptions would give taxpayers with incomes over $1 million an average tax cut of more than $19,000.

It's like that all the way through. On one side, the budget calls for program cuts that are small change compared with the budget deficit, yet will harm hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans. On the other side, it calls for making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, and for new tax breaks for the affluent in the form of tax-sheltered accounts and more liberal rules for deductions.

The question is whether the relentless mean-spiritedness of this budget finally awakens the public to the true cost of Mr. Bush's tax policy.

Until now, the administration has been able to get away with the pretense that it can offset the revenue loss from tax cuts with benign spending restraint. That's because until now, "restraint" was an abstract concept, not tied to specific actions, making it seem as if spending cuts would hurt only a few special interest groups.

But here we are with the first demonstration of restraint in action, and look what's on the chopping block, selected for big cuts: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health insurance for children and aid to law enforcement. (Yes, Mr. Bush proposes to cut farm subsidies, which are truly wasteful. Let's see how much political capital he spends on that proposal.) ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:37 AM


No Mullah Left Behind
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: February 13, 2005



The Wall Street Journal ran a very, very alarming article from Iran on its front page last Tuesday. The article explained how the mullahs in Tehran - who are now swimming in cash thanks to soaring oil prices - rather than begging foreign investors to come into Iran, are now shunning some of them. The article related how a Turkish mobile-phone operator, which had signed a deal with the Iranian government to launch Iran's first privately owned cellphone network, had the contract frozen by the mullahs in the Iranian Parliament because they were worried it might help the Turks and their foreign partners spy on Iran.

Advertisement


The Journal quoted Ali Ansari, an Iran specialist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, as saying that for 10 years analysts had been writing about Iran's need for economic reform. "In actual fact, the scenario is worse now," said Mr. Ansari. "They have all this money with the high oil price, and they don't need to do anything about reforming the economy." Indeed, The Journal added, the conservative mullahs are feeling even more emboldened to argue that with high oil prices, Iran doesn't need Western investment capital and should feel "free to pursue its nuclear power program without interference."

This is a perfect example of the Bush energy policy at work, and the Bush energy policy is: "No Mullah Left Behind."

By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit's automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is - as others have noted - financing both sides of the war on terrorism. We are financing the U.S. armed forces with our tax dollars, and, through our profligate use of energy, we are generating huge windfall profits for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan, where the cash is used to insulate the regimes from any pressure to open up their economies, liberate their women or modernize their schools, and where it ends up instead financing madrassas, mosques and militants fundamentally opposed to the progressive, pluralistic agenda America is trying to promote. Now how smart is that?

The neocon strategy may have been necessary to trigger reform in Iraq and the wider Arab world, but it will not be sufficient unless it is followed up by what I call a "geo-green" strategy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:05 AM

The Importance of Being Earnest

Published: February 14, 2005

Excerpt:

For all its talk of deficit reduction, President Bush's 2006 budget is a map of reckless economic policies and shows how they have backed the United States into a precarious position in the global financial markets.

Mr. Bush needs to convince foreign investors that he's serious about cutting the budget deficit. Here's why: Each day, the United States must borrow billions of dollars from abroad to finance its enormous budget and trade deficits. Without a steady stream of huge loans, the country would face rising interest rates, higher inflation, a dropping dollar and slower economic growth. The lenders want to see less of a gap between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends, because a lower budget deficit always eases a trade deficit. A lower trade deficit also implies a stronger dollar. And a stronger dollar would reassure foreign investors that dollar-based assets remain their best choice.

As it is, their belief is being sorely tested: in 2003, the European Central Bank lost $625 million to the weak dollar and reportedly stands to lose $1.3 billion for 2004. Japan's central bank, which has the world's largest foreign stash of dollars - some $715 billion - could lose an estimated $40 billion if the dollar weakened to around 95 yen, a level many analysts expect to see this year. No wonder that a week before Mr. Bush released his budget, Japan's finance minister said that Japan had to be careful in managing those dollar-filled foreign currency reserves.

It's not hard to see what brought the United States to this juncture. Mr. Bush's first-term tax cuts were too expensive and too skewed toward top earners to work as effective, self-correcting economic stimulus. Instead, predictably, they've driven the nation deep into the red. Having reduced tax revenue to a share of the economy not seen since 1959, the cuts are a huge factor in the swing from a budget surplus to a $412 billion deficit.

The administration also erred big in deciding to deal with the ballooning trade imbalance by letting the dollar slide. That might have been a winning gambit if it had been paired with a commitment to cut the deficit. Theoretically, a weakening dollar would have begun the process of easing the trade imbalance, while deficit reduction, which takes longer to bring about, would have addressed the gap in a more lasting way. Instead, Mr. Bush has unceasingly pursued deficit-financed tax cuts, even as the weak dollar has failed to fix the trade imbalance. The result is that the country's deficits - and borrowing needs - remain enormous even as dollar-based investments are becoming less attractive.

Lately, Mr. Bush has been talking the deficit reduction talk, but there's no sign that he is willing to walk the walk. In his 2006 budget, he pledges to slash spending, but largely in areas that would have only a small impact on the deficit and where cuts would be politically difficult, not to mention cruel, such as food stamps, veterans' medical care, child care and low-income housing. Meanwhile, he is pounding the table for more deficit-bloating measures - making his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a 10-year cost of as much as $2.1 trillion; putting into effect two high-income tax breaks that were enacted in 2001 but have been on hold, at a 10-year cost of $115 billion; and introducing new tax incentives to allow high earners to shift even more cash into tax shelters, at a cost that would ultimately work out to more than $30 billion a year when investors cashed in their accounts tax-free.

Oh, yes. Mr. Bush also wants to borrow some $4.5 trillion over two decades to privatize Social Security, which is a bad idea even without the borrowing and a horrendous one with it.

The global financial community won't be fooled. The dollar may have bouts of relative strength, as it has recently. But these are due largely to currency traders' focus on short-term advantages, like Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes, which are perceived as a positive for the dollar, or the appearance of profit-taking opportunities. Inevitably, the budget and trade deficits will reassert their drag on the dollar, and then on Washington's ability to comfortably borrow money from abroad.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:28 AM

Bush Administration Removes Critical Report From Website, Replaces Civil Rights Commission Chair

By Drog (Canada), Section United States of America
Posted on Fri Feb 11th, 2005 at 10:38:31 AM PST

From Wikinews:

A report documenting the civil rights record of the Bush administration has been removed from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' website. The report was submitted to the administration in December by a committee, chaired by Mary Frances Berry, who has served as chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for nearly 25 years.

The report, Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration (pdf link) described setbacks to a range of civil rights issues from policies that have further polarized communities. One week after Berry submitted the report, the Bush administration forced her out, announcing her replacement before she had actually resigned. The new chair, attorney Gerald A. Reynolds, was quoted in a New York Times article as saying he believed traditional civil rights group "overstate the problem" of racial discrimination. His appointment has been termed "a disaster" by NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond.

In an exclusive interview with Tolerance.org February 9, Berry warns of further erosion to civil rights, with a weakened Civil Rights Commission unable to press the Justice Department to enforce the laws.....

---

Here is a link to the report the Bush Administration suppressed:

Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration

Here is a link to the original article on this subject..

Here is a link the interview with Mary Berry on the current condition of Civil Rights.

A week before the Bush administration forced her out, Berry and vice-chair Cruz Reynoso submitted a 166-page report critical of the President — Redefining Rights in America: The Civil Rights Record of the George W. Bush Administration.

In a letter to President Bush accompanying the report, Berry and Reynoso wrote, "your administration has missed opportunities to win consensus on key civil rights issues ranging from affirmative action, to fair housing, to immigration, to voting rights. Instead, you have adopted policies that further divide an already deeply torn nation."

Response to the report was swift. The White House announced a new appointee before Berry actually resigned.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,donuel
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:36 AM

Amos, Yesterday I heard on C Span newspaperclips that Bush had received a group of black leaders (actually several) for Black History month.
TV reported this as well as many papers. The thing is that ~10,000 black leaders had assembled in Nashville in part to protest Bush.

The only news source to cover this was a Chicago paper.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 11:18 AM

Bush is a master of fraudulent tokenism, making assertions or gestures that imply positions that he will not in fact fulfill, promising solutions he will not implement, or insinuating conditions that he knows perfectly well do not obtain, in order to glean approval anywhere he can find it. He is a bottom feeder in this respect.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:37 PM

Gonzales Is Sworn In as Attorney General

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM

Published: February 14, 2005



Alberto R. Gonzales was sworn in as 80th attorney general of the United States today, replacing John Ashcroft as nation's chief law enforcement officer, and becoming the first Hispanic to hold the office.

The ceremony at the White House came after months of controversy about Mr. Gonzales's role in the Bush administration's policies on torture. The Senate approved his nomination in Feb. 3 on a vote of 60 to 36, with most Senate Democrats strongly opposing, giving Mr. Gonzales fewer Democratic votes than John Ashcroft received when he was confirmed in 2001.

Following Mr. Gonzales's swearing-in, President Bush praised him, saying that the "attorney general has my complete confidence" and that he has been "a model of service" with a "deep dedication to the cause of justice."

The president said Mr. Gonzales was now on "an urgent mission to protect the United States from another terrorist attack."

The ceremony, however, was not only about Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Bush also used the occasion to promote some of his own ideas, saying that "we must not allow the passage of time, or the illusion of safety, to weaken our resolve in this new war."

And Mr. Bush called on Congress "to promptly renew all provisions of the Patriot Act this year." Mr. Ashcroft's aggressive efforts to enforce the USA Patriot Act, which loosens restrictions on government surveillance, draw considerable criticism from civil libertarians. The main provisions of the sweeping antiterrorism law, enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are set to expire at the end of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 10:03 AM

Bush's Budget Means Cutting Only Peanut Butter: Gene Sperling
2005-02-14 00:19 (New York)


    (Commentary. Gene Sperling, who was President Bill Clinton's
top economic adviser, is a columnist for Bloomberg News and a
senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

By Gene Sperling

    Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Imagine the following: The father of a
financially stretched family decides to live it up by leasing three
fully loaded Hummer H1s for the bargain price of $9,750 a month.
    As the family's financial situation deteriorates, the father
calls the family together for a belt-tightening discussion. He
holds up a jar of Whole Foods chunky peanut butter and says, ``Do
you realize we are spending $4.49 on this? We could be saving $2.04
if we bought Skippy peanut butter for only $2.45.''
    His teenage son responds, ``Like, dad, man, why are you
busting us about two bucks on peanut butter when you're spending,
like, almost $10,000 a month on cars?'' The father sternly
responds, ``Don't change the subject. We are talking about peanut
butter.''
    On Feb. 7, President George W. Bush sought to use his 2006
budget to emerge as a born-again fiscal belt tightener. His goal
was clear: Focus the fiscal debate on cutting programs for
hardworking families and the poor -- which are the financial
equivalent of peanut butter -- while ruling out any effort to add
up, put on the table or even acknowledge the budgetary equivalent
of luxury Hummers -- his tax cuts for the highest-income Americans.

                            The Cuts

    Like the son in the family fable, most Americans understand
the basic law that money is always fungible -- a dollar on cars
could also be a dollar spent on peanut butter. Yet Bush's entire
budgetary case rests on the assumption that no one will notice or
change the subject to mention that his proposed spending cuts are
dwarfed by the deficit-exploding tax reductions that he is seeking
for high-income Americans.
    Consider some of the cuts Bush is claiming are necessary to
get tough on the deficit:
    First, he would cut $500 million for job training and
dislocated workers in the midst of what is still the slowest jobs
recovery since the 1930s.
    Second, he would virtually eliminate the $500 million
Community Oriented Policing Services program when we are concerned
about domestic terrorist threats.
    Third, Bush would impose $4.5 billion in net cuts to Medicaid
for the poor and disabled when health-care costs and the number of
uninsured are rising.
    And fourth, he would scrap the $1 billion a year in funding
for the GEAR-UP and TRIO programs that reach out to economically
disadvantaged children early and encourage them to go to college
when our economy desperately needs a larger share of this
population to obtain college degrees.

                         The Exemptions

    Yet while these cuts add up to only about $6.5 billion a year,
no one is supposed to mention that in the same budget Bush calls
for implementing two obscure tax provisions that increase personal
exemptions and itemized deductions that the top 2 percent of
Americans can use to reduce their tax payments to the tune of $115
billion over the next decade.
    That's enough to prevent all these cuts and still reduce the
deficit by $55 billion. Nor can we mention that if we pulled back
on the income-tax cut (leaving alone capital gains and dividends)
for the 0.5 percent of Americans making more than $400,000 a year,
we could save $300 billion over the next decade -- enough to buy a
lot of peanut butter and still make a big dent in the deficit.
    Anyone who took seriously Bush's commitment to deficit
reduction might assume that his tight cap on domestic programs was
motivated by the deficit exploding because such spending had gotten
out of control.

                         One-Sided Reality

    Yet, in an analysis conducted at the Washington-based Center
for American Progress, it was found that when you exclude
expenditure on defense, homeland security and international
affairs, discretionary spending has actually decreased from 3.4
percent of gross domestic product in 2001 to 3.3 percent in 2005.
    On the other hand, the decision to pass and extend three tax
cuts and an expensive prescription drug benefit without any offsets
is set to increase the deficit by more than $5 trillion over the
next decade, including interest costs.
    Even when looking at our long-term capacity to deal with the
challenge of the baby boomers' retirement, Bush is trying to
construct this same one-sided budgetary reality.
    While the Social Security Trust Fund is solvent, the president
laments that in 2018 the government as a whole will have to
``somehow'' borrow an additional $200 billion to meet its legal
Social Security commitments. Yet he seems oblivious to the fact
that his own tax and spending policies will increase government
borrowing that year by more than $500 billion.

                         Eat the Generic

    Bush wants members of Congress to go home and tell their
constituents that there is simply no choice but to achieve Social
Security solvency entirely through benefit cuts with new price-
indexing rules. Yet he disallows any discussion of the fact that
making permanent his tax cuts for only the top 1 percent of earners
-- as his budget calls for -- costs almost as much as is needed to
keep Social Security solvent for 75 years.

    Still, I get it, Mr. President, I'm changing the subject. This
budget isn't about finding numbers that lead to deficit reduction,
it's about using the pretext of deficits to limit government's role
to help those most in need. Perhaps you think the father was right
to forbid any discussion of luxury Hummers. Let them eat Costco
generic peanut butter

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 12:19 PM

Once upon a time, Republicans were good for one thing and one thing only - keeping an eye on the books, making sure that deficits didn't balloon and that the economy didn't overheat.

But under Ronald Reagan, the new generation of Republicans threw down their eyeshades and became warriors of the right. Now, under George W. Bush, any semblance of responsibility has been erased from the party's soul, leaving us with only war (religious, cultural and shooting) and debt.

James Day

Berkeley, Calif., Feb. 14, 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 12:27 PM

One leads by example. If the United States wishes to encourage greater respect for human rights in the world, it must set a good example. It is doing the exact opposite, so that on Jan. 19, the Cuban government handed formal protest notes to United States representatives in Havana and Washington on the abuse of prisoners at the Guantánamo Naval Base, which, as the notes pointed out, is on Cuban territory.

What chutzpah, one might say. Perhaps, but what did we expect? At a time when the our country is calling Cuba an outpost of tyranny and demanding that it release political prisoners, our own abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo puts the shoe on the other foot.

One can imagine the Cubans asking, "Are we to do as you say, or as you do?"

Wayne S. Smith

Washington, Feb. 15, 2005

The writer, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, was chief of the United States Interests Section in Havana, 1979-82.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 11:28 PM

Arrived today by e-mail, the following notice to G.W. Bush from the State of California:

California's Secession letter to Bush

Dear Mr. President,


Congratulations on your victory over all us non-evangelicals. Actually,
we're a bit ticked off here in California, so we're leaving. California will
now be its own country. And we're taking all the blue states with us. In case
you are not aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and all of the Northeast.

We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split will be beneficial to
almost everybody, and especially to us in the new country of California. In
fact, God is so excited about it, she's going to shift the whole country at
4:30 pm
EST this Friday. Therefore, please let everyone know they need to be
back in their states by then.

So you get Texas and all the former slave states. We get the
Governator, stem cell research and the best beaches,. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken
Lay.

(We will keep Martha Stewart, but having served her sentence she will
now be a contributor to society rather than the unindicted contributors to your
campaign) We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand, we get Intel
and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole Miss. We get
85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get all the technological
innovation in Alabama. We get about two-thirds of the tax revenue, and you get to
make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we
get a bunch of happy families, You get a bunch of single moms to support, and
we know how much you like that. Did I mention we produce about 70% of the
nation's veggies? But heck the only greens the Bible-thumpers eat are the
pickles on their Big Macs.

Oh yeah, another thing, don't plan on serving California wine at your
state dinners. From now on it's imported French wine for you. Ouch, bet that
hurts.

Just so we're clear, the country of California will be pro-choice and
anti-war, Speaking of war, we're going to want all blue state citizens
back from Iraq. If you need people to fight, just ask your evangelicals. They
have tons of kids they're willing to send to their deaths for absolutely no purpose,
And they don't care if you don't show pictures of their kids' caskets
coming home.

Anyway, we wish you all the best in the next four years and we hope,
really
hope, you find those missing weapons of mass destruction. Seriously,
Soon.

Sincerely,
California

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 12:45 PM

A startling expos´of the Bush administrations effort to adulterate the news media with their own additives in a highly dishonest and corrupt manner can be found in the New York Times today.

Excerpt:

Even now, we know that the fake news generated by the six known shills is only a small piece of the administration's overall propaganda effort. President Bush wasn't entirely joking when he called the notoriously meek March 6, 2003, White House press conference on the eve of the Iraq invasion "scripted" while it was still going on. (And "Jeff Gannon" apparently wasn't even at that one). Everything is scripted.

The pre-fab "Ask President Bush" town hall-style meetings held during last year's campaign (typical question: "Mr. President, as a child, how can I help you get votes?") were carefully designed for television so that, as Kenneth R. Bazinet wrote last summer in New York's Daily News, "unsuspecting viewers" tuning in their local news might get the false impression they were "watching a completely open forum." A Pentagon Office of Strategic Influence, intended to provide propagandistic news items, some of them possibly false, to foreign news media was shut down in 2002 when it became an embarrassing political liability. But much more quietly, another Pentagon propaganda arm, the Pentagon Channel, has recently been added as a free channel for American viewers of the Dish Network. Can a Social Security Channel be far behind?

It is a brilliant strategy. When the Bush administration isn't using taxpayers' money to buy its own fake news, it does everything it can to shut out and pillory real reporters who might tell Americans what is happening in what is, at least in theory, their own government. Paul Farhi of The Washington Post discovered that even at an inaugural ball he was assigned "minders" - attractive women who wouldn't give him their full names - to let the revelers know that Big Brother was watching should they be tempted to say anything remotely off message.

The inability of real journalists to penetrate this White House is not all the White House's fault. The errors of real news organizations have played perfectly into the administration's insidious efforts to blur the boundaries between the fake and the real and thereby demolish the whole notion that there could possibly be an objective and accurate free press. Conservatives, who supposedly deplore post-modernism, are now welcoming in a brave new world in which it's a given that there can be no empirical reality in news, only the reality you want to hear (or they want you to hear). The frequent fecklessness of the Beltway gang does little to penetrate this Washington smokescreen. For a case in point, you needed only switch to CNN on the day after Mr. Olbermann did his fake-news-style story on the fake reporter in the White House press corps. ...

---

This sort of rampant slick-willy dishonesty is criminal enough on the face of it, but it annoys me even more because it shows such disdain for the role of media (the "free" press) in democratic process. It is clear the "free" press is not a "player" in the Bush worldview.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 12:51 PM

Maureen Dowd, no lover of Bush, discusses the jaw-dropping antics of the above mentioned fake reporter:

Bush's Barberini Faun

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: February 17, 2005


I am very impressed with James Guckert, a k a Jeff Gannon.

How often does an enterprising young man, heralded in press reports as both a reporter and a contributor to such sites as Hotmilitarystud.com, Workingboys.net, Militaryescorts.com, MilitaryescortsM4M.com and Meetlocalmen.com, get to question the president of the United States?

Advertisement


Who knew that a hotmilitarystud wanting to meetlocalmen could so easily get to be face2face with the commander in chief?

It's hard to believe the White House could hit rock bottom on credibility again, but it has, in a bizarre maelstrom that plays like a dark comedy. How does it credential a man with a double life and a secret past?

"Jeff Gannon" was waved into the press room nearly every day for two years as the conservative correspondent for two political Web sites operated by a wealthy Texas Republican. Scott McClellan often called on the pseudoreporter for softball questions.

Howard Kurtz reported in The Washington Post yesterday that although Mr. Guckert had denied launching the provocative Web sites - one described him as " 'military, muscular, masculine and discrete' (sic)" - a Web designer in California said "that he had designed a gay escort site for Gannon and had posted naked pictures of Gannon at the client's request."

And The Wilmington News-Journal in Delaware reported that Mr. Guckert was delinquent in $20,700 in personal income tax from 1991 to 1994.

I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?

At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

In an era when security concerns are paramount, what kind of Secret Service background check did James Guckert get so he could saunter into the West Wing every day under an assumed name while he was doing full-frontal advertising for stud services for $1,200 a weekend? He used a driver's license that said James Guckert to get into the White House, then, once inside, switched to his alter ego, asking questions as Jeff Gannon.

(...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 01:55 PM

Another article on the corrosive chilling of free press in the United States by its own leadership:

The Need for a Federal Shield

Published: February 17, 2005


As a matter of self-interest, Americans need to appreciate the rising threat to the news media's ability to provide a free flow of information about their government. Close to a dozen reporters around the nation face legal pressure to reveal sources, and some face the threat of jail terms. A federal appeals panel in the District of Columbia declined this week to spare Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times the prospect of being jailed for up to 18 months. They are refusing to testify about confidential sources to a grand jury investigating how the name of a covert intelligence officer was leaked to a conservative columnist.

The leaking is a potential crime, and while the reporters did not reveal the officer's name, their digging after the leak is being construed by the courts as making them essential to the investigation.

Ms. Miller never wrote a story about the issue. Mr. Cooper wrote about the administration's rumored political motives for unmasking the officer to the columnist Robert Novak. It remains a mystery whether prosecutors have tried to compel Mr. Novak's testimony; he will not say.

The chilling possibilities for journalism at large are obvious as the case moves further along the appeals chain. Government officials with valuable information on matters of public interest may have second thoughts about trying to reach the public through trusted reporters. Journalists will more than ever have to weigh the risk of jail against the need to protect worthy sources, a practice with a long history of redounding to the citizenry's benefit. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 01:41 PM

Teresa: The Los Angeles Times moderate? The Lord help my soul.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 01:12 PM

From today's New York Times Editorial Section (2-19-05)

In the Midst of Budget Decadence, a Leader Will Arise
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: February 19, 2005

There's going to be another Ross Perot, and this time he's going to be younger. There's going to be a millionaire rising out of the country somewhere and he (or she) is going to lead a movement of people who are worried about federal deficits, who are offended by the horrendous burden seniors are placing on the young and who are disgusted by a legislative process that sometimes suggests that the government has lost all capacity for self-control.


He's going to be set off by some event like what is happening right now with the Medicare prescription drug benefit. He's going to look at an event like that one, and he's not only going to be worried about the country's economic future - he's also going to be morally offended. He's going to sense that something fundamentally decadent is going on.

And he's going to be right.

In the past months we have learned that the prescription drug benefit passed last year is not going to cost $400 billion over 10 years. The projections now, over a slightly different period, are that it's going to cost over $700 billion. And these cost estimates are coming before the program is even operating. They are only going to go up.

That means we're going to be spending the next few months bleeding over budget restraints that might produce savings in the millions, while the new prescription drug benefit will produce spending in the billions.

That means that as we spend the next year trying to get a grip on one entitlement, Social Security, we'll be launching a new one that is also unsustainable.

Over the next few months we will be watching a government that may be millions-wise, but trillions-foolish. We will be watching a government that sometimes seems to have lost all perspective - like a lunatic who tries to dry himself with a hand towel while standing in a torrential downpour.

And much of this new spending will go to people who have insurance to pay for their drugs.

In Congress, some are taking a look at these new cost projections and figuring that maybe it's time to readjust the program. In the House there are Republicans like Mike Pence and Jeff Flake (whose predictions of this program's actual cost have been entirely vindicated by events). In the Senate there are people like Judd Gregg and Lindsey Graham. These fiscal conservatives want to make the program sustainable.

Perhaps the benefits should be limited to those earning up to 200 percent of the level at the poverty line. Perhaps the costs should be capped at $400 billion through other benefit adjustments. These ideas are akin to what the candidate George Bush proposed in 2000.

But the White House is threatening to veto anything they do! President Bush, who hasn't vetoed a single thing during his presidency, now threatens to veto something - and it's something that might actually restrain the growth of government. He threatens to use his first veto against an idea he himself originally proposed!

Have we entered another world, where up is down and rationality is irrational?

Every family and business in America has to scale back when the cost of something skyrockets. Does this rule not apply to us as a nation?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 01:16 PM

I resent the president's low opinion of me that because I'm over 55 (way over, in fact) I need not care about how he wants to change Social Security because it won't affect me. Even though it will affect my 6 children and 12 grandchildren. It does, however, tell us a lot about how the president thinks: "As long as you get yours, don't worry about others."

We expect higher values than that from our elected officials.

Paul Smith
Livingston, Tex., Feb. 17, 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 01:41 PM

Two major pieces of evidence in the last few days point to serious problems with the lack of intelligence supporting or dwelling in the current administration.

One can be found here, describing scientific analyses which show up the institutional and individual fat-headedness of Bush and his Merry Band in ignoring global warming and refusing to support the Kyoto accord.

The other ugly issue du jour is why the poster boy for ho"Hot Military Stud Muffin.com" was privileged to get a press pass into the White Hous epress corps and wehy he seemed to get scoops ahead of other corps members when he was applying under a flase name and was actually an active soliciting homosexual.

Big Q of the week: what would have been said if there had been such a scandal in the Clinton years. Would there have been anything said?

The sun and moon would have stood stock still in shock and awe and disappropbation.

This so-=called leader should be tarred.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 20 Feb 05 - 03:17 PM

From an interesting little site called "The Truth Seeker", alleging to be from inside the White House:

Now onto all this fuss about the Gays in the White House….If the Family Values idiots who elected Bush realized how morally corrupt this administration actually was, they would march on Washington with farm implements and torches. The President is a cocaine-snorting, impotent drunk who was made fun of as a spoiled child and hates everyone. His top aide, Fat Karl the Eunuch, was a pathetic, bloated nerd with inch-thick glasses and loathed by everyone in his high school. His own private life is so bad that if these Family Values people or the local Child Protective Services ever heard about it, Fat Karl would be toast. In fact, the inner circles of the White House contain some of the most corrupt people I have ever met and I would under no circumstances allow any of my grandchildren anywhere near them, ever. They are, most of them, polymorph and perverse and those, like Cheney, who are not, are greedy crooks out to loot the Treasury by any means short of physical armed robbery. As I said before, you get what you pay for and the boobs who voted this gang of thieves and perverts into power deserve exactly what they get.

The problem is, Bush and his fanatics have done terrible damage to the economy, have created divisions in the American social structure beyond belief, utterly ruined America's world image and instead of practicing intelligent diplomacy to solve international problems, have threatened, bullied and harassed any individual or government abroad that has dared to object to codified torture, mass killing of civilians, hostile foreign reporters and enemies of Israel, practiced by this Administration on a daily basis.

Putting the despicable Gonzales into the Attorney General's office is an obscene farce that attempts to legitimatize sycophancy and torture at the same time.

And when the deluded Right, both religious and political, discover that Curious George has played them for the trusting fools that they are, great will be the lamentations heard in the land. And George will go right on getting richer at out expense and we do not need to comment of Fat Karl's pleasures."
www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1391.htm#001

See our Inside the White House archive:
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/category.asp?id=41

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:15 AM

From today's New York Times

(Excerpt)

So tell me again. What was this war about? In terms of the fight against terror, the war in Iraq has been a big loss. We've energized the enemy. We've wasted the talents of the many men and women who have fought bravely and tenaciously in Iraq. Thousands upon thousands of American men and women have lost arms or legs, or been paralyzed or blinded or horribly burned or killed in this ill-advised war. A wiser administration would have avoided that carnage and marshaled instead a more robust effort against Al Qaeda, which remains a deadly threat to America.

What is also dismaying is the way in which the administration has taken every opportunity since Sept. 11, 2001, to utilize the lofty language of freedom, democracy and the rule of law while secretly pursuing policies that are both unjust and profoundly inhumane. It is the policy of the U.S. to deny due process of law to detainees at the scandalous interrogation camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where prisoners, many of whom have turned out to be innocent, are routinely treated in a cruel and degrading manner.

The U.S. is also engaged in the reprehensible practice known as extraordinary rendition, in which terror suspects are abducted and sent off to be interrogated by foreign regimes that are known to practice torture. And the C.I.A. is operating ultrasecret prisons or detention centers overseas for so-called high-value detainees. What goes on in those places is anybody's guess.

It may be that most Americans would prefer not to know about these practices, which are nothing less than malignant cells that are already spreading in the nation's soul. Denial is often the first response to the most painful realities. But most Americans also know what happens when a cancer is ignored.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 09:41 AM

Bush's War on Veracity

by Ralph Nader

published In the Public Interest

Bush's War on Veracity

It is difficult even for news hounds to keep up with the repeated and new prevarications of President George W. Bush. When he told his council of advisors a while back that he did not have to explain because he was the President, El Jefe was not kidding.

The remarkable characteristics about Bush's false statements, lies and deep deceptions are that they are contradicted again and again by people within his own Administration or former officials who were involved or had observed the situations described. The refutations come from knowledgeable men and women who have no axe to grind for speaking the truth. Their statements are often what lawyers call "admissions against interest."

In late January, President Bush gave an interview with the New York Times in which he made this assertion: "Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture."

On page after page, Jane Mayer, writing in the February 14th issue of The New Yorker, amasses the evidence to the contrary. So varied, credible and attributed is the documentation that Bush presides over a costly and secretive program called "extraordinary rendition," that either Bush is a knowing liar or doesn't know what is going on in his name. Taking alleged suspects, declining to charge them with any crimes, and quickly flying them in a Gulfstream V jet, registered with a dummy American corporation, to countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Jordan for torture has become part of Bush's foreign policy. Not surprisingly, some of these suspects turn out to be so innocent they are allowed to go back to their country-be it Australia, Canada, Afghanistan or Pakistan. What happens to the uncounted others is unknown. What is known is that most prominent anti-terrorist specialists reject torture on the grounds that it does not work to produce accurate information and can backfire in numerous ways, as described by Mayer's interviewees.

Outsourcing torture, instead of subjecting suspects to the courts and due process of law in this country, deeply sullies our country's reputation and invites retaliation that invokes what Bush does as legitimization.

Bush's list of falsehoods keeps growing. Adding to the fully discredited claims that invading Iraq was necessary because the tottering dictator, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction, ties with Al Qaeda, connections with 9/11 and presented a threat to his neighbors are new refutations with cumulative regularity.   (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 09:43 AM

Strategic Support Branch: Rumsfeld's Own Personal CIA

by Kurt Nimmo

published by Another Day in the Empire

Strategic Support Branch: Rumsfeld's Own Personal CIA

One day the Pentagon vehemently denies it is covertly operating inside Iran—or at least disputes particular details, as outlined recently by Seymour Hersh—and the next day Pentagon officials describe a new organization, the Strategic Support Branch (SSB), designed "to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control," deploy "small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces," and essentially replace "the CIA's Directorate of Operations," according to the Washington Post.

Note: the CIA's Directorate of Operations was responsible for covert action, in other words, secret wars. "You have a target: a government that you don't like," writes John Stockwell, a former CIA agent. "They send the CIA in with its resources and its activists: hiring people, hiring agents to tear apart the social and economic fabric of the country. It's a technique for putting pressure on the government, hoping they can make the government come to the U.S.'s terms, or that the government will collapse altogether and they can engineer a coup d'etat, and have the thing wind up with their own choice of people in power."

As the Post seems to be saying, Rumsfeld wants to cut the CIA out of the loop and have the Pentagon take over the dirty business of covertly targeting countries, minus any oversight or accountability.

In short, Rumsfeld is in the process of creating his own intelligence operation, not answerable to Congress or the American people. "Two longtime members of the House Intelligence Committee, a Democrat and a Republican, said they knew no details before being interviewed for this article," notes the Post. "Pentagon officials said they established the Strategic Support Branch using 'reprogrammed' funds, without explicit congressional authority or appropriation. Defense intelligence missions, they said, are subject to less stringent congressional oversight than comparable operations by the CIA."

As the Post explains, the SSB will cooperate with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), a clandestine unit run out of the Tampa-based U.S. Special Operations Command. "Although JSOC's stated purpose is to provide a unified command structure for conducting joint special operations and exercises, it is widely reported that JSOC is actually the command responsible for conducting US counter-terrorism (CT) operations," writes GlobalSecurity.org. "These SMUs [Special Missions Units] are tasked with conducting CT operations, strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas, and special intelligence missions," for instance in Afghanistan, where "a unit called Task Force 11, composed mostly of Delta Force soldiers and SEALs" are "hunting for senior Taliban and al Qaeda members." As GlobalSecurity notes, JSOC units

have reportedly been involved in a number of covert military operations over the last two decades. Some of these operations include providing assistance to Italian authorities during their search for kidnapped US Army Gen. James Dozier, participating in Operation Urgent Fury; the US invasion of Grenada, planning a rescue attempt of US hostages being held in Lebanon, rescuing hostages being held aboard the cruise liner Achille Lauro, participating in Operation Just Cause; the US intervention in Panama, directing US Scud hunting efforts during Operation Desert Storm, conducting operations in support of UN mandates in Somalia, and searching for suspected war criminals in the former Republic of Yugoslavia.

SSB and JSOC bring to mind another Rumsfeld pet project—the Proactive Preemptive Operations Group, or P2OG. In September, 2002, UPI reported details on a Defense Science Board (DSB) report presented to Rumsfeld proposing "an elite group of counter-terror operatives to make the war on terrorism pre-emptive and proactive, duping al Qaida into undertaking operations it is not prepared for and thereby exposing its personnel. … Rather than simply trying to find and foil terrorists' plans—the approach that characterizes the current strategy—the "Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group" —known as P2OG—would devise ways to stimulate terrorists into responding or moving operations, possibly by stealing their money or tricking them with fake communications, according to the report." The DSB report is interesting in light of Hersh's recent revelations about what the Pentagon plans to do in Iran. "The panel would also create a team of specially trained special forces soldiers able to search out and take offensive action against suspected nuclear, chemical or biological weapons sites," the UPI story reports. Naturally, since P2OG will (or is) run out of the Pentagon, it does not have to report to Congress or the American people. "The proposal is the latest sign of a new assertiveness by the Defense Department in intelligence matters, and an indication that the cutting edge of intelligence reform is not to be found in Congress but behind closed doors in the Pentagon," wrote the Federation of American Scientists in October, 2002.

P2OG is the perfect Strausscon tool. It would "invigorate U.S. intelligence," now run out of the Pentagon, leaving the CIA in the dust, and develop "an entirely new capability to proactively, preemptively evoke responses from adversary/terrorist groups," as the DSB characterized it. In other words, it would "evoke" the sort of "responses" from "terrorists" ideal for establishing pretexts for "preemptively" attacking nations on the Strausscon roster, namely Iran and Syria. As "DSB Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism," a PowerPoint presentation delivered on August 16, 2002, notes, the "lead responsibility" for P2OG falls on the shoulders of the "SecDef," in other words Rumsfeld.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 09:47 AM

Stranger than Fiction - Jeff Gannon and the Politics of Hypocrisy

by Gary Leupp

published by CounterPunch

Stranger than Fiction - Jeff Gannon and the Politics of Hypocrisy

In 1999, an ex-Marine in his late 30s pays a web designer to build him a web site advertising his services as a male prostitute, emphasizing the military-fetish aspect, replete with lots of explicit body shots. Already owing the state of Delaware $20,700 in back taxes from 1991 to 1994, he perhaps needs the money. He flourishes in his trade, servicing in particular a military officer clientele, who grace his websites with such testimonials as the following, posted in 2002:

"I hired Jeff last winter when I was in Philadelphia on business. I was so pleased with the experience that I recently had him travel with me on a weekend trip to North Carolina. I am an active duty senior officer in the US Army. Discretion is of utmost importance to me. Jeff understands that because of his Marine background. He has so many talents besides the bedroom, it was a great experience for me. He is all-man, athletic and self-assured. Great body, he helped me work out twice, one time on base. The sex was great, he's a hard core top, verbal and strong, never romantic, but not mean."

"Jeff," whose real name is Jim Guckert, terminates the sites just a month after he acquires a new job in 2003. Using the pseudonym Jeff Gannon, he acquires credentials as a journalist by taking a $ 50 two-day course and joining "Talon News," a website without an office or staff whose material is circulated by an organization called GOPUSA, whose motto is "Bringing the conservative message to America." "Gannon" is profiled on the Talon site as a gun-toting, SUV-driving, born-again Christian conservative Republican. As such, he applies for access to White House press briefings, and after the requisite background check becomes a staple in the question and answer sessions with presidential press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan. He becomes known for his vapid, tendentious questions designed to denigrate Democrats and others questioning Bush policy. His fluff becomes the welcome foil to the irritating, meatier questions posed by real people.

Meanwhile "Jeff" hosts a right-wing radio show, "Jeff Gannon's Washington," and authors homophobic articles, focusing on Democrats' gay-friendly positions, including one on October 12, 2004 warning that John Kerry "could become the first gay president." Then, alas, his ass-kissing questions raise suspicions that he might be a GOP plant. Web sleuths discover his play-for-pay past, feel indignant not so much about his business ventures as his abject hypocrisy, and they expose his sorry ass to a broader audience than he'd ever intended. Their exposé generates a host of questions. How was this lightweight able to join the White House press corps in the first place, alongside John King, Ron Hutcheson, etc.? Did the necessary background check reveal his fraudulence? It appears he attended using daily passes, rather than a "hard" pass, although there is some debate about that. McClellan says he knew the man was using a pseudonym. Did he know all the other stuff?

Personally, I have no problem with this dude's sexuality. Or even his marketing of it, which I suppose fits this exemplary free market economy as well as his boasted 8" fits the random client's freely offered orifice. This is not our business. It entertains me to read his conservative defenders obliged to indignantly insist that his private life shouldn't be an issue. By all means, may they continue to work with that concept, and maybe despite themselves work their way out of their homophobia. And may Jim/Jeff get some therapy to resolve the self-hatred so apparent in his dual career. Meanwhile, the blogs are abuzz with speculation. Did the guy sleep his way into the White House? That's a merely amusing issue. More seriously: Why was he so involved in the effort to discredit South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle? How'd the "journalist" know hours in advance about the attack on Iraq? How did he get access to the Plame memo?

Perhaps we are on the edge of a major scandal here. We know that the White House has used taxpayers' money to pay at least six journalists, most notably Armstrong Williams, to promote its agenda. We know that soon after 9-11 government officials openly declared their intention to seed the news with content promoting "America's interests," and although public indignation quieted such talk, the government-press relationship has never been so intimate. The "Gannon" episode is the appropriate metaphor for the whole illicit relationship. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 09:53 AM

Bush Tort Reform - Executive Clemency for Executive Killers

by Greg Palast

published by GregPalast.com

Bush Tort Reform - Executve Clemency for Executive Killers

It's a great day for the Eichmanns of corporate America. President Bush minutes ago signed the ill-named 'tort reform' bill into law, limiting class action suits. Doubtless, Ken Lay, former Enron CEO, is grinning as are the corporate suite killers at drug maker Merck who are now safer from the widows and orphans of Vioxx victims. Closing the doors of justice to the ruined and wrecked families of boardroom bad guys is nothing less than executive clemency for executive executioners.

You think my accusation is over the top? Well, please talk with Elaine Levenson.

Levenson, a Cincinnati housewife, has been waiting for her heart to explode. In 1981, surgeons implanted a mechanical valve in her heart, the Bjork-Shiley, "the Rolls-Royce of valves," her doctor told her. What neither she nor her doctor knew was that several Bjork-Shiley valves had fractured during testing, years before her implant. The company that made the valve, a unit of the New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, never told the government.
(... See link, above, for balance of article).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 10:53 AM

Excerpted from today's Times:

Wag-the-Dog Protection
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 22, 2005

The campaign against Social Security is going so badly that longtime critics of President Bush, accustomed to seeing their efforts to point out flaws in administration initiatives brushed aside, are pinching themselves. But they shouldn't relax: if the past is any guide, the Bush administration will soon change the subject back to national security.

The political landscape today reminds me of the spring of 2002, after the big revelations of corporate fraud. Then as now, the administration was on the defensive, and Democrats expected to do well in midterm elections.

Then, suddenly, it was all Iraq, all the time, and Harken Energy and Halliburton vanished from the headlines.

I don't know which foreign threat the administration will start playing up this time, but Bush critics should be prepared for the shift. They must curb their natural inclination to focus almost exclusively on domestic issues, and challenge the administration on national security policy, too.

I say this even though many critics, myself included, would prefer to stick with the domestic issues. After all, domestic issues, particularly Social Security, are very comfortable ground for moderates and liberals. The relevant facts are all in the public domain, voters clearly oppose the administration's hard-right agenda, and Mr. Bush's attack on Social Security stumbled badly out of the gate. It's understandable, then, that critiques of the administration's national security policy have faded into the background in recent months.

But a president can always change the subject to national security if he wants to - and Mr. Bush has repeatedly shown himself willing to play the terrorism card when he is losing the debate on other issues. So it's important to point out that Mr. Bush, for all his posturing, has done a very bad job of protecting the nation - and to make that point now, rather than in the heat of the next foreign crisis.

The fact is that Mr. Bush, while willing to go to war on weak evidence, hasn't taken the task of protecting America from terrorists at all seriously.

Consider, for example, the case of chemical plants.

Just days after 9/11, many analysts identified sites that store toxic chemicals as a major terror risk, and called for new safety rules. But as The New York Times reported last fall, "after the oil and chemical industries met with Karl Rove ... the White House quietly blocked those efforts."

Nearly three and a half years after 9/11, those chemical plants are still unprotected.

Other major risks identified within days of the attack included the possibility of terrorist attacks on major ports or nuclear plants. But in the months after 9/11, the administration flatly refused to allocate the sums that members of the House and Senate from both parties thought necessary to secure these sites. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 05:02 PM

Where's Ken Starr when we need him the most...

Bush makes Bill Clinton look like a cross between Jesus and Mother Teresa...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 08:52 PM

The following is from a resident of Newcastle upon Tyne writing for a list:

There has just been an excellent programme on BBC Radio 4 in their
series "The Long View", which each week discusses some current topic,
in the light of history. This latest one was on ID cards. From the
programme's web-page:

"London, 1950 and wartime Identity Cards are still in force. When
Clarence Willcock refuses to present his card to a police officer, it
leads to a test case in the High Court. The judges ponder whether ID
cards are an unnecessary intrusion into private life or a useful
weapon in combatting crime. Jonathan Freedland is joined by Shami
Chakrabarti of Liberty, Martin Linton MP - who developed the protype
of the new biometric cards - and Peter Byrne, alias PC Andy Crawford
in Dixon of Dock Green, to debate ID Cards in 1950's Britain and
today. "

A recording of the broadcast is available for a week on the BBC
web-site, reachable from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/longview/longview.shtml

One notable quote that it includes, in fact from a 1939 speech by
Winston Churchill is the following:

"Perhaps it might seem a paradox that a war undertaken in the name of
liberty and right should require as a necessary part of its processes
the surrender for the time being of so many dearly valued liberties
and rights. We are sure that these liberties will be in hands which
will not abuse them, which will cherish and guard them, and we should
look forward to the day, surely and confidently we look forward to
the day, when our liberties and rights will be restored to us and
when we will be able to share them with the peoples to whom such
blessings are unknown."

Would that our present leaders spoke (believably) in such terms!

cheers

B...
------ End of Forwarded Message

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 08:59 PM

Ya want shocking signs of our dumbing down, consider the following, also from the IP List. I have added some bold and italics to emphasize certain aspects:

The red-blue divide widens:

For those who missed it, yesterday's Washington Post reported that in a
recent poll, registered Republicans indicated that they would support
George W. Bush for president in a race with George Washington, by a
margin of 62% to 28%. Democrats and Independents favored Washington,
however, by margins of 85-10 and 64-27, respectively, and the overall
margin was Washington 55, Bush 36. (No breakdown by state, though, so
the electoral college results may be in doubt.)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38575-2005Feb19.html

You'd think Washington would have gotten credit from Republicans for
being from a red state, but perhaps not: 13% of respondents in the poll
thought he lived in Gettysburg. Also, some Republicans may not know
about Washington's military service: the number of respondents who
didn't know he commanded American forces to victory in the Revolution
exceeded the number who did, so Bush's Air National Guard service may be
giving him an edge among those who think a military background is
important.

The Post also reported that a recent Gallup poll on "greatest
presidents" had the public ranking Reagan first (!!!), Clinton second
(!!!), with Lincoln third, followed by FDR, JFK, George W. Bush, George
Washington, Carter, Truman, T. Roosevelt, Jefferson, GHW Bush,
Eisenhower, and Nixon.

Interestingly, the polling organization that handicapped the
Bush-Washington race also did a greatest presidents poll, with the
following rankings resulting: Lincoln, Reagan, FDR, JFK, Clinton, and
G.W. Bush, followed by Washington. Although the ranking of the top 5
differed from Gallup's, the poll was consistent in showing Bush 6th and
Washington 7th.

By contrast, historians consistently rank the top three presidents (in
varying order) as Lincoln, Washington, and FDR. Reagan is moving up in
the standings, but not yet near the top.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 12:06 PM

Nader Criticizes Bush on Iraq


Consumer Advocate Says Administration Tolerates Corruption



By Brian Faler
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, February 25, 2005; Page A06



Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader stepped back into the public spotlight yesterday to deliver a scathing critique of the Bush administration's Iraq policies, demand a quick end to the American occupation there and call on antiwar activists to take their case to their representatives in Congress.


Nader, the longtime consumer activist who has kept a low profile since the November election, accused the White House of a number of missteps in Iraq, including tolerating corruption in the occupation's administration.


He also reiterated his long-standing call for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within six months. Nader proposed substituting soldiers from neighboring Arab countries, invalidating the recent elections there -- which he dismissed as a "farce" -- and holding a new round of balloting monitored by international observers.


"It's really not a very complicated withdrawal strategy. It has a lot of common sense behind it. I think the American people would overwhelmingly support this six-month withdrawal strategy," Nader said. "It's very important to also note the Iraqis resent enormously the takeover of their economy." (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 04:10 PM

President Bush Stifles Science, Researchers Say
By Paul Recer
Associated Press
posted: 21 February 2005
08:05 am ET



WASHINGTON (AP) -- The voice of science is being stifled in the Bush administration, with fewer scientists heard in policy discussions and money for research and advanced training being cut, according to panelists at a national science meeting.


Speakers at the national meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science expressed concern Sunday that some scientists in key federal agencies are being ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that don't support policy positions.


The speakers also said that Bush's proposed 2005 federal budget is slashing spending for basic research and reducing investments in education designed to produce the nation's future scientists.


And there also was concern that increased restrictions and requirements for obtaining visas is diminishing the flow to the U.S. of foreign-born science students who have long been a major part of the American research community.


Rosina Bierbaum, dean of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, said the Bush administration has cut scientists out of some of the policy-making processes, particularly on environmental issues.


"In previous administrations, scientists were always at the table when regulations were being developed,'' she said. "Science never had the last voice, but it had a voice.''


Issues on global warming, for instance, that achieved a firm scientific consensus in earlier years are now being questioned by Bush policy makers. Proven, widely accepted research is being ignored or disputed, she said.


Government policy papers issued prior to the Bush years moved beyond questioning the validity of global warming science and addressed ways of confronting or dealing with climate change.


Under Bush, said Bierbaum, the questioning of the proven science has become more important than finding ways to cope with climate change.


One result of such actions, said Neal Lane of Rice University, a former director of the National Science Foundation, is that "we don't really have a policy right now to deal with what everybody agrees is a serious problem.''


Among scientists, said Lane, "there is quite a consensus in place that the Earth is warming and that humans are responsible for a considerable part of that'' through the burning of fossil fuels.


And the science is clear, he said, that without action to control fossil fuel use, the warming will get worse and there will be climate events that "our species has not experienced before.''


Asked for comment, White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said, "The president makes policy decisions based on what the best policies for the country are, not politics. People who suggest otherwise are ill-informed.''


Kurt Gottfried of Cornell University and the Union of Concerned Scientists said a survey of scientists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that about 42 percent said they felt pressured to not report publicly any findings that do not agree with Bush policies on endangered species. He said almost a third of the Fish and Wildlife researchers said they were even pressured not to express within the agency any views in conflict with the Bush policies.


"This administration has distanced itself from scientific information,'' said Gottfried. He said this is part of a larger effort to let politics dominate pure science.


He said scientists in the Environmental Protection Agency have been pressured to change their research to keep it consistent with the Bush political position on environmental issues.


Because of such actions, he said, it has become more difficult for federal agencies to attract and retain top scientific talent. This becomes a critical issue, said Gottfried, because about 35 percent of EPA scientists will retire soon and the Bush administration can "mold the staff'' of the agency through the hiring process.


Federal spending for research and development is significantly reduced under the proposed 2005 Bush budget, the speakers said.


"Overall the R&D budget is bad news,'' said Bierbaum.


She said the National Science Foundation funds for graduate students and for kindergarten through high school education has been slashed.


NASA has gotten a budget boost, but most of the new money will be going to the space shuttle, space station and Bush's plan to explore the Moon and Mars. What is suffering is the space agency's scientific research efforts, she said.


"Moon and Mars is basically going to eat everybody's lunch,'' she said.


Lane said Bush's moon and Mars exploration effort has not excited the public and has no clear goals or plans.


He said Bush's Moon-Mars initiative "was poorly carried out and the budget is not there to do the job so science (at NASA) will really get hurt.''

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 05:40 PM

Is this your ownership society?

by Holly Sklar

published by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

Is this your ownership society?

Would you invest in a company that cut your wages, laid off your cousin, polluted your neighborhood, cut your health insurance and raided your retirement fund? If so, you'll love President Bush's "ownership society."

At a time of rising support for socially responsible business, Bush's ownership society offers less social responsibility, less opportunity and accelerating dis-investment in the future.

Extensive studies demonstrate the economic benefits of corporate social and environmental responsibility, including improved financial performance, productivity, quality, innovation and reduced operating costs. "For example," says Business for Social Responsibility, "many initiatives aimed at improving environmental performance -- such as reducing emissions of gases that contribute to global climate change...also lower costs."

The ownership society backed by Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget is the worst of all worlds: fiscally, socially and environmentally irresponsible, morally bankrupt, and toxic to democracy.

Lincoln fought for "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Bush stands for government of the owners, by the owners, for the owners.

The richest 1 percent of households already owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. Take-home pay as a share of the economy is at the lowest level since 1929.

Bush is reshaping the tax and budget system so workers pay a greater share of the costs and owners pay less. As wealth is increasingly sheltered from taxes, inequality will become more entrenched and hereditary in Bush's ownership society.

While Bush runs up the national debt to reckless levels, risking economic crisis, to give more tax breaks to millionaires, his budget cuts education, a pillar of individual and national progress, on the pretense of fiscal responsibility.

The unemployment rate is 30 percent higher than it was in 2000. About one out of six Americans has no health insurance, and half of all bankruptcies are illness-related. One out of eight Americans lives below the meager official poverty line -- and many more can't make ends meet above it.

Yet, Bush's budget slashes already inadequate small business assistance, workforce development, community economic development, public health and safety, Medicaid, housing assistance, public transit, food stamps, childcare and much more. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 01:05 PM

Kansas on My Mind
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: February 25, 2005

Call it "What's the Matter With Kansas - The Cartoon Version."

The slime campaign has begun against AARP, which opposes Social Security privatization. There's no hard evidence that the people involved - some of them also responsible for the "Swift Boat" election smear - are taking orders from the White House. So you're free to believe that this is an independent venture. You're also free to believe in the tooth fairy.

Their first foray - an ad accusing the seniors' organization of being against the troops and for gay marriage - was notably inept. But they'll be back, and it's important to understand what they're up to.

The answer lies in "What's the Matter With Kansas?," Thomas Frank's meditation on how right-wingers, whose economic policies harm working Americans, nonetheless get so many of those working Americans to vote for them.

People like myself - members of what one scornful Bush aide called the "reality-based community" - tend to attribute the right's electoral victories to its success at spreading policy disinformation. And the campaign against Social Security certainly involves a lot of disinformation, both about how the current system works and about the consequences of privatization.

But if that were all there is to it, Social Security should be safe, because this particular disinformation campaign isn't going at all well. In fact, there's a sense of wonderment among defenders of Social Security about the other side's lack of preparation. The Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation have spent decades campaigning for privatization. Yet they weren't ready to answer even the most obvious questions about how it would work - like how benefits could be maintained for older Americans without a dangerous increase in debt.

Privatizers are even having a hard time pretending that they want to strengthen Social Security, not dismantle it. At one of Senator Rick Santorum's recent town-hall meetings promoting privatization, college Republicans began chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, Social Security's got to go."

But before the anti-privatization forces assume that winning the rational arguments is enough, they need to read Mr. Frank.

The message of Mr. Frank's book is that the right has been able to win elections, despite the fact that its economic policies hurt workers, by portraying itself as the defender of mainstream values against a malevolent cultural elite. The right "mobilizes voters with explosive social issues, summoning public outrage ... which it then marries to pro-business economic policies. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends."

In Mr. Frank's view, this is a confidence trick: politicians like Mr. Santorum trumpet their defense of traditional values, but their true loyalty is to elitist economic policies. "Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. ... Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization." But it keeps working.

And this week we saw Mr. Frank's thesis acted out so crudely that it was as if someone had deliberately staged it. The right wants to dismantle Social Security, a successful program that is a pillar of stability for working Americans. AARP stands in the way. So without a moment's hesitation, the usual suspects declared that this organization of staid seniors is actually an anti-soldier, pro-gay-marriage leftist front.

It's tempting to dismiss this as an exceptional case in which right-wingers, unable to come up with a real cultural grievance to exploit, fabricated one out of thin air. But such fabrications are the rule, not the exception.

For example, for much of December viewers of Fox News were treated to a series of ominous warnings about "Christmas under siege" - the plot by secular humanists to take Christ out of America's favorite holiday. The evidence for such a plot consisted largely of occasions when someone in an official capacity said, "Happy holidays," instead of, "Merry Christmas."

So it doesn't matter that Social Security is a pro-family program that was created by and for America's greatest generation - and that it is especially crucial in poor but conservative states like Alabama and Arkansas, where it's the only thing keeping a majority of seniors above the poverty line. Right-wingers will still find ways to claim that anyone who opposes privatization supports terrorists and hates family values.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 07:01 AM

How the US got lumbered with George Bush - a scientific explanation

A scientific explanation

February 25, 2005
I've been asked by a number of readers to explain how the United States - and the world - gets lumbered with a president like George W. Bush.

So I will provide a detailed, scientific explanation. Bush is a statistical inevitability. His arrival at the White House was a consequence of simple division by simple people. Or, if you prefer, a process of elimination. First of all, you can eliminate half the population as the US is a long, long way from being ready to have a woman president - though some Democrats are talking up Hillary Clinton while Republicans counter with Condoleezza Rice.

Then you can eliminate all the African-Americans - even Colin Powell and Condoleezza - who haven't got a snowball's. Apart from bland bigotry you've got all the white supremacists and Aryan Nation kooks who'd want to add a black candidate to such trophies as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Word is that's why Mrs Powell insisted that her husband renege from the race a few years back.

Despite Al Gore's selection of a Jew as his running mate, US anti-Semitism precludes getting nominated as top banana. And unless Arnie Schwarzenegger can organise a change of the Constitution, you can also eliminate anyone and everyone who wasn't born in the US. "From log cabin to White House" applies only to residents of American log cabins - not to those raised in similar structures in Finland, Norway, Siberia or Poland.

See how fast we're whittling down the figures? Getting closer to George Bush, father or son?

Homosexuals need not apply. While there's undoubtedly been the odd gay president - Abraham Lincoln has recently been "outed" - such sexual proclivities have had to be kept a deep, dark secret. You wouldn't want the cross-dressing J. Edgar Hoover to find out. At this point in time, US straights have narrowed eyes when it comes to the queer guy.

Roman Catholics have been contenders since Jack Kennedy beat Quaker Nixon. But for the foreseeable future you can eliminate Muslims, Zoastrians, Hindus, Sikhs, Druids, followers of the Norse gods, or Buddhists. Although, with Buddhism becoming so very popular in Hollywood, passionately embraced by the likes of Richard Gere and Oliver Stone, it's only a matter of time until one sneaks under the radar. This will probably occur at a Democrat convention given that Christian fundamentalism is still de rigueur with the Republicans.

Atheists? No hope. In a nation where almost as many people go to church as shop at Wal-Mart, anyone who doesn't claim to be born again would be out of the race long before Super Tuesday, probably before New Hampshire. Even candidates admitting agnosticism would have to hit the road.

As you can see, the pool of presidential possibilities is now little more than a puddle. And there's a lot more draining, downsizing, filtering and elimination ahead of us.

While one of the greatest presidents was a polio victim who governed from his wheelchair, it's hard to see the Americans of the 21st century, so obsessed with physical perfection that they're all saving up for plastic surgery, going for an FDR. (Perhaps the American public would cop a paraplegic, provided the condition was a result of a war injury.) Indeed, it's hard to see them backing any candidate with a greater disability than dyslexia. Of course, the incumbent is dyslexic, so he has moved the goalposts just a little. Low intelligence? Hardly an impediment as, once again, the incumbent demonstrates. Indeed, intellectual credentials would almost certainly be politically fatal. It's okay to be bright - Bill Clinton was acceptable - but if you had a touch of the Barry Jones or Gareth Evans, forget it. Being very intelligent - indeed being very anything - rules you out. The very young, very short, very fat are among the various "verys" that would preclude nomination, let alone election.

This brings us back to physical appearance in the land of Narcissus. You can pretty well eliminate anyone who isn't regarded as physically attractive. Indeed, it helps to have had a prior career in Hollywood. For in the US, elections are won on television and a Bush will beat a Kerry as inevitably as a Kennedy will beat a Nixon.

And you can pretty well eliminate anyone who isn't stinking rich. It's not entirely inaccurate to suggest that, by and large, presidential elections have given voters a choice of millionaires.

So there you have it. Take the American population. Divide in half. Subtract large numbers of people in various categories and, lo and behold, you've got George Dubya. Think of it. Had he been female, gay, black, Jewish, an immigrant, an agnostic or overly endowed with intelligence, he'd still be what he was. A political mediocrity in Texas, being baled out of business failures by his father's wealthy friends. Back in the Governor's mansion, instead of being able to wage war all over the planet, George would be limited to setting records for the confirmation of death sentences - hundreds of them. If only he had been born in Australia, the world would be safe.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:07 PM

W.'s Stiletto Democracy
By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: February 27, 2005



WASHINGTON

It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.

Remarkably brazen, given that the only checks Mr. Bush seems to believe in are those written to the "journalists" Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Karen Ryan, the fake TV anchor, to help promote his policies. The administration has given a whole new meaning to checkbook journalism, paying a stupendous $97 million to an outside P.R. firm to buy columnists and produce propaganda, including faux video news releases.


The only balance W. likes is the slavering, Pravda-like "Fair and Balanced" coverage Fox News provides. Mr. Bush pledges to spread democracy while his officials strive to create a Potemkin press village at home. This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names; it prefers tossing journalists who protect their sources into the gulag to giving up the officials who broke the law by leaking the name of their own C.I.A. agent.

W., who once looked into Mr. Putin's soul and liked what he saw, did not demand the end of tyranny, as he did in his second Inaugural Address. His upper lip sweating a bit, he did not rise to the level of his hero Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Instead, he said that "the common ground is a lot more than those areas where we disagree." The Russians were happy to stress the common ground as well.

An irritated Mr. Putin compared the Russian system to the American Electoral College, perhaps reminding the man preaching to him about democracy that he had come in second in 2000 according to the popular vote, the standard most democracies use.

Certainly the autocratic former K.G.B. agent needs to be upbraided by someone - Tony Blair, maybe? - for eviscerating the meager steps toward democracy that Russia had made before Mr. Putin came to power. But Mr. Bush is on shaky ground if he wants to hold up his administration as a paragon of safeguarding liberty - considering it has trampled civil liberties in the name of the war on terror and outsourced the torture of prisoners to bastions of democracy like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. (The secretary of state canceled a trip to Egypt this week after Egypt's arrest of a leading opposition politician.)

"I live in a transparent country," Mr. Bush protested to a Russian reporter who implicitly criticized the Patriot Act by noting that the private lives of American citizens "are now being monitored by the state."

Dick Cheney's secret meetings with energy lobbyists were certainly a model of transparency. As was the buildup to the Iraq war, when the Bush hawks did their best to cloak the real reasons they wanted to go to war and trumpet the trumped-up reasons.

The Bush administration wields maximum secrecy with minimal opposition. The White House press is timid. The poor, limp Democrats don't have enough power to convene Congressional hearings on any Republican outrages and are reduced to writing whining letters of protest that are tossed in the Oval Office trash.

When nearly $9 billion allotted for Iraqi reconstruction during Paul Bremer's tenure went up in smoke, Democratic lawmakers vainly pleaded with Republicans to open a Congressional investigation.

Even the near absence of checks and balances is not enough for W. Not content with controlling the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and a good chunk of the Fourth Estate, he goes to even more ludicrous lengths to avoid being challenged.

The White House wants its Republican allies in the Senate to stamp out the filibuster, one of the few weapons the handcuffed Democrats have left. They want to invoke the so-called nuclear option and get rid of the 150-year-old tradition in order to ram through more right-wing judges.

Mr. Bush and Condi Rice strut in their speeches - the secretary of state also strutted in Wiesbaden in her foxy "Matrix"-dominatrix black leather stiletto boots - but they shy away from taking questions from the public unless they get to vet the questions and audiences in advance.

Administration officials went so far as to cancel a town hall meeting during Mr. Bush's visit to Germany last week after deciding an unscripted setting would be too risky, opting for a round-table talk in Mainz with preselected Germans and Americans.

The president loves democracy - as long as democracy means he's always right

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 07:08 PM

It's Called Torture

By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 28, 2005



As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., wh not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?


When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor of a once robust and fully functioning human being. Torture does that to a person. It's an unspeakable crime, an affront to one's humanity that can rob you of a portion of your being as surely as acid can destroy your flesh.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen with a wife and two young children, had his life flipped upside down in the fall of 2002 when John Ashcroft's Justice Department, acting at least in part on bad information supplied by the Canadian government, decided it would be a good idea to abduct Mr. Arar and ship him off to Syria, an outlaw nation that the Justice Department honchos well knew was addicted to torture.

Mr. Arar was not charged with anything, and yet he was deprived not only of his liberty, but of all legal and human rights. He was handed over in shackles to the Syrian government and, to no one's surprise, promptly brutalized. A year later he emerged, and still no charges were lodged against him. His torturers said they were unable to elicit any link between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was sent back to Canada to face the torment of a life in ruins.

Mr. Arar's is the case we know about. How many other individuals have disappeared at the hands of the Bush administration? How many have been sent, like the victims of a lynch mob, to overseas torture centers? How many people are being held in the C.I.A.'s highly secret offshore prisons? Who are they and how are they being treated? Have any been wrongly accused? If so, what recourse do they have?

President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."

Someone should tell that to Maher Arar and his family.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 07:48 PM

Whew! What a relief! I was afraid Amos might let this thread die! Glad to see it back.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 07:56 PM

Right -- shootin' the messenger, never reading the message, Doug. Tsk, tsk.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 08:03 PM

Why, Dougie?

You wouldn't actually read any of it fir fear that you'd have to face the fact that, while you may be in winner's circle now, there's gonna be a price to pay when the Big Guy does a final accounting... Oh? You don't belive in the Big Guy? Well, I guess that answers a lot of questions I have about yer politics..

Awww, jus' messin' wid ya'. I'll put in a good word fir ya. Sho nuff will...

Others:

Yeah, unless Senator Spector can stop the facists, the game may soon be over. Yep after a century of the Senate trying to preserve at least some level of respect for the minority party it looks very much as if the Dems might be close to rentin' another building and set up an opposition outpost 'cause it won't matter what they say or do, they will just be out-voted... And by the same folks who used to complain that the tactics that Dems used were immoral... Now they are in the majority, they seem real anxious to do the same thing that most of them thought were horrible??? Like, what am I missin' here?

How do you spell "hypocitic crook"?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 06:57 AM

The NY Times notes a sea-change shaping in the Arab World and offers credit to the Bush administration:

"...Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power. Washington's challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.

Lebanon's political reawakening took a significant new turn yesterday when popular protests brought down the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami. Syria's occupation of Lebanon, nearly three decades long, started tottering after the Feb. 14 assassination of the country's leading independent politician, the former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

If Damascus had a hand in this murder, as many Lebanese suspect, it had a boomerang effect on Lebanon's politics. Instead of intimidating critics of Syria's dominant role, it inflamed them. To stem the growing backlash over the Hariri murder, last week Syria announced its intentions to pull back its occupation forces to a region near the border - although without offering any firm timetable. Yesterday, with protests continuing, the pro-Syrian cabinet resigned. Washington, in an unusual alliance with France, continues to press for full compliance with the Security Council's demand for an early and complete Syrian withdrawal. That needs to happen promptly. Once Syria is gone, Hezbollah, which has engaged in international terrorism under Syrian protection, must either confine itself to peaceful political activity or be shut down.

Last weekend's surprise announcement of plans to hold at least nominally competitive presidential elections in Egypt could prove even more historic, although many of the specific details seem likely to be disappointing. Egypt is the Arab world's most populous country and one of its most politically influential. In more than five millenniums of recorded history, it has never seen a truly free and competitive election.

To be realistic, Egypt isn't likely to see one this year either. For all his talk of opening up the process, President Hosni Mubarak, 76, is likely to make sure that no threatening candidates emerge to deny him a fifth six-year term. But after seeing more than eight million Iraqis choose their leaders in January, Egypt's voters, and its increasingly courageous opposition movement, will no longer retreat into sullen hopelessness so readily. The Bush administration has helped foster that feeling of hope for a democratic future by keeping the pressure on Mr. Mubarak. But the real heroes are on-the-ground patriots like Ayman Nour, who founded a new party aptly named Tomorrow last October and is now in jail. If Mr. Mubarak truly wants more open politics, he should free Mr. Nour promptly.

It is similarly encouraging that the terrorists who attacked a Tel Aviv nightclub on Friday, killing five Israelis, have not yet managed to completely scuttle the new peace dynamic between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel contends that those terrorists were sponsored by Syria, but its soldiers reported discovering an explosives-filled car in the West Bank yesterday. The good news is that the leaders on both sides did not instantly retreat to familiar corners in angry rejectionism. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have proved they can work together to thwart terrorism and deny terrorists an instant veto over progress toward a negotiated peace.

Over the past two decades, as democracies replaced police states across Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, and a new economic dynamism lifted hundreds of millions of eastern and southern Asia out of poverty and into the middle class, the Middle East stagnated in a perverse time warp that reduced its brightest people to hopelessness or barely contained rage. The wonder is less that a new political restlessness is finally visible, but that it took so long to break through the ice."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 10:28 AM

From the LA Times:

n his State of the Union address, Bush singled out Iran as "the world's primary state sponsor of terror … pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve." For weeks we heard ominous warnings of war with Iran. Then, last week, Bush scoffed at the idea that we were going to bomb Iran as "ridiculous," even as he menacingly noted that "all options are on the table." Meanwhile, Europe continued to negotiate constructively with Iran to find a peaceful solution and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The sad fact, however, is that Bush's irrational policies and rhetoric have left the mostly fundamentalist leaders of Iran defending a more logical position than that of our own government on three counts.

First, it is our government that has long proclaimed the wonders of something called "the peaceful uses of atomic energy" to counterbalance the horror of having unleashed the power of the atomic bomb on Japanese civilians in World War II. In asserting its right to build nuclear power plants, Tehran is emulating the United States. The pact signed on Sunday in which Russia will supply the fuel for an Iranian nuclear power plant but Tehran will return spent fuel would seem to remove the threat that Iran's now fully constructed Bushehr plant will be producing nuclear weapons material.

Second, the U.S. has been woefully uncaring about nuclear proliferation except when it proves politically convenient, as with the false prewar claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq might be close to acquiring or producing nuclear weapons.

Another example came after 9/11, when Washington dropped anti-proliferation sanctions against Pakistan while Bush focused his wrath on Iraq. Ironically, it was back in 1987, when the U.S. was backing Hussein in his war with Iran, that Pakistan's top scientist first made overtures to sell nuclear technology to the ayatollahs in Tehran.

Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's scandalous campaign to sell nuclear materials and knowledge to unstable countries such as North Korea and Libya, as well as Iran, was overlooked by successive U.S. administrations. Apparently, it was deemed too awkward to irritate our "allies" in Islamabad who helped us arm the mujahedin in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and, after 9/11, were enlisted to bring some of those same mujahedin to justice, including Osama bin Laden.

Even after the appalling extent of Khan's sales ring was exposed in 2003, little was done. The Pakistan government pardoned Khan and won't allow him to be interviewed by outsiders. Intelligence reports indicate that his black market mob may be operating again.

Finally, how can the president continue to escalate the rhetoric against Iran given that his invasion of neighboring Iraq has handed control of the country to Shiites trained in Tehran, like Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, as well as Kurds who have enjoyed significant Iranian support over the years?

So, tangled history aside, what should the U.S. do now about a repressive and potentially threatening government in Iran? The one thing Bush strangely has refused to do throughout the world: practice the principles of capitalism.

The model for such a policy, which emphasizes normal trade relations even with regimes that have religious and political obsessions different from our own, was most successfully employed by Richard Nixon in his famous opening to "Red" China, as well as in the detente period that should properly be credited with the ultimate fall of the Soviet empire.

The most powerful liberalizing forces the U.S. wields are not military, but economic and cultural. Though not as macho as trying to spread democracy through the barrel of a gun, normalization offers a better prospect of accomplishing that end, while saving billions of dollars and priceless lives.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 01:11 PM

From MoveOn.org:

The fight to save our courts is about to really heat up. Bush just resubmitted 20 nominees the Democrats fought four years to block. These 20 judges were rejected, while 204 were approved, because they have consistently sacrificed the rights of ordinary Americans to appease powerful special interests and extreme right-wing ideology. They must not be given lifetime appointments on the federal bench.

The Democrats can block them again, but only if they stand united. As a senior Democrat on the all-important Senate Judiciary Committee, Diane Feinstein can either embolden the Democratic resistance, or splinter it. That's why we need to call on her today for the leadership this issue demands.

Please call Senator Feinstein's office and ask her to strongly oppose ALL 20 of Bush's repeat judicial nominees at:

[phone]

Then, let us know you called:
http://www.moveonpac.org/judicial/call/

The fight to save our courts only begins with these 20 nominees. Dick Cheney and Senator Bill Frist are now threatening to eliminate the filibuster, a 200-year-old rule that allows 40 or more senators to force further debate before controversial votes. It would require a two-thirds vote to actually change the fillibuster rule, and they know they don't that much support. So in his role as president of the Senate Cheney is planning to simply declare the filibuster rule null and void. If Frist can get just 50 Senators to support Cheney's ruling, the right to filibuster judges will be gone. It's a power grab so abusive and unprecedented that even the Republicans call it the "Nuclear Option."

This all leads up to the next vacancy on the Supreme Court. Without the right to filibuster, the Democrats will be powerless to stop even the most dangerous nominees. Bush may get to appoint as many as three Supreme Court Justices in the next 4 years -- so the "Nuclear Option" is nothing less than a desperate attempt to reshape the legal landscape of this nation for decades to come.

As this all unfolds, it's critical to get the calls in early -- even before the headlines hit. We can block Bush's 20 repeat nominees, and we can stop Cheney's "Nuclear Option" if at least 50 Senators oppose it. The first step is ensuring Democratic unity and vocal leadership from key senators like yours.

Please call Senator Feinstein today and ask her to oppose ALL of Bush's repeat nominees, and defeat the Republican "Nuclear Option" to eliminate the fillibuster.

[phone]

The 20 nominees Bush has resubmitted were rejected because of their extreme positions in favor of corporate interests and against civil rights, the environment, civil liberties, and the concerns of ordinary Americans. Here's a brief summary of just the first four to be considered.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 12:39 AM

Oh no! Don't die!
DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 08:21 AM

Geeze, Doug, it's only been two days!!

But thanks.


I am beginning to suspect you are a closet liberal.

And I am going to tell Ann Coulter!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 03:28 PM

The Soldier's Terrorist

by Maxine Nash

published by Voices in the Wilderness

The Soldier's Terrorist

It's becoming spring here in Baghdad. The days are getting warmer, the sun shines longer, and I've seen some new growth on flowers and shrubs in the neighborhood. It's a time of new beginnings.

Yet it doesn't feel like spring in my heart. In fact, my heart is very heavy. I read a report today from a Quaker therapist who works with returning U.S. soldiers and their families. The therapist noted that the returning soldiers are feeling like they've lost an important part of themselves because of the actions they've done in Iraq, and fear they are damaged permanently by behaving against their core beliefs. The therapist also mentions that most of the soldiers returning from Iraq are angry, and that the anger seems to be a necessity to staying alive in Iraq.

I've met these soldiers here in Iraq. I've met the angry one who seems to be angry all the time, with a permanently etched scowl on his face. I've met the one who tells me of doing things he didn't want to do and then telling me the ways he tries to cope with those actions. I've met the one who seems to have turned off all emotion in order not to feel anything. I've met the one who, when he got back home, said he'd done his time in Hell and he wasn't ever going back.

They have names - Ricky, Jeff, Jon. They have beautiful green eyes that go all the way down to their tortured souls. They have lives, and personalities, that they remember but can't quite keep in touch with when they are here and can't fit into when they go home. They've seen their friends die, and they fear for their own lives.

Where is the new beginning for them? How can they un-live everything that's happened to them in this crazy situation and get back to being whole human beings again?

The answer is of course that they can't ever undo what they've seen and done as soldiers. No one can give them back the innocence they had before coming here.

The same is true for me. I lost innocence that I didn't know I had. I found out that my government and its military have condoned incredible acts of violence, often against civilians. I've learned that my government thinks very little about basic humanitarian rules of conduct and that my government's military was woefully ignorant of those rules in the first place. I've learned that all of this can somehow be justified with a large portion of the American public in the name of "the war on terror."

I do feel terrorized, but not by the usual suspects. I feel terrorized by some of my own countrymen and women who think that people who present some kind of danger to freedom in the United States are somehow sub-human. I feel terrorized by my government who seems to think that human beings are expendable as part of the "cost of freedom." Mostly, I feel sad that both the citizens of the United States and its government are willing to take the humanity, and the lives, of U.S. soldiers to somehow feel safe again.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 03:31 PM

A Less Super Superpower

by Jonathan Schell

published by TomDispatch

A Less Super Superpower

One of the most difficult things to judge in the world today is the extent of American power. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the United States possesses a far larger pile of weapons than any other country, that the American economy is also larger than any other country's and that America's movies and television programs are consumed globally. America is widely accorded the title "only superpower," and many of its detractors as well as its supporters describe it as the world's first truly globe-straddling empire. On the other hand, it is not yet clear what the United States can accomplish with these eye-catching assets. For power, as Thomas Hobbes wrote in one of the most succinct and durable definitions of power ever offered, is a "present means, to obtain some future apparent good." Power, after all, is not just an expenditure of energy. There must be results.

Measured by Hobbes's test, the superpower looks less super. Its military has been stretched to the breaking point by the occupation of a single weak country, Iraq. Its economy is held hostage by Himalayas of external debt, much of it in the hands of a strategic rival, China, holder of nearly $200 billion in Treasury bills. Its domestic debt, caused in part by the war expenditures, also towers to the skies. The United States has dramatically failed to make progress in its main declared foreign policy objective, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction: While searching fruitlessly for nuclear programs in Iraq, where they did not exist, it temporized with North Korea, where they apparently do exist, and now it seems at a loss for a policy that will stop Iran from taking the same path. The President has just announced that the "end of tyranny" is his goal, but in his first term the global democracy movement suffered its greatest setback since the cold war -- Russia's slide toward authoritarianism.

The shaky foundations of America's power were on display in the President's recent travels. Shortly before Bush landed in Brussels, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany quietly but firmly repudiated the President's militarized, US-centered approach to world affairs. NATO, he heretically announced, should no longer be "the primary venue" of the Atlantic relationship. Did that mean that Europe would continue to take direction from Washington through some other venue? Hardly: He was, he said, formulating German policy "in Europe, for Europe and from Europe." The superpower's penchant for military action was also rejected. The chancellor said, "Challenges lie today beyond the North Atlantic Alliance's former zone of mutual assistance. And they do not primarily require military responses."

Schröder was standing on solid ground at home. A poll in the German newspaper Die Welt revealed that "Vladimir Putin is seen as more trustworthy than George W. Bush, France as a more important partner for German foreign and security policy than the United States. Closer harmonization of German foreign policy with America is not wanted, either."

Meanwhile, offstage, in an apparent extension of constitution-building at home, Europe was taking the lead in building cooperative global instruments, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and the International Criminal Court. No sooner had the President arrived in Europe than an economic trapdoor seemed briefly to open beneath his feet when the South Korean Central Bank stated that it intended to move some of its holdings from the dollar to other currencies, causing a 174-point drop in the Dow Jones average. The next day, the bank disavowed its report and the dollar recovered, but not before the fragility of America's economic position in the world had been revealed.

In an atmosphere of programmed smiles and brittle celebrations, the presidential dinners and toasts compensated for local public sentiment rather than reflecting it. The less popular Bush was in a given country, it seemed, the jollier the summit meeting. Even in little Slovakia, where the festivities seemed more spontaneous than elsewhere, an opinion poll showed that a majority believed that the United States, not Russia, was the most worrisome threat to democracy.

In his meeting with Putin, Bush seemed almost obsequious, repeatedly referring chummily to an unresponding, scowling Putin (it's an expression that settles naturally on his face) as "my friend Vladimir." As for democracy in Russia, the man who would "end tyranny" everywhere in the world could only muster, "I was able to share my concerns about Russia's commitment in fulfilling these universal principles."

A portrait of a peculiar relationship with Europe emerged. To Bush's Don Quixote, tilting, at God's command, against imagined evils, Europe played Sancho Panza, humoring the Knight Errant but mocking him behind his back. Or perhaps it was more like that other great inverted relationship between master and servant, P.G. Wodehouse's upper-class twit Bertie Wooster and his sagacious, potent butler Jeeves, who contrives to get Wooster out of his ceaseless ridiculous scrapes in high society. The difference is that Europe's rescue is only feigned. Yes, France will help in Iraq -- with one officer, who will stay at NATO headquarters in Europe.

In history, the rise of imperial pretenders has usually led to military alliances against them. Such was the case, for instance, when a previous imperial republic, Napoleon's France, conquered most of Europe but then was defeated by an oddly assorted alliance of Britain, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Such is not the case today. Europe seems determined to bypass rather than fight the American challenge. And power? The American kind is poor in "future goods." There is rivalry in the air, but it no longer takes a martial form. Instead, Europe seems bent for now on building itself up economically and knitting itself together politically -- readying, it appears, another kind of power, based more on cooperation, both within its own borders and with the world, and less on military force.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 03:40 PM

Express Train to Disaster

by David Corn

published by TomPaine.com

Express Train to Disaster

There I was, with several other journalists and a federal commissioner, at a Washington party, playing the latest parlor game of the capital city: What does W. want and why does he want it? That is, does he truly crave privatized retirement accounts? Does he hope to end Social Security as we know it? Might he settle for tinkering and declare victory? Does he know what he really wants? As we traded theories and notions—and no one, not even the newsweekly journalist who covers Social Security day in and out, had a good idea of Bush's ultimate aim—the hostess came by. "You're not talking about Social Security, are you?" she said with a groan, as if we were ruining her party. "Well," one of us replied earnestly, "what else is there to talk about?"

Indeed. Among those of us who earn a living trying to make sense of politics and policy within Washington, Social Security is the A-list item. It has shoved aside the war in Iraq—and everything else. Last month, Congress passed legislation that could end most multi-state class action lawsuits—essentially handing a get-out-of-court-free card to manufacturers of defective products, negligent HMOs, sleazy credit card companies and other less-than-honorable residents of Corporate America—and the debate came and went in what seemed to be seven seconds. The deal was done by the time the talking heads had a chance to shout at each other about it. The Social Security debate has sucked up all the oxygen.

Moreover, the substantive debate over Bush's Social Security plan has already been exhausted. The Social Security battle has, in a way, become like the abortion battle—a standoff between two fundamentally different philosophical values (in this case, the prudent wisdom of social insurance versus the possibilities of in-the-markets-we-trust faith). Each side has already run out of arguments. We're in constant-replay mode. There's a crisis. No, there isn't. The system will be broke by 2018. No, the trust fund IOUs won't run out until 2052. Bush's foes have drawn blood by forcing him to admit that the salvation he has been promoting for years—using Social Security funds to create private accounts for individual—does not address the long-term funding gap. Yet we all know we will be listening to the same lines over and over in the months ahead.

But what changes is the politics. That's where the mystery is. Figuring out the ultimate policy compromise—probably a blend of increasing taxes, slightly raising the retirement age, and restraining benefits for some recipients—is easier that sussing out the politics and Bush's intentions.

There are the exit-strategy analysts, those observers who discern signs that Bush is hankering for a retreat with honor. Who could blame him? There are plenty of ill omens for the Pirates of Privatization. Democrats on Capitol Hill are disseminating a list of dozens of GOP legislators who have voiced skepticism regarding partial privatization of Social Security. During last week's congressional recess, only about one-third of House Republicans held town hall meetings on Social Security. Tom DeLay told the Houston Chronicle , "I am very disappointed about that….It's obvious that we can't accomplish this unless the American people want us to." Treasury Secretary John Snow acknowledged Bush currently lacks the necessary support among Republicans on the Hill. GOP Sen. Arlen Specter has declared he is "frankly skeptical" about Bush's approach. Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said Bush has yet to convince the public. Newt Gingrich has advised Republicans to relaunch the Social Security issue because Americans have not accepted Bush's argument that a crisis is at hand. And recent polls are not encouraging for Bush; NPR found that only 30 percent favor his proposed changes for Social Security. According to a Marist poll, 41 percent believe congressional Democrats can best handle Social Security; Bush was endorsed by only 16 percent, and congressional GOPers won the backing of 25 percent. A Zogby poll found 63 percent disapproved of Bush's handling of Social Security.

No wonder privateers are worried. Writing in the Weekly Standard , Stephen Moore of the Free Enterprise Fund bemoaned talk of a Bush compromise. He was particularly upset that Bush had raised the subject of lifting the cap on wages that are taxed for Social Security. "The danger now," Moore warned, "is that Bush, who wants a legacy 'victory' on Social Security will ultimately sign a Social Security bill that raises taxes and drops or guts personal accounts." And what have been the big PR initiatives of the let's-privatize posse recently? First, USA Next, a right-wing outfit with various ties to the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, attacked the AARP for supposedly not supporting the troops and advocating gay marriage. (The AARP does not support gay marriage; it is not anti-troops.) This sleazy assault divided the free-marketeers, with Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute blasting USA Next for its in-the-gutter sideswipe. Then the White House announced that Bush will be campaigning for Social Security change with nine-year-old Noah McCullough, who has made a name for himself as an expert in presidential history trivia. That ought to turn the tide. (Word also leaked out that SpongeBob SquarePants was set to join Bush and McCullough on this tour—until James Dobson queered the deal.) Next the administration announced it was setting up a "war room" at the treasury department to coordinate and refine its Social Security message. (Declare war on Social Security, then wait months before establishing a "war room"? These guys should know better.)

With the indicators not looking strong at the moment, can it be that Bush will look for a way out? Step back, let Congress craft something much different than what he envisioned, sign the damn thing and declare victory? ("Today I am so glad that Congress followed my lead and…") But this gets back to the question of what Bush really is after. Is it a political win he can dress up? Or a transformation (for the worse) of the nation's core social insurance program? After five years of pushing private accounts as the cure-all for the "crisis," Bush finally acknowledged in his recent State of the Union speech that these accounts—which will cost trillions of dollars—do not address the projected Social Security gap to come in several decades. But are these accounts still the main thing for him? Will he fight to the last pensioner for them?

In the past, Bush has been at different times a stubborn champion of wrongheaded ideas and a pragmatic dealmaker. In the later category, he signed a corporate crime bill that was weaker than it should have been but stronger than he wanted and pronounced himself (falsely) a corporate crimebuster. He also cut a deal with Sen. Ted Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind legislation and pissed off his conservative allies. (That deal was a lousy one—for Kennedy, too. A recent report concluded the legislation has been a disaster.) But when Bush entered the White House, he refused to listen to those who advised against a big tax cut (especially one tilted toward the wealthy) and who noted that public opinion surveys did not show Americans hungering for such tax cuts. Bush plowed ahead and succeeded in racking up trillions of dollars in government debt so the rich could have more. And when it came to the run-up to the Iraq war, Bush never left himself an escape route. He committed himself and ended up with a mess that may or may not eventually work out. (Polls this week show that about 54 percent of Americans believe the war was not worth the costs.)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 12:30 PM

Excerpted from todays "Times" Op Ed, Deficits and Deceit
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 4, 2005



America prospered for half a century under a level of federal taxes higher than the one we face today. According to the administration's own estimates, Mr. Bush's second term will see the lowest tax take as a percentage of G.D.P. since the Truman administration. And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom. Why, exactly, are tax increases out of the question?

O.K., enough about Mr. Greenspan. The real news is the growing evidence that the political theory behind the Bush tax cuts was as wrong as the economic theory.

According to starve-the-beast doctrine, right-wing politicians can use the big deficits generated by tax cuts as an excuse to slash social insurance programs. Mr. Bush's advisers thought that it would prove especially easy to sell benefit cuts in the context of Social Security privatization because the president could pretend that a plan that sharply cut benefits would actually be good for workers.

But the theory isn't working. As soon as voters heard that privatization would involve benefit cuts, support for Social Security "reform" plunged. Another sign of the theory's falsity: across the nation, Republican governors, finding that voters really want adequate public services, are talking about tax increases.

The best bet now is that Mr. Bush will manage to make the poor suffer, but fail to make a dent in the great middle-class entitlement programs.

And the consequence of the failure of the starve-the-beast theory is a looming fiscal crisis - Mr. Greenspan isn't wrong about that. The middle class won't give up programs that are essential to its financial security; the right won't give up tax cuts that it sold on false pretenses. The only question now is when foreign investors, who have financed our deficits so far, will decide to pull the plug.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 05:09 PM

If it's okay with DougR, can I post a beauty by William Rivers Pitt from truthout.org entitled:

A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence

"Just because the Supreme Court set a poison precedent and appointed Bush, who brought in his crowd of neocon yahoos that no one discussed during the 2000 campaign because we 'Muricans vote for the man and not the mob of frothing dogs that come in his wake, just because the twin bill of unreasonably massive tax cuts were combined with economic depth-charge that was the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal that was umbilically connected to the White House, just because the economy (not to mention our whole psyche) absorbed another blow when four commercial airplanes somehow managed to pierce the most impenetrable air defense system in the history of the universe, fooling the entire intelligence community as well if you believe what you hear on Fox...despite a blizzard of warnings and a raft of information from the previous administration, just because a bunch of anthrax got mailed to Democrats by the Ashcroft wing of the Republican Party in what were obvious assassination attempts and yet nothing but nothing has been done about it, just because the 9/11 attack was immediately and I mean the day after immediately grasped as an excuse to invade Iraq, just because virtually everyone in the administration lied with their bare faces hanging out about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, terrorism ties in Iraq, so break out the plastic sheeting and duct tape because we're all gonna die, just because they did this in no small part to win the 2002 midterms by any means necessary, just because 1,502 American soldiers have been killed looking for the 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons (which is 1,000,00 lbs.) of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, arial drones to spray the aforementioned stuff, and let's not forget the uranium from Niger for use in Iraq's robust nukular program, all of which was described to the letter by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, all of which remains on the White House website on a page titled 'Disarm Saddam Hussein,' just because the medical journal Lancet estimates that as many as 198,000 Iraqi citizens have been killed as well in the war to get at this stuff, just because none of the stuff was there, and by the way nonee of the stuff was there, and did I mention that none of the stuff was there, just because the idea that Hussein was allied with bin Laden was laughable because Osama has wanted Saddam's head on his battle standard for decades, just because the true source of world terrorism, which is Wahabbist extremism in Saudi Arabia, goes completely unaddressed because the Houses of Bush and Saud have been partnered for decades, just because so much of 9/11 and this 'War on Terra' has to do with business arrangements going awry between these two Houses, just because a deep-cover CIA agent who was working to track any person or nation or group that would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists got her cover and her network blown by Administration officials who wanted to shut her husband and any other potential whistleblowers the hell up, just because the front company she was working out of called Brewster Jennings and Associates was likewise blown, thus torpedoing other agents and their networks, just because absolutely all of this went virtually unreported by the mainstream media until it was too late, if it was reported at all, just because dangerous spies like Ahmad Chalabi used Judy Miller and the New York Times to disseminate the lie that Iraq was riddled with weapons, thus opening the floodgates for the rest of the media to repeat the lie because once the Times says it, it must be true, just because this lack of reporting combined with an astounding level of cheerleading from the aforementioned media combined with some good old-fashioned vote fraud in places like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico gave the aforementioned group of yahoos four more years and a congressional majority in both houses of congress, just because this means the Iraq war will continue and Iran will probably be next and draconian legislation further restricting our rights will get passed along with things like the Bankruptcy bill and media reform of any kind will be nowhere on the menu, just because a lot of the Justices on the Supreme Court are sure to step down or die soon and Bush will be able to recraft that high court for the next 20 years, just because the Christian Reconstructionists are becoming mainstream with their goal of having every American singing "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me" in a droning monochromatic hypnotized voice all day every day...doesn't mean anyone should be worried or anything. Get a grip.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 05:47 PM

That's one hell of a sentence. Seems he was found guilty AND snetenced, but not in one breath, I betcha.

Thanks. dude.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 08:36 AM

The Bush Team's Abortion Misstep

Published: March 5, 2005



At a moment when the United States should be leading the world on advancing women's equality, the Bush administration chose instead to alienate government ministers and 6,000 other delegates at an important United Nations conference on that issue with a burst of anti-abortion zealotry this week.

The two-week session is being held to reinvigorate efforts to improve women's lives a decade after a landmark U.N. conference in Beijing. The organizers had hoped to keep a tight focus on urgent challenges like sexual trafficking, educational inequities and the spread of AIDS.

The first order of business was to be quick approval of a simple statement reaffirming the Beijing meeting's closing declaration. But on Monday, the Americans created turmoil by announcing that the United States would not join the otherwise universal consensus unless the document was amended to say that it did not create "any new international human rights" or "include the right to abortion."

This was shabby and mischievous. For one thing, the Beijing statement was nonbinding. For another, the Beijing negotiators had tried to anticipate controversy by recognizing unsafe abortions as a serious public health issue while leaving the question of legality up to each nation. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 03:02 PM

A Fighting Strategy for Veterans

Published: March 5, 2005




Military veterans are crying foul over President Bush's budget proposals to cut spending on their health care. The budget must not be balanced "on the backs of veterans," wrote Stephen P. Condon, the chairman of the Air Force Association, in a recent letter to The Times, a point that was echoed by other veterans at Congressional hearings last month. We agree with the veterans - but for somewhat different reasons than they have put forth.

The veterans' goal is to block the president's attempt to impose new hospital fees, higher prescription co-payments and other spending constraints - all of which would add up to an estimated 16 percent reduction in veterans' benefits in 2010. (The estimate is from the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities because the administration, breaking with 16 years of budget tradition, did not provide five-year projections for specific programs.) But if veterans succeed in preserving only their own benefits, they will have been outfoxed by the administration.

Mr. Bush knows that wartime is no time to go after veterans' benefits. But by proposing changes that are politically implausible while challenging Congress to cut spending, the administration gains a bargaining chip: if lawmakers aren't willing to make the veterans' cuts the president has proposed, they will be pressured to make even deeper cuts in programs for people who don't have the veterans' ability to fight back.

In effect, Mr. Bush's budget pits veterans against the 660,000 women, infants and children whose food assistance is on the chopping block; against the 120,000 preschoolers who would be cut from Head Start; against the 370,000 families and disabled and elderly individuals who would lose rental assistance; against the whole communities that would lose support for clean air and drinking water; and so on.

The only way for veterans to avoid those unacceptable trade-offs is to refuse to fight on the president's terms. The size and scope of Mr. Bush's proposed spending cuts are a direct result of his refusal to ask for tax-cut rollbacks - that is, to ask wealthy investors, who have had lavish, deficit-bloating tax cuts over the past four years, to contribute toward deficit reduction. On the contrary, Mr. Bush's budget proposes even more tax breaks, specifically for people with six-figure incomes or more and overflowing investment portfolios.

Most galling, the new tax cuts would be, in themselves, so large that the net spending cuts Mr. Bush has requested would not be enough to pay for them, let alone reduce the existing deficit.

Veterans have the moral and institutional clout to argue that no one group should be singled out to make sacrifices until all groups are asked to sacrifice. Bolstering that case is the fact that all successful deficit-cutting budgets have included tax increases on the affluent, including President Reagan's 1983 budget, the first President George Bush's 1991 budget and President Bill Clinton's 1994 budget. Mr. Bush's 2006 budget must do the same. If veterans drive that point home, the benefits they'll save will be their own, and those of many women and children, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Mar 05 - 03:29 PM

FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH - mural

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

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 09:55 AM

Clear Skies, R.I.P.

Published: March 7, 2005





Barring a cave-in by Democrats who have so far kept the bill bottled up in committee, President Bush's Clear Skies initiative appears dead for this session of Congress. This is no great loss to the nation. Clear Skies is a bad bill, which in the name of streamlining current law would offer considerably more relief to the industries that pollute the air than to the citizens who breathe it.

Because Clear Skies was one of Mr. Bush's signature initiatives, and the first proposed overhaul of the Clean Air Act since his father's landmark reforms of 1990, it is worth reflecting on its troubles. Clear Skies originally came attractively dressed as a grand bargain under which a market-based system of pollution control would replace the cumbersome regulatory mechanisms in existing law - resulting in less litigation, more regulatory certainty for industry and cleaner air for everybody.

The bargain quickly collapsed when the administration, prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney, began dismantling current law before even offering a Clear Skies bill - a boneheaded move that cast suspicion on the administration's motives, infuriated Democrats and made future bipartisan cooperation almost impossible.

When Clear Skies finally did appear in 2002, the bargain began looking even worse. It would have been one thing to drop the old bureaucratic regulations in exchange for meaningful reductions in the major pollutants and a disciplined, aggressive timetable for achieving them. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency's professional staff had a perfectly respectable bill ready to roll in the fall of 2001. But after lobbying by industry and the White House, and subsequent dilutions by Senate Republicans, what ultimately emerged was a pallid program that had no chance of meeting the public health standards for smog and soot that the administration professes to support.

Meanwhile, on the back end, nearly every useful lever in current law would disappear, including several provisions that Northeastern states like New York and New Jersey have been using to great effect to reduce windblown pollution from Midwestern power plants. The bill's failure to address the issue of global warming did not improve its legislative chances among Democrats. But it was the loss of the old-fashioned controls on smog and soot-forming gases that turned a large and bipartisan majority of state and local officials (George Pataki and Arnold Schwarzenegger among them) against Clear Skies, once they realized how little the administration was offering them in exchange.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 10:11 PM

Can't claim it's a popular view, but as of tonight, here's MY view.

Today I snapped.

I saw a man with a sign that pissed me off, shouting a slogan that pissed me off.

Going for a run didn't calm me down.

Playing the banjo didn't calm me down.

My head is still about to explode (yeah, yeah, I know - like a balloon bursting).

I am goddam sick of this "blame America first" crowd.

Too little morality in the USA?

It's because America doesn't allow the government to endorse the Ten Commandments.

Too much violence in the USA?

It's because America teaches kids that mothers can kill their babies.

Too many "activist judges" who "legislate from the bench"?

It's because America gives too much power to dissenters in Congress.

Why haven't we caught Osama bin Laden?

It's because America doesn't allow investigators to torture his whereabouts out of his alleged accomplices.

Why do we have such gigantic budget deficits?

Because those damn old people and veterans are sucking up "entitlements".

Well guess what people.

In America, the constitution forbids government from endorsing religion.

In America, abortion is legal.

In America, the minority party was given the filibuster by Thomas Jefferson.

In America, torture is NOT legal.

In America, we have a safety net that has worked pretty damn well for three quarters of a century.

If someone loved America, would they work so hard to change it so much?

Tell you what.

I do love America.

Why don't YOU "love it or leave it" you phoney conservative, reactionary, America-blaming, neoconservative bastards.

Yeah you.

The ones Colin Powell so famously refers to as "the fucking crazies".

Go start a country that fits your "values".

'Cause AMERICA does NOT.







Oh, and before anyone points it out....just my opinion of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 08:15 AM

Get it said, Mister!! :)

Meanwhile the New York Times is all for softening its take on Wolfowitz and suggesting he has a virtuous side. NEver mind starting the war, and all that.

Giving Wolfowitz His Due
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: March 8, 2005


Let us now praise Paul Wolfowitz. Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.

Let us look again at the man who's been vilified by Michael Moore and the rest of the infantile left, who's been condescended to by the people who consider themselves foreign policy grown-ups, and who has become the focus of much anti-Semitism in the world today - the center of a zillion Zionist conspiracy theories, and a hundred zillion clever-Jew-behind-the-scenes calumnies.

It's not necessary to absolve Wolfowitz of all sin or to neglect the postwar screw-ups in Iraq. Historians will figure out who was responsible for what, and Wolfowitz will probably come in for his share of the blame. But with political earthquakes now shaking the Arab world, it's time to step back and observe that over the course of his long career - in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Central and Eastern Europe, and now in the Middle East - Wolfowitz has always been an ardent champion of freedom. And he has usually played a useful supporting role in making sure that pragmatic, democracy-promoting policies were put in place.

If the trends of the last few months continue, Wolfowitz will be the subject of fascinating biographies decades from now, while many of his smuggest critics will be forgotten. Those biographies will mention not only his intellectual commitment but also his personal commitment, his years spent learning the languages of the places that concerned him, and the thousands of hours spent listening deferentially to the local heroes who led the causes he supported. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 08 Mar 05 - 08:20 AM

Paul Krugman documents the machinery of wealth protecting more wealth in Congress

The Debt-Peonage Society

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 8, 2005



Today the Senate is expected to vote to limit debate on a bill that toughens the existing bankruptcy law, probably ensuring the bill's passage. A solid bloc of Republican senators, assisted by some Democrats, has already voted down a series of amendments that would either have closed loopholes for the rich or provided protection for some poor and middle-class families.

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

One increasingly popular loophole is the creation of an "asset protection trust," which is worth doing only for the wealthy. Senator Charles Schumer introduced an amendment that would have limited the exemption on such trusts, but apparently it's O.K. to game the system if you're rich: 54 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the Schumer amendment.

Other amendments were aimed at protecting families and individuals who have clearly been forced into bankruptcy by events, or who would face extreme hardship in repaying debts. Ted Kennedy introduced an exemption for cases of medical bankruptcy. Russ Feingold introduced an amendment protecting the homes of the elderly. Dick Durbin asked for protection for armed services members and veterans. All were rejected.

None of this should come as a surprise: it's all part of the pattern.

As Mr. Hacker and others have documented, over the past three decades the lives of ordinary Americans have become steadily less secure, and their chances of plunging from the middle class into acute poverty ever larger. Job stability has declined; spells of unemployment, when they happen, last longer; fewer workers receive health insurance from their employers; fewer workers have guaranteed pensions.

Some of these changes are the result of a changing economy. But the underlying economic trends have been reinforced by an ideologically driven effort to strip away the protections the government used to provide. For example, long-term unemployment has become much more common, but unemployment benefits expire sooner. Health insurance coverage is declining, but new initiatives like health savings accounts (introduced in the 2003 Medicare bill), rather than discouraging that trend, further undermine the incentives of employers to provide coverage.

Above all, of course, at a time when ever-fewer workers can count on pensions from their employers, the current administration wants to phase out Social Security. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 10:16 AM

The New York Times softens its stance on Bush and offers him a sop of vindication, despite the murderous chasos he has levied on people undeserving of violent harm.

For Bush, No Boasts, but a Taste of Vindication
By TODD S. PURDUM

Published: March 9, 2005



WASHINGTON, March 8 - He has gone out of his way not to crow, or even to take direct credit. But not quite two years after he began the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and not quite two months after a second inaugural address in which he spoke of "ending tyranny," President Bush seems entitled to claim as he did on Tuesday that a "thaw has begun" in the broader Middle East.


At the very least, Mr. Bush is feeling the glow of the recent flurry of impulses toward democracy in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and even Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where events have put him on a bit of a roll and some of his sharpest critics on the defensive. It now seems just possible that Mr. Bush and aides like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz were not wrong to argue that the "status quo of despotism cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or cut off," as the president put it in a speech at the National Defense University here.

The failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, his administration's shifting rationales for the war, the lingering insurgency and steady American casualties there were a drag on Mr. Bush's political fortunes for most of last year. But a wave of developments since the better-than-expected Iraqi elections in January - some perhaps related and others probably not - have brought Mr. Bush a measure of vindication, which may or may not be sustained by events and his own actions in the months to come.

"By now it should be clear that decades of excusing and accommodating tyranny in the pursuit of stability have only led to injustice and instability and tragedy," Mr. Bush said on Tuesday. "It should be clear that the advance of democracy leads to peace, because governments that respect the rights of their people also respect the rights of their neighbors."

His two predecessors in the Oval Office, his father and Bill Clinton, both spoke of the latest signs of progress in an appearance at the White House. The first President Bush was restrained, pronouncing himself "very pleased," but cautioning that much work remained to be done.

Mr. Clinton was more ebullient, noting that the Iraqi elections "went better than anyone could have imagined." In Lebanon, he said, "the Syrians are going to have to get out of there and give the Lebanese their country back, and I think the fact that the Lebanese are in the street demanding it is wonderful."

Asked about huge demonstrations on Tuesday, sponsored by Hezbollah, that demanded just the opposite, Mr. Clinton said: "I find it inconceivable that most Lebanese wouldn't like it if they had their country back. You know, they want their country back and they ought to get it."

For his part, Mr. Bush himself again acknowledged that building democracy in the Middle East will require a "generational commitment."

One senior White House aide, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to overshadow his boss, acknowledged as much. "Obviously, the acts of courage we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, the demonstrations that happened in the Ukraine and now in Lebanon, these are very inspiring developments that have obviously caught the notice of the president," he said. "But this is very complicated stuff, and there are a lot of turns left on this journey, and the president at every step of the way has always cautioned it's going to be a difficult road."

Still, even as sharp and consistent a critic of Mr. Bush's foreign policy as Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, gives Mr. Bush some credit for the latest stirrings of liberty along the eastern Mediterranean.

"What's taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive," Mr. Kennedy said on Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week." "It's a reflection the president has been involved."

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut and a frequent ally of Mr. Bush on national security affairs, was in the audience for his speech on Tuesday and was more effusive.

"Look, this moment in the Middle East has the feel of Central and Eastern Europe around the collapse of the Berlin Wall," he said in a telephone interview. "It's a very different historical and political context, and we all understand that democracy in the Middle East is in its infancy. But something is happening."

Mr. Lieberman said Mr. Bush deserved credit for at least two things: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the continued American military presence in Iraq, which he said showed "the proven willingness of the United States to put its power behind its principles."

---

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 05 - 08:19 PM

Nice rant, TIA...

I was gonna do one myself but after readin' yers, well, nah... Maybe tomorrow...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 19 Mar 05 - 01:29 AM

Whoa, Amos, we can't let this sucker die, can we? You haven't reached 2000 posts yet!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 08:20 PM

So he's not just lying to us, guys -- he lies to everyone:

U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export
North Korea Sent Material To Pakistan, Not to Libya
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A01

In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.

But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

Pakistan's role as both the buyer and the seller was concealed to cover up the part played by Washington's partner in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, according to the officials, who discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity. In addition, a North Korea-Pakistan transfer would not have been news to the U.S. allies, which have known of such transfers for years and viewed them as a business matter between sovereign states.

The Bush administration's approach, intended to isolate North Korea, instead left allies increasingly doubtful as they began to learn that the briefings omitted essential details about the transaction, U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said in interviews. North Korea responded to public reports last month about the briefings by withdrawing from talks with its neighbors and the United States.

In an effort to repair the damage, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is traveling through East Asia this weekend trying to get the six-nation talks back on track. The impasse was expected to dominate talks today in Seoul and then Beijing, which wields the greatest influence with North Korea.

The new details follow a string of controversies concerning the Bush administration's use of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the White House offered a public case against Iraq that concealed dissent on nearly every element of intelligence and included interpretations unsupported by the evidence.

A presidential commission studying U.S. intelligence is reviewing the case, as well as judgments on Iran and North Korea. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also is reviewing evidence on nuclear, chemical and biological programs suspected in Iran and North Korea.

The United States briefed allies on North Korea in late January and early February. Shortly afterward, administration officials, speaking to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, said North Korea had sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. The officials said the briefing was arranged to share the information with China, South Korea and Japan ahead of a new round of hoped-for negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program.

But in recent days, two other U.S. officials said the briefings were hastily arranged after China and South Korea indicated they were considering bolting from six-party talks on North Korea. The talks have been seen as largely ineffectual, but the Bush administration, which refuses to meet bilaterally with Pyongyang, insists they are critical to curbing North Korea's nuclear program.

The White House declined to offer an official to comment by name about the new details concerning Pakistan. A prepared response attributed to a senior administration official said that the U.S. government "has provided allies with an accurate account of North Korea's nuclear proliferation activities."

Although the briefings did not mention Pakistan by name, the official said they made it clear that the sale went through the illicit network operated by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdel Qadeer Khan. But the briefings gave no indication that U.S. intelligence believes that the material had been bought by Pakistan and transferred there from North Korea in a container owned by the Pakistani government.

They also gave no indication that the uranium was then shipped via a Pakistani company to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and on to Libya. Those findings match assessments by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating Libya separately. Libya gave up its nuclear weapons program in December 2003.

Since Pakistan became a key U.S. ally in the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, the administration has not held President Pervez Musharraf accountable for actions taken by Khan while he was a member of Musharraf's cabinet and in charge of nuclear cooperation for the government.

"The administration is giving Pakistan a free ride when they don't deserve it and hurting U.S. interests at the same time," said Charles L. Pritchard, who was the Bush administration's special envoy for the North Korea talks until August 2003.

"As our allies get the full picture, it doesn't help our credibility with them," he said.

Pritchard, now a Brookings Institution fellow, and others had initially raised questions about the Libya connection when it became public last month. No one in the administration has been willing to discuss the uranium sale publicly.

In testimony to Congress last month, CIA Director Porter J. Goss spoke extensively about North Korea's nuclear arsenal and capabilities. But he gave no indication the intelligence community believed that North Korea had supplied nuclear materials to Libya, that it was capable of producing uranium hexafluoride or that it was a member of the nuclear black market.

Two years ago, U.S. officials told allies that North Korea was trying to assemble an enrichment facility that would turn uranium hexafluoride into bomb-grade material.

But China and South Korea, in particular, have been skeptical of those assertions and are becoming increasingly wary of pressuring North Korea.

The National Security Council briefings in late January and early February, by senior NSC officials Michael J. Green and William Tobey, were intended to do just that by keeping the spotlight solely on North Korea.

Pakistan was mentioned only once in the briefing paper, and in a context that emphasized Pyongyang's guilt. "Pakistani press reports have said the uranium came from North Korea," according to the briefing paper, which was read to The Post.

After initial press reports about the briefing appeared last month, Pyongyang announced that it possessed nuclear weapons and would not return to the six-party talks.

Pritchard said North Korea's reaction was "absolutely linked" to the Green-Tobey trip.

The United States tried to persuade North Korea to return to the talks, but without success. The North Korean leadership responded with a list of conditions, including a demand that Rice apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny."

During the first stop on her Asian tour, Rice used noticeably softer language on North Korea, telling a Tokyo audience that the U.S. offer was open to negotiation, and that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il should grab the opportunity.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report from Seoul.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Mar 05 - 08:34 PM

And how about Paul "Never-Met-Country-With-Oil-Not-Worth-Invading" Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank... Man, they certainly must be consulting Charles Manson about these appointments... I mean, here you got a dyed in the wool "imperialist" in Wolfy and you are getting ready to turn over the keys to the World "Never-Met-A-Third-World-Country-Not-Worth-Fleecing" Bank... Oh, my God... This is like handing over a bus load of 13 year old kids to Micheal Jackson...

Bobert

p.s. Thanks, Dougie... Both Amos and I must have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 05 - 12:50 PM

The willingness of the Bush crew to ham-handedly destroy the architecture of the Republic, whether through stupidity, criminal bent or merely rank unethical opportunism, is nicely captured in this editorial on the Schiavo case.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 08:32 PM

F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness. Even his grand Social Security edifice is under assault by the vandals of the G.O.P.

While the press and the public are distracted by one sensational news story after another - Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, steroids in baseball, etc. - the president and his party have continued their extraordinary campaign to undermine the programs that were designed to fend off destitution and provide a reasonable foundation of economic security for those not blessed with great wealth.

President Bush has proposed more than $200 billion worth of cuts in domestic discretionary programs over the next five years, and cuts of $26 billion in entitlement programs. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which analyzed the president's proposal, said:

"Figures in the budget show that child-care assistance would be ended for 300,000 low-income children by 2009. The food stamp cut would terminate food stamp aid for approximately 300,000 low-income people, most of whom are low-income working families with children. Reduced Medicaid funding most certainly would cause many states to cut their Medicaid programs, increasing the ranks of the uninsured."

Education funding would be cut beginning next year, and the cuts would grow larger in succeeding years. Food assistance for pregnant women, infants and children would be cut. Funding for H.I.V. and AIDS treatment would be cut by more than half a billion dollars over five years. Support for environmental protection programs would be sharply curtailed. And so on.

Conservatives insist the cuts are necessary to get the roaring federal budget deficit under control. But they have trouble keeping a straight face when they tell that story. Laden with tax cuts, the president's proposal will result in an increase, not a decrease, in the deficit. Shared sacrifice is anathema to the big-money crowd.   ...


Excerpted from a New York TImes editorial.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 08:48 PM

And what the heck is all this stuff about "Right-to-Life" anyway. Yeah, if yer white... Just last week a 6 year old black kid, Son Hudson, had a respiartor removed dwon in Texas because George Right-to-Life Bush signed a bill that as Governor that in essenece said "pay-or-die".... Yep, against the wishes of Son's mom, who couldn't afford to pay for her son's care, by removing the respiraror tube, Son could no longer breath and died...

Who cares?

Well, I do...

And guess what? Well, I'll tell you what. Terry S. has been getting assitence thur Medicaid for the last 15 years. Yup, that same tax dollers that have been spend on Terry S's treatments were dinied a 6 year old boy because George Right-to-Life Bush, as Gobernor of Texas, din't want no money going to no nigga kids... Sho nuff didn't...

He is a creep and a dispictable hypocrit and when he gets to the Pearly Gates, guess what? Well, I tell ya' what... Elevator to the basement, thank you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 04:03 PM

Once again the Bush administration demonstrates sheer disdain for knowledge, scientific dialogue, and any community of scholars in their pursuit of absolute control over other people in rampant disregard of our Republic's principles.

"Waxman: U.S. Imposes New Limits on Scientists

Fri Jun 25,12:32 AM ET
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040625/hl_nm/aids_scient
ists_dc_2

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is making it harder for
scientists to speak to their global colleagues and restricting who can
attend an upcoming major AIDS (news - web sites) conference, a congressman
charged on Thursday.

Rep. Henry Waxman said he has a letter showing that the Health and Human
Services (news - web sites) Department has imposed new limits on who may
speak to
the World Health Organization (news - web sites).

Under the new policy, WHO must ask HHS for permission to speak to scientists
and must allow HHS to choose who will respond.

"This policy is unprecedented. For the first time political appointees will
routinely be able to keep the top experts in their field from responding to
WHO requests for guidance on international health issues," the California
Democrat wrote in a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.

"This is a raw attempt to exert political control over scientists and
scientific evidence in the area of international health," Waxman wrote.

"Under the new policy the administration will be able to refuse to provide
any experts whenever it wishes to stall international progress on
controversial topics."

An HHS spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Waxman also complained that HHS had cut back a list of scientists planning
to attend the International AIDS Society conference in Bangkok, Thailand,
next month. The conference is considered the premiere meeting for AIDS
experts.

Waxman said that 40 presentations scheduled for the conference were
withdrawn after HHS decided that only 50 U.S. scientists could attend.
"The scientific community was outraged by this pullback," he wrote.

"I ask you to rescind this ill-advised policy until it can be adequately
reviewed and justified," Waxman wrote of the restrictions on WHO requests."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 09:16 AM

"How will future historians explain it? How will they possibly explain why President George W. Bush decided to ignore the energy crisis staring us in the face and chose instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile effort to undo the New Deal, by partially privatizing Social Security? We are, quite simply, witnessing one of the greatest examples of misplaced priorities in the history of the U.S. presidency.

"Ah, Friedman, but you overstate the case." No, I understate it. Look at the opportunities our country is missing - and the risks we are assuming - by having a president and vice president who refuse to lift a finger to put together a "geo-green" strategy that would marry geopolitics, energy policy and environmentalism.

By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world. That is, we are financing the U.S. military with our tax dollars and we are financing the jihadists - and the Saudi, Sudanese and Iranian mosques and charities that support them - through our gasoline purchases. The oil boom is also entrenching the autocrats in Russia and Venezuela, which is becoming Castro's Cuba with oil. By doing nothing to reduce U.S. oil consumption we are also setting up a global competition with China for energy resources, including right on our doorstep in Canada and Venezuela. Don't kid yourself: China's foreign policy today is very simple - holding on to Taiwan and looking for oil...."

Excerpted from Friedman in the New York Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 09:34 AM

Yeah, Amos, the Bush/Cheney/Rice Energy/Foriegn Policy is nuthin' but a formula for war, war and more war...

It is based soley on "consumption" but why should that come as a big surprise? Oilman Bush... Oilman Cheney...Oilwoman Rice... Throw Paul "Imperialist" Wolfowitz into the mix and the planet just might not survive the mess that Bush has created...

We are on a collision course with China because of these policies. Rather than look for ways to help the planet's population by seriously addressing the ways to cut our consumption thru "conservation" and "renewable resources", we have just raised the bar in "consumption"... And look where this policies have gotten us in the last 4 years: an immoral war in Iraq and big profits for the oil companies!!!

Yeah, I know that the neocons have the microphone right now but hopefully they won't have it forever and should the world survive Bush's screw ups, historians will not be kind to these crooks...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 09:54 AM

I would have thought the most popular view of the Bush Administration
in this forum would be a rear view as they disappeared over the Horizon !!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 09:56 AM

And By The way !! 1100 !!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 11:23 AM

I urge all of you to carefully read this intervciew with Gore Vidal. I have frequently failed to state clearly enough many of the things he states beautifully and unfortunately accurately.

I especially recommend his answers to the thought processes, if that is what they are, of those who have elected to support the anti-intelligence, anti-American, fear- and hate-mongering travesties of our current hamhanded Resident.

http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1268/article13085.asp


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 01:56 PM

Maureen Dowd, in todays Times summarizes why the new Intel report, fondly approved by Bush, is a crock and a cover-up of the completely brazen and hamhanded manipulation by the usual miscreants and villains (Excerpt):

Like the new Woody Allen movie, "Melinda and Melinda," it is possible to view today's big story on the tremendous intelligence failures before the Iraq war as either comedy or tragedy, depending on how you look at it.

For instance, on the comic side, The Times reported yesterday that administration officials were relieved that the new report by a presidential commission had "found no evidence that political pressure from the White House or Pentagon contributed to the mistaken intelligence."

That's hilarious.

As necessity is the mother of invention, political pressure was the father of conveniently botched intelligence.

Dick Cheney and the neocons at the Pentagon started with the conclusion they wanted, then massaged and manipulated the intelligence to back up their wishful thinking.

As The New Republic reported, Mr. Cheney lurked at the C.I.A. in the summer of 2002, an intimidating presence for young analysts. And Douglas Feith set up the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon as a shadow intelligence agency to manufacture propaganda bolstering the administration's case.

The Office of Special Plans turned to the con man Ahmad Chalabi to come up with the evidence they needed. The Iraqi National Congress obliged with information that has now been debunked as exaggerated or fabricated. One gem was the hard-drinking relative of a Chalabi aide, a secret source code-named Curveball, who claimed to verify the mobile weapons labs.

Mr. Cheney and his "Gestapo office," as Colin Powell called it, then shoehorned all their meshugas about Saddam's aluminum tubes, weapons labs, drones and Al Qaeda links into Mr. Powell's U.N. speech.

The former secretary of state spent four days and three nights at the C.I.A. before making the presentation, trying to vet the material, because he knew that Mr. Cheney, who had an idée fixe about Saddam, was trying to tap into his credibility and use him as a battering ram.

He told Germany's Stern magazine that he was "furious and angry" that he had been given bum information about Iraq's arsenal: "Some of the information was wrong. I did not know this at the time."

The vice president and the neocons were in a fever to bypass the C.I.A. and conjure up a case to attack Saddam, even though George Tenet was panting to be of service. When Mr. Tenet put out the new National Intelligence Estimate on Oct. 2, 2002, nine days before the Senate vote on the war resolution and after our troops and aircraft carriers were getting into position for battle, there was one key change: suddenly the agency agreed with Mr. Cheney that Iraq was pursuing the atomic bomb.

Charles Robb, the former senator and governor of Virginia, and Laurence Silberman, a hard-core conservative appeals court judge, headed the commission. Unlike Tom Kean, Judge Silberman held secret meetings; he made sure the unpleasantness wouldn't come up until Mr. Bush had won re-election.

It is laughable that the report offers its most scorching criticism of the C.I.A. when the C.I.A. was simply doing what the White House and Pentagon wanted. Isn't that why Mr. Tenet was given the Medal of Freedom? (Freedom from facts.)

The hawks don't want to learn any lessons here. If they had to do it again, they'd do it the same way. The imaginary weapons and Osama link were just a marketing tool and shiny distraction, something to keep the public from crying while they went to war for reasons unrelated to any nuclear threat.

The 9/11 attacks gave the neocons an opening for their dreams of remaking the Middle East, and they drove the Third Infantry Division through it.

The president planned to announce today that he would put into place many of the commission's recommendations, including an interagency center on proliferation designed to play down turf battles among intelligence agencies.

As Michael Isikoff and Dan Klaidman reported in Newsweek, in the three and a half years since 9/11, the intelligence agencies still haven't learned how to share what they know. At the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the Homeland Security guy complained he was frozen out by the F.B.I. and C.I.A.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 09:57 PM

In addition to beating a dead horse, Amos also beats his meat while reading Carol C's posts.

Even Jane Fonda and Bill Mahr admitted they were wrong.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Apr 05 - 10:06 PM

Nice to see you back, Old Guy.

You have any specifics about what you think I am wrong about?

You're certainly off the beam a bit on the ad-hominem slurs, but...well, discrimination obviously is not your long suite, so I won't be surprised.

Maybe you think human life is a good token to use for political manipulation?

You think slaughter of innocents is a normal extension of good diplomacy?

I find that idea bestial and worth spitting on.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 10:27 AM

Amos you are wrong about everything. Don't be a Jane Fonda, admit it. Old Guy

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050309-121616-7554r.htm

"Bush foes admit benefits of Iraq policy


By James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Some of the harshest Democratic critics of President Bush's Iraq policy have grudgingly admitted that it has helped spark a growing desire for democracy in the Middle East.
    Democrats aren't taking to the Senate floor to praise Mr. Bush's role in the spectacle of Lebanese protesters demanding independence from Syrian control, or the elections in Iraq, or the news that Saudi Arabia and Egypt have committed to freer elections.
    But many critics of the war -- which Lebanese democrats cite as a turning point in their cause -- are slowly admitting that the president may have done the right thing in quickly taking out Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who delivered a famous "chicken hawk" speech deriding the war advocates in the Bush administration and voted against funding the war, said yesterday that recent developments in Lebanon and Syria suggest the war was a force for good.
    "The war gave the Lebanese the spine they needed," Mr. Lautenberg said yesterday. "It told them, 'We can get rid of these vultures.'Â "
    Sen Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that Mr. Bush deserves some credit for the positive developments in the still volatile region.
    "What's taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive," Mr. Kennedy said. "It's a reflection the president has been involved."
    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said he didn't hear Mr. Bush's speech yesterday on spreading freedom in the Middle East, but "if there were ever a place in the world where we need democracy, it's in the Middle East."
    "Any breakthrough we get there, whether it's in Lebanon or Egypt, is a step in the right direction and I support the president in that regard," Mr. Reid said. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 05 Apr 05 - 02:41 PM

Whoa, Old Guy! Don't you know this is the ANTI-BUSH thread! Articles praising him or his policies are strictly not welcome. In order to do penance, you must post at least one article from the New York Times (Brooks ain't allowed of course), or any column in the Washington Post critical of Bush.

And don't do it again! :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 09:40 PM

From an article by Yoshi Tsurumi, G.W. Bush's one-time professor at Harvard:

Hail to the Robber Baron?

By YOSHI TSURUMI

Thirty years ago, President Bush was my student at Harvard Business School. In my class, he called former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, a "socialist" and spoke against Social Security, unemployment insurance, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other New Deal innovations. He refused to understand that capitalism becomes corrupt without democratic civic values and ethical restraints.

In those days, Bush belonged to a minority of MBA students who were seriously disconnected from taking the moral and social responsibility for their actions. Today, he would fit in comfortably with an overwhelming majority of business students and teachers whose role models are celebrated captains of piracy. Since the 1980s, as neo-conservatives have captured the Republican Party, America's business education has also increasingly become contaminated by the robber baron culture of the pre-Great Depression era.

Bush is the first president of the United States with a Master's of Business Administration (MBA). Yet, he epitomizes the worst aspects of America's business education. To privatize Social Security, he is peddling a colossal lie about its solvency. Furthermore, Bush, along with today's business aristocrats, shows no compassion for working Americans, robbing them to benefit big business and the very rich. Last year, due to Bush's tax cuts, over 80 of America's most profitable 200 corporations did not pay even a penny of their federal and state income taxes. Meanwhile, to pay for his additional tax cuts for the very rich, Bush is drastically cutting back several social services, such as federal lunch programs for poor children.

Business education has also produced former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling and other MBAs behind the malfeasances of Tyco, HealthSouth, Haliburton, AIG, and WorldCom. Many executives of corporate America who hold MBAs have also been engaged in the unethical acts of raiding their corporate treasuries at the expense of employees and stockholders. Emulating President Bush's hubris, a multitude of CEOs in corporate America give themselves obscenely large bonuses that have little to do with their performance. In 1980, the CEOs of Fortune 500 large corporations received, on average, 70 times larger annual compensations than their average employees. Under the Bush Administration, comparable CEOs have come to give themselves 600 to 1,000 times larger annual compensations than their rank-and-file employees whose pay has stagnated. To pay for such self-dealt compensations, corporate aristocrats layoff their workers, cut ordinary employees' health benefits, and outsource jobs abroad. Under the Bush Administration, over five million Americans have lost their health benefits, and the U.S. has lost over 2.7 million quality manufacturing jobs. President Bush and his rapacious "captains of piracy" of corporate America are destroying America's democracy built up since Roosevelt's New Deal era.

Meanwhile, American economics study has increasingly become a pseudoscience of mathematical formula manipulation that is devoid of humanity. This economics has conquered America's business education and become fused with the robber baron culture of greed supremacy. American MBAs are taught to treat ordinary employees as disposable costs and to swallow uncritically the gospel that corporations exist only to reward abstract stockholders. MBAs are taught the pretend-science of manipulating accounting, finance, employees, customers, and stock prices. Financial games and hostile takeovers of competitors are taught to accomplish corporations' sole objective—to make money and manipulate stock prices. Such a mistaken view of corporations has caused the dismal decline of American auto manufacturers while Toyota and Honda widen their market shares and profits in America, pursuing their goals of expanding employment and technological innovations.

To justify the robber baron culture, America's business educators and economists falsely cite their demigod of laissez-faire market economics, Adam Smith. Little do they know that Adam Smith in fact scathingly castigated Bush's type of government: business collusion and unfair taxes, Wal-Mart's exploitations of labor and communities, and robber barons' hubris. Nowhere in his 900-page book, The Wealth of Nations, does Smith even imply that those who knowingly harm others and society in their pursuit of personal greed also benefit their society. He rejects the notion that a corporation exists to make money without ethical constraints.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 09:57 PM

Se Habla B.S.?

The White House lies about Latinos and Social Security.
By William Saletan (Slate Magazine)
Posted Thursday, March 24, 2005, at 1:03 PM PT


Last week, I faulted the White House for leading the press and public to believe, falsely, that Latinos tend to die younger than whites do. This myth helps to sell President Bush's Social Security reform proposal to Latinos, since it implies that they collect Social Security for fewer years, on average, than whites do. To debunk the myth, I pointed to a U.S. Census report showing that Latinos outlive whites by an average of three years.

Has the administration changed its language since I flagged the error? Yes. The White House no longer obliquely implies that Latinos die younger than whites do. It now repeats that falsehood explicitly.

Let's recap the original transgression. In a meeting three months ago, Bush led outgoing NAACP President Kweisi Mfume to believe (according to a transcript of Mfume's comments afterward) that Latinos and blacks, "because of low life expectancy rates, don't get a chance to get out much of what they put in" to Social Security. Mfume's comments, in turn, led some newspapers to report that Latinos "have lower-than-average life expectancy rates and, as a result, don't draw retirement benefits commensurate with what they pay in payroll taxes over the course of their working lives."


Well, maybe Mfume misunderstood Bush. Mfume said Bush referred to lower life expectancy among "some communities." I've asked Mfume's office for more detail; he hasn't called back. I can't imagine what other "communities" Bush might be talking about, since the Census report shows that all other ethnic groups whose life expectancies are measured by the government live at least as long as whites do. But I can't prove that Bush referred explicitly to Latinos or that he'd been fairly warned that such a reference would be false.

Cheney has neither excuse. Two days ago at a "town hall" meeting in Nevada, the vice president declared, "Life expectancy, for example, among African Americans and Hispanics is less than it is for others. They get a worse return, if you will, out of Social Security than others because they don't live long enough to draw the benefits that was equal what they've paid into the system over time. So it is an important consideration."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 10:09 PM

I'm not wrong, Old Guy. G.W. Bush may have sparked the hunger for freedom in the oppressed areas of the Arab world, but he has done so at the most horrendous expense imaginable. Anyone can talk freedom and the principles of reason, but only an asshole believes that the best way to express those principles is by shredding human beings up and killing them. Maybe the logic escapes you but no-one here has ever said that the Iraqis were suffering because of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

But they might be suffering because they are facing twice the child mortality rate they were before Bush was elected, or because hundreds of thousands of their civilian population are dead solely and only becaus ehe couldn't keep his armed forces in stand-down. He just had to let them go wreak havoc. An d wreak havoc they have done.

Let me point out that without ANY invasions of comparable magnitude the United States led the shift toward representative democracy all over the planet in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Look it up some time -- the rate of conversion achieved by relatively peaceful means was amazing. and while there was a lot of bloodshed in different places, it wasn't on a patch on John Wayne in the White House. You guys elected a psycho who is intent on tearing down working installations and making things worse, and who is fronting for a bunch of people who are even crazier than he is.

Sorry to stick to my story, but it is too true to let go of.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 10:18 PM

And just for the record, the Washington Times is further in the Republican column than Rush Limbaugh... For 8 long years they ran anti-Clinton headlines in their newspaper... They didn't miss on beat. Every day it was Clinton did this or Clinton did that..

So if you are gonna use the Sun Moonie Times for yer information just remember this: "Garbage in, garbage out..."

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:11 PM

Arthur Finkelstein, prominent Republican consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to elect conservatives in the U.S. and Israel over the past 30 years, said Friday that he had married his male partner in civil ceremony at home in Mass... MORE... Finkelstein said in a brief interview that he had married his partner of 40 years to ensure couple had same benefits available to married heterosexual couples... Developing, NYT, say newsroom sources,,,

Relayed via http://atrios.blogspot.com/ from Drudge's website.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:21 PM

"Delay and Friends" at it again/Bash the Judiciary


via The Carpet Bagger Report:


The fire-breathing Republican rage against judges was finally on the wane. The Terri Schiavo controversy faded from view, several high-profile Republicans started distancing themselves from over-heated rhetoric, and one almost had the impression that cooler heads would once again prevail.


But The Hammer had other ideas. Not satisfied with the current level of anti-judiciary animosity, Tom DeLay has decided to kick things up a notch and generate a new level of anger with courts that occasionally disagree with him.


Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, escalated his talk of a battle between the legislative and judicial branches of government on Thursday, saying federal courts had "run amok," in large part because of the failure of Congress to confront them.


"Judicial independence does not equal judicial supremacy," Mr. DeLay said in a videotaped speech delivered to a conservative conference in Washington entitled "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith."


Mr. DeLay faulted courts for what he said was their invention of rights to abortion and prohibitions on school prayer, saying courts had ignored the intent of Congress and improperly cited international standards and precedents. "These are not examples of a mature society," he said, "but of a judiciary run amok."


"The failure is to a great degree Congress's," Mr. DeLay said. "The response of the legislative branch has mostly been to complain. There is another way, ladies and gentlemen, and that is to reassert our constitutional authority over the courts."


Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), for example, appeared in DeLay's place at the right-wing conference yesterday. Smith, whom DeLay put on the House Ethics Committee to help shield him from accountability, parroted the DeLay line.


"Judges continue to substitute their own political views for the law, and we must push back," Smith said. Asked whether he would take steps to retaliate against judges in the Schiavo case, Smith said: "I would certainly be a part of any effort that Tom DeLay was. If that's the direction that the leaders want to go, I would be happy to go that direction as well."


It's not just the House that's been infected with such lunacy.


"I am in favor of impeachment," Michael Schwartz, chief of staff to Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, said in a panel discussion on abortion, suggesting "mass impeachment" might be needed.


 The inflammatory language from GOP lawmakers against the federal judiciary made a right turn at irresponsible-town and is coming up on looneyville. The one Republican who hasn't said much on the subject — George W. Bush — could help bring some of his allies on the Hill back from the brink. Any chance he'll show a little leadership here?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:27 PM

If you have Windows Media Viewer and want to see the fat cats square-on, I offer this link to Jon Stewarts recent contribution to that fine art:

http://movies.ziaspace.com/Pope_TV_Stewart.wmv.

Don't miss it -- he is unbelievably good.


Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 12:17 AM

If you consider an engineering approach to problems (what are my metrics, how am I meeting them) or the startup approach to a problem (what is my business plan, have I satisfied my investors) the Bush administration is a failure. Jobs flat across four years, market flat, deficits up, debt up, abortions up, Iraqi death rate no better than under Saddam (but we've privatized their hellhole, that's got to count for something, right?), bin Ladin still at large, anthrax poisoner still unidentified, A.Q. Khan still loose in Pakistan, North Korea developing nukes and missiles, strong possibility of an Iran-friendly "democratic" Iraqi government, unfounded mandates to meet ridiculous educational goals -- the only thing that this government has actually delivered (even to the fundies) is tax cuts, and those we clearly cannot afford in the long run.

And the conduct of the Iraq war; holy crap, what a disaster that has been in the cost/benefit department. We cannot even certainly say that the Iraqis are "better off"; it's entirely possible that they were better off under Saddam and sanctions. We can hope that things will improve, but we're still at the "hope" stage.

http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/04/in-which-jonah-goldberg-performs-feats.html

# posted by dr2chase : Fri Apr 08, 07:23:56 PM PDT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 02:39 AM

Killing Off Housing for the Poor

Published: April 9, 2005 (NY Times)



The Bush administration pays lip service to the goal of "ending chronic homelessness" - while undermining the very programs that keep poor people from ending up in the streets. The Housing and Urban Development Department is proposing unreasonable cuts in federal subsidies, which would make it harder for underfinanced housing authorities to keep their developments livable and safe. And a proposal in Congress would make it harder for the poor to get rental subsidies from Section 8, the public-private partnership that underwrites rents for nearly two million of the country's low-income families and encourages builders to develop affordable housing.

This meat-ax approach has to stop. Congress needs to understand that poor people won't just disappear when the housing that serves them dries up.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Apr 05 - 06:05 PM

TOWARD A STALINIST THEOCRACY, ADVOCATING MURDER — AND HELL DRAWS CLOSER

from a site maintained by Arthur Silber

No, a Stalinist theocracy is not a contradiction. Too many people still make the mistake of thinking that atheism was central to communism. But of course, it wasn't: collectivism was the essence of communism (and of socialism, and of fascism too)—the idea that the individual is of no consequence, and that the "public good" and the "national welfare" trump everything else. More broadly: a belief in God is only one form of irrationalism—and there are many others, including collectivism itself (in any of its many forms).


So you can be a full-blown collectivist and believe in God, as many tyrants from history have demonstrated. And in the wake of the Schiavo affair, we now see one version of this thoroughly repellent and vicious combination—and we also see explicitly what certain elements of the GOP are after:


Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer—and perhaps a few more bodyguards.



Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.


Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of American conservatism, said Kennedy's opinion forbidding capital punishment for juveniles "is a good ground of impeachment." ...


(See link for rest of story).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 12:56 AM

 


 


It happened quietly, with barely a mention in the media. Only the Washington Post dutifully reported it.[1] And only Kevin Phillips saw its significance in his new book, American Dynasty.[2] On December 24, 2001, Pat Robertson resigned his position as President of the Christian Coalition.


 


Behind the scenes religious conservatives were abuzz with excitement. They believed Robertson had stepped down to allow the ascendance of the President of the United States of America to take his rightful place as the head of the true American Holy Christian Church.


 


Robertson's act was symbolic, but it carried a secret and solemn revelation to the faithful. It was the signal that the Bush administration was a government under God that was led by an anointed President who would be the first regent in a dynasty of regents awaiting the return of Jesus to earth. The President would now be the minister through whom God would execute His will in the nation. George W. Bush accepted his scepter and his sword with humility, grace and a sense of exultation.


 


As Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court explained a few months later, the Bible teaches and Christians believe "… that government …derives its moral authority from God. Government is the 'minister of God' with powers to 'revenge,' to 'execute wrath,' including even wrath by the sword…"[3]


 


George W. Bush began to wield the sword of God's revenge with relish from the beginning of his administration, but most of us missed the sword play. I have taken the liberty to paraphrase an illustration from Leo Strauss, the father of the neo-conservative movement, which gives us a clue of how the hiding is done:


 


 



"One ought not to say to those whom one wants to kill, 'Give me your votes, because your votes will enable me to kill you and I want to kill you,' but merely, 'Give me your votes,' for once you have the power of the votes in your hand, you can satisfy your desire."[4]


 


 


Notwithstanding the advice, the President's foreign policy revealed a flair for saber rattling. He warned the world that "nations are either with us or they're against us!" His speeches, often containing allusions to biblical passages, were spoken with the certainty of a man who holds the authority of God's wrath on earth, for he not only challenged the evil nations of the world, singling out Iraq, Syria, Iran, and North Korea as the "axis of evil," but he wielded the sword of punishment and the sword of revenge against his own people: the American poor and the middle class who according to the religious right have earned God's wrath by their licentiousness and undisciplined lives.


 


To the middle class he said, "I'm going to give you clear skies clean air and clean water," then he gutted the environmental controls that were designed to provide clean air and water. The estimated number of premature deaths that will result: 100,000.[5] He said to the poor and to the middle class: "I'm going to give you a prescription drug program, one that you truly deserve." Then he gave the drug industry an estimated $139 billion dollars in increased profits from the Medicare funds and arranged for the poorest of seniors to be eliminated from coverage, while most elderly will pay more for drugs than they paid before his drug benefit bill passed.[6] After that he arranged for the dismantling of the Medicare program entirely, based on the method outlined by his religious mentors.[7] He said to the people of America, "I'm going to build a future for you and your children," then he gutted their future with tax breaks to the rich and a pre-emptive war against Iraq, and the largest spending deficit in history.[8]


 


This article is the documented story of how a political religious movement called Dominionism gained control of the Republican Party, then took over Congress, then took over the White House, and now is sealing the conversion of America to a theocracy by taking over the American Judiciary.  It's the story of why and how "the wrath of God Almighty" will be unleashed against the middle class, against the poor, and against the elderly and sick of this nation by George W. Bush and his army of Republican Dominionist "rulers."


 The rest of this article can be found at The Despoiling of America.

A


 

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Apr 05 - 09:11 AM

From today's Slate:

It's Time To Write a Dear John
Bolton's appalling confirmation-hearings performance.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, April 11, 2005, at 3:56 PM PT

John Bolton, George W. Bush's astonishingly brazen choice to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, came off badly at his confirmation hearings today—bloodless, evasive, and mendacious—in ways that should give senators cause to reject him, regardless of whether they agree with the president's policies or even with the substance of Bolton's views.

The hearings will continue for another day or two—to hear from officials who have had run-ins with Bolton and, possibly, to give him a chance for rebuttal—but, after today's session, his nomination should be put down for three reasons, quite apart from the many reasons that his critics (and I count myself among them) have laid out in recent weeks.

First, the evidence suggests that Bolton, while he was undersecretary of state, tried to pressure and dismiss intelligence analysts who challenged his own preconceptions ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 12:53 PM

Bush's fraudulent SOcial Security scam is roundly exposed in a series of flash movies by citizens.

http://www.bushin30years.org/finalists.html?session_id=c662b7af9e8b6adb160f55c6c8e00d13


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 07:14 PM

Gov't Admits Concentration Camp Plan


By David Rydel

In a revealing admission the Director of Resource Management for the U.S. Army confirmed the validity of a memorandum relating to the establishment of a civilian inmate labor program under development by the Department for the Army. The document states, "Enclosed for your review and comment is the draft Army regulation on civilian inmate labor utilisation" and the procedure to "establish civilian prison camps on installations." Cherith Chronicle, June 1997

Civilian internment camps, or prison camps (more commonly known as concentration camps), have been the subject of much rumor and speculation during the past few years in America. Several publications have devoted space to the topic and many talk radio programs have dealt with the issue.

However, Congressman Gonzales clarified the question of the existence of civilian detention camps. In an interview the congressman stated, "the truth is yes – you do have these standing provisions, and the plans are here."

Congress repealed the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 twenty years later in 1971. Seemingly the threat of civilian internment in the U.S. was over, but not in reality. The Senate held hearings in December, 1975, revealing the ongoing internment plan which had never been terminated. The report, entitled "Intelligence Activities, Senate Resolution 21," disclosed the covert agenda. In a series of documents, memos and testimony by government informants, the picture emerged of the designs by the federal governments to monitor, infiltrate, arrest and incarcerate a potentially large segment of American society.

The Senate report also revealed the existence of the Master Search Warrant (MSW) and the Master Arrest Warrant (MAW) which are currently in force. The MAW document, authorized by the U.S. Attorney General, directs the head of the FBI to: "Arrest persons whom I deem dangerous to the public peace and safety. These persons are to be detained and confined until further order." The MSW also instructs the FBI Director to "search certain premises where it is believed that there may be found contraband, prohibited articles, or other materials in violation of the Proclamation of the President of the United States." It includes such items as firearms, shortwave radio receiving sets, cameras, propaganda materials, printing presses, mimeograph machines, membership and financial records of organisations or groups that have been declared subversive, or may be hereafter declared subversive by the Attorney General."

Since the Senate hearings in 1975, the steady development of highly specialized surveillance capabilities, combined with exploding computerised information technologies, have enabled a massive data base of personal information to be developed on millions of unsuspecting American citizens. It is all in place awaiting only a presidential declaration to be enforced by both military and civilian police.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), whose black budget comes from the Department of Defense, has worked closely with the Pentagon in an effort to avoid the legal restrictions of the Posse Comitatus. While FEMA may not have been directly responsible for these precedent-setting cases, the principle of federal control was seen during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 with the federalization of the National Guard and during the siege at Waco, where Army tanks with flame throwers were involved in the final conflagration.

The Deputy Attorney General of California commented at a conference that anyone who attacks the State, even verbally, becomes a revolutionary and an enemy by definition. Louis Guiffreda, who was head of FEMA, stated that "legitimate violence is integral to our form of government, for it is from this source that we continue to purge our weaknesses."

It is significant to note that the dictionary definition of terrorism: "the calculated use of violence" corresponds precisely to the governments stated policy of the "use of legitimate violence." One might ask, who are the real terrorists? Guiffreda's remark gives a revealing insight into the thinking of those who have been charged with oversight of the welfare of the citizens of this country. If one's convictions or philosophy does not correspond with the government's agenda, that individual may find himself on the government's enemy list. This makes him a 'target' to be 'purged' by the use of legitimate violence."

From 'The Gospel News Alert' April 1998. Gospel Ministries, PO Box 9411, Boise, Idaho 83707, USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 05 - 07:16 PM

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How Christian Is George Bush?


A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Robert Kenji Flowers

How Christian is George W. Bush? I must answer adamantly, "Not very!" At the outset, one risks the danger of being judgmental. Here are a few reasons why I'll take that risk.


On March 8 in Washington, D.C., several faith groups met to critique the 2006 Federal Budget Plan and denounced it as "unjust." Leaders of five mainline Protestant denominations (Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church) strongly denounced Bush's 2006 Federal Budget Plan. The group said, "The 2006 federal budget that President Bush has sent to Capitol Hill is unjust," charging that the budget would move 300,000 people off food stamps, cut day care programs for 300,000 children, and reduce funding for Medicaid by roughly $45 billion over the next decade. These church leaders iterated, "For even as it reduces aid to those in poverty, this budget showers presents to the rich. ... Jesus makes clear that perpetrating economic injustice is among the gravest of sins. If passed in its current form, it would take Jesus' teaching on economic justice and stand it on its head."


Jim Winkler, a United Methodist leader, said, "The federal budget is a moral document. It is a statement of our national priorities—of what, and more importantly, who we as a nation value. The budget Congress will consider this week is out of step with our nation's priorities, adrift from the values taught by our faith traditions."


Another religious effort—Interreligious Working Group on Domestic Human Needs—produced a statement entitled, A Faith Reflection on the Federal Budget. It outlines three criteria to consider in the Federal Budget:


1.) Does it benefit community and the common good?


2.) Does it give concern for those who are poor and vulnerable?


3.) Does it promote economic justice?


This statement drew endorsement from the following religious entities: American Baptist Churches USA, American Friends Service Committee, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Church of the Brethren Witness, The Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Mennonite Central Committee, NETWORK (A Catholic Social Justice Lobby), Presbyterian Church USA, Union for Reform Judaism, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ Justice & Witness, the United Methodist Church—General Board of Church and Society, and Women of Reform Judaism, just to name a few (there were twenty-three total).


Bush's United Methodist beliefs should also be called into question. Two issues are glaring. First, Bush's preemptive doctrine of war is in clear violation of the United Methodist Church's position on war and peace. United Methodists have long held anti-war positions, while at the same time allowing for just war language (namely criteria of last resort, appropriate international organizations, and to oppose aggression and/or genocide). Clearly, this current preemptive war violates the United Methodist Church's positions on war.


Second, this administration's record with regards to the environment are suspect at best, grossly negligent at worse. In a column from last year, United Methodist Bishop William Boyd Grove wrote these words: "The Social Principles of the President's Church declares, All creation is the Lord's and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life are to be valued and conserved because they are God's creation, and not solely because they are useful to human beings." Further he stated, "In violation of this teaching, the policies of the administration have rolled back legislation protecting the environment that has been in force for many years under presidents of both parties, and our government has refused to sign international treaties on global warming and other threats to the environment."


These are just a few reasons why I am deeply troubled as to how some still think that Bush upholds religious and/or Christian values. Clearly, a significant number of religious voices in our nation—voices other than the Religious Right—has differing opinions about these so-called values.


It is time that religious communities across our country speak clearly and honestly about this President's religious values, or lack thereof. As one sacred text avows, "You will know them by their fruit."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 05 - 10:19 AM

PRE-RELEASE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ARTICLE CITED BY FRIEDMAN IN FRIDAY'S NYT

In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman's column highlights "Down to the Wire" by Thomas Bleha in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs:

"Thomas Bleha, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer in Japan, has a fascinating piece in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs that begins like this: 'In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United States dropped from 4th to 13th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage. Today, most U.S. homes can access only 'basic' broadband, among the slowest, most expensive and least reliable in the developed world, and the United States has fallen even further behind in mobile-phone-based Internet access. The lag is arguably the result of the Bush administration's failure to make a priority of developing these networks. In fact, the United States is the only industrialized state without an explicit national policy for promoting broadband.'"

· Full text of Bleha's article,
"Down to the Wire" http://www.uptilt.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=c7q,c8cd,oln,6va3,66qe,h6kd,b3gi
· Full text of Friedman's column, "Bush Disarms Unilaterally" http://www.uptilt.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=c7q,c8cd,oln,8s84,v5a,h6kd,b3gi

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 07:33 AM

Poor Churlish Amos:

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2005/April/05/edit/stories/01edit.htm
"As We See It: Time to give Bush credit

Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the magazine and a strong supporter of Al Gore in 2000, writes: "The achievements of Bush's foreign policy abroad represent a revolution in the foreign policy culture at home."

That revolution, he says, flies in the face not only of Clinton policies, but also the policies of Bush's father and his secretary of state, James Baker.

Peretz had greeted Bush's policies, originally, with condemnation. Now, he says, "I was wrong, and in light of what has been achieved in the Middle East, I am glad to say so. Most American liberals, alas, enjoy no similar gladness. They are not exactly pleased by the positive results of Bush's campaign in the Middle East. They deny and resent and begrudge and snipe. They are trapped in the politics of churlishness."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 07:59 AM

Couldn't agree more with the above article about Bush's Faith or lace thereof... When his daddy sent him down to Luisiana whemn he was supposed to be fulfilling is militray obligation to work in a political campaign that's when Bush supposed found his Faith. I emphansize *supposedly* since all this supposed faith has done is make him an attractive political campaigner in the Bible Belt.

His policies as Texas governor where he ordered the state to make it difficult for the poor to get Medicaid benefits they were entitled to telegraphed his lasck of Chritain values, Throw in the fact the he was governor of the state-instituted muder capital of the United States as one poor person after another was ramrodded thru his *in*justice system right into the grave...

Now, to wit, the most unChristain federal budget in half a century that places its values on the modern day Romans...

Yeah, this is a Faith-less man and he has surrounded himself with like heathens who are also Faithless...

And lets not forget the Hitler also professed to have Christain values...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 08:00 AM

Amos more thickheaded than the Libs he quotes:

Subject: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 03 - 01:34 PM

Finally, a candidate who can explain the Bush administration's positions on civil liberties in the original German." -- Bill Maher, on Schwarzenegger running for Governor.

http://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/living/1111662262255730.xml

For Bill Maher, it's time to get real
The standup sounds off on his Portland visit and how he and TV are changing
Friday, March 25, 2005

"Though he leans to the left, Maher tweaks liberals as well as conservatives. So what does he have planned to provoke his blue-state Portland fans?

"When I inform them that as much as it hurts, you have to give some credit to (George W.) Bush for the way it's turning out now in the Middle East. That's a bitter pill for all of us who so severely opposed Bush." "

Swallow the pill Amos.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 08:07 AM

Churlsih, my ass.

The man is a nutsoid warmonger and a destroyer of persons and organizations. His back-track is littered with corpses and failed companies. He can't rub two thoughts together and chew gum at the same time.

I am pretty glad the road map is in place for settling the long long fight between Israel and Palestine. When I see it happen to completion I will applaud.

Bush did not write it and couldn't have come up with it in his own. But not to split hairs, credit to the administration if they pull it off, at that time.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 08:25 AM

Amos:

Credit? I can hardly belive my eyes.

The Ireael Pallestine conflict is improving mainly due to the death of the terrorist Yasser Arafat.

Clinton and Bush tried very hard the get that arrogant asshole to sign an agreement but to no avail.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 08:45 AM

See? No churl, he!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 01:59 PM

Here's the article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/11417234.htm

Posted on Sun, Apr. 17, 2005
Quiet change in priorities poses dire threat
IT'S TIME TO SOUND THE ALARM OVER SHIFT FROM BASIC, UNIVERSITY PROJECTS

Mercury News Editorial

Of all the government sources of funding for basic technology research,
few have delivered more breakthroughs for Silicon Valley and the U.S.
economy than the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
or DARPA.

That's why a shift away from basic and university research in DARPA
funding is alarming for the valley and for the future of innovation in
the United States. Long-term casualties could eventually include
America's competitiveness and military readiness.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration doesn't get it. White House
representatives have said that warnings about America's fading
competitiveness are false alarms.

Perhaps lawmakers can set them straight. Some 35 senators and
representatives recently expressed concerns about the falloff in
Pentagon funding for basic research. They need to turn up the volume
and broaden this debate.

The shift at DARPA already is affecting computer science and
engineering departments at leading universities across the country. It
is taking money away from basic research and putting it into narrowly
defined projects with short-term goals. These kinds of projects tend to
favor military contractors over academic institutions.

That's undermining an irreplaceable resource. The kind of university
research that DARPA historically funded has produced breakthroughs in
knowledge itself. Its results were shared broadly by the tech industry
and defense circles alike.

What's more, the shift is undermining a symbiotic relationship between
university and military researchers with a long list of successes,
including recent advances in network-based battlefield technologies and
sensor networks. By focusing on shorter-term projects, many of them
classified, university graduate students are unable to participate.
``That's a bad thing, because our mission is to educate the next
generation,'' says Jim Plummer, dean of Stanford's engineering school. (...)

---

More arrant and arrogant stupidity from the elected representative of the dull and unthinking.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 03:03 PM

An insight into the Furless Leeder's sense of importances, from the Washington Post:

And now, the In the Loop Award for political reporting goes to Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell for his insightful coverage of opening day for the Washington Nationals at RFK Stadium and particularly his interview of Nationals President Tony Tavares.

Tavares, who had chatted with President Bush and Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, said Bush was "so up on the game that it's astounding." At one point, he said by way of example, a question arose as to who was the best catcher in the National League.

"I blanked on who catches for the Phillies," Tavares said. "I asked the commissioner. He didn't know. The president said, '[Mike] Lieberthal.' "

Bush's sports expertise seems to go beyond the majors, even beyond baseball. In the latest edition of Alumnews, the journal for graduates of Georgetown Prep in Rockville, writer Joseph Seib, son of the Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib, recounts meeting Bush at the most recent White House Christmas party for reporters.

Bush, upon learning that Joseph played baseball for Prep, asked, "Is your league going to boot your baseball team out of the league for being too good like they did the football team?"

Not bad for a guy who says he doesn't read the newspapers.

Whose Idea Was That?

On the other hand, it's hard to keep up with every tiny little thing in the paper. Take the new, White House-approved policy to require U.S. citizens to show passports when they reenter the country from Mexico and Canada -- and require the same for citizens of those countries.

"When I first read that in the newspaper about the need to have passports," Bush told a meeting of editors Wednesday, "I said, 'What's going on here?' "

---

Hmmmmm. He sure has his eye on the ball, this one. Wish he had chosen the right ball, though.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 05 - 03:37 PM

In reflecting on the anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt's death, Bob Herbert writes in the NY Times of the dramatic contrast in moral standing between FDR and W.

Excerpt:

"...It's a measure of the distance the U.S. has traveled from the egalitarian ideals championed by F.D.R. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.

To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. He was already in declining health and, suffering from a cold, he gave the speech over the radio in the form of a fireside chat.

After talking about the war, which was still being fought on two fronts, the president offered what should have been recognized immediately for what it was, nothing less than a blueprint for the future of the United States. It was the clearest statement I've ever seen of the kind of nation the U.S. could have become in the years between the end of World War II and now. Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed."

Among these rights, he said, are:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.

"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.

"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.

"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.

"The right of every family to a decent home.

"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

"The right to a good education."

I mentioned this a few days ago to an acquaintance who is 30 years old. She said, "Wow, I can't believe a president would say that."

Roosevelt's vision gave conservatives in both parties apoplexy in 1944 and it would still drive them crazy today. But the truth is that during the 1950's and 60's the nation made substantial progress toward his wonderfully admirable goals, before the momentum of liberal politics slowed with the war in Vietnam and the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon.

It wouldn't be long before Ronald Reagan was, as the historian Robert Dallek put it, attacking Medicare as "the advance wave of socialism" and Dick Cheney, from a seat in Congress, was giving the thumbs down to Head Start. Mr. Cheney says he has since seen the light on Head Start. But his real idea of a head start is to throw government money at people who already have more cash than they know what to do with. He's one of the leaders of the G.O.P. gang (the members should all wear masks) that has executed a wholesale transfer of wealth via tax cuts from working people to the very rich.

Roosevelt was far from a perfect president, but he gave hope and a sense of the possible to a nation in dire need. And he famously warned against giving in to fear.

The nation is now in the hands of leaders who are experts at exploiting fear, and indifferent to the needs and hopes, even the suffering, of ordinary people.

"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Sixty years after his death we should be raising a toast to F.D.R. and his progressive ideas. And we should take that opportunity to ask: How in the world did we allow ourselves to get from there to here?"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Apr 05 - 08:34 PM

The question of how world-class an asininity going to war in Iraq was is illuminated by the following comments on the current budget scrap in Congress:

"Overall, the Senate version would cost roughly $81 billion, less than the $81.4 billion the House approved and the $81.9 billion the president proposed. The legislation, the fifth emergency spending package Congress has passed for war since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and operations against terrorists worldwide beyond $300 billion."

---

From CNN, this date.

Just imagine if a wiser man had been in office who had understood the power of public relations, ethical standards and the goals and purposes of the nation a bit better. I dare say he could have accomplished more by now than Bush has on all fronts for an eighth of the money.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Apr 05 - 09:54 PM

Actually, Old Guy, Bush's Isreali/Palestinian forieng policy os to let them fight it out... He turned his back on this conflict the day he was innugurated in jan, 2001... Might of fact, he tunrned his back on everything that Clinton had ever tried to do... In essence, he threw the baby out with the bath water... Clinton for it? I'm against it...

Yeah, lets get friggin' real here Bush's policy on the Isreali/Palestinian conflict (war), no, resisted occupation... Can you say that his policy has worked? Are you on drugs, 'er what? It has been a terible failure...

Yeah, sure, with Arafat dieing there is an opportunity for some progress but it's a limited opportunity... If Sharon keeps allowing the settlers to bulldoze Palestianian homes then this window of opportinity will close and it will be back to the same BS....

Yeah, if you wanta go pat Bush on the back, fine. Just do it knowing the thruth... Hey, if yer the kinda guy that would bulldoze yer neighbor's house, push him out and build one for yerself on the same ground where your neighbor used to live, then there's probably not enough pats on the back to go around in yer little clan...

Not in my name, thank you...

Peace and justice...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Apr 05 - 10:43 AM

YEt another gem of cogntiive mismanagement by the world's most incompetent American president:

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

Obviously this is a man who has no qualms about inconsistency or self-contradiction. He does it in a single breath!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 06:39 PM

http://tinyurl.com/9zvzk

Any Kerry Supporters On The Line?
The Bush Administration punishes some Democrat backers
By VIVECA NOVAK AND JOHN DICKERSON

Sunday, Apr. 24, 2005
The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year
in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important
issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for
this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the
agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for
the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House
because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry
representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom
industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally
given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's
second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent
the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those
who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would
have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent
Duffy. Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and
Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well
as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One
nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and
who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party.
Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts
to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We
would welcome clarification from the White House."

---

That'll be a cold day in hell -- obviously, the White House is about to be clear on one thing only. NOTHING counts except Bushie's boyos, and absent that all bets are off. What arrogant fascistic meddling.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 11:29 PM

Krugman puts it in a nutshell:

he Oblivious Right

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 25, 2005

        

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

According to John Snow, the Treasury secretary, the global economy is in a "sweet spot." Conservative pundits close to the administration talk, without irony, about a "Bush boom."

Yet two-thirds of Americans polled by Gallup say that the economy is "only fair" or "poor." And only 33 percent of those polled believe the economy is improving, while 59 percent think it's getting worse.

Is the administration's obliviousness to the public's economic anxiety just partisanship? I don't think so: President Bush and other Republican leaders honestly think that we're living in the best of times. After all, everyone they talk to says so.

Since November's election, the victors have managed to be on the wrong side of public opinion on one issue after another: the economy, Social Security privatization, Terri Schiavo, Tom DeLay. By large margins, Americans say that the country is headed in the wrong direction, and Mr. Bush is the least popular second-term president on record.

What's going on? Actually, it's quite simple: Mr. Bush and his party talk only to their base - corporate interests and the religious right - and are oblivious to everyone else's concerns.

The administration's upbeat view of the economy is a case in point. Corporate interests are doing very well. As a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, over the last three years profits grew at an annual rate of 14.5 percent after inflation, the fastest growth since World War II.

The story is very different for the great majority of Americans, who live off their wages, not dividends or capital gains, and aren't doing well at all. Over the past three years, wage and salary income grew less than in any other postwar recovery - less than a tenth as fast as profits. But wage-earning Americans aren't part of the base.

The same obliviousness explains Mr. Bush's decision to make Social Security privatization his main policy priority. He doesn't talk to anyone outside the base, so he didn't realize what he was getting into.

In retrospect, it was a terrible political blunder: the privatization campaign has quickly degenerated from juggernaut to joke. According to CBS, only 25 percent of the public have confidence in Mr. Bush's ability to make the right decisions about Social Security; 70 percent are "uneasy."

The point is that people sense, correctly, that Mr. Bush doesn't understand their concerns. He was sold on privatization by people who have made their careers in the self-referential, corporate-sponsored world of conservative think tanks. And he himself has no personal experience with the risks that working families face. He's probably never imagined what it would be like to be destitute in his old age, with no guaranteed income.

The same syndrome has been visible on cultural issues. Republican leaders in Congress, who talk only to the religious right, were shocked at the public backlash over their meddling in the Schiavo case. Did I mention that Rick Santorum is 14 points behind his likely challenger?

It all makes you wonder how these people ever ended up running the country in the first place. But remember that in 2000, Mr. Bush pretended to be a moderate, and that in the next two elections he used the Iraq war as a wedge to divide and perplex the Democrats.

In that context, it's worth noting two more poll results: in one taken before the recent resurgence of violence in Iraq, and the administration's announcement that it needs yet another $80 billion, 53 percent of Americans said that the Iraq war wasn't worth it. And 50 percent say that "the administration deliberately misled the public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction."

Democracy Corps, the Democratic pollsters, say that there is a "crisis of confidence in the Republican direction for the country." As they're careful to point out, this won't necessarily translate into a surge of support for Democrats.

But Americans are feeling a sense of dread: they're worried about a weak job market, soaring health care costs, rising oil prices and a war that seems to have no end. And they're starting to notice that nobody in power is even trying to deal with these problems, because the people in charge are too busy catering to a base that has other priorities.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 05 - 11:35 PM

From Bob Herbert's column in the NY Times, an effort to require the nation to confront what they supported when they allowed Bush to drive the US Armed Forces into Iraq:

"...The vast amount of suffering and death endured by civilians as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has, for the most part, been carefully kept out of the consciousness of the average American. I can't think of anything the Bush administration would like to talk about less. You can't put a positive spin on dead children.

As for the press, it has better things to cover than the suffering of civilians in war. The aversion to this topic is at the opposite extreme from the ecstatic journalistic embrace of the death of one pope and the election of another, and the media's manic obsession with the comings and goings of Martha, Jacko, et al.

There's been hardly any media interest in the unrelieved agony of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq. It's an ugly subject, and the idea has taken hold that Americans need to be protected from stories or images of the war that might be disturbing. As a nation we can wage war, but we don't want the public to be too upset by it.

So the public doesn't even hear about the American bombs that fall mistakenly on the homes of innocent civilians, wiping out entire families. We hear very little about the frequent instances of jittery soldiers opening fire indiscriminately, killing and wounding men, women and children who were never a threat in the first place. We don't hear much about the many children who, for one reason or another, are shot, burned or blown to eternity by our forces in the name of peace and freedom.

Out of sight, out of mind.

This stunning lack of interest in the toll the war has taken on civilians is one of the reasons Ms. Ruzicka, who was just 28 when she died, felt compelled to try to personally document as much of the suffering as she could. At times she would go from door to door in the most dangerous areas, taking down information about civilians who had been killed or wounded. She believed fiercely that Americans needed to know about the terrible pain the war was inflicting, and that we had an obligation to do everything possible to mitigate it.

Her ultimate goal, which Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is pursuing, was to establish a U.S. government office, perhaps in the State Department, to document the civilian casualties of American military operations. That information would then be publicly reported. Compensation would be provided for victims and their families, and the data would be studied in an effort to minimize civilian casualties in future operations.

War is always about sorrow and the deepest suffering. Nitwits try to dress it up in the finery of half-baked rationalizations, but the reality is always wanton bloodshed, rotting flesh and the lifelong trauma of those who are physically or psychically maimed.

More than 600 people attended Ms. Ruzicka's funeral on Saturday in her hometown of Lakeport, Calif. Among them was Bobby Muller, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. A former Marine lieutenant, he knows something about the agony of war. His spinal cord was severed when he was shot in the back in Vietnam.

He told the mourners: "Marla demonstrated that an individual can make a profound difference in this world. Her life was dedicated to innocent victims of conflict, exactly what she ended up being.""

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 11:00 PM

How Bush Blew the Korean problem:
(Excerpted from The NY Times)

"Here's a foreign affairs quiz:

(1) How many nuclear weapons did North Korea produce in Bill Clinton's eight years of office?

(2) How many nuclear weapons has it produced so far in President Bush's four years in office?

The answer to the first question, by all accounts, is zero. The answer to the second is fuzzier, but about six.

The total will probably rise in coming months, for North Korea has shut down its Yongbyon reactor and says that it plans to extract the fuel rods from it. That will give it enough plutonium for two or three more weapons.

The single greatest failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy concerns North Korea. Mr. Bush's policies toward North Korea have backfired and led the North to churn out nuclear weapons, and they have also antagonized our allies and diminished America's stature in Asia.

The upshot is that there's a significantly greater risk of another Korean War, a greater likelihood that other Asian countries, like Japan, will eventually go nuclear as well, and a greater risk that terrorists will acquire plutonium or uranium.

In fairness, all this is more Kim Jong Il's fault than Mr. Bush's. Right now some administration officials are glaring at this page and muttering expletives about smarty-pants journalists who don't appreciate how wretched all the options are.

But if the Bush administration had just adopted the policies that Colin Powell initially pushed for - and that Mr. Bush largely came to accept several years later - then this mess could probably have been averted.

You don't have to take it from me. Charles Pritchard, the ambassador and special envoy who was the point man for North Korea in the first Bush administration, says of this administration's decision-makers: "They blew it." Another expert still involved in North Korea policy puts it this way: "Their A.B.C. approach - 'Anything but Clinton' - led to these problems."

A bit of background: North Korea made one or two nuclear weapons around 1989, during the first Bush administration, but froze its plutonium program under the 1994 "Agreed Framework" with the Clinton administration. North Korea adhered to the freeze on plutonium production, but about 1999, it secretly started on a second nuclear route involving uranium.

That was much less worrisome than the plutonium program (it still seems to be years from producing a single uranium weapon), and it probably could have been resolved through negotiation, as past crises had been.

Instead, Mr. Bush refused to negotiate bilaterally, so now we have the worst of both worlds: that uranium program is still in place, and the plutonium program is churning out weapons material as well.

Now the administration talks about asking the Security Council for some kind of limited quarantine for North Korea. That won't fly, because China and South Korea won't enforce it.

It's more likely that North Korea will continue to churn out plutonium as well as uranium, and perhaps conduct an underground nuclear test. And administration hawks will again consider a military strike on Yongbyon, even though that would risk another Korean War.

North Korea is the most odious country in the world today. It has been caught counterfeiting U.S. dollars and smuggling drugs, and prisoners have been led along with wire threaded through their collarbones so they can't run away. While some two million North Koreans were starving to death in the late 1990's, Mr. Kim spent $2.6 million on Swiss watches. He's the kind of man who, when he didn't like a haircut once, executed the barber.

But Mr. Bush seems frozen in the headlights, unable to take any action at all toward North Korea. American policy now is to hope that Mr. Kim has a heart attack.

Selig Harrison, an American scholar just back from Pyongyang, says North Korean officials told him that in direct negotiations with the U.S., they would be willing to discuss a return to their plutonium freeze. Everything would depend on the details, including verification, but why are we refusing so adamantly even to explore this possibility?

The irony is that Mr. Bush's policies toward North Korea have steadily become more reasonable over time. Perhaps by the time he leaves office, he'll finally be willing to negotiate seriously with the North Koreans.

But by then North Korea will have well over a dozen nuclear weapons, the risks of a terrorist nuclear explosion at Grand Central Terminal will be increased, and our influence in Asia will be in tatters."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 05 - 11:04 PM

More unconstitutional asininity posing as politics, compliments of the Bush-brain his thuggee gang:

"To the dismay of many mainstream religious leaders, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, participated in a weekend telecast organized by conservative Christian groups to smear Democrats as enemies of "people of faith." Besides listening to Senator Frist's videotaped speech, viewers heard a speaker call the Supreme Court a despotic oligarchy. Meanwhile, the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, has threatened the judiciary for not following the regressive social agenda he shares with the far-right fundamentalists controlling his party.

Apart from confirming an unwholesome disrespect for traditional American values like checks and balances, the assault on judges is part of a wide-ranging and successful Republican campaign to breach the wall between church and state to advance a particular brand of religion. No theoretical exercise, the program is having a corrosive effect on policymaking and the lives of Americans.

The centerpiece is President Bush's so-called faith-based initiative, which disregards decades of First Amendment law and civil rights protections. Mr. Bush promised that federal money would not be used to support religious activities directly, but it is. The program has channeled billions of taxpayers' dollars to churches and other religion-based providers of social services under legally questionable rules that allow plenty of room for proselytizing and imposing religious tests on hiring. The initiative even provides taxpayers' money to build and renovate houses of worship that are also used to offer social services.

Offices in the White House and federal departments pump public money to religious groups, but provide scant oversight or accountability to make sure that the money is spent on real services, not preaching. Indeed, Mr. Bush's goal is to finance programs that are explicitly religious.

A recent want ad posted by a taxpayer-financed vocational program of the Firm Foundation for inmates in a Pennsylvania jail stipulated that a job seeker must be "a believer in Christ and Christian Life today" and that the workday "will start with a short prayer." A major portion of inmates' time is spent on religious lectures and prayer, according to a lawsuit filed by two civil liberties groups.

The Bush administration and Congress have turned over issues bearing on women's reproductive rights to far-right religious groups opposed not just to abortion, but to expanded stem-cell research, effective birth control and AIDS prevention programs. The Food and Drug Administration continues to dawdle over approving over-the-counter access to emergency contraception for fear of inflaming members of the religious right who deem any interference with the implantation of a fertilized egg to be an abortion. This foot-dragging may be good politics from one narrow view, but it harms women and drives up the nation's abortion rate."

Excerpted from the NY Times.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 01:15 AM

The bullyraggers and thuggees at the pyramids high levels ride again. There's an interesting lack of outrage these days as the encroachments extend and the privileges continue to grow at the top. I begin to understand the silence of the Germans.

A

---

On Abu Ghraib, the Big Shots Walk

Bob Herbert in the Times of 4-28-04, excerpted:

"When soldiers in war are not properly trained and supervised, atrocities are all but inevitable. This is one reason why the military command structure is so important. There was a time, not so long ago, when commanders were expected to be accountable for the behavior of their subordinates.

That's changed. Under Commander in Chief George W. Bush, the notion of command accountability has been discarded. In Mr. Bush's world of war, it's the grunts who take the heat. Punishment is reserved for the people at the bottom. The people who foul up at the top are promoted.

It was a year ago today that the stories and photos of the shocking abuses at Abu Ghraib prison first came to the public's attention. It was a scandal that undermined the military's reputation and diminished the standing of the U.S. around the world.

It would soon become clear that the photos of hooded, naked and humiliated detainees were evidence of a much larger problem. The system for processing, interrogating and detaining prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq was dangerously out of control, and the command structure responsible for it had collapsed. Detainees were beaten, tortured, sexually abused and, in some instances, killed. Many detainees should never have been imprisoned at all, as they had committed no offenses.

So what happened? A handful of grunts were court-martialed, a Marine major was cashiered, and the Army plans to issue a new interrogation manual that bars certain harsh techniques. There was no wholesale crackdown on criminal behavior.

We learned last week that after a high-level investigation, the Army had cleared four of the five top officers who were responsible for prison policies and operations in Iraq. The fifth officer, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the Army Reserve, had already been relieved of her command of the military police unit at Abu Ghraib. (She has complained, and not without reason, that she was a scapegoat for the failures of higher-ranking officers.)

As Eric Schmitt wrote in The Times: "Barring new evidence, the inquiry by the Army's inspector general effectively closes the Army's book on whether the highest-ranking officers in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal should be held accountable for command failings described in past reviews."

This is the way atrocities are dealt with in Mr. Bush's world of war. The higher-ups responsible for training, supervising and disciplining the troops - in other words, the big shots who presided over a system that ran shamefully amok - escaped virtually unscathed.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib, which seemed mind-boggling at the time, turned out to be symptomatic of the torture, abuse and institutionalized injustice that have permeated the Bush administration's operations in its so-called war against terror. Euphemisms like rendition, coercive interrogation, sleep adjustment and waterboarding are now widely understood. Yes, Virginia, it is the policy of the United States to kidnap individuals and send them off to regimes skilled in the art of torture.

Two things are needed. First, a truly independent commission, along the lines of the bipartisan 9/11 panel, should be set up to thoroughly investigate U.S. interrogation and detention operations, and make recommendations to correct abuses.

Second, the U.S. government should make it clear, beyond any doubt, that torture and any other inhumane treatment of prisoners is wrong, just flat wrong, and will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

"In our contemporary world, torture is like the slave trade or piracy was to people in the 1790's," said Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, which is suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the prisoner abuse issue. "Torture is a crime against mankind, against humanity. It's something that has to be absolutely prohibited." ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Apr 05 - 11:15 PM

Well gol danged!!!

Seems that Bush loves seein' piccures of naked Iraqi men huddled together.... What's this all about???

Hey, like Dylan said, "Don't take a weartherman to tell which way the wind blows"....

Get my drift here?

No???...

Well, I think that Bush is a closet (latent) homosexual...

Hey, think about it...

But that is *his* business but he shouldn't be actin' the way he acts if he is a closet homosexual... He should come out!!!

Heck, Cheney might cut him some slack.... Heck, Laura allready knows...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 10:51 AM

Data provided on the http://www.iraqbodycount.net website show that, far from abating, the monthly death rate in 2005 continues to rise, and that the number of media-reported incidents involving the deaths of civilians and captives in the three months to March 2005 [376] is more than double the number for the same months a year ago [140]. April and November 2004 show the highest civilian death totals since the end of the "invasion phase", and result from the two US assaults on Falluja.

Particularly disturbing is that the death rate has increased since the January 31st elections. The reported death toll for February 2005 was 606. This is a significantly higher total than for January, which claimed 447 lives. These figures decisively rebut the claim that elections would lessen the intensity of the insurgency – an insurgency whose stated aim of US military withdrawal was not on the election agenda.

The table below shows provisional figures for each month since May 2003, when President Bush declared an end to "formal hostilities". Also provided in the table is the number of separately reported incidents, month by month.

Iraq Body Count spokesman John Sloboda said "These emerging figures speak for themselves. The Iraqi people have suffered increasingly from the policies of governments who still refuse to either comprehensively assess or accept responsibility for the casualties that have resulted from their actions. In the absence of an official assessment, our researchers have now begun an intensive process of analysing all the original press and media stories, extracting more specific information about both victims and perpetrators in order to reveal in as much detail as possible what can be known about the nature, cause and distribution of civilian casualties in the first two years of this conflict. Today's data are the first fruits of this work, whose full results will be made publicly available in July, at the start of Britain's presidency of the EU and the G8."

Table: Minimum and maximum media-reported civilian deaths May 2003 – February 2005. Source: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database (as of 10:00 GMT Thursday 17th March 2005)

  Month__________Reported Deaths (min-max)__________Separate Reported Incidents
  May 2003__________453-497__________17
  June 2003__________510-538__________25
  July 2003__________559-595__________25
  August 2003__________591-621__________21
  September 2003__________495-509__________33
  October 2003__________430-450__________39
  November 2003__________408-430__________46
  December 2003__________474-491__________51
  January 2004__________512-528__________52
  February 2004__________530-545__________37
  March 2004__________887-918__________71
  April 2004__________1137-1193__________42
  May 2004__________216-236__________60
  June 2004__________307-338__________52
  July 2004__________273-282__________80
  August 2004__________365-407__________83
  September 2004__________464-504__________71
  October 2004__________356-376__________68
  November 2004__________951-1076__________84
  December 2004__________395-414__________100
  January 2005__________421-447__________140
  February 2005__________554-606__________136
  
  Press Contacts: John Sloboda [e-mail]
  Hamit Dardagan [e-mail]
  

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 11:57 AM

Government Admits Wrongdoing On Suppression of Photos of Returning Dead GIs


"In response to Freedom of Information Act requests and a lawsuit, the Pentagon this week released hundreds of previously secret images of casualties returning to honor guard ceremonies from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and other conflicts, confirming that images of their flag-draped coffins are rightfully part of the public record, despite its earlier insistence that such images should be kept secret.

One year after the start of a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by University of Delaware Professor Ralph Begleiter with the assistance of the National Security Archive, and six months after a lawsuit charging the Pentagon with failing to comply with the Act, the Pentagon made public more than 700 images of the return of American casualties to Dover Air Force Base and other U.S. military facilities, where the fallen troops received honor guard ceremonies. The Pentagon officially refers to the photos as "images of the memorial and arrival ceremonies for deceased military personnel arriving from overseas." Many of the images show evidence of censorship, which the Pentagon says is intended to conceal identifiable personal information of military personnel involved in the homecoming ceremonies.

Begleiter's lawsuit is supported by the National Security Archive and the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Jenner & Block. "This is an important victory for the American people, for the families of troops killed in the line of duty during wartime, and for the honor of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country," said Begleiter, a former CNN Washington correspondent who teaches journalism and political science at the University of Delaware. "This significant decision by the Pentagon should make it difficult, if not impossible, for any U.S. government in the future to hide the human cost of war from the American people."

The Pentagon's decision preempted a court ruling in the lawsuit by U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. "We are gratified that these important public records were released without the need for further court action," said Daniel Mach of Jenner & Block. The Pentagon ban on media coverage of returning war casualties was initiated in January 1991 by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney during the administration of President George H. W. Bush, just weeks before the start of the Gulf War against Iraq.

"I have never considered the release of images as a political issue," said Begleiter, noting that both Republican and Democratic administrations imposed the image ban. "But, seeing the cost of war, like any highly-charged political issue, can have strong political consequences."

Begleiter's Freedom of Information Act requests, and the lawsuit, asked for release of both still and video images. The Pentagon's "final response" in the case includes no video images of the honor ceremonies for returning war casualties. "I'm surprised at this," said Begleiter, "because the U.S. military uses video and film technology extensively in its public relations efforts."

Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, which actively uses the Freedom of Information Act to force release of government documents, said, "The government now admits it was wrong to keep these images secret. Hiding the cost of war doesn't make that cost any less. Banning the photos keeps flag-draped coffins off the evening news, but it fundamentally disrespects those who have made the ultimate sacrifice."

Blanton and Begleiter noted one major negative consequence of the dispute over the images: the Pentagon appears to have stopped creating the photos in the first place. All the released images containing date information appear to have been taken prior to June 2004. Military officials told Begleiter and the news media that such photos were no longer being taken since his first Freedom of Information Act request was filed in April 2004.

Begleiter said, "Hiding these images from the public - or, worse, failing even to record these respectful moments - deprives all Americans of the opportunity to recognize their contribution to our democracy, and hinders policymakers and historians in the future from making informed judgments about public opinion and war." He called on the Pentagon to resume fully documenting the return of American casualties."

Excerpted from http://www.occupationwatch.org/headlines/archives/2005/04/pentagon_releas.html

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 01:45 PM

This isn't from a newspaper column but I think you could say that it is a "popular view of the Bush Administration'. Anyway, it is a powerful song:


Buddy Tabor Album: Hope
Isaiah's Dream
Guy (Buddy) Tabor © 2005

Oh a soldier sleeps in a flag-draped grave
You hid your lies behind the life that he gave
He obeyed your will but you lied to him
Now the tears like water fall down on his next of kin

When we rose up to say you were wrong
Like Saul you gnashed your teeth with propaganda's song
You wanted power, to gain control
And yes, it seems like you've lost your very soul

Oh the vine is green and the wine is red
And the word was made flesh and you know that flesh has bled
There'll come a time but I don't know when
All I know is that spark of hope still burns within

Isaiah's dream is coming 'round
And the sword hammered into the plow on fertile ground
Oh the thorns were sharp but peace will come
One day all of us will dance to a different drum

Oh the vine is green and the wine is red
And the word was made flesh and you know that flesh has bled
The time will come but I don't know when
All I know is that spark of hope still burns within

Yes there'll come a day when there'll be no more war
And it won't be taught to the nations of the world any more
Yes that day will come but I don't know when
All I know is that spark of hope still burns within
All I know is that spark of hope still burns within

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 02:45 PM

Not Exactly Must-See TV
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, April 29, 2005; 1:24 PM

The television networks -- and, by extension, the American viewing public -- got snookered last night.

Strong-armed, beguiled and wheedled into pre-empting an hour of prime-time national programming last night for President Bush's news conference, the networks were assured they would be getting must-see TV. Instead, they got a clip show.

The White House had promised that Bush would unveil new specifics about how he proposes to resolve Social Security's future funding shortfalls. And he did that -- but only briefly, and using language that was disingenuous at best.

Here, in fact, is the sum total of what Bush had to say that was new regarding Social Security: "I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. By providing more generous benefits for low-income retirees, we'll make this commitment: If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire life, you will not retire into poverty. This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security."

You could have easily fit that into a commercial break, with plenty of time left over for a talking head to explain what it really meant -- namely, that Bush is finally, officially endorsing very significant benefits cuts for the wealthy and middle class, relative to what they are currently being promised.

Other than that, Bush's comments about Social Security could have been cut and pasted from the speeches he has been making across the country these past 60 days in his unsuccessful attempt to get people behind his proposal to carve out private accounts. And most of those lines went over a lot better in rooms full of supporters than they did last night, in a room full of increasingly skeptical reporters.

Bush was asked about several other topics, and made some news here and there, but it didn't amount to much. The biggest takeaways:


· Asked about the role of religion in politics, he distanced himself from those who have said that Democrats who oppose his judicial nominees are attacking people of faith. "I don't ascribe a person's opposing my nominations to an issue of faith . . . I think people oppose my nominees because of judicial philosophy," he said.


· Asked about the continued troubles in Iraq -- the No. 1 topic on American minds, according to the polls -- he maintained, "we're making really good progress."

(....)

---

I can only hope this shallow exercise in pulpit bullying actually helps peopel see through his facade and notice the grim realities underneath them.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Apr 05 - 06:50 PM

Like has has run the US governemnt he less than 100 days into his 2nd term he has spent all of his supposed "political capital"...

Seems all he can afford these days are endless wars...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 05 - 08:48 AM

Maureen rides again, pointing the telling finger at the election of a known corrupt hog to the new government of Iraq:

Swindler on a Gusher

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: April 30, 2005

        

The Iraqis have thrown us another curveball.

Ahmad Chalabi - convicted embezzler in Jordan, suspected Iranian spy, double-crosser of America, purveyor of phony war-instigating intelligence - is the new acting Iraqi oil minister.

Is that why we went to war, to put the oily in charge of the oil, to set the swindler who pretended to be Spartacus atop the ultimate gusher?

Does anybody still think the path to war wasn't greased by oil?

The neocons' con man had been paid millions by the U.S. to tell the Bushies what they wanted to hear on Iraqi W.M.D. A year ago, the State Department and factions in the Pentagon turned on him after he began bashing America and using Saddam's secret files to discredit his enemies.

Right after the invasion, the charlatan was escorted into Iraq by U.S. troops and cultivated an axis of Americans, Iraqis and Iranians. He got a fancy house with layers of armed guards and pulled-down shades, and began helping himself to Iraqi assets. The U.S. occupation sicced the Iraqi police on his headquarters only after an Iraqi judge ordered thugs in the Chalabi posse arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, torture and theft.

Newsweek revealed that the U.S. suspected Mr. Chalabi of leaking secret information about American war plans for Iraq to the Iranians before the invasion, and of perhaps leaking "highly classified" information to Iran that could "get people killed" if abused by the Iranians. Mr. Chalabi claimed the Iranians set him up.

In August of last year, while he was at a cabin in the Iranian mountains, the Iraqis ordered him arrested on counterfeiting charges, which were later dropped for lack of evidence.

Now, showing survival skills that make Tom DeLay look like a piker, the resourceful Thief of Baghdad has popped back up as one of the four deputy prime ministers and the interim cabinet minister controlling the one valuable commodity in that wasteland: the second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. He even has a DeLay-like talent for getting relatives on the payroll: a Chalabi nephew is the new finance minister.

Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Reuters that many Iraqis would consider the plum oil job for Mr. Chalabi "putting a fox in charge of the henhouse." The choice, he added, "is going to make it extremely easy for people to make charges about corruption."

Oil isn't on the front burner only in Iraq. Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney know that time is running out to pay back the Texas buddies who sent them here with an energy bill. So those two oilmen are frantically pushing one loaded with giveaways to the oil industry at a time when it's already raking in huge profits because of high gasoline prices.

In Baghdad, we may wind up with a one-man Enron - never underestimate the snaky charmer. And the draconian efforts of Mr. Chalabi and other Shiites in power to purge Baathists from the government will breathe fire into the insurgency.

Mr. Bush wanted Iraq to have a democracy like ours. It's on its way, nearing an ethics-free zone where a corrupt official can hold sway and a theocracy can curb women's rights."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 05 - 03:28 PM

The Los Angeles Times comes out with a kudo to Bush for achieving new heights of honesty and near-honesty in his recent press-conference.

I have to say that I would have preferred that he come out and say that his notion about private investments was a watery and weak one. But the rest of the plan he is asserting, what he calls (shudder) "indexation" looks like it might work.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 May 05 - 08:11 PM

Either way, 70% of Americans will take a cut in benefits to the tune of $3Trillion over 10 years and it ain't just the wealthy but anypne makin' over $25,000 a year!!!

Ain't working fir me...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 05 - 02:14 PM

Hypocrisy is very insulting to a citizen's intelligence, especially when it is done by the citizen's president of the country.

In this photo Bush looks like he is almost willing to kiss the crown prince if he would just increase oil production.

I sort of doubt he is repeating a quote he made not so very long ago: "Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes."
George W. Bush

Perhaps Bush wasn't briefed on the conclusions contained in this excerpt by David Kaplan: "Al Qaeda, says William Wechsler, the task force director, was "a constant fundraising machine." And where did it raise most of those funds? The evidence was indisputable: Saudi Arabia. America's longtime ally and the world's largest oil producer had somehow become, as a senior Treasury Department official put it, "the epicenter" of terrorist financing." ("The Saudi Connection" - David Kaplan)

If Bush was really sincere about going after the terrorists, he'd go after the saudis, oil be damned. But he expects us to believe that he is accomplishing more than making idle overtures with the blood of our troops while turning a blind eye to the real source of terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 May 05 - 07:01 PM

hmmmmmm, this might expalin Luara Bush's comments about "Mr. Exciting goes to bed at 9:00..." Like I've said before, Bush is hackin' up with a White House intern, 'cept unlike Slick Willie, its a male intern...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 05 - 11:35 PM

yeah ... they looked pretty chummy in this photo too.

Nothing new, though. Politically, Bush has been in bed with the Saudis for a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 May 05 - 10:33 PM

Yeah, the boy is definately still in the closet but we know......

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 04 May 05 - 11:12 PM

"What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think, vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position." President Dubya.

Anyone who can say the above and mean it deserves the support of all Americans.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 05 - 12:28 AM

Vulcanize??? I have felt totally vulcanized ever since he showed up on tyhe political seen. Like I was wearing a full-body condom!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 05 - 10:00 AM

Maureen from today's Times (NY) writes:

...
President Bush's experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq created his own chimeras, by injecting feudal and tribal societies with the cells of democracy, and blending warring factions and sects. Some of the forces unleashed are promising; others are frightening.

In a chilling classified report to Congress last week, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, conceded that Iraq and Afghanistan operations had restricted the Pentagon's ability to handle other conflicts.

That's an ominous admission in light of North Korea's rush toward nukes, which was spurred on by the Iraq invasion and North Korea's conviction that, in bargaining with Mr. Bush, real weapons trump imaginary - or chimerical - ones.

The U.S. invasion also spawned a torture scandal, and its own chimeric (alas, not chimerical) blend of former enemies - the Baathists and foreign jihadists - with access to Iraqi weapons caches.

The Republican Party is now a chimera, too, a mutant of old guard Republicans, who want government kept out of our lives, and evangelical Christians, who want government to legislate religion into our lives.

But exploiting God for political ends has set off powerful, scary forces in America: a retreat on teaching evolution, most recently in Kansas; fights over sex education, even in the blue states and blue suburbs of Maryland; a demonizing of gays; and a fear of stem cell research, which could lead to more of a "culture of life" than keeping one vegetative woman hooked up to a feeding tube.

Even as scientists issue rules on chimeras in labs, a spine-tingling he-monster with the power to drag us back into the pre-Darwinian dark ages is slouching around Washington. It's a fire-breathing creature with the head of W., the body of Bill Frist and the serpent tail of Tom DeLay.

---

Wuddya know...those 51% have created a monster!! I wonder how many of those voters were chimerical themselves? :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 05 - 08:47 PM

Only Diebold came up with the 51%, Amos.... Without a paper trail we'll never know but what we do know is fir the first time in history where exit polls were used the exit polls and the count differed greatly....

Makes ya wonder....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 05 - 09:00 PM

Excerpts from the Times Op-Ed on Laura Bush's mission as Gracy:

"... The Washington press corps' eagerness to facilitate and serve as dress extras in what amounts to an administration promotional video can now be seen as a metaphor for just how much the legitimate press has been co-opted by all manner of fakery in the Bush years.

Yes, Mrs. Bush was funny, but the mere sight of her "interrupting" her husband in an obviously scripted routine prompted a ballroom full of reporters to leap to their feet and erupt in a roar of sycophancy like partisan hacks at a political convention. The same throng's morning-after rave reviews acknowledged that the entire exercise was at some level P.R. but nonetheless bought into the artifice. We were seeing the real Laura Bush, we kept being told. Maybe. While some acknowledged that her script was written by a speechwriter (the genuinely gifted Landon Parvin), very few noted that the routine's most humanizing populist riff, Mrs. Bush's proclaimed affection for the hit TV show "Desperate Housewives," was fiction; her press secretary told The New York Times's Elisabeth Bumiller that the first lady had yet to watch it.

Mrs. Bush's act was a harmless piece of burlesque, but it paid political dividends, upstaging the ho-hum presidential news conference of two days earlier in which few of the same reporters successfully challenged administration spin on Social Security and other matters. (One notable exception: David Gregory of NBC News, whose sharply focused follow-ups pushed Mr. Bush off script and got him to disown some of the faith-based demagoguery of the Family Research Council.) Watching the Washington press not only swoon en masse for Mrs. Bush's show but also sponsor and promote it inevitably recalls its unwitting collaboration in other, far more consequential Bush pageants. From the White House's faux "town hall meetings" to the hiring of Armstrong Williams to shill for its policies in journalistic forums, this administration has been a master of erecting propagandistic virtual realities that the news media have often been either tardy or ineffectual at unmasking."

..."We create our own reality" is how a Bush official put it to Ron Suskind in an article in The Times Magazine during the presidential campaign. That they can get away with it shows the keenness of their cultural antennas. Infotainment has reached a new level of ubiquity in an era in which "reality" television and reality have become so blurred that it's hard to know if ABC News's special investigating "American Idol" last week was real journalism about a fake show or fake journalism about a real show or whether anyone knows the difference - or cares. This is business as usual in a culture in which the Michael Jackson trial is re-enacted daily on cable and the most powerful television news franchises, the morning triumvirate of "Today" and its competitors, now routinely present promotional segments about their respective networks' prime-time hits as if they were news.

No wonder many local TV news operations thought nothing of broadcasting government video news releases in which fake correspondents recruited from P.R. firms pushed administration policies; in some cases, neither the stations' managers nor journalists even figured out these reports were frauds. Now that public broadcasting is being turned over to Republican apparatchiks, such subterfuge could creep into the one broadcast news organization that, whatever its other failings, was thought to be immune to government or commercial interference.

The more the press blurs these lines on its own, the more openings government propagandists have to erect their Potemkin villages with impunity. "Our once noble calling," wrote Philip Meyer in The Columbia Journalism Review last fall, "is increasingly difficult to distinguish from things that look like journalism but are primarily advertising, press agentry or entertainment." You know we're in trouble when Jeff Gannon, asked about his murky past on Bill Maher's show on April 29, moralistically joked that "usually the way it works is people become reporters before they prostitute themselves." No less chastening was the experience of watching Matt Drudge, in conversation with Brian Lamb the same day, sternly criticize Fox for cutting off the final moments of the Bush news conference for Paris Hilton's reality series. When Mr. Drudge is a more sober spokesman for the sanctity of news than his fellow revelers at the correspondents' dinner, pigs just may start to fly.

Much as we all delight in the latest horse-milking joke, the happiest news in comedy last week was the announcement that "The Daily Show" will be spinning off a new half-hour on Comedy Central starring its "senior White House correspondent," Stephen Colbert. Make no mistake about it: the ratings rise of Jon Stewart's fake news has been in direct relation to the show's prowess at blowing the whistle on propaganda when the legitimate press fails to do so. The correspondents' dinner, itself a "Daily Show" target last week, could not have been a more graphic illustration of why, at a time when trust in real news is plummeting, there's a bull market for fake news that can really be trusted to know what is fake."

---

When do we see the Fourth Estate rise out of its venal, mercantile hypnosis and restore to itself a sense of duty and a desire to cleave to the true?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 05 - 08:58 AM

An interesting essay in Slate presents the possibility that Bush supporters act contrary to their own best interests because they are psychologically damaged.

Seems to fit the data set!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 May 05 - 08:23 PM

A lucid and articulate essay by George Mitchell, explaining why the Republican movement to squash the filibuster is a very bad idea, can be found here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 May 05 - 08:19 PM

From a subscriber to a list called "IP":

I attempted to renew the passports for my children. I have done this
with out problem at least once before. As of today one parent can no
longer renew passports for children. You must have a form from the
absent parent. The form has no space for a notary to notarize the
absent parent's signature.   But when you arrive to get the passport
the post office will then inform you that you have to have the absent
parent's signature notarized.


I assume this is in response to the last decade's three or four
hugely publicized cases where middle eastern fathers have taken their
children from this country and their mothers.


The more I thought about this the angrier I got.


The most enticing of all this administration's endeavors seems to
solve problems they and we do not have. For example, 9-11 was not
caused by a security failure at the edges. The field agents had been
following for months the suspicious activities of the terrorists and
they dutifully submitted reports and made verbal entreaties that
these people be looked into. The managers at the core refused.


The result? We beef up the edges and no at the core gets fired. Who
lives at the edges? We do. So we go through the charade of jumping
hoops at the edges because the people at the core are dishonest and
refuse to admit the real problem.

---

This puts it very well, I think.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 May 05 - 08:59 PM

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I oppose this budget and will vote
against it. All of my colleagues should. It sets the wrong
priorities. It breaks promises to the American people. And it
is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

Let me begin with the priorities. The priorities of the
American people are not the priorities of this budget.

It is quite clear what the priorities of this budget are: tax
cuts for the wealthy. In just one year, this budget provides a
tax cut for millionaires totaling $32 billion.

Meanwhile, education funding is cut almost $1 billion below the
services we are providing now. A total of 48 education
programs are eliminated. The promise that was made in the No
Child Left Behind Act is broken by $12 billion. Mr. President,
we should be increasing our commitment to our children, not
cutting it.

Veterans programs – for those brave men and women who served
our country and are currently serving our country in Iraq and
Afghanistan – are cut $500 million. As more and more veterans
return to this country, the demands on the VA system will only
grow. This budget ignores them.

This budget provides no funding for additional police officers
on the street. And two major programs to help local law
enforcement are eliminated.

Medicaid – the health care program for the poor and disabled, a
large portion of whom are children – is cut $10 billion.

Funding for the Centers for Disease Control – to prevent
diseases and to fight outbreaks – is cut 9 percent.

The promise we made to our farmers in 2002 is broken with cuts
of $3 billion.

Mr. President, what is going on here? Our children, our
veterans, the safety of our streets, and the health of our
people – all are taking a back seat to tax cuts for
millionaires. This budget helps the wealthiest 1 percent of
Americans at the expense of 99 percent of Americans.

Now, you would think that with all of these cuts in spending
for important programs, at least the budget would be balanced –
or at least would be more fiscally responsible than it has been
in the past four years.

You would be wrong. This budget increases our debt by $3.1
trillion over the next five years. In 2010, the federal debt
will be over $11 trillion.

That figure is so high, it is nearly incomprehensible. So let
me put it another way: $11 trillion is $1 million every day
for 30,000 years.

And, Mr. President, $11 trillion in debt is not the whole
story. This budget does not include the almost $400 billion in
costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This budget does
not include over $700 billion in costs for the President's plan
to privatize Social Security. This budget does not include
over $700 billion to ensure that middle-class Americans are not
hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Why aren't these included? Because it would mean even more
debt. Debt upon debt upon debt upon debt. And most of it owed
to those from foreign countries. We are borrowing from the
Japanese, the Chinese, the British, and others – and sticking
the bill to our children and grandchildren.

And speaking of the President's plan to privatize Social
Security, I find it ironic that the President again tonight
tried to scare the American people by saying that Social
Security was going "bankrupt," when at the same time, this
budget steals $2.5 trillion over 10 years from the Social
Security Trust Fund. Instead of tax cuts for millionaires, we
should be paying back the Trust Fund.

Finally, Mr. President, this budget sets the stage for opening
up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. It has
nothing to do with the budget. It has nothing to do with
increasing our energy independence. It has everything to do
with destroying one of America's most environmentally pristine
areas.

This budget has the wrong priorities, bankrupts our country,
and destroys our environment. It should be soundly and
overwhelmingly rejected.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 05 - 01:47 AM

Paul Krugman in today's Ttmes:

Staying What Course?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 16, 2005

Is there any point, now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq war? Yes: any path out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough guys who will keep America safe. So it's important to understand how the tough guys made America weak.

There has been notably little U.S. coverage of the "Downing Street memo" - actually the minutes of a British prime minister's meeting on July 23, 2002, during which officials reported on talks with the Bush administration about Iraq. But the memo, which was leaked to The Times of London during the British election campaign, confirms what apologists for the war have always denied: the Bush administration cooked up a case for a war it wanted.

Here's a sample: "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

(You can read the whole thing at www.downingstreetmemo.com.)

Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when, as the memo noted, "the case was thin" and Saddam's "W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran"? Iraq was perceived as a soft target; a quick victory there, its domestic political advantages aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military might, one that would shock and awe the world.

But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies. Why should Kim Jong Il fear us, when we can't even secure the road from Baghdad to the airport?

At this point, the echoes of Vietnam are unmistakable. Reports from the recent offensive near the Syrian border sound just like those from a 1960's search-and-destroy mission, body count and all. Stories filed by reporters actually with the troops suggest that the insurgents, forewarned, mostly melted away, accepting battle only where and when they chose.

Meanwhile, America's strategic position is steadily deteriorating.

Next year, reports Jane's Defense Industry, the United States will spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the Pentagon now admits that our military is having severe trouble attracting recruits, and would have difficulty dealing with potential foes - those that, unlike Saddam's Iraq, might pose a real threat.

In other words, the people who got us into Iraq have done exactly what they falsely accused Bill Clinton of doing: they have stripped America of its capacity to respond to real threats.

So what's the plan?

The people who sold us this war continue to insist that success is just around the corner, and that things would be fine if the media would just stop reporting bad news. But the administration has declared victory in Iraq at least four times. January's election, it seems, was yet another turning point that wasn't.

Yet it's very hard to discuss getting out. Even most of those who vehemently opposed the war say that we have to stay on in Iraq now that we're there.

In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops in the back.

But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq; it's deteriorating under the strain. We may already be in real danger: what threats, exactly, can we make against the North Koreans?

---

Refusing to listen to the hard, scarred voice of history is the classic form of political stupidity, which W has demonstrated in spades.

Clever dodger, he may be; but stupid beyond all normal measure he is without question.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 16 May 05 - 11:07 PM

Garrison Keillor writes, among other remarks in this fine essay, the following truism:

"The reason you find an army of right-wingers ratcheting on the radio and so few liberals is simple: Republicans are in need of affirmation, they don't feel comfortable in America and they crave listening to people who think like them. Liberals actually enjoy living in a free society; tuning in to hear an echo is not our idea of a good time. I go to church on Sunday morning to be among the like-minded, and we all say the Nicene Creed together and assume nobody has his fingers crossed, but when it comes to radio, I prefer oddity and crankiness. I don't need someone to tell me that George W. Bush is a deceitful, corrupt, clever and destructive man--that's pretty clear on the face of it. What I want is to be surprised and delighted and moved. "

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 May 05 - 09:14 PM

Even Tim Russert, consomate Bushite, says that Bush's numbers in the polls are in a nose dive... Pick just about any issue and Bush is under 40% and overall approval rate, 6 months into a 2nd term, are dismal... The boy is sinkin' fast....

B

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 22 May 05 - 09:46 AM

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Groups Sue to Stop Calif. Stem Cell Funding; http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157262,00.html

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — President Bush's appearance at Calvin College (search) on Saturday was as much about politics as it was about his speech urging the graduates of this Christian college to commit themselves to community service. "This isn't a Democratic idea. This isn't a Republican idea. This is an American idea," Bush told the students, hoping to send a bipartisan message despite protests about his appearance.

"As your generation takes its place in the world, all of you must make this decision: Will you be a spectator or a citizen?" Bush asked about 900 seniors graduating from this liberal arts college. The students cheered him warmly before he spoke, but Bush's visit was not welcomed by all.

Several dozen people protesting outside the event and a few graduates at the ceremony wore stickers that said: "God is not a Republican or Democrat." A third of the college's faculty members signed a letter protesting his visit. The letter, published Saturday in a half-page ad in the Grand Rapids Press, said: "As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq."

Another letter of protest from students, faculty and alumni appeared in a full-page ad in the paper on Friday. "In our view, the policies and actions of your administration, both domestically and internationally over the past four years, violate many deeply held principles of Calvin College," that ad in the Grand Rapids newspaper said.

Calvin College administrators say they were thrilled when the White House asked if Bush could speak at the commencement — his third trip this year to Michigan, which he narrowly lost to Democrat John Kerry in last year's election. Bush's speech here is one of only two commencement addresses he's giving this year. Next Friday, he speaks at the U.S. Naval Academy.

The choice of the 4,000-student Christian college led to speculation that the president wanted to reach out to his evangelical base in this Midwestern state. But some associated with the college noted the school's Christian background does not make it part of the conservative Christian movement.

In his commencement speech, Bush mentioned advancing freedom around the world and voiced his support for faith-based, or religious, groups getting involved in social service. "To make a difference in this world, you must be involved by serving a higher calling here and abroad," Bush said. "You will make your lives richer and build a more hopeful future for our world."

His appearance was not all serious.

"Some day you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here," quipped the president who is not known for his eloquence. "If any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 05 - 05:43 PM

Oldies but goodies:

William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t: "The case for war against Iraq has not been made. This is a fact. It is doubtful in the extreme that Saddam Hussein has retained any functional aspect of the chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons programs so thoroughly dismantled by the United Nations weapons inspectors who worked tirelessly in Iraq for seven years. This is also a fact."

        
It Was the Lying, Right? Clinton, Bush and Impeachment

DAVE LINDORFF, CounterPunch: "Where is the public outcry demanding that he be called to account for his shameless and bloody deception of the American public and the Congress?"

        
Short: Blair lied to cabinet and made secret war pact with US

The Guardian, Nicholas Watt and Michael White in Evian: "As an increasingly exasperated prime minister once again swept aside calls for a public inquiry into the failure to uncover banned Iraqi weapons, the former international development secretary accused Mr Blair of bypassing the cabinet to agree a "secret" pact with George Bush to go to war."

        
Revise and Conquer - Bush Family Whitewashing in Iraq and Nazi Germany

CHRIS FLOYD, CounterPunch: "This might seem a rather bizarre question at first glance--but then, Bush has a personal stake in the cultivation of historical amnesia. His own family fortune was built in part by a long and profitable collusion with the Nazis--an ugly story oft told here, and raked up again by Newsweek Poland during the presidential visit."

        
Standard Operating Procedure

Paul Krugman, The New York Times: "Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo."

        
Intelligence Officers Challenge Bush

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, CommonDreams.org: "Your opposition to inviting UN inspectors into Iraq feeds the suspicion that you wish to avoid independent verification; some even suggest that your administration wishes to preserve the option of ``planting'' such weapons to be ``discovered'' later. Sen. Carl Levin recently warned that, if some are found ``Many people around the world will think we planted those weapons, unless the UN inspectors are there with us.''

        Ex-U.N. weapons: Bush lied to the nation
Matt Manochio, Daily Record: Ritter, a former Marine, also said during his speech that Bush should be impeached if it is proven that he misled America. "This is a high crime. This is a misdemeanor. This is an impeachable offense" if he lied, said Ritter, who was applauded whenever he criticized the president.
        
Why the Lies About WMD Matter - A Crime Against American Values

RAY CLOSE, former CIA analyst, CounterPunch: "The Bush Administration declared that it had irrefutable, ironclad proof that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to the safety and security of the United States, and this claim was used as the justification for launching a preemptive war."

        
Bush's Alderaan

Robert Parry, THE CONSORTIUM: "As he marched the nation to war, Bush presented himself as a Christian man of peace who saw war only as a last resort. But in a remarkable though little noted disclosure, Time magazine reported that in March 2002 – a full year before the invasion – Bush outlined his real thinking to three U.S. senators, 'Fuck Saddam,' Bush said. 'We're taking him out.'"


All links can be found on www.impeach-bush-now.com


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 05 - 01:03 AM

Where Those Who Now Run the U.S. Government Came From and Where They Are Taking Us

By Wayne Madsen

Part I

A
fter several months of in-depth research and, at first, seemingly unrelated conversations with former high-level intelligence officials, lawyers, politicians, religious figures, other investigative journalists, and researchers, I can now report on a criminal conspiracy so vast and monstrous it defies imagination. Using "Christian" groups as tax-exempt and cleverly camouflaged covers, wealthy right-wing businessmen and "clergy" have now assumed firm control over the biggest prize of all – the government of the United States of America. First, some housekeeping is in order. My use of the term "Christian" is merely to clearly identify the criminal conspirators who have chosen to misuse their self-avowed devotion to Jesus Christ to advance a very un-Christian agenda. The term "Christian Mafia" is what several Washington politicians have termed the major conspirators and it is not intended to debase Christians or infer that they are criminals . I will also use the term Nazi – not for shock value – but to properly tag the political affiliations of the early founders of the so-called "Christian" power cult called the Fellowship. The most important element of this story is that a destructive religious movement has now achieved almost total control over the machinery of government of the United States – its executive, its legislature, several state governments, and soon, the federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

The United States has experienced religious and cult hucksters throughout its history, from Cotton Mather and his Salem witch burners to Billy Sunday, Father Charles Coughlin, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, and others. But none have ever achieved the kind of power now possessed by a powerful and secretive group of conservative politicians and wealthy businessmen in the United States and abroad who are known among their adherents and friends as The Fellowship or The Family. The Fellowship and its predecessor organizations have used Jesus in the same way that McDonald's uses golden arches and Coca Cola uses its stylized script lettering. Jesus is a logo and a slogan for the Fellowship. Jesus is used to justify the Fellowship's access to the highest levels of government and business in the same way Santa Claus entices children into department stores and malls during the Christmas shopping season.

When the Founders of our nation constitutionally separated Church and State, the idea of the Fellowship taking over the government would have been their worst nightmare. The Fellowship has been around under various names since 1935. Its stealth existence has been perpetuated by its organization into small cells, a pyramid organization of "correspondents," "associates," "friends," "members," and "core members," tax-exempt status for its foundations, and its protection by the highest echelons of the our own government and those abroad.

...(See rest of article at Exposé: The Christian Mafia

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 05 - 01:05 AM

In the midst of the debate over the filibuster, Max Baucus
had these unusually wise words to contribute:

Mr. President, last week, on Wednesday, we evacuated the Capitol. At the
instruction of the Capitol Police, more than a few Senators and staff
actually ran from this building and the surrounding offices in the very real
fear that a plane was carrying a bomb to attack this building, the center of our
democracy.

And Wednesday will likely not be the last time, that we guard against
threats to our democracy by plane and bomb.

But there are other threats to our democracy and our freedoms, just as
menacing, equally as dangerous.

Abraham Lincoln said: "America will never be destroyed from the
outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves."

Former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin said: "It is not slogans or
bullets, but only institutions, that can make, and keep, people free."

And Baron Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws: "There is no
liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and the
executive."

Mr. President, in ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power, and the
emperor became a tyrant, it was not because the emperor abolished the
Senate.

In ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power, it continued to
exist, at least in name. But in ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power,
in the words of the Senate's historian, Senator Robert Byrd, the Senate became "little more than a name."

In ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power, the Roman Senate was
complicit in the transfer. The emperor did not have to seize all the
honors and powers. The Roman Senate, one after another, conferred greater
powers on Caesar.

It was not the abolition of the Senate that made the emperor
powerful. It was the Senate's complete deference. Like the Roman Senate before us, we
risk bringing our diminution upon ourselves. We risk bringing upon
ourselves a hollow Senate, a mere shadow of its past self. And we risk bringing upon
ourselves a loss of the checks and balances that ensure our American democracy.

Mr. President:

This is the way democracy ends;
This is the way democracy ends;
This is the way democracy ends;
Not with a bomb, but a gavel.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 05 - 01:09 AM

From the Washington Post (excerpt). Full article here


On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs.

The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.


It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Iraq. But as the Walpole episode suggests, it appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers.

The question of prewar intelligence has been thrust back into the public eye with the disclosure of a secret British memo showing that, eight months before the March 2003 start of the war, a senior British intelligence official reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that U.S. intelligence was being shaped to support a policy of invading Iraq.

Moreover, a close reading of the recent 600-page report by the president's commission on intelligence, and the previous report by the Senate panel, shows that as war approached, many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs.

These included claims that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa for its nuclear program, had mobile labs for producing biological weapons, ran an active chemical weapons program and possessed unmanned aircraft that could deliver weapons of mass destruction. All these claims were made by Bush or then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in public addresses even though, the reports made clear, they had yet to be verified by U.S. intelligence agencies.

For instance, Bush said in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address that Hussein was working to obtain "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa, a conclusion the president attributed to British intelligence and made a key part of his assertion that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program.

More than a year later, the White House retracted the statement after its veracity was questioned. But the Senate report makes it clear that even in January 2003, just before the president's speech, analysts at the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center were still investigating the reliability of the uranium information.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 05 - 11:35 AM

Patterns of Abuse
            
From the NY Times 5-23-05

Published: May 23, 2005

President Bush said the other day that the world should see his administration's handling of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison as a model of transparency and accountability. He said those responsible were being systematically punished, regardless of rank. It made for a nice Oval Office photo-op on a Friday morning. Unfortunately, none of it is true.


The administration has provided nothing remotely like a full and honest accounting of the extent of the abuses at American prison camps in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It has withheld internal reports and stonewalled external inquiries, while clinging to the fiction that the abuse was confined to isolated acts, like the sadistic behavior of one night crew in one cellblock at Abu Ghraib. The administration has prevented any serious investigation of policy makers at the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon by orchestrating official probes so that none could come even close to the central question of how the prison policies were formulated and how they led to the abuses.

But a two-part series in The Times by Tim Golden provides a horrifying new confirmation that what happened at Abu Ghraib was no aberration, but part of a widespread pattern. It showed the tragic impact of the initial decision by Mr. Bush and his top advisers that they were not going to follow the Geneva Conventions, or indeed American law, for prisoners taken in antiterrorist operations.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 May 05 - 09:09 PM

In Senator Robert Byrd's (no GWB lover there) book "Losing
America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency", he
quotes a speech that president Dwigh Eisenhower gave on April
16, 1953 to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Whether
one agrees with GWB's policies or not and, in spite of the
fact that, at today's prices, the monies are grosly
understated, I agree with Byrd that the words "are as timely
today as they were over fifty years ago":

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocker
fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those wgo
hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending
the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the
hopes of its children. The cost of one midern heavy bomber is
this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities. It is
two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000
population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is
some fifty miles of concrete highway. We pay for a songle
fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for
a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more
than 8,000 people."

And they said that he wasn't eloquent!

    "When you come to the fork in the road, take it" - L.P. Berra
    "Always make new mistakes" -- Esther Dyson
    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic"
      -- Arthur C. Clarke
      "You Gotta Believe" - Frank "Tug" McGraw (1944 - 2004 RIP)
      "To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you
       are doing and that's real power." -- Ayn Rand

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 25 May 05 - 09:11 PM

A long history of the gradual abrogation of government by the religious right can be found at this site. The threads lead from the 1890's right up to Rove and WOlfowitz, which is interesting.

Just in case you thought this was just happenstance!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 May 05 - 09:08 PM

Yeah, the greatest loss of leavin' Wes Ginny to move back onto Ginny will be loosing Senator Byrd as ***MY*** Senator....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 05 - 12:20 AM

The Complete Bushisms
Updated frequently.
By Jacob Weisberg of Slate
Updated Wednesday, May 25, 2005, at 10:06 AM PT

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."—Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 27 May 05 - 02:41 PM

I am writing this post in order to offer my sympathy to Amos for losing (at least temporarily) one of his favorite "sources of facts" for this thread.

It seems Maureen Dowd has been granted a leave of absense by The New York Times to write an important book that likely will take it's place among the classics. The title: "Are Men Really Necessary."

Don't bother running to your favorite book store for a copy, though, it is not due out until next fall.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 05 - 12:12 AM

Thanks, Doug. I _am_ goiung through withdrawal symptoms and I miss her keen wit, her sharp ability to cut through Republican bullshit with the grace of a samurai sword, and her sharp tongue. I am sure she'll be back in fine form in due course.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 28 May 05 - 01:30 PM

You're welcome Amos. Obviously it doesn't take much to please you.
:>)
DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 05 - 03:40 PM

"Our hearts are especially heavy this year because 1,653 soldiers have died in the past 26 months in Iraq.

Another 12,348 have been maimed, and tens of thousands are suffering from PTSD.

And things are only getting worse, not better: the majority of those killed (903) died in the 12 short months since Memorial Day 2004.

Our sadness would be diminished if we could say these brave young men and women died to defend America.

But that simply isn't true, because George W. Bush lied to us.

We now know there were no WMD's in Iraq in 2002. We also know there were no ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda or 9-11.

George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and countless others insisted there were. But they were lying - all of them.

On May 1, the Times of London finally exposed the truth. It came in the form of the minutes of a secret war council led by Tony Blair at the Prime Minister's office on Downing Street on July 23, 2002 - eight full months before Bush invaded Iraq. The head of British intelligence reported on his trip to Washington:

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Read it carefully: Bush was determined to invade Iraq, and he was prepared to tell whatever lies he needed to tell to scare Americans into war.

This "smoking gun" caused a firestorm in the British media. Here in the U.S., the media barely reported it. Why? Because our media enthusiastically helped Bush tell his lies. And they want to make sure Americans never learn the truth.

Today, Democrats.com and a powerful coalition of progressive allies set out to break the media's silence and tell Americans the truth.

We are building a massive grassroots movement to support an historic letter by Constitutional scholar John Bonifaz, who is urging Congress to pass a "Resolution of Inquiry" directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House to impeach George W. Bush.*

Of course, passing this Resolution will require a majority in the House, which is firmly controlled by Tom DeLay and his right-wing Republican allies.

DeLay is a formidable obstacle. But we simply cannot let him stand in the way of the truth after so many young Americans have died.

Please join me in urging your Representative to support this Resolution of Inquiry about Iraq."

http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/39

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 May 05 - 11:06 PM

My vote: impeach...

The guy lied to the Amrican people and is still lieing....

Impeach....

Return America ro its people...

Impeach...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 05 - 10:33 AM

From a news site called Fairfax DIgital:

"Washington: The Bush Administration has launched a high-level internal review of its efforts to battle international terrorism, aimed at moving away from a policy that has stressed efforts to capture and kill al-Qaeda leaders since the September 11, 2001, attacks and towards what a senior official called a broader "strategy against violent extremism".

The shift is meant to recognise the transformation of al-Qaeda over the past three years into a far more amorphous, diffuse and difficult-to-target organisation than the group that struck the US in 2001.

But critics say the policy review comes only after months of delay and lost opportunities while the Administration left key counter-terrorism jobs unfilled and argued internally over how best to confront the rapid spread of the pro-al-Qaeda global Islamic jihad.

President George Bush's top adviser on terrorism, Frances Fragos Townsend, said in an interview the review is needed to take into account the "ripple effect" from years of operations targeting al-Qaeda leaders such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, arrested for planning the 2001 terrorist attacks, and his recently detained deputy, Abu Faraj al-Libbi.

AdvertisementAdvertisement
"Naturally, the enemy has adapted," she said. "As you capture a Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an Abu Faraj al-Libbi raises up. Nature abhors a vacuum."

Much of the discussion has focused on how to deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple of years. Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to what one called "the bleed out" of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe."

---

I think if you review the traffic on this thread and others related to the Iraq insanity you will find this exact phenomenon predicted as a clearly predictable consequence of Bush's military un-planning. People wonder why I call our furless leader stupid. One reason is his poor grasp of consequences.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 05 - 12:30 AM

A wonderful sassy article by Jeff Glenkirk on turning to the GOP for fun and profit -- something every liberal-minded humanitarian should reflect on, and every conservative should blush about!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 30 May 05 - 06:12 AM

Second-term slump
Bush runs into trouble with Congress; maybe he should try playing nice;May 30, 2005; 40 minutes ago

President George W. Bush has hit a rough patch on Capitol Hill. In rapid-fire developments last week, a number of congressional Republicans broke ranks and sided with Democrats, bucking the Republican president on the filibuster in the Senate and stem cell research in the House. So, has Bush contracted a case of second-termitis, that inevitable slide into irrelevance that afflicts presidents as their time in the White House grows short? Well, no. Bush's days aren't that numbered. Not yet. But he is bumping up against the boundaries of the limited mandate voters gave him in November. There's a lesson there that Bush should heed.

Muscling Congress isn't working so well anymore. Neither is rabid partisanship. Emboldened centrist lawmakers are gaining clout. It's time for Bush to consider consulting, cajoling and compromising as better ways to get things done. Clearly, a new approach is called for, given that he hit the rocks twice last week.

On Monday, seven Republican senators joined with seven of their Democratic colleagues in a deal that saved the filibuster as a weapon for the minority party in judicial confirmation fights. Bush wanted nothing less than a guaranteed up-or-down vote for every one of his nominees. One day later, scores of House Republicans voted with Democrats to relax Bush's funding restrictions on stem cell research. And they did it despite Bush's veto threat.

Meanwhile, Bush's signature domestic priority, carving private investment accounts out of Social Security, is essentially dead in the water. Bush hasn't abandoned it yet, but the proposal is clearly going nowhere. What's a president with a full plate of issues to do?

Bush should move away from rote, free-market ideology and search instead for a pragmatic fix for Social Security. He should pay attention, rather than just lip service, to reducing the federal budget deficit. He should abandon the crusade to strip government of revenue by making costly tax cuts permanent. And he should tap judicial nominees who, while they may be conservative, are within the broad ideological mainstream of national legal thought.

That's not a formula for the partisan, conservative, total domination that the White House seems to relish. But it is a formula for making real progress on a number of fronts important to the American people.

Newsday

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 05 - 11:46 AM

More deadheadedness at the top. From todays Times:

"One of the more bizarre aspects of the Iraq war has been President Bush's repeated insistence that his generals tell him they have enough troops. Even more bizarrely, it may be true - I mean, that his generals tell him that they have enough troops, not that they actually have enough. An article in yesterday's Baltimore Sun explains why.

The article tells the tale of John Riggs, a former Army commander, who "publicly contradicted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan" - then abruptly found himself forced into retirement at a reduced rank, which normally only happens as a result of a major scandal.

The truth, of course, is that there aren't nearly enough troops. "Basically, we've got all the toys, but not enough boys," a Marine major in Anbar Province told The Los Angeles Times.

Yet it's also true, in a different sense, that we have too many troops in Iraq.

Back in September 2003 a report by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the size of the U.S. force in Iraq would have to start shrinking rapidly in the spring of 2004 if the Army wanted to "maintain training and readiness levels, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization, and retain high-quality personnel."

Let me put that in plainer English: our all-volunteer military is based on an implicit promise that those who serve their country in times of danger will also be able to get on with their lives. Full-time soldiers expect to spend enough time at home base to keep their marriages alive and see their children growing up. Reservists expect to be called up infrequently enough, and for short enough tours of duty, that they can hold on to their civilian jobs.

To keep that promise, the Army has learned that it needs to follow certain rules, such as not deploying more than a third of the full-time forces overseas except during emergencies. The budget office analysis was based on those rules.

But the Bush administration, which was ready neither to look for a way out of Iraq nor to admit that staying there would require a much bigger army, simply threw out the rulebook. Regular soldiers are spending a lot more than a third of their time overseas, and many reservists are finding their civilian lives destroyed by repeated, long-term call-ups.

Two things make the burden of repeated deployments even harder to bear. One is the intensity of the conflict. In Slate, Phillip Carter and Owen West, who adjusted casualty figures to take account of force size and improvements in battlefield medicine (which allow more of the severely wounded to survive), concluded that "infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966."

The other is the way in which the administration cuts corners when it comes to supporting the troops. From their foot-dragging on armoring Humvees to their apparent policy of denying long-term disability payments to as many of the wounded as possible, officials seem almost pathologically determined to nickel-and-dime those who put their lives on the line for their country." (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 05 - 11:48 AM

On the state of the nation under Bush, ibid:

"This Memorial Day is not a good one for the country that was once the world's most brilliant beacon of freedom and justice.

State Department officials know better than anyone that the image of the United States has deteriorated around the world. The U.S. is now widely viewed as a brutal, bullying nation that countenances torture and operates hideous prison camps at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in other parts of the world - camps where inmates have been horribly abused, gruesomely humiliated and even killed.

The huge and bitter protests of Muslims against the United States last week were touched off by reports that the Koran had been handled disrespectfully by interrogators at Guantánamo. But the anger and rage among Muslims and others had been building for a long time, fueled by indisputable evidence of the atrocious treatment of detainees, terror suspects, wounded prisoners and completely innocent civilians in America's so-called war against terror.

Amnesty International noted last week in its annual report on human rights around the world that more than 500 detainees continue to be held "without charge or trial" at Guantánamo. Locking people up without explaining why, and without giving them a chance to prove their innocence, seems a peculiar way to advance the cause of freedom in the world.

It's now known that many of the individuals swept up and confined at Guantánamo and elsewhere were innocent. The administration says it has evidence it could use to prove the guilt of detainees currently at Guantánamo, but much of the evidence is secret and therefore cannot be revealed.

This is where the war on terror meets Never-Never Land.

President Bush's close confidante, Karen Hughes, has been chosen to lead a high-profile State Department effort to repair America's image. The Bush crowd apparently thinks this is a perception problem, as opposed to a potentially catastrophic crisis that will not be eased without substantive policy changes.

This is much more than an image problem. The very idea of what it means to be American is at stake. The United States is a country that as a matter of policy (and in the name of freedom) "renders" people to regimes that specialize in the art of torture.

"How," asked Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, "can our State Department denounce countries for engaging in torture while the C.I.A. secretly transfers detainees to the very same countries for interrogation?"

Ms. Hughes said in March that she would do her best "to stand for what President Bush called the nonnegotiable demands of human dignity." Someone should tell her that there's not a lot of human dignity in the venues where torture is inflicted.

The U.S. would regain some of its own lost dignity if a truly independent commission were established to thoroughly investigate the interrogation and detention operations associated with the war on terror and the war in Iraq. A real investigation would be traumatic because it would expose behavior most Americans would never want associated with their country. But in the long run it would be extremely beneficial.(...)"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 05 - 05:21 PM

Editorial: Memorial Day/Praise bravery, seek forgiveness
May 30, 2005 ED0530
   
Nothing young Americans can do in life is more honorable than offering themselves for the defense of their nation. It requires great selflessness and sacrifice, and quite possibly the forfeiture of life itself. On Memorial Day 2005, we gather to remember all those who gave us that ultimate gift. Because they are so fresh in our minds, those who have died in Iraq make a special claim on our thoughts and our prayers.

In exchange for our uniformed young people's willingness to offer the gift of their lives, civilian Americans owe them something important: It is our duty to ensure that they never are called to make that sacrifice unless it is truly necessary for the security of the country. In the case of Iraq, the American public has failed them; we did not prevent the Bush administration from spending their blood in an unnecessary war based on contrived concerns about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Perhaps it happened because Americans, understandably, don't expect untruths from those in power. But that works better as an explanation than as an excuse.

The "smoking gun," as some call it, surfaced on May 1 in the London Times. It is a highly classified document containing the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting at 10 Downing Street in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair on talks he'd just held in Washington. His mission was to determine the Bush administration's intentions toward Iraq.

At a time when the White House was saying it had "no plans" for an invasion, the British document says Dearlove reported that there had been "a perceptible shift in attitude" in Washington. "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The (National Security Council) had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade.

Walter Pincus, writing in the Washington Post on May 22, provides further evidence that the administration did, indeed, fix the intelligence on Iraq to fit a policy it had already embraced: invasion and regime change. Just four days before Bush's State of the Union address in January 2003, Pincus writes, the National Security Council staff "put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims" about Saddam Hussein's WMD programs. The call went out because the NSC staff believed the case was weak. Moreover, Pincus says, "as the war approached, many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs." But no one at high ranks in the administration would listen to them.

On the day before Bush's speech, the CIA's Berlin station chief warned that the source for some of what Bush would say was untrustworthy. Bush said it anyway. He based part of his most important annual speech to the American people on a single, dubious, unnamed source. The source was later found to have fabricated his information." ...

Excerpted from this article


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 30 May 05 - 11:47 PM

"No federal judge can be confirmed without a vote in the Senate. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. If only 41 of the 50 Democratic Senators stand up to Bush and his Supremes and say that they will not approve a single judge appointed by him until a President can be democratically elected in 2004, the judicial reign of terror can end....and one day we can hope to return to the rule of law."

Found this on the net. No wonder Bush wants to end the chance of a filibuster.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 02:05 AM

From today's Times, on "Lies and Truth":

"When he accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1968, Richard Nixon said, "Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth - to see it as it is, and tell it like it is - to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth."


We've now learned, thanks to Vanity Fair, that a former top F.B.I. official, W. Mark Felt, was the legendary confidential source Deep Throat. I can't think of a better time to resurrect the Watergate saga.

The trauma of Watergate, which brought down a president who seemed pathologically compelled to deceive, came toward the end of that extended exercise in governmental folly and deceit, Vietnam. Taken together, these two disasters, both of which shook the nation, provided a case study in how citizens should view their government: with extreme skepticism.

Trust, said Ronald Reagan, but verify.

Now, with George W. Bush in charge, the nation is mired in yet another tragic period marked by incompetence, duplicity, bad faith and outright lies coming once again from the very top of the government. Just last month we had the disclosure of a previously secret British government memorandum that offered further confirmation that the American public and the world were spoon-fed bogus information by the Bush administration in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

President Bush, as we know, wanted to remove Saddam Hussein through military action. With that in mind, the memo damningly explained, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

That's the kind of deceit that was in play as American men and women were suiting up and marching off to combat at the president's command. Mr. Bush wanted war, and he got it. Many thousands have died as a result.

Even in Afghanistan, where the U.S. had legitimate reasons for going to war, the lies have been legion. Pat Tillman, for example, was a popular N.F.L. player who, in a burst of patriotism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers. He was sent first to Iraq, and then to Afghanistan, where he was shot to death by members of his own unit who mistook him for the enemy.

Instead of disclosing that Corporal Tillman had died tragically in a friendly fire incident, the Army spun a phony tale of heroism for his family and the nation. According to the Army, Corporal Tillman had been killed by enemy fire as he stormed a hill. Soldiers who knew the truth were ordered to keep quiet about the matter. Corporal Tillman's family was not told how he really died until after a nationally televised memorial service that recruiters viewed as a public relations bonanza.

Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's mother, told The Washington Post:

"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

At a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush, speaking about detainees who had complained of being abused, said they were "people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble - that means not tell the truth." Mr. Bush meant, of course, to say dissemble, which really means to deliberately mislead or conceal. Nevertheless, he knew what he was talking about. The president may have stumbled over the pronunciation, but he's proved time and again that he's a skillful practitioner of the art.

The lessons of Watergate and Vietnam are that the checks and balances embedded in the national government by the founding fathers (and which the Bush administration is trying mightily to destroy) are absolutely crucial if American-style democracy is to survive, and that a truly free and unfettered press (which the Bush administration is trying mightily to intimidate) is as important now as it's ever been.

There you have it in a nutshell. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, drunk with power and insufficiently restrained, took the nation on hair-raising journeys that were as unnecessary as they were destructive. Now, in the first years of the 21st century, George W. Bush is doing the same."...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jun 05 - 09:56 PM

Congressman Conyers will be hyolding a hearing concernign the lying that is evidenced by the contents of the Downing Street memo.

From an e-mail supporting this investigation:

..."The Downing Street Memo is the "smoking gun" for those still searching for one indicting President Bush and his administration for high crimes and misdemeanors of the most serious and deadly kind. Its authenticity has not been disputed by either the British or U.S. governments since it was made public by the Times of London on May 1, 2005. While largely ignored for nearly a month by most of the corporate media here, it has now made its way into some news outlets. Rep. John Conyers and 88 other members of Congress have demanded an explanation from the White House.

The memo is a document containing minutes transcribed during a meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair, members of his cabinet and other top military and security officials, on July 23, 2002. The head of British foreign intelligence (MI 6), Richard Dearlove, identified in the memo as "C," had just returned from a meeting with the U.S. National Security Council in Washington.

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

The key phrase here is, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It makes clear beyond question that the Bush administration had set the course for war on Iraq at least eight months before the U.S./British invasion.

In recent days, additional leaked British memos have confirmed the underlying information in the Downing Street Memo and further revealed that the Bush administration was making its plans to launch a war against Iraq and to find a basis to justify the illegal attack as early as March 2002. For instance a memo dated March 22, 2002, revealed that officials in the Blair government recognized that additional efforts would need to be made to justify the war since there was a lack of proof of connections between the Iraqi government and Al Qaida, and that the Iraqi government was not arming itself with weapons of mass destruction as the Bush Administration had claimed.

Now, more than 26 months after the invasion, 100,000 Iraqis have been killed (according to the British medical journal The Lancet) and Iraq is in chaos. Over 1,700 U.S. troops have been killed and tens of thousands have been maimed, suffering from serious wounds, injuries and illnesses, including enormous psychological trauma.

All this killing, dying and suffering is the result of a war justified by a deliberate campaign of unmitigated lies and deception knowingly carried out by Bush and his top associates - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz, et. al. All who remain in office should be removed and face trial for their war crimes. It is worth noting that the most serious category of war crimes is the Crime Against Peace; that is, planning and carrying out a war of aggression against another state which poses no threat to the aggressor state.
" ...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 10:50 PM

WASHINGTON - Congress should conduct an official inquiry to determine whether President Bush intentionally misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein, a senior House Democrat suggested Thursday.

advertisement

New York Rep. Charles Rangel was among Democratic House members who participated in a forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq.

"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," said Rangel, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. John Conyers and other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee organized the forum to investigate implications in a British document known as the "Downing Street memo." The memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.

From MSN....6-16-05

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 10:57 PM

New "Downing Street" memos keep popping up. In recent days, several confidential memos written by senior officials in Tony Blair's government in March 2002 have garnered attention. (AfterDowningStreet.org has all of them posted.) These records--first obtained by Michael Smith, a British journalist formerly working at the Daily Telegraph and now with the Sunday Times of London--provide more evidence that Bush's case for war was less than convincing for his number-one ally. They also illustrate the hubris that drove Blair in his wartime partnership with George W. Bush.

The first and now infamous Downing Street memo chronicled a high-level briefing for Blair that occurred in July 2003, during which the head of British intelligence said Bush was already committed to war and intelligence and facts were being "fixed around the policy" and during which Foreign Minister Jack Straw reported the WMD case for war was "thin." (See my previous column on the memo.) Months before this secret meeting, British officials were already sharing similar sentiments among themselves (not with the public, of course). In a March 22, 2002, memo for Straw, Peter Ricketts, political director of Britain's foreign service, noted that "even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or [chemical weapons/biological weapons] fronts." He also reported that the "US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Aaida [sic] is so far frankly unconvincing."

A March 8, 2002, options paper prepared by Blair's national security aides noted that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was "effectively frozen," its missile program "severely restricted," and its chemical and biological weapons programs "hindered." Saddam Hussein, it reported, "has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbors." This paper also said the intelligence on Iraq's supposed WMD program was "poor." It noted that there was no "recent evidence" of Iraqi ties to al Qaeda.

All of this contradicts what Bush told Americans before the invasion of Iraq. He and his aides claimed that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program, that Hussein was producing and stockpiling biological and chemical weapons, that Baghdad was in cahoots with al Qaeda, and that the intelligence obtained by the United States and other governments (presumably including the Brits) left "no doubt" that Iraq posed a direct WMD threat to the United States.

The British memos are further evidence that Bush overstated the main reasons for the war. They also show that his key line of defense is bunk. When confronted with questions about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush and his allies have consistently pointed to bad intelligence. But the previously released Downing Street memos and the new ones indicate that the Brits--who had access to the prewar intelligence--saw that the WMD case (based on that intelligence) was, as Jack Straw observed, weak. One might ask, why did they have such a different take than the one Bush shared with the public?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 11:03 PM

This is a small excerpt from extensive notes on the Downing Street hearings, whihc were published at www.bradblog.com by somoene who was there taking notes:

"As there are many who were unable to follow the hearings live and given the historic importance of them, I am making my raw notes -- essentially live blogged, but not posted during the hearings -- available here right away...Please note that these are raw notes, not necessarily quotes even if some of them are in quotes. I did try and type as closely as I could to what was being said however.

Hopefully this will give those of you unable to listen live, an idea of these EXTRAORDINARY hearings which were chaired by Congressman John Conyers' and just adjourned in the 15' by 30' room in the basement of the Capitol Building!...Simply extraordinary hearings...

(The hearing will re-air on C-SPAN 2 tonight, Thursday, at 8pm ET, and late-night at 1:56am on C-SPAN 1 at 1:56am Friday "morning", And again on Friday at 8pm ET)...

Complete Audio now posted, courtesy of BRAD BLOG secret weapon, David Edwards!
- Streaming RealAudio
- Mirrored Streaming RealAudio

We will try to get the prepared testimony from the witnesses as soon as we can...

Though the hearings were remarkable, we don't believe they were the cause for 4.9 earthquake we experienced here in Los Angeles during the hearings (we're fine, but the ground did shake)...

PRESENT (Members joined throughout the hearings): Conyers, Maxine Waters (CA), Barney Frank (MA), Jim Moran, John Tierney (MA), Shiela Jackson Lee, McDermott, Maurice Hinchy (NY), Barbara Lee, Charles Rangel (NY), Zoe Lofgren (CA), Jerry Nadler (NY), Wexler (FL), Watson, Woolsley, Jay Ensley (WA), Jan Shackowski (IL), Markey, Kaplin (OH?), Corrine Brown (FL), Mccullam, Baldwin, Van Holland (MD), Don Paine, DiSolice, DiFazzio, George Miller, Gregory Meeks (NY), Rush Holt (NJ)

AMB. JOE WILSON (first to testify)

"The work I do is on behalf of America, not Republicans, not Democrsts, but Americans" (paraphrased)

"My wife did not have anything to do with my being hired for this job" (paraphrased)

"There is no reason to believe our departure from Iraq, or our departure five years from now will effect [the ongoing violence]"


CINDY SHEEHAN (second to testify): NOTE: Ms. Sheehan will be a guest on this weekend's BRAD SHOW, Saturday 7p - 11p ET
Son killed in Saddar City, Baghdad, on 04/04/04
(Just 11 Days after Bush's "No weapons under there" jokes, according to Ray McGovern later)

"This aggression on Iraq was based on a lie of historic proportions."

Quotes Mickey Hersowitz, Bush's original ghostwriter on his autobiography: "If I have a change to invade...political capital..."

"Seems my boy was given a death sentence before he even joined the Armed Services in May of 2000."

Coming home in flag-draped coffins, images, as if they are ashamed of our children, that our leaders won't even let them see.

Reads letter from a guy who's brother had hung himself with a garden hose after returning from Iraq.

"Casey (her son) and his buddies have been killed to line the pockets of already wealthy people"

An investigation into the DSM is completely warranted...to hold someone accountable for the many deaths that have occurred...I don't care if it's Democrats or Republicans.

The innocents being killed don't care what political party this is about.

How many more families with members in Iraq will get visits from the grim reaper in military uniforms informing them their children have been killed?

CALLED HER SON'S DEATH: "Pre-meditated Death"

"PLEASE hold someone accountable."

"I hope this is the first step in bringing the lies to the light and bringing justice to those who can no longer speak for themselves."


27-YEAR CIA ANALYST, RAY MCGOVERN (third to testify):
NOTE: Mr. McGovern was a guest on last weekend's BRAD SHOW. Archives are available at that link.

Shows video of Powell and Rice prior to 9/11 saying that Saddam was "contained" and not a threat.

Thanks the whistleblowers who released the Downing Street documents.

The V.P. (?) said "We now know that Saddam has weapons...we have testimony including from Saddam's son-in-law."... This is a lie. You can read it in his testimony that he said "all WMD were destroyed."


CONSTITUTIONAL ATTY, JOHN BONIFAZ: (last to testify)
NOTE: Mr. Bonifaz was a guest on BRAD SHOW two weeks ago. The archives for part of that interview are available. Some of interview lost in archives due to a technical problem..


Bush Letter to congress just days after launch of war:
"Military action against Iraq was necessary to protect U.S. against continuing threat against U.S. posed by Iraq...and to deal with attacks against U.S. on September 11th, 2001"

That was not true.

"If the President of the United States has committed High Crimes, he must be held accountable. The Constitution demands no less."


FROM THE Q&A SESSION:

MCGOVERN: Attorneys said that "Regime change is not a legal basis for war"

BONIFAZ: "The question is whether the President subverted the Constitution"

MAXINE WATERS: "V.P. Cheney made visits to CIA and it appears that it was more than one visit. We have been watching a VP who has done any number of things...he's the former CEO of Halliburton...has had a hand in no bid contracts... Appears to not be concerned about what the American public thinks about this and these documents...There's been a manipulation of intelligence information...that they had to make the intelligence fit the conclusion that they were indeed going to invade Iraq. Is there anything else we should know about what the V.P. did?"

MCGOVERN: "Many people have asked me about this. If it's unusual for a sitting Vice-Predident to make such visits to the CIA. It's not unusual, it's unprecedented!" I was there for 27 years, not once, even when George H.W. Bush was sitting President, did a sitting V.P. come on a working visit to CIA headquarters. He came at least 9 times...It's incredible that that should be happening."

On Tenet being present when V.P. spoke to analyists: "this is the real outrage. The head of an agency needs to protect his people from this kind of pressure from outside influence...How can that be done when their boss is standing right over there shoulder?

"here's your Director standing over your shoulder...if this doesn't have an effect ...The management of the CIA has been so corrupted, so politicized, there's a real question...In my mind on whether the agency can come up with anything reliable when it's already known what the Administration wants to hear."

Sadly, the pressure worked. Most of the people have now left, and the type of people who would bend to this kind of politicization are left.

BARNEY FRANK: "Some in the administration have said 'big deal, we already knew that'...Well if we knew that, why the hell didn't they do something about it?"

BONIFAZ: "'Democracy' as a reason for war, was not submitted to Congress in the letter that Bush submitted" (Only after WMD began to not be found was 'Democracy' used as a reason for the invasion).

MCGOVERN: By September 2002, hundreds of tons of bombs had already been dropped. The war had already started.

SHIELA JACKSON LEE: "This war has shown the highest number, percentage-wise, of suicides...Makes an "official apology to Sheehan"..."I want to apologize on behalf of the institutions of this nations, on behalf of the Senate and the House and if I can extend on behalf of the executive branch....to apologize for what happened...believes the nation owes you and the families of those who went to serve on the front lines an apology.

BONIFAZ: "This idea of preemption has no basis in International Law...This was a problem that the British Lawyers had...You have to have an iminent threat and prove that somebody is about to attack you...[The war] is illegal and that's something the American people need to understand."

WILSON: "Our obligation is to ensure we have not sent them over there to die under false pretenses in our name"

BONIFAZ: "On preemptive war doctrine. The prez announced..and when he did so...By it's own terminology, the preemptive doctrine requires proof that there is something to preempt! Which is why the DSM documents are so important."

JIM MORAN: "What do you think was the real reason for going to war?

MAXINE WATERS: "OUT OF IRAQ" Congressional Caucus has now been established. Pelosi's Amendment to ask for an exit strategy by Bush being voted on RIGHT NOW.

CHARLES RANGEL: Can't thank this panel enough. "I have sat through two impeachments...quite frankly, the evidence that appears to be building up on whether a Prez has deliberately mislead the congress...on the most important decisions a Prez can ever make...whether to place American lives in harms way...Having not heard all the testimony in these Historic Hearings...Has anyone testified whether the case is sufficient to start an official Inquiry into whether or not the proof was sufficient to go to war?"

BONIFAZ: "Yes, we have at AfterDowningSTreet.org...All we're asking at this point is for answers to these questions. To know the truth whether or not the Prez. Engaged in a deliberate campaign to deceive...If that's all it was after an investigation, a failure of intelligence, then so be it...But if the memo from Richard Dearlove was accurate, then we all deserve to know the truth about whether the Prez deliberately lied...we owe it to the people of the united States to find out."

MAURICE HINCHEY: All of us in the entire nation owes all of you a deep debt of gratitude...The idea that tht Prez lied to the American people in regard to war...What's being done today is incredibly important and I'm deeply indebted to you, Mr. Conyers for making it happen....The fact that we're in a tiny room dicussing this, indicates how irresponsible this Congress is...Congress has abrogated its responsibility completely to oversee this Administration...It's unfortunate but today in Washington we have a Monolithic government, we do not have the checks and balances required...Seems to me this policy has made us LESS secure...Despite Tenet saying "Yes, it's a slam dunk Mr. President, we'll get the information you're looking for"...Senate Intelligence committee said they were going to complete that report earlier this year...They haven't."

---

Of course, there is much more.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 11:33 PM

>Source:
>
>Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse
>
>Likely A Controlled Demolition & An 'INSIDE JOB'
>
>Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts
>official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts & evidence cover-up indicate
>government foul play & possible criminal implications.
>June 12, 2005 | By Greg Szymanski
>
>A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush's
>first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is
>'bogus,' saying it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the
>Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.
>
>"If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center
>on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on
>America would be compelling," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member of
>the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at
>the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.
>
>Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes
>it's 'next to impossible' that 19 Arab Terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty
>U.S. military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may
>hold the key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9/11.
>
>"It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the
>cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7," said Reynolds
>this week from his offices at Texas A&M. "If the official wisdom on the
>collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous
>engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's
>collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional
>demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with
>the collapse of the three buildings.
>
>"More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow
>if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC.
>Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers
>everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right."
>
>However, Reynolds said "getting it right in today's security state' remains
>challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been
>intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11.
>
>From the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel
>caused the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators
>have disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government
>theory since most of the evidence was removed by FEMA prior to independent
>investigation.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 06:54 PM

From the Xian Science Minotaur:

Is 'Downing Street Memo' a smoking gun?

Bush critics say it shows he lied to Americans about Iraq, but others say memo offers nothing new.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and some media outlets, dismiss its importance, but the so-called 'Downing Street Memo' seems to be gathering increasing public attention.
Thursday senior Democrats held a public forum on Capitol Hill and called "for a full investigation into a memo that appears to accuse [Mr. Bush] of misleading Americans into backing the war with Iraq," as the CBC reports.

The memo [see it here] is based on a briefing given to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top security advisers in July 2002, eight months before the war. Labelled "top secret," the memo summarizes a report from Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of British intelligence, who had just met senior Bush officials in Washington.
The memo says: "Military action was now seen as inevitable." That "Terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]" would be used to justify the war. But, the memo says, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Los Angeles Times editorial and opinion editor Michael Kinsley writes that the memo "is not proof that Bush had decided on war."

Of course, if "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," rather than vice versa, that is pretty good evidence of Bush's intentions, as well as a scandal in its own right. And we know now that this was true. Fixing intelligence and facts to fit a desired policy is the Bush II governing style, especially concerning the Iraq war. But [Sir Richard Dearlove] offered no specifics, or none that made it into the memo. Nor does the memo assert that actual decision-makers told him they were fixing the facts. Although the prose is not exactly crystalline, it seems to be saying only that "Washington" had reached that conclusion.

But Joe Conason of Salon.com writes that Kinsley's response to the memo is just more proof that "the leading lights of the Washington press corps are more embarrassed than the White House is by the revelations in the Downing Street memo."

'Mooing in plaintive chorus, the Beltway herd insists that the July 23, 2002, memo wasn't news -- which would be true if the absence of news were defined only by their refusal to report it.'

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 07:44 PM

From MoveOn.org:


Congressman John Conyers and other Democratic House members deliver more than 560,000 petitions to The White House.


Yesterday, Congressman John Conyers delivered 560,000 petition signatures to the White House—including more than 360,000 from MoveOn members—demanding that President Bush address smoking-gun evidence of deception in the Downing Street Memos.1

After holding nearly four hours of hearings about the Downing Street Memos on Capitol Hill, the Congressman went over to The White House accompanied by a dozen leading Democrats. They marched solemnly towards The White House gate as swarms of media clicked, filmed and shouted questions. As they approached the gate to White House grounds a lone, young Bush staffer met the delegation—he literally trembled when Conyers said they had come to deliver the signatures of 560,000 Americans demanding the truth about Iraq. The White House staff refused Conyers entrance to see the president but accepted the petitions.

MoveOn members made a huge difference here—shooting up the number of petition signers at a critical time in the drive to bring attention to the Downing Street Memos.

And thanks in part to your pressure and Congressman Conyers' high profile hearings andpetition delivery, the media has finally begun to cover the scandalous Downing Street Memos—we counted 1,600 news stories in Google today. The Seattle Times, Denver Post, Boston Globe, CNN, ABC and hundreds of other media outlets have been forced to report on the memos.2

Howard Kurtz, media columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about the surging coverage of the Downing Street Memos, noting that:


A wide range of critics, including the ombudsmen of the NYT and WP, says the press bobbled the ball on the Downing Street Memo. The memo may not be the slam-dunk about the Bush administration fixing intelligence that its supporters believe—the British author cites no specifics as proof—but it was a newsworthy and provocative development, as the press is belatedly realizing.3


Now the press is taking notice because they couldn't ignore it anymore.

---

Sources:

1. "Bush pressed to answer 'Downing Street Memo' questions," Associated Press, June 16, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=750

2. Google News search for 'Downing Street Memo'
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=751

3. "Backlash on the Left," The Washington Post, June 15, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=752

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 09:26 AM

From Bob Herbert's current Op Ed in the New York Times:

Someone Else's Child

By BOB HERBERT
Published: June 20, 2005

It has become clearer than ever that Americans do not want to fight George W. Bush's tragically misguided war in Iraq.

You can still find plenty of folks arguing that we have to stay the course, or even raise the stakes by sending more troops to the war zone. But from the very start of this war the loudest of the flag-waving hawks were those who were safely beyond military age themselves and were unwilling to send their own children off to fight.

It's easy to be macho when you have nothing at risk. The hawks want the war to be fought with other people's children, while their own children go safely off to college, or to the mall. The number of influential American officials who have children in uniform in Iraq is minuscule.

Most Americans want no part of Mr. Bush's war, which is why Army recruiters are failing so miserably at meeting their monthly enlistment quotas. Desperate, the Army is lowering its standards, shortening tours, increasing bonuses and violating its own recruitment regulations and ethical guidelines.

Americans do not want to fight this war.

Times Square in Midtown Manhattan is the most heavily traveled intersection in the country. It was mobbed on V-E Day in May 1945 and was the scene of Alfred Eisenstaedt's legendary photo of a sailor passionately kissing a nurse on V-J Day the following August. There is currently an armed forces recruiting station in Times Square, but it's a pretty lonely outpost. An officer on duty one afternoon last week said no one had come in all day.

Vince Morrow, a 10th grader from Allentown, Pa., was interviewed across the street from the recruiting station, on Broadway. He said he had once planned to join the military after graduating from high school, but had changed his mind. "It's the war," he said. "Going over and never coming back. Before the war you'd just go to different places and help people. Now you go over there and you fight."

His mother, Michelle, said: "I'd like to see him around awhile. It was different before the war. It's the fear of not coming home. Our other son just graduated Saturday and he was planning to go into the Air Force. They told him college was included and made him all kinds of promises. They almost made him sign papers before we had decided. We thought about it and researched it and decided against it." ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 05 - 09:42 AM

THERE is a way to get beyond the religious morass created by President Bush's position on embryonic stem cells.

Most scientists agree that while adult stem cells offer hope of a cure for some of the cruelest diseases and injuries, embryonic stem cells hold even greater and surer promise. As a result, while most scientists welcomed Mr. Bush's August 2001 offer of government resources to advance adult stem cell research, they and millions of other Americans were sorely disappointed by his refusal to consider retrieving any stem cells from the many thousands of unused embryos awaiting destruction. To most scientists, his compromise restricting federal financing only to research that used the 20 or so embryonic stem cell lines that had already been developed was politically clever but insufficient, not least because most of those cell lines are of limited and uncertain potential.

Skip to next paragraph

Forum: Op-Ed Contributors
Mr. Bush does not deny the greater potential of embryonic stem cells: he says his decision was compelled by his belief that retrieving stem cells from the embryo destroys it, thereby resulting in the killing of a human being that cannot be justified no matter how vast the potential benefits.

The president did not claim his conclusion was based on biomedical science. He said only that it was an expression of his religious faith. Asked in March 2004 about the stem cell issue, his science adviser, Dr. John H. Marburger III (who headed a fact-finding commission on the Shoreham nuclear plant in 1983 when I was governor), said: "I can't tell when a fertilized egg becomes sacred," and added, "That's not a science issue."

No doubt the president's belief that human life begins with fertilization is shared by millions of Americans, including many Christians and evangelists. But it remains a minority view and one that the president applies inconsistently. Although Mr. Bush believes that destroying an embryo is murder, he refuses to demand legislation to stop commercial interests that are busily destroying embryos in order to obtain stem cells. If their conduct amounts to murder as the president contends, it is hardly satisfactory for him to say he will do nothing to stop the evil act other than to refuse to pay for it.

However well the president has negotiated the political shoals, he has produced a moral and intellectual mishmash that has failed to dissuade Congress from going further than he has in advancing stem cell research.

Excerpted from this editorial.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 07:45 AM

Senate stymies Bush on second UN envoy vote

Staff and agencies
Tuesday June 21, 2005 The Guardian

The White House attempt to push through the confirmation of its controversial choice of John Bolton as UN ambassador was blocked yesterday for the second time by Democrats in the Senate.
The vote left President George Bush facing difficult choices about how to proceed, with analysts saying it could leave him appearing weak when his popularity is falling in the opinion polls.

Mr Bush left open the possibility of appointing the outspoken hawk temporarily during a recess. A so-called recess appointment would only last through the next one-year session of Congress - in Mr Bolton's case until January 2007.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 08:58 AM

From the Washignton Post, excerpted:

How Cheney Fooled Himself

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page A21

President Bush planted the seeds of the destruction of his Iraq policy before the war started. Salvaging the venture will require an unprecedented degree of candor and realism from a White House that was never willing to admit -- even to itself -- how large an undertaking it was asking the American people to buy into.

The notion that the president led the country into war through indirection or dishonesty is not the most damaging criticism of the administration. The worst possibility is that the president and his advisers believed their own propaganda. They did not prepare the American people for an arduous struggle because they honestly didn't expect one.


How else to explain the fact that the president and his lieutenants consistently played down the costs of the endeavor, the number of troops required, the difficulties of overcoming tensions among the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds? Were they lying? The more logical explanation is that they didn't know what they were talking about.

Because the White House failed to prepare Americans for what was to come, the administration now faces a backlash. Over the weekend Bush said that the terrorists in Iraq were seeking to "weaken our nation's resolve." But the rising impatience about which Bush complains is a direct result of the administration's blithe dismissal of those who warned just how tough the going could get.

The assertion of the "Downing Street Memo" that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of invasion has understandably become a rallying point for the war's opponents. But in some ways more devastating are other recently disclosed documents in which British officials warned that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." The British worried at the time that "U.S. military plans are virtually silent" on the fact that "a postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise."

The most damaging document supporting this claim is not secret, and remains one of the most important artifacts of the prewar debate. It is the transcript of "Meet the Press" from March 16, 2003, in which Vice President Cheney gave voice to the administration's optimistic assumptions that have now been laid low by reality.

Host Tim Russert asked whether "we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there" in Iraq "for several years in order to maintain stability." Cheney replied: "I disagree." He wouldn't say how many troops were needed, but he added that "to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement."

Russert asked: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?"

Cheney would have none of it. "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. . . . The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want [is to] get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."

Russert: "And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy?"

Cheney: "They have so far." And the vice president concluded: "I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world."

Was Cheney disguising the war's costs for political purposes? It's more likely that he believed every word he said. That suggests that the administration was not misleading the American people nearly so much as it was misleading itself.

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska says in the current issue of U.S. News & World Report that "the White House is completely disconnected from reality" and that "it's like they're just making it up as they go along." Unfortunately, the evidence of the past suggests that Hagel's acerbic formulation may be exactly right. Those who still see the invasion of Iraq as a noble mission don't need to protect the policy from the war's critics. They need to rescue it from its architects. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 05 - 11:54 AM

Today's NY Times offers a tough editorial on Bush's hunger for the atrocities of war:

"America's founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That's why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion.


But after 9/11 President Bush, with obvious relish, declared himself a "war president." And he kept the nation focused on martial matters by morphing the pursuit of Al Qaeda into a war against Saddam Hussein.

In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war" - but she made it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.

Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.

Let me talk briefly about what we now know about the decision to invade Iraq, then focus on why it matters.

The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.

And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. But they're wrong: it's crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.

Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.

On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.

We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jun 05 - 11:38 PM

When the attacks of 9/11 occurred, the president finally found a black and white issue to focus all his energies on, and this struck a chord with the electorate.

But now that several years have passed since the attack, and Mr. Bush is finally spending time talking about other things, his true colors are showing again: he is tragically short-sighted and out of touch with what matters to most Americans.

Jeff Solomon
Cambridge, Mass., June 22, 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 01:05 AM

From the current Borowitz Report:

BUSH PROPOSES CHARGING AXIS OF EVIL NATIONS ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES
'The Free Ride is Over,' Says President
Looking for new ways to slash the mounting federal budget deficit, President George W. Bush today proposed charging Iran and North Korea annual dues for their membership in the Axis of Evil.

The president's plan, which took many in Congress and in the diplomatic community by surprise, would put responsibility for the rising costs of military spending, Social Security and other government programs squarely on the shoulders of America's two most despised enemies.

President Bush made the proposal in a speech in Flint, Michigan, telling his audience that for Iran and North Korea, both members of the Axis of Evil since 2001, "the free ride is over."

"Iran and North Korea have enjoyed all the benefits of Axis of Evil membership without paying a dime for them," said Mr. Bush. "Well, if they think that state of affairs can continue forever, they are sorely mistaken."

While Mr. Bush stopped short of naming an exact figure for annual membership in the Axis of Evil, he warned the two nations, "Membership in the most exclusive evil club in the world does not come cheap."
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jun 05 - 11:31 AM

How does one resist the Bush Regime's blatant disregard for national sovereignty, individual freedoms, and constitutional laws protecting each American's right to a fair election?


Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Francis Boyle, Professor of Law, have both drafted an "Impeachment Resolution Against President George W. Bush" while Ralph Nader and Kevin Zeese argue in the Boston Globe that "THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, should be part of mainstream political discourse." John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, in "Unmasking a CIA Agent is Bad, Lying to Congress Worse. With Each US Death in Iraq, the Case Against the President Grows Stronger" writes:

Now that the U.S. government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq has, in effect, confirmed an obvious truth -- that President George W. Bush and his closest advisers promoted a non-existent nuclear and chemical weapons threat from Iraq to justify a war -- an obvious question presents itself: Why aren't Americans talking seriously about impeachment?

After all, Mr. Bush now stands plausibly accused of the lofty crime of subverting the Constitution of the United States -- that is, lying to Congress about an imminent danger to the American people in order to collect enough votes to authorize his corporate/imperial project in Iraq. (Globe & Mail (Canada), Thursday, October 9, 2003.)
The Green Party called for the impeachment of the Bush Regime on the last day of its National Convention in 2003, citing as evidence a "pattern of making false statements to Congress, the American people, and the world to win support for actions by the American government and military forces" in violation of the Constitution of the United States, Charter of the United Nations, and other international laws; "[s]quandering the resources of the American people to serve the interests of transnational corporations;" and "war crimes, including the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs in the preemptive invasion of Iraq." (http://www.gp.org/press/pr_07_21_03.html.)

In his book Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, John W. Dean, Counsel to President Richard Nixon, describes the impeachable offenses that should be levied against the Bush Regime, especially against the president and vice president. The "high crimes and misdemeanors" for which Bush et al. may be impeached and removed from office include 1) lies to justify the War in Iraq, 2) leaking the name of a CIA operative.

Among the list of growing offenses, these are the most prominent: 3) Ohio election fraud, 4) authorizing the torture of prisoners, 5) the Downing Street Memo, 6) illegal wiretaps of UN diplomats, 7) authorizing the kidnapping of "terror" suspects, 8) depriving citizens of First Amendment rights during the 2004 campaign and during his so-called town-hall meetings, 9) using federal tax-dollars to plant stories in the press, and 10) transferring $700 million from the Afghanistan war budget to preparations for the Iraq war.

These "alleged" offenses are sufficient evidence that a comprehensive resolution of impeachment should be drawn and introduced to Congress. Whether or not impeachment proceedings will be enacted by this Congress is not the issue. The mid-term elections are the issue. Howard Dean, as the Chairman of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), has the opportunity to take back the House and the Senate, if he and his party can develop a platform that will appeal to the populace. Since the Bush Regime's approval ratings are low -- due to the aforementioned high crimes and misdemeanors -- Dean should make impeachment the DNC's rallying cry!

Shifting the balance in Congress, so that Democrats have even a slim majority will be enough to ensure that an impeachment resolution is passed. Giving the American public that opportunity should be Dean's and the DNC's primary goal. In order to remove the Bush Regime ASAP, American voters must, first, take back the Congress from the Republican "yes men" who have allowed these crimes to go unchallenged; second, demand that the 110th Congress impeach the bastards!

http://www.swans.com/library/art11/gsmith50.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 05 - 12:38 AM

A Glide Path to Ruin

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: June 26, 2005
The biggest risk we Americans face to our way of life and our place in the world probably doesn't come from Al Qaeda or the Iraq war.

Rather, the biggest risk may come from this administration's fiscal recklessness and the way this is putting us in hock to China.


"I think the greatest threat to our future is our fiscal irresponsibility," warns David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States. Mr. Walker, an accountant by training, asserts that last year may have been the most fiscally reckless in the history of our Republic. Aside from the budget deficit, Congress enacted the prescription drug benefit - possibly an $8 trillion obligation - without figuring out how to pay for it.

Mr. Walker, America's watchdog in chief and head of the Government Accountability Office, is no Bush-basher. He started out his career as a conservative Democrat, then became a moderate Republican and has been an independent since 1997.

Now he's running around with his hair on fire, shrieking about America's finances. Well, as much as any accountant ever shrieks.

I asked Mr. Walker about Paul Volcker's warning that within five years we face a 75 percent chance of a serious financial crisis.

"If we don't get serious soon," Mr. Walker replied, "it's not a question of whether it'll come, but when and how serious."

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist, says he is also "very worried."

"I find it very difficult to know how to put a number" on the probability of a crisis, he added, "but there's a widespread sense in the market that there is a substantial chance."

Another issue is that three-fourths of our new debt is now being purchased by foreigners, with China the biggest buyer of all. That gives China leverage over us, and it undermines our national security.

On fiscal matters both parties have much to be ashamed of, but Republicans should be particularly embarrassed at their tumble. Traditionally, Republicans were prudent, while Democrats held great parties. But these days, the Bush administration is managing America's finances like a team of drunken sailors, and most Republicans keep quiet in a way that betrays their conservative principles.

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, wrote a couple of years ago: "Republicans used to believe in balanced budgets. ... We have lost our way." He's right. (...)

---

See today's NY Times for balance of this editorial.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 05 - 12:40 AM

The Armstrong Williams NewsHour
(NY Times oped)
By FRANK RICH
Published: June 26, 2005

HERE'S the difference between this year's battle over public broadcasting and the one that blew up in Newt Gingrich's face a decade ago: this one isn't really about the survival of public broadcasting. So don't be distracted by any premature obituaries for Big Bird. Far from being an endangered species, he's the ornithological equivalent of a red herring.


Let's not forget that Laura Bush has made a fetish of glomming onto popular "Sesame Street" characters in photo-ops. Polls consistently attest to the popular support for public broadcasting, while Congress is in a race to the bottom with Michael Jackson. Big Bird will once again smite the politicians - as long as he isn't caught consorting with lesbians.

That doesn't mean the right's new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers' expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations - or thrilled to the "journalism" of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies - you'll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.

There's only one obstacle standing in the way of the coup. Like Richard Nixon, another president who tried to subvert public broadcasting in his war to silence critical news media, our current president may be letting hubris get the best of him. His minions are giving any investigative reporters left in Washington a fresh incentive to follow the money.

That money is not the $100 million that the House still threatens to hack out of public broadcasting's various budgets. Like the theoretical demise of Big Bird, this funding tug-of-war is a smoke screen that deflects attention from the real story. Look instead at the seemingly paltry $14,170 that, as Stephen Labaton of The New York Times reported on June 16, found its way to a mysterious recipient in Indiana named Fred Mann. Mr. Labaton learned that in 2004 Kenneth Tomlinson, the Karl Rove pal who is chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, clandestinely paid this sum to Mr. Mann to monitor his PBS bête noire, Bill Moyers's "Now."

Now, why would Mr. Tomlinson pay for information that any half-sentient viewer could track with TiVo? Why would he hire someone in Indiana? Why would he keep this contract a secret from his own board? Why, when a reporter exposed his secret, would he try to cover it up by falsely maintaining in a letter to an inquiring member of the Senate, Byron Dorgan, that another CPB executive had "approved and signed" the Mann contract when he had signed it himself? If there's a news story that can be likened to the "third-rate burglary," the canary in the coal mine that invited greater scrutiny of the Nixon administration's darkest ambitions, this strange little sideshow could be it.

After Mr. Labaton's first report, Senator Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, called Mr. Tomlinson demanding to see the "product" Mr. Mann had provided for his $14,170 payday. Mr. Tomlinson sent the senator some 50 pages of "raw data." Sifting through those pages when we spoke by phone last week, Mr. Dorgan said it wasn't merely Mr. Moyers's show that was monitored but also the programs of Tavis Smiley and NPR's Diane Rehm.

Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and "anti-administration" was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.

"It's pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it's pro or anti the president," Senator Dorgan said. "It's unbelievable."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 01:25 PM

From today's New York Times editorials:

In anger and embarrassment, Congressional Republicans are scrambling to repair a budget shortfall in veterans' medical care now that the Bush administration has admitted it vastly underestimated the number of returning Iraq and Afghanistan personnel needing treatment. The $1 billion-plus gaffe is considerable, with the original budget estimate of 23,553 returned veterans needing care this year now ballooning to 103,000. American taxpayers should be even more furious than Congress.

The Capitol's Republican majorities have shown no hesitation in signing the president's serial blank-check supplemental budgets for waging the war, yet they repeatedly ignored months of warnings from Democrats that returning veterans were being shortchanged. One Republican who warned of the problem - Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey - lost his chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee after pressing his plea too boldly before the House leadership.

But partisan resistance melted in a flood of political chagrin once the administration admitted the budget error, which was first discovered in April but only now disclosed. The explanation offered - the gaffe was due to using dated formulas based on prewar calculations - left Republicans sputtering all the more.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 04:21 PM

From a recent mail item written by John Kerry:

...I've never met a veteran who doesn't fly the flag on the 4th of July with pride in our country. I've never met an American who doesn't believe in the greatness of our country and the strength of our ideals.

But I've met a lot of Americans who fear the President has no plan to get it right in Iraq -- and they woke up this morning feeling the same way.

The President and the administration need to get their story straight about what is happening in Iraq -- and how they are going to get our mission back on track.

From their 24th different rationale for war, to the Vice President and Secretary Rumsfeld telling us the insurgency is in its "final throes" while last night President Bush said it is more dangerous than ever, Americans just want to hear the truth.

They want leadership equal to our soldiers' sacrifice, and they know we can't win if our leaders can't even agree on the facts. This is a time for leadership, and a time for responsible answers to difficult problems.

Yesterday, I laid out a 9 point plan to get it right in Iraq. Here are 3 steps the President can take this weekend to start getting it right in Iraq and ensure greater security for our troops.


1) The President heads to Europe this weekend. He needs to bring home more commitments from our allies to shore up Iraq's borders, invest more in reconstruction and do more training of Iraqi troops. A secure and stable Iraq is in the best interest of every nation across Europe and the Middle East.
2) Send a message across the Middle East that Iraq's neighbor countries must do more to stop the rise of terrorism in Iraq. We need countries like Saudi Arabia to keep their commitment to help pay for reconstruction efforts in Iraq so the Iraqi people get electricity, water and better roads.
We also need help from Iraq's neighbors in shoring up the borders so foreign fighters and terrorists can't get in and can't get out. The President needs to take his tough message to the region and enlist support for our mission. The best way to stop the growth of terrorism is by enlisting more Arab allies.
3) Truly honor our troops' sacrifices in Iraq by immediately covering the one billion dollar shortfall in funding for veterans care this year here at home and increasing funding for armor and necessary supplies for our troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Senator Byrd, Senator Murray, I and others have an amendment pending right now to address the critical funding shortage for veterans. The administration could send a powerful message about sacrifice and national unity if they act now to address this shortfall for the VA.

We need more than just words to get it right in Iraq. We need actions and focus and leadership. We saw what happened after 9/11, in the mountains of Tora Bora, when the administration took its eyes off the ball when it came to hunting down and capturing Osama Bin Laden. We can't afford to let the same thing happen in Iraq.

Our troops are depending on us and we can't let them down. It's time to bring the country together to get it right. No more excuses, no more spin, and no more dividing the country on partisan lines.

Americans have the resolve - we need action from the administration.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 12:51 AM

From the Washington Post:

Who's Listening to the President?
By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, July 1, 2005; Page A25

President Bush has shown that he can win an election by mobilizing his political base. But can he win a war that way?

The most striking poll findings after the president's speech to the nation on Tuesday concerned who watched Bush in the first place. According to a Gallup Poll for CNN and USA Today, 50 percent of those who chose to listen to Bush were Republican, 27 percent were independents and only 23 percent were Democrats.

Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief, said the usual party split in the country as a whole was about one-third for each party and a third independent -- a finding confirmed by five Gallup Polls conducted in June.

In other words, a large share of Bush's congregation belonged to the choir. Many Democrats don't want to listen to him.

Newport says the partisan skew in Bush's television audiences has been visible for most of his presidency; there was also a partisan slant to Bill Clinton's audiences, though it was less pronounced than Bush's.

But the most troubling finding for Bush may be an indirect indicator from the Gallup survey. Before the speech, Gallup's interviewers identified 933 people who said they intended to watch the president. The night Bush spoke, the pollsters reached 648 of these people -- but only about half of them, 323, actually tuned in. Newport's conclusion: "It just suggests to us that it ended up being a less compelling occasion for Americans than other occasions."

According to Nielsen Media Research, Bush's speech was watched by just over 23 million people in roughly 18 million households. As one marker, the season finale of "American Idol" drew 30.3 million viewers. True, the president picked a tough time to make his case. People have other things to do in the summer, and many no doubt watched or read the speech (or reports about it) later. Still, this was the smallest audience for any major Bush speech. The president's address announcing a new policy on stem cell research in August 2001, the previous low, drew 8 million more viewers.

Bush's supporters could argue that the lack of interest suggests that the Iraq war has yet to arouse passionate opposition. But the obverse is also true: There is very little enthusiasm for this war. Support or acquiescence might not survive much more than another year, less if there is a significant run of bad news.

There is also this: Democrats are no longer afraid to criticize Bush, as they were for much of the two years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Indeed, the reaction to the president's repeated mentions of the attacks underscored the dissipation of national unity over the past four years.

In the past, the mere mention of that galvanizing day would unify the country. Bush and his lieutenants gave it another shot, but his five mentions of Sept. 11 brought jeers, not cheers, from Democrats. "It shows the weak ground that they're on that they would mention the sacred ground of 9/11," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in an interview.

She was expressing a view held across her party, but she was also reflecting a critical political fact. Except for Bush's loyalists, Americans are increasingly inclined to view his Iraq policy as quite apart from the terrorist attacks. By using the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in a highly partisan way during his first term -- recall the role of Sept. 11 during last year's Republican National Convention -- Bush has squandered his ability to invoke the moment in a nonpartisan and patriotic way.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 12:49 AM

The Two Wars of the Worlds


By FRANK RICH
Published: July 3, 2005

ON the morning after George W. Bush spoke to the nation from Fort Bragg, Americans started marching off to Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds." Both halves of this double feature invoked 9/11, perfectly timed for this particular holiday. Ever since "Jaws," a movie set on the July Fourth weekend, broke box office records 30 summers ago, Independence Day has come to stand for terror as much as for freedom.

Decide for yourself if "War of the Worlds" is more terrifying than "Jaws." Either way, it's scarier than the president's speech. Yet the discrepancy between Mr. Spielberg's ability to whip up fear and Mr. Bush's inability isn't merely a matter of aesthetics. On Independence Day 2005, this terror gap is an ideal barometer for gauging the waning political power of a lame-duck president waging what increasingly looks like a lame-duck war.

As we saw on Tuesday night, doomsday isn't the surefire hit it used to be for Mr. Bush. Now that the rhetorical arsenal of W.M.D.'s and mushroom clouds is bare, he had little choice but to bring back that oldie but goodie, 9/11, as the specter of the doom that awaits us if we don't stay the course - his course - in Iraq. By the fifth time he did so, it was hard not to think of that legendary National Lampoon cover: "If you don't buy this magazine, we'll kill this dog."

Planned or not, the sepulchral silence of Mr. Bush's military audience was the perfect dazed response to what was literally a summer rerun. The president gave almost the identical televised address, albeit with four fewer 9/11 references, at the Army War College in Pennsylvania in May 2004. It's so tired that this time around even the normally sympathetic Drudge site gave higher billing to reviews of "War of the Worlds." Fewer TV viewers tuned in than for any prime-time speech in Mr. Bush's presidency. A good thing too, since so much of what he said was, as usual, at odds with reality. The president pledged to "prevent Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban" a full week after Newsweek and The New York Times reported on a new C.I.A. assessment that the war may be turning Iraq into an even more effective magnet and training ground for Islamic militants than Afghanistan was for Al Qaeda in the 1980's and 90's.

"War of the Worlds" makes as many references to 9/11 as Mr. Bush did. The alien attack on America is the work of sleeper cells; the garments of the dead rain down on those fleeing urban apocalypse; poignant fliers are posted for The Missing. There is also a sterling American military that rides to the rescue. Deep in the credits for "War of the Worlds" is a thank-you to the Department of Defense and some half-dozen actual units that participated in the movie, from the Virginia Army National Guard to a Marine battalion from Camp Pendleton, Calif. Indeed, Mr. Spielberg seems to have had markedly more success in recruiting extras for his film than the Pentagon has had of late in drumming up troops for Iraq.

That's not the only way that "War of the Worlds" shows up Mr. Bush. In not terribly coded dialogue, the film makes clear that its Americans know very well how to distinguish a war of choice like that in Iraq from a war of necessity, like that prompted by Al Qaeda's attack on America. Tim Robbins - who else? - pops up to declare that when aliens occupy a country, the "occupations always fail." Even Tom Cruise's doltish teenage screen son is writing a school report on "the French occupation of Algeria."

Mr. Spielberg's movie illuminates, too, how Mr. Bush has flubbed the basic storytelling essential to sustain public support for his Iraq adventure. The president has made a tic of hammering in melodramatic movie tropes: good vs. evil, you're with us or you're with the terrorists, "wanted dead or alive," "bring 'em on," "mission accomplished." When you relay a narrative in that style, the audience expects you to stick to the conventions of the genre; the story can end only with the cavalry charging in to win the big final battle. That's how Mr. Spielberg deploys his platoons, "Saving Private Ryan"-style, in "War of the Worlds." By contrast, Mr. Bush never marshaled the number of troops needed to guarantee Iraq's security and protect its borders; he has now defined "mission accomplished" down from concrete victory to the inchoate spreading of democracy. To start off sounding like Patton and end up parroting Woodrow Wilson is tantamount to ambushing an audience at a John Wayne movie with a final reel by Frank Capra.

Both Mr. Bush's critics and loyalists at times misunderstand where his failure leaves America now. The left frets too much that the public just doesn't get it - that it is bamboozled by the administration and won't see the light until it digests the Downing Street memo. But even if they couldn't bring themselves to vote for John Kerry, most Americans do get it. A majority of the country view the Iraq war as "not worth it" and going badly. They intuitively sense that as USA Today calculated on Friday, there have been more U.S. military deaths (roughly a third more) in the year since Iraq got its sovereignty than in the year before. Last week an ABC News/Washington Post survey also found that a majority now believe that the administration "intentionally misled" us into a war - or, in the words of the Downing Street memo, that the Bush administration "fixed" the intelligence to gin up the mission.

... (From the New York Times, this date)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 12:37 PM

If the speculation is right, what happens now? Will Karl Rove slink in disgrace from public life? Or will the president stand up and say that Karl Rove is a brilliant man whom the country owes much? What happens when a "brilliant" man goes outside the law?


MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case
    Editor & Publisher

    Saturday 02 July 2005

    "New York - Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name - and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

    Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.
"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

More Info

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 01:20 PM

Morally he should be prosecuted as any other leaker would be. Practically, dollars to doughnuts Bush will cover for him with clouds of empty, badly-turned rhetpric.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 03:30 PM

I still have hopes that the benighted PEOPLE will wake up and start wondering out loud if they have been had.

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

They have been had, but their having been had had more to do with their having and thinking they had to have, to the point where they had to have being had and raised no complaint as long as their having been had had no effect on the having they had to have.

If you see what I mean.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 05:44 PM

Before you two grab your lynching ropes, you might want to wait until the evidence the prosecutor has is released to the public and oes incriminate Karl Rove. You wouldn't want to hang an innocent man would you?

On second thought, if it's Karl Rove (or the big guy himself) you might!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 05:49 PM

"On second thought, if it's Karl Rove (or the big guy himself) you might!" DougR

And what would be your thoughts on that, Doug? "Outing" a covert CIA operative has been called treason; even when it is not called that, it still holds a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment and a hefty fine. If Karl Rove or "the big guy himself" outed her, what do you think should be the penalty?

Amos, there are some things that I know I know and some things that I don't know and some things I don't know that I don't know and some things that I don't know that I know and some things Halp!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 05:52 PM

From the New York Daily News -- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/
story/324790p-277605c.html

A liberal dose of facts, Rove
by Denis Hamill

When I first read Karl Rove's recent speech to the New York State
Conservative Party at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan, the liberal in
me wanted to get him some therapy.

But then the Brooklyn in me wanted to throw him a fair one.

Then I figured I should show some restraint before commenting.

My problem is that I'm a liberal from Brooklyn. Which means I turn
the other cheek. And then kick you in the unmentionables.

Rove's problem is that he doesn't know jack about "liberals" in the
very city where he delivered his punk speech that dishonored the
fallen of Ground Zero 3 miles south. As did President Bush's lame
"stay the course" pep talk to the nation on Tuesday night, for
recycling the same debunked lies trying to connect 9/11 to Iraq.

In the last presidential election, 75% of New York City, where nearly
3,000 people were murdered on 9/11, voted for a "liberal" named John
Kerry. They did this not because they thought it would be therapeutic
for the terrorists but because they resented the lies coming out of
this administration that had given up the search for Osama Bin Laden
for a bait-and-switch war on Iraq.

New Yorkers knew Bin Laden was the monster responsible for that act
of barbarism in our city, where almost every one of us - liberal,
conservative and otherwise - knew someone who'd been killed.

And so on Election Day, we who had trudged in the dust of our dead,
who had lived with the bagpipes and the funerals, and who were sick
of the lies out of the White House, marched to the polls to vote for
a liberal named John Kerry, a decorated war hero.

Last week, Rove visited this city and stood in the Sheraton and said,
"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare
indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In
the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the
might and power of the United States military against the Taliban."

Total crap.

Every single liberal and conservative I met in post-9/11 New York
City from Bayside to Bay Ridge supported the invasion of Afghanistan.

So I challenge Karl Rove to wear his ignorant words on a sandwich
board and parade them from the Sheraton Hotel down to Ground Zero and
let him sample some wimpy, liberal New York. The only therapy he'd be
offered would be physical therapy.

Rove brayed, "It was a time to summon our national will and brandish
steel."

Right. And so here in New York City volunteers from every political,
ethnic and socioeconomic walk of life descended on Ground Zero to
brandish shovels, picks, acetylene torches and backhoes to dig for
the lost.

All over "liberal" New York citizens rushed to recruitment stations
and grown men and women were called up in the National Guard and
reserves.

And yet this rice cake in a suit has the audacity to stand at a
podium in this gutsy city and say, "I don't know about you, but
moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin
towers crumble to the ground."

No, what chicken hawk Rove, who avoided the draft during Vietnam, saw
was a Bush reelection campaign commercial.

And where did our fearless conservative leaders go on or after 9/11?

Let's see: Bush flew to Omaha! Cheney hid in a hole, like Saddam
Hussein. And Karl Rove cooked up a Bush campaign commercial visit to
Ground Zero three days after the attack, when the coast was clear.

A popular Republican named Arnold Schwarzenegger would label all that
as the actions of "girlie men."

I can tell you where Karl Rove didn't go: He didn't go to Ground Zero
to swing a steel pick. If he brandished a steel shovel at the
Pentagon, I missed it.

Warmongering Rove also didn't go to a recruitment station to grip the
steel stock of an M-16 before catching the next C-130 to Kabul. Or
later, Tikrit. Even though the war in Iraq is being fought by troops
the same age as Rove, who is 54. Which is the same age as a bus
driver from Brooklyn with six grandchildren I wrote about in this
space recently who spent the past year in Iraq as an Army reservist.

The only steel Karl Rove brandished since 9/11 has been King George's
bloody shilling.

So you can blow into town, the Pearl Harbor of the terror age, and
pop off about liberals being wimps, Mr. Rove. But to paraphrase
Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca," there are certain New York
neighborhoods I wouldn't advise you to invade.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 06:00 PM

In a more enlightened age, DougR, Rove's offenses would have been actionable long since.

As for hanging, I guess sometimes dealing in death wholesale means sometimes you have to confront the retail package as well. Rove has a lot of innocent blood on his hands.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 06:01 PM

Ebbie,

You obviously missed DougR's point. You are denying Rove the rights that you would want for yourself- to be considered innocent UNTIL the evidence is produced to show that one is guilty. IF he commited the crime, he should be punished to the full extent of the law- BUT if he did not, the lynching going on here and in the press is not justified. Just because you do not approve of someone's politics is no reason to to deny their rights to a fair trail.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 07:43 PM

I didn't miss Doug's point, bb. And I'm not denying Karl Rove anything. As you know, I'm not making this up out of whole cloth; there are people who should know out there who say it was Karl Rove. I agree absolutely with both of you (if that's what Doug was urging) that whoever outed the CIA agent must be brought to trial.

My own point went a step further. I said, IF it was either Rove or Bush, what would be Doug's response to it? I'm glad to know that YOU are on the side of the angels on this one. I'm waiting for HIS response.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 02:56 PM

not the angels, but justice and a fair application of the law of the land to all involved. Angels give forgiveness without punishment.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST, Ebbie
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 02:59 PM

Good one, bb.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:27 PM

Writing for The Nation, Eric Alterman offers these thoughts on the Bush Administration:

Cowboys and Eggheads

Eric Alterman

Liberal Democrats today are faced with an unhappy paradox. The most significant factor in John Kerry's defeat was that, according to exit polls, 79 percent of voters who said terrorism or national security determined their vote chose the chickenhawk over the war hero. Though they agreed with the Democrats on most issues--and agreed, by a 49 to 45 percent margin, according to election day exit polls, that the Iraq War had made us less, not more, secure--a majority of voters still felt safer with the idea of George W. Bush minding the store. Based on the evidence, it is almost a perfectly irrational reaction to reality. Everything the Bush Administration has done in the security realm has proved not merely wasteful and ineffective but counterproductive. Consider the following:

§?Osama bin Laden remains free, and Al Qaeda has been allowed to regroup.

§?Iraq, which was not a terrorist threat before Bush attacked it, now accounts for the killing and maiming of Americans daily.

§?North Korea, the world's most dangerously irrational regime, stands poised to test a nuclear bomb.

§?Iran, another regime motivated by fear and hatred of the United States, also stands poised to develop a nuclear weapon.

§?The most obvious terrorist targets in America--nuclear and chemical plants, water and food supplies and transportation networks--remain as vulnerable to terrorists as they were on September 10, 2001, endangering as many as 12 million people in a single attack.

§?Outside our borders, America is hated as never before, inspiring terrorist recruitment across the Islamic world.

All of these negative developments are the result of Bush Administration policies that required the reversal or rejection of Democratic alternatives. In some cases the Administration achieved its aims by deliberate deception, fooling more than a few supposedly tough-minded "liberal hawks" about not only its evidence but also its intentions--and in a few cases it did so with scare tactics designed to exploit the emotions aroused by the 9/11 attacks. In none of these instances, however, did the Administration win its argument with an honest assessment of the evidence or consideration of available alternatives.

(...)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:38 PM

Democrats Challenge GOP on Ethics
New Ads Target Six Republicans
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 6, 2005; Page A04

Democrats took their first formal step yesterday toward trying to nationalize next year's midterm House elections around the issue of ethics, buying ads in the local papers of six Republican lawmakers calling on them to "start working for us" instead of special interests.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending $36,000 on the ads -- a virtually meaningless sum, by itself -- but calls it the beginning of a campaign to fuel an anti-incumbent fever like the one that swept its party out in 1994.

"There's a question about the conduct and the culture that goes beyond the individuals," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the committee's chairman. "The speaker's gavel is supposed to open the people's house, not the auction house."

Even White House officials have begun to fret about the large number of senior Republicans being tied to questionable travel and relationships with lobbyists. On Friday, federal agents raided the San Diego area home of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, one of the ad targets. The search followed news reports that he had sold a house to a defense contractor, who immediately put it back up for sale and took a huge loss.

Republicans contend that Democrats are making the mistake the GOP did in 1998, when the party made its main message about President Bill Clinton instead of a positive agenda. Republicans say Democrats face numerous ethical issues of their own. Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.), vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, asserted that Democrats are "stepping into their own Venus' flytrap." ...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 11:57 PM

From a correspondent:

I have done some internet research. If we declare that the war in
Iraq is 4 years old (which it isn't because it won't even have been 4
years since 9/11 until next September) then the war in declared
budgeted costs will be as of today, $989,725.03 million per day. But
it's more than that, because plenty of defense budget is used for
Iraq that isn't specially marked as "Iraq funds" AND we are still 2
months away from four years since 9/11, and the war didn't start
until after 9/11.

So anyway, we are well above $1 billion per day for the war.

Per day.

How many houses would that make, how much anti-HIV medicine would it
provide, how many internship-type jobs would it fund?

I hate Bush.

D.

---

Where would we stand if half that money had beens pent in an aggressive forwarding of energy independence?

What if we had found a way to harness the moon's tides and the sun's winds, and were able to disconnect from the oil wells of Arabia permanently?

Sometimes knowing the correct importance is worth more than all the PR and manipulation in Washington.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 02:27 AM

The Psychosis Inherent in Religious Capitalism: Causation in "The Crime of the Century"
By Gerry Lower
May 23, 2005, 19:09

Email this article
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May 24, 2005 -- "Are Bush supporters literally insane?" With that bold and awkward question, Timothy Noah began a discussion of "Conservatism as Pathology" (MSNBC/Slate, May 9, 2005), in which he essentially asks, 'Is there something inherently psychotic about the conservative mindset?' One can, of course, ask the same question about Bush opponents, "Is there something inherently psychotic about the liberal mindset?

Two Extremes - both Psychotic.

According to Merriam-Webster Online, the term "psy·cho·sis" refers to "a "fundamental mental derangement characterized by defective or lost contact with reality". As that is the case, the answer to both questions would be "yes," because conservatism and liberalism are complementary opposites. When on their own, they have nowhere to go but to their own extremes.

At their extremes, they both produce a blind rejection of empirical reality, of common sense logic and honest human truth. The result of this rejection is a collective neurosis at best and a collective psychosis at worst (Robert Sheer, Nationalism's Psychotic Side, The Nation, May 10, 2005).

At their extremes, the left has had occasion to pursue anarchy and "free" love, as the right now pursues tyranny and "preemptive" war, nothing resembling real freedom and democracy at either extreme (Legalism, Anarchism and Blessed Liberty, www.jeffersonseyes.com, 2003). Progressivism provides the dialectic synthesis of liberalism and conservatism in being more closely aligned with the transcendent values at the core of Jeffersonian democracy (Progressivism and the Two Americas, August 30, 2004.)

All of us make our occasional departures from reality and the self-concept we have assumed in order to survive that reality. We escape our current reality by taking consciousness-altering drugs, buying new Lincoln Navigators, taking "adventure" vacations and going on shopping sprees at the local mall (one of the most prevalent and pernicious addictions in America). Real problems emerge when we make our departures-from-reality into a new "reality," unrelated to empirical reality.

Jefferson felt that it was better to be "exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it." In this sense, religious capitalism has no Jeffersonian content at all. The right wing would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending no democracy than those attending too much of it (and any of it is too much of it, if it gets in the way of capitalism's notions of "progress").

Religious Capitalism

Religious capitalism thrives only at the extreme, where it works to control national values, policies and goals in the interest of maximizing its own authority and control, nothing else. In turn, it wants no controls placed over the corruption that is literally inherent in greed-driven capitalism. Rules and regulations are for the ruled, not for the makers of rules.

Under the Bush administration's religious capitalism, America has become the scene for "The Crime of the Century." This became quickly apparent with the recent emergence of a "secret Downing Street memo" which "proves that everything the Bush administration said about the Iraq invasion was a lie" (David Michael Green, Common Dreams, AxisofLogic, May 15, 2005). So damning was this document, it received essentially no mention in the mainstream American press, which seems more bent on preserving the crony capitalism upon which America has come to depend.
"Think about that for a second. Apart from 9/11, has there been a more important story in the last decade than that the president lied to the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq, and then proceeded to plunge the country into an illegal war which has alienated the rest of the world, lit a fire under the war's victims and the Islamic world generally, turning them into enemy combatants, locked up virtually all American land forces in a war without end in sight, cost $300 billion and counting, taken over 1600 American lives on top of more than 15,000 gravely wounded, and killed perhaps 100,000 Iraqis?"

If the President of the U.S. overtly lies to the American people in order to pursue, in their names, a devastatingly immoral war in Iraq, if the President of the U.S. can't be trusted and the mainstream press lets it all go by, then what do we, as a people, have left? Bush World, in its entirety, is fabrication built upon fabrication, from credentials and character to competence and contribution. The entire edifice would not last a week without the complicity of an American press that can't do its job for fear of losing its job.

The right half of the American electorate and the mainstream press have had to make an incomprehensible retreat from reality and sanity in order to accommodate the Old Testament morality and ethics of the Bush administration. This retreat is not due to any innate individual shortcomings. It is more due to cultural shortcomings, with traditional religion teaching that individuals need not think for themselves but ought choose faith in an Old Testament world view that has nothing to do with the values of Jefferson's Christianity and Democracy.

...

---

Balance of this probably controversial piece can be found here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 05 - 05:48 PM

An editorial in the Sunday NY Times by Nicholas Kristof, highlighting yet another piece of anti-constitutional moralistic Grundyism on the part of our Furless Liter:


Jack Newbold is a 59-year-old retired tugboat captain who is dying of bone cancer. It's one of the most painful cancers, and he doesn't want to put his wife and 17-year-old daughter through the trauma of caring for him as he loses control over his body.

So Mr. Newbold faces a wrenching choice in the coming weeks: should he fight the cancer until his last breath, or should he take a glass of a barbiturate solution prescribed by a doctor and put himself to sleep forever? He's leaning toward the latter.

"I've got less than six months to live," he said. "I don't want to linger and put my wife and family through this."

I don't know what I would do if I were Mr. Newbold, nor if I were his wife or daughter (they're both supporting him in any decision he makes). But I do believe that it should be their decision - not President Bush's.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bush is fighting to overturn the Oregon Death With Dignity law, which gives Mr. Newbold the option of hastening his death. Oregon voters twice passed referendums approving the law, which has been used since 1998, and it has wide support in the state.

The Bush administration issued an order that any doctor who issued a prescription under the state law would be prosecuted under federal law. Oregon won an injunction against the order, John Ashcroft lost an appeal, and now the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the fall.

"I'm just grateful I live in the state of Oregon, where we have this option," Mr. Newbold said. "I'm just sorry the John Ashcrofts of the world want to dictate not only how you live, but also how you die. There's nothing more personal, other than childbirth, than passing on."

Mr. Newbold, a Vietnam veteran and former merchant seaman, is funny and blunt, with a flair for nautical language unsuitable for a family newspaper. He started with head and neck cancer. Now cancer is spreading to his bones, disabling him and forcing him to take morphine for pain.

"By God, I want to go out on my own terms," Mr. Newbold said. "I don't want someone dictating to me that I've got to lie down in some hospital bed and die in pain."

Mr. Newbold has started the process of obtaining the barbiturates; two doctors must confirm that the patient has less than six months to live, and the patient must make three requests over at least 15 days. Typically, the drug is secobarbital - the powder is removed from the capsules and mixed into water or applesauce - or pentobarbital, which comes as a liquid. Patients typically slip into a coma five minutes after taking the medication and die within two hours.

Like many patients, Mr. Newbold says that his biggest concern isn't pain so much as the loss of autonomy and dignity. That's partly why he wants the medication on hand - if he feels himself losing the self-control he has prized all his life, he can hasten the process.

"I may never use the medication," he said, "but the knowledge that you have the ability to end it gives you so much relief."

That's common - many patients who get the barbiturates do not in fact use them, but derive comfort from having the choice. Over all, 208 patients over seven years have used the law to hasten death, according to the Compassion in Dying Federation of Oregon, which helps patients work their way through the legal requirements.

When patients use the law, they typically set a date and gather family and friends around them. Those who have witnessed such a parting say it's not as morbid as it may sound.

"It's pretty weird knowing what day you're going to die, but we could plan for it," said Julie McMurchie, whose mother used the barbiturates about a week before she was expected to die naturally of lung cancer. "Two of my siblings lived out of state, and they were able to come, so we were all present. ... We were all there to hug and kiss her and tell her we loved her, and she had some poetry she wanted read to her, and it was all loving and peaceful.

"I can't imagine why anybody would begrudge us that opportunity to say goodbye, and her that opportunity to have peace."

The same applies to Jack Newbold and everyone in his position. Mr. Newbold faces an excruciating choice in the coming weeks, and he's got enough on his mind without the White House second-guessing him.

Back off, Mr. Bush.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 09:37 AM

An editorial by Bob Herbert of the NY Times, July 11 2005:

"Back in March 2004 President Bush had a great time displaying what he felt was a hilarious set of photos showing him searching the Oval Office for the weapons of mass destruction that hadn't been found in Iraq. It was a spoof he performed at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association.

The photos showed the president peering behind curtains and looking under furniture for the missing weapons. Mr. Bush offered mock captions for the photos, saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere" and "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"

If there's something funny about Mr. Bush's misbegotten war, I've yet to see it. The president deliberately led Americans traumatized by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into the false belief that there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that a pre-emptive invasion would make the United States less vulnerable to terrorism.

Close to 600 Americans had already died in Iraq when Mr. Bush was cracking up the audience with his tasteless photos at the glittering Washington gathering. The toll of Americans has now passed 1,750. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Scores of thousands of men, women and children have been horribly wounded. And there is no end in sight.

Last week's terror bombings in London should be seen as a reminder not just that Mr. Bush's war was a hideous diversion of focus and resources from the essential battle against terror, but that it has actually increased the danger of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

The C.I.A. warned the administration in a classified report in May that Iraq - since the American invasion in 2003 - had become a training ground in which novice terrorists were schooled in assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other terror techniques. The report said Iraq could prove to be more effective than Afghanistan in the early days of Al Qaeda as a place to train terrorists who could then disperse to other parts of the world, including the United States.

Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who served as deputy director of the State Department's counterterrorism office, said on National Public Radio last week: "You now in Iraq have a recruiting ground in which jihadists, people who previously were not willing to go out and embrace the vision of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, are now aligning themselves with elements that have declared allegiance to him. And in the course of that, they're learning how to build bombs. They're learning how to conduct military operations."

Has the president given any thought to leveling with the American people about how bad the situation has become? And is he even considering what for him would be the radical notion of soliciting the counsel of wise men and women who might give him a different perspective on war and terror than the Kool-Aid-drinking true believers who have brought us to this dreadful state of affairs? The true believers continue to argue that the proper strategy is to stay the current catastrophic course.

Americans are paying a fearful price for Mr. Bush's adventure in Iraq. In addition to the toll of dead and wounded, the war is costing about $5 billion a month. It has drained resources from critical needs here at home, including important antiterror initiatives that would improve the security of ports, transit systems and chemical plants.

...

Whatever one's views on the war, thoughtful Americans need to consider the damage it is doing to the United States, and the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world. That anger is spreading like an unchecked fire in an incredibly vast field.

The immediate challenge to President Bush is to dispense with the destructive fantasies of the true believers in his administration and to begin to see America's current predicament clearly. New voices with new approaches and new ideas need to be heard. The hole we're in is deep enough. We need to stop digging. ...

---

As with many of these articles, this one seems harsh until you reckon the actual cost of Bush's profligacy in human lives.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 02:23 PM

Can Rove be tried for treason in time of war?


"Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, Author of "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity."

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

"I did my civic duty and held my government to account for statements it had made. The government acknowledged that the sixteen words about Iraq purchasing uranium from Niger did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union Address. And then the Administration went out to savage my family and myself.... Somebody close to the President of the United States decided that in order to defend Bush's political agenda, that individual or individuals would violate the national security of the country and expose my wife's name and her profession.

That was absolutely unexpected. That this government would take a national security asset off the table, working in an area that is of primordial importance to the national security of the United States – the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of rogue states and non-state actors."

Ambassador Joe Wilson

Okay, for the umpteenth time, let's get this straight: In order to send a message to any Bush Cartel whistleblowers and truth tellers, Karl Rove or Scooter Libby (or both) authorized the outing of a CIA operative. But this wasn't just any CIA operative. This was a woman who specialized in tracking the illicit trade in Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Well, the WMD-specializing outed CIA agent was Valerie Plame. Why was she outed and our national security threatened by the Bush Cartel? Because her husband, Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, had the temerity to reveal that the Bush Cartel mischaracterized a key piece of alleged (i.e., phony) evidence that Saddam Hussein was purchasing nuclear material from the nation of Niger (not to be confused with Nigeria).

So, America's national security has been jeopardized because a man who showed heroism in the diplomatic corps told the truth about the Bush Cartel and the Bush Cartel sought revenge."

I doubt if Rove acted independently. I suspect that he was given the O.K. from the gang of thugs now in the White House. I hope we are getting closer to the truth and that the U.S. will show the world that they will no longer be fooled into believing anything the Bush Administration has to say. Its time to impeach them and try them for treason. Who will have the courage?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 11:38 PM

Paul Krugman (NY Times, 7-14-05) offers these thoughts:

John Gibson of Fox News says that Karl Rove should be given a medal. I agree: Mr. Rove should receive a medal from the American Political Science Association for his pioneering discoveries about modern American politics. The medal can, if necessary, be delivered to his prison cell.


Forum: Paul Krugman's Columns
What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

I first realized that we were living in Karl Rove's America during the 2000 presidential campaign, when George W. Bush began saying things about Social Security privatization and tax cuts that were simply false. At first, I thought the Bush campaign was making a big mistake - that these blatant falsehoods would be condemned by prominent Republican politicians and Republican economists, especially those who had spent years building reputations as advocates of fiscal responsibility. In fact, with hardly any exceptions they lined up to praise Mr. Bush's proposals.

But the real demonstration that Mr. Rove understands American politics better than any pundit came after 9/11.

Every time I read a lament for the post-9/11 era of national unity, I wonder what people are talking about. On the issues I was watching, the Republicans' exploitation of the atrocity began while ground zero was still smoldering.

Mr. Rove has been much criticized for saying that liberals responded to the attack by wanting to offer the terrorists therapy - but what he said about conservatives, that they "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war," is equally false. What many of them actually saw was a domestic political opportunity - and none more so than Mr. Rove.

A less insightful political strategist might have hesitated right after 9/11 before using it to cast the Democrats as weak on national security. After all, there were no facts to support that accusation.

But Mr. Rove understood that the facts were irrelevant. For one thing, he knew he could count on the administration's supporters to obediently accept a changing story line. Read the before-and-after columns by pro-administration pundits about Iraq: before the war they castigated the C.I.A. for understating the threat posed by Saddam's W.M.D.; after the war they castigated the C.I.A. for exaggerating the very same threat.

Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don't have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person's effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they'll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 10:08 AM

"Reporters in the US have expressed concern about their duty to protect the anonymity of their sources. What is becoming evident, however, from the unfolding soap opera that the White House and newspapers like the WSJ are bringing to the world, is that the sources of government information that US reporters have available, like Karl Rove, are sources who are willing to use their public office to involve reporters in activities of political retribution.

The crime that the U.S. Congress and the American people have to understand is the fact that they were presented with a set of lies, including carefully crafted misrepresentations, to justify an illegal invasion of another country and the killing of many people. The period leading up to the invasion of Iraq by the US government, was a period when much of the US media, and reporters like Judith Miller, who is now in jail to protect her sources, created a fraudulent public pretext for the US government's steps to war.

What the WSJ doesn't mention, is that before the US government invaded Iraq, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had clearly disclosed the forged nature of documents the US used to claim that Iraq had sought uranium ore in Niger. The US government at the time said that they had just gotten the documents themselves in October 2002, yet they didn't give them to the IAEA until February 2003 ("Macbeth" and the Forged Documents of Niger).

How the US government could present forged documents to the IAEA as proof that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Niger, is a serious question. The lies and forgeries that the US government has been willing to present as its justification for an illegal war continue. Also the WSJ continues to applaud government officials for their lies and use of forgeries and in so doing helps them to cover up their abuse of public office. The US press is faced with a serious challenge. If it continues to protect as sources government officials who lie, it stands to lose any of its credibility that remains with people in the US and around the world. The obligation of the press is to expose the misdeeds of government, not to be the mouthpiece to broadcast, or to cover up these misdeeds.

A serious principle is at stake in the current investigation into the role played by the White House (not just by Rove) in leaking information about Joe Wilson's wife. The principle is: Will the press act as a force to stop the US government from presenting lies and misrepresentations as a pretext to justify illegal and harmful deeds and policies? Or will the press be complicit in spreading or covering up the illegal and misleading deeds of the US government?

Almost two hundred years ago, in an encyclopedia article about the "Freedom of the Press, James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, explained that without a press exposing the corruption and misrule in government, government officials will not be able to resist the temptation to be corrupt"

See http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20525/1.html for balance of piece.

A

Subject: POTUS Position to be Out-sourced
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 05 - 10:12 AM

Outsourcing the President's job to India Washington D.C. - Associated Press,
8:27 a.m.

Congress today announced that the office of President of the United States
of America will be outsourced to overseas interests as of June 30th.

The move is being made to save not only a significant portion of the
President's $400K yearly salary, but also a record $521 billion in deficit
expenditures and related overhead.

"We believe this is a wise move financially. The cost savings should be
significant," stated Congressman Thomas Reynolds (R-Wash.). Reynolds, wit
the aid of the Government Accountability Office, has studied outsourcing of
American jobs extensively. "We cannot expect to remain competitive on the
world stage with the current level of cash outlay," Reynolds noted.

Mr. Bush was informed by email this morning of his termination.

Preparations for the job move have been underway for some time. Sanji
Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices, Mumbai, India will be assuming the
office of President as of July 1. Mr. Singh was born in the United States
while his Indian parents were vacationing at Niagara Falls, thus making him
eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 (USD) a month
but with no health coverage or other benefits.

It is believed that Mr. Singh will be able to handle his job
responsibilities without support staff. Due to the time difference between
the US and India, he will be working primarily at night, when few offices of
the US Government will be open. "Working nights will allow me to keep my day
job at the American Express call center," stated Mr. Singh in an exclusive
interview. "I am excited about this position. I always hoped I would be
President someday."

A Congressional Spokesperson noted that while Mr. Singh may not be fully
aware of all the issues involved in the office of the President, this should
not be a problem. Mr. Singh will rely upon a script tree that will enable
him to respond effectively to most topics of concern. Using this tree, he
can address common concerns without having to understand the underlying
issues at all. "We know these scripting tools work," stated the
Spokesperson. "Mr. Bush has used them successfully for years."

Mr. Bush will receive health coverage, expenses, and salary until his final
day of employment. Following a two week waiting period, he will be eligible
for $240 USD a week unemployment for 13 weeks. Unfortunately, he will not be
eligible for Medicaid as his unemployment benefits will exceed the allowed
limit.

Mr. Bush has been provided the outplacement services of Manpower, Inc. to
help him write a resume and prepare for his upcoming job transition.

According to Manpower, Mr. Bush may have difficulties in securing a new
position due to limited practical work experience. One possibility is
re-enlistment in the Air National Guard. Should he choose this option, he
would likely be stationed in Iraq, a country he has visited. "I've been
there; I know about Iraq," stated Mr. Bush, who gained invaluable knowledge
of the country in a visit to the Baghdad Airport's terminal and gift shop.

Sources in Baghdad and Falluja say Mr. Bush would receive a warm reception
from local Iraqis. They have asked to be provided with details of his
arrival so that they might arrange an appropriate welcome.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 06:57 PM

From a correspondent with military background:

Utter nonsense. I know something about war - several of them matter of
fact, over 55 years worth, from up close and personal to the highest levels
of government during the Vietnam War after all the mistakes had been made.
The main reason this is dragging on is for the same reason the US gave up
after 10 years in the Vietnam War - both Secretaries of Defense - McNamara,
from the left, and Rumsfeld, from the right both tried to personally
micromanage their wars, and the preparation for them, as 'civilian control'
freaks, who neither listened to nor followed the advice they were given by
competant military professionals. McNamara and the civilian hot shots in
the basement of the White House imposed their pet 'escalation' theories on
the Vietnam War - to include picking individual targets for Air Force
bombing over North Vietnam, or, ala McNamara tried to use his pet 'cost
effectiveness' theories that worked at Ford to fight a classic Maoist three
stage War of National Liberation. He never understood the nature of that
War. So he sent B-52s to surpress political revolutionionaries. Any good
Special Forces Colonel - who understood how to fight politico- military
Revolutionary opponents could have done a better job.. And Rumsfeld utterly
ignored the military advice he was given before the invasion, about the
troop strength and combinations that would be needed, not just to knock off
Saddam Hussain's Conventional Paper Tiger troops, but far more importantly
what it would take to pacify, control and poltiically reconstruct the
country, after the conventional fighting was over and the regime overrun,
a nation of 25 million spread out larger than California. He refused to
let Colin Powell as Secretary of State - who knows something about war,
and insurgencies professionally - to take over the post combat
'reconstruction' phase of the war, as the State Department tradionally can
do, and better than military in the wake of conventional military
overthrow of local to national government. JUST as we did suceessfully in
Germany and Italy during the 'occupation' . Rumsfeld STILL does not, nor do
most of his neocon hot shots from the Right, understand the Iraq War or
what it will take to succeed at our national objectives, which are NOT
primarily military.

George Bush senior, who understood from his lowly Navy Pilot experience how
chains of command are supposed to operate and how to delegate, gave his
Military Commander, Schwartkopf, via his Chairman of the JCS, Powell their
political-mission orders in Desert Storm, and did NOT micromanage them and
didn't let Cheney do it either. He knew, like Lincoln did, how to pick
commanders, delegate, expect performance and replace commanders who
couldn't perform.

The problem is at the top, not in the field.

(Name witheld)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 07:55 PM

Ebbie: sorry to be so late in replying to your question of July 3. My wife have been tooling around in your home state and just returned. Incidentially, I saw the Wal-Mart store in Fairbanks and immediately thought of my Mudcat friends.

If Karl Rove OR GWB committed a crime, either should be punished to the full extent of the law. I don't believe it has been proven, however, that either have done so. Just the opinion of lots'a lefties.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 08:37 PM

From a correspondent:

very interesting article in the Economist (subscription required,
but recently syndicated in a bunch of other papers, so may be
elsewhere on the web):

http://tinyurl.com/a73bt points to the economist story, which opens:

ON JULY 19th, IraqBodyCount, a group of academics who are attempting
to monitor the casualties of the conflict in that country, published
a report suggesting that almost 25,000 civilians have been killed in
it so far. In other words, 34 a day. But that is an average. on some
days the total is lower, and some higher -- occasionally much higher.

It is this variation around the mean that interests Dr. Neil Johnson
of the University of Oxford and Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway
College, London. They think it is possible to trace and model the
development of wars from the patterns of casualties they throw up.

The groundwork for this sort of study was laid by Lewis Fry
Richardson, a British physicist, with a paper on the mathematics of
war that was published in 1948....

The outcome was startling: rather than varying wildly or
chaotically, the probability of individual wars having particular
numbers of casualties followed a mathematical relationship known as a
power law....

Terrorist attacks within G7 countries could be distinguished from
those inside non-G7 countries by their different indices....

_______________

Meanwhile, there's a related story on Nature: http://www.nature.com/>
news/2005/050711/full/050711-5.html

Net, net: the war in Iraq is approaching the same pattern as the
long-running war in Colombia.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 12:09 AM

NEw York Times:
Published: July 28, 2005

The energy bill that has been six years in the making and is nearing the president's desk is not the unrelieved disaster some environmentalists make it out to be. But to say, as President Bush undoubtedly will, that it will swiftly move this country to a cleaner, more secure energy future is nonsense. The bill, approved by a House-Senate conference early Tuesday morning, does not take the bold steps necessary to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, and it also fails to address the looming problem of global warming.


These shortcomings are chiefly the fault of the White House and its retainers in the House. To be sure, the Senate showed no more courage than the House in its refusal to increase fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks, even though higher standards, by common consent, are the easiest, quickest and most technologically feasible way to reduce oil demand and cut foreign imports.

But the Senate did approve a renewable fuels provision requiring power plants to produce 10 percent of their electricity from nontraditional sources, like wind power, by 2010. It also approved a provision that would ask the president to reduce domestic oil consumption by one million barrels a day by whatever means he chose. The House conferees rejected both proposals.

Meanwhile, both houses conspired in some spectacular giveaways. One would ease environmental restrictions on oil and gas companies drilling on public lands. The other would shower billions in undeserved tax breaks on the same companies, even as they wallow in the windfall profits produced by $60-a-barrel oil. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 05 - 12:10 AM

From Bob Herbert at the NY Times:

Oil and Blood




By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 28, 2005
It is now generally understood that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has become a debacle. Nevertheless, Iraqis are supposed to have their constitution ratified and a permanent government elected by the end of the year. It's a logical escape hatch for George W. Bush. He could declare victory, as a senator once suggested to Lyndon Johnson in the early years of Vietnam, and bring the troops home as quickly as possible.


His mantra would be: There's a government in place. We won. We're out of there.

But don't count on it. The Bush administration has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war, which has taken a fearful toll in lives and injuries while at the same time weakening the military, damaging the international reputation of the United States, serving as a world-class recruiting tool for terrorist groups and blowing a hole the size of Baghdad in Washington's budget.

A wiser leader would begin to cut some of these losses. But the whole point of this war, it seems, was to establish a long-term military presence in Iraq to ensure American domination of the Middle East and its precious oil reserves, which have been described, the author Daniel Yergin tells us, as "the greatest single prize in all history."

You can run through all the wildly varying rationales for this war: the weapons of mass destruction (that were never found), the need to remove the unmitigated evil of Saddam (whom we had once cozied up to), the connection to Al Qaeda (which was bogus), and one of President Bush's favorites, the need to fight the terrorists "over there" so we won't have to fight them here at home.

All the rationales have to genuflect before "The Prize," which was the title of Mr. Yergin's Pulitzer-Prize-winning book.

It's the oil, stupid. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 12:48 AM

Ambassador Bolton
(NY Times)
Published: August 2, 2005
If there's a positive side to President Bush's appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations yesterday, it's that as long as Mr. Bolton is in New York, he will not be wreaking diplomatic havoc anywhere else. Talks with North Korea, for instance, have been looking more productive since Mr. Bolton left the State Department, and it's hard not to think that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's generally positive performance in office is due, in part, to her canniness in dispatching Mr. Bolton out of Washington.


But the appointment is, of course, terrible news for the United Nations, whose diplomats have heard weeks of Senate testimony about Mr. Bolton's lack of respect for their institution and his deeply undiplomatic, bullying style of doing business. Senator George Voinovich, the Ohio Republican who became one of Mr. Bolton's strongest critics, said yesterday that he planned to send the new ambassador a book on how to be an effective manager. It couldn't hurt, but this may be the first time a world superpower has used its top United Nations post as a spot for the remedial training of a troublesome government employee.

Mr. Bush had been unable to get Mr. Bolton's nomination confirmed by the Senate, so he waited until Congress left town and used his constitutional power to make recess appointments. This is a perfectly legal tactic, though one that has seldom been used to fill this kind of position. A recess appointment is particularly dicey for a major diplomatic post, where a good nominee should carry an aura of personal gravitas and legitimacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:11 PM

Right, Amos, good old non-biased Garrison! He loves Bush, doesn't he? :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 03:20 PM

What's to love, DR? The man is a despicable ignoramus and a despot.

He might be more suitable for the job of ruining HAiti.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:43 PM

Okay. I got to wonderin' about this flippin' thread, eh? Its' really long. so what the flip is it all about?

Flipped if I know! I guess maybe its' politicall, eh?

Flippin' boring if ya ask me.

Why ain't there nothin' about beer in this thread? Or sex?

Well, I guess I am outta here.

I will check back in a month and see if it has got any better, okay?

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 06:59 PM

Tell ya what, ya flipping hoser -- I'll start a thread for you personally called "Popular Views of Great White North Hoseheads", eh? Then we can put posts about how you scratch your ass in every bar in town, chase broken down skirt and live on back-bacon and unfiltered smokes and beer, eh? Make ya feel better? Eh? Eh? EH?


:D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 07:03 PM

Man...you know my flippin' life from, like, A to Z don't you?

Don't bother, eh? I will start the flippin' thread myself.

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 10:59 PM

From a more compassionate viewpoint toward Fr. Bush:

"We've got the hatemongers who literally hate this president, and that
is so wrong. . . . The people who hate George Bush hate him because he's
a follower of Jesus Christ, unashamedly says so and applies his faith in
his day-to-day operations." -- Rev. Jerry Falwell, on C-SPAN's
"Washington Journal"

---

Oh...wading into an unnecessary war, draining the Treasury of billions, exercising political favoritism independent of merit...no-one hates him for those things? Causing hundreds of unneeded deaths, undermining the American constitution, ruining our international repute -- these don't count? Imposing narrow-minded and short-sighted moralisms on American citizenry at every turn -- no-one hates him for that?

I am SO glad we have Jerry Falwell to clarify our thinking on these matters.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 05 - 11:03 PM

"Bush backs teaching intelligent design

By Ron Hutcheson
Inquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - President Bush waded into the debate over evolution and
intelligent design yesterday, saying schools should teach both theories
on the creation and complexity of life.

In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with a small group of
reporters, Bush essentially endorsed efforts by Christian conservatives
to give intelligent design equal standing with the theory of evolution
in the nation's schools.

Bush declined to state his personal views on intelligent design, the
belief that life-forms are so complex that their creation cannot be
explained by Darwinian evolutionary theory alone, but rather points to
intentional creation, presumably divine.

The theory of evolution, as articulated by British naturalist Charles
Darwin in 1859, is based on the idea that life organisms developed over
time through random mutations and factors in nature that favored certain
traits that helped species survive.

Scientists concede that evolution does not answer every question about
the creation of life, but most consider intelligent design an attempt to
inject religion into science courses.

Bush compared the current debate to earlier disputes over creationism, a
related view that adheres more closely to biblical explanations. As
governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both
creationism and evolution.

Yesterday, the President said he favored the same approach for
intelligent design, "so people can understand what the debate is about."

The Kansas Board of Education is considering changes to encourage the
teaching of intelligent design in Kansas schools, and Christian
conservatives are pushing for similar changes in other school districts
across the country.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools
of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to
be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.""

---

Now kids, in science class here we revere Galileo for determining the diameter of the earth by consulting the actual visual experience of the world, and measuring the shadows on the moon -- a classic example of the best scientific method for discovering new things, such as the roundness of the Earth.

At the same time, there are equally strongly held views that this is all a sham, and that any fool can see the earth is flat just by standing at one edge of a cornfield in Missouri and looking for himself. We are obliged by law to present you with both hypotheses. AFter all, they are just theories.

You must decide these things for yourself; that's the American way...."

Dear God, preserve us from such fools...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Aug 05 - 12:31 AM

The NY Times on Bully-Boy Bolton's Bypass Appointment:

"Mr. Bolton was sworn into office shortly after the announcement and by Monday afternoon had arrived in New York, where he was booed on the sidewalk outside the United States Mission.

Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed Mr. Bolton, but told reporters that the new ambassador should consult with others as the administration continued to press for changes at the United Nations.

"I think it is all right for one ambassador to come and push, but an ambassador always has to remember that there are 190 others who will have to be convinced - or a vast majority of them - for action to take place," Mr. Annan said.

Mr. Bolton begins the job as the administration is threatening to take Iran to the Security Council to seek punishment if Tehran moves forward with its nuclear program.

Mr. Bolton, the former under secretary of state for arms control, took a hard line against nuclear proliferation by nations including Iran and North Korea, but administration officials have said that in his new job he would carry out the views of Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice and not make his own policy.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, characterized Mr. Bush's move as "the latest abuse of power by the Bush White House," while another Democrat, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, said in a statement that "even while the president preaches democracy around the world, he bends the rules and circumvents the will of Congress" at home."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 08:16 PM

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A civil-liberties board ordered by the U.S. Congress last year has never met to discuss its job of protecting rights in the fight against terrorism, and critics say it is a toothless, underfunded shell with inadequate support from President Bush.

Lawmakers including some Republicans, civil-rights advocates, a member of the Sept. 11 Commission and a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board have expressed concerns.

Lanny Davis, the only prominent liberal among the five people Bush nominated after a six-month delay, said he had not received a call from anyone related to the board since it was formally announced in June. Davis said he could not comment on specifics because the members had not yet met.

All four other panel members declined to comment.

The inactivity comes at a time when Congress is nearing reauthorization of several provisions of the Patriot Act, a controversial law that gave the government new powers to go after suspected terrorists.

Asked why it was taking so long to set the board up, Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays charged, "It's not a priority for the administration."

The intelligence reform law of December 2004 called for the oversight board in response to a recommendation from the Sept. 11 Commission, which feared increased governmental powers needed to fight terrorism could erode civil liberties.

Top White House officials have said the board would address those concerns, and get the resources needed to do the job.

But almost eight months after its inception, the critics say the panel still only exists on paper, and lacks the money, power and presidential backing to ensure the entire government respects Americans' rights.

The Bush-appointed panel "is a very watered-down board without the kinds of powers which I believe are necessary to provide credibility and authority, such as independent subpoena power ... and a bipartisan process in selection," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Sept. 11 commissioner.

WATCHDOG

"We don't think the board serves as a credible watchdog," said Tim Edgar, national security policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

One frequent complaint concerns the board's budget. Bush requested $750,000, which Congress doubled to $1.5 million.

The Department of Homeland Security's privacy office, with a similar mission limited to that department, alone has a roughly $13 million budget, said Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.

"I don't think you can do it for a million and a half," Shays said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Aug 05 - 06:01 PM

In the Los Angeles Times an intersting assessment of Mister Bush's mind-set, or lack thereof.

An excerpt:

When asked about Palmeiro's positive steroid test, Bush — who knew Palmeiro when the president owned the Rangers — replied, "Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him. He's the kind of person that's going to stand up in front of the Klieg lights and say he didn't use steroids, and I believe him."

This statement perfectly crystallizes Bush's thinking. Facts don't matter to him. What matters is how he feels about the person in question. In 2001, for instance, Bush met with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, and the two hit it off. As Bush later told Peggy Noonan, Putin recounted to him a story involving a cross given to him by his mother.

"I said to him, 'You know, I found that story very interesting. You see, President Putin, I think you judge a person on something other than just politics. I think it's important for me and for you to look for the depth of a person's soul and character. I was touched by the fact your mother gave you the cross.' " Bush publicly testified of Putin, "I was able to get a sense of his soul."

Personally, I put less weight on the fact that Putin got a cross from his mother, and more on the fact that Putin has smothered Russian democracy by outlawing opposition parties, shut down any remotely skeptical media outlet and subjected his critics to political show trials. Yet this sort of evidence has had barely any effect on Bush. Two years later, he was still praising Putin's desire for "a country in which democracy and freedom and rule of law thrive."

Bush is even apt to apply this particular brand of illogic to his own character. In one of the 2000 presidential debates, Al Gore pointed out that Bush as governor of Texas opposed a measure to expand children's healthcare and instead used the money for a tax cut. The debate moderator then asked Bush, "Are those numbers correct? Are his charges correct?" To which Bush replied, "If he's trying to allege that I'm a hardhearted person and I don't care about children, he's absolutely wrong."

The style of Bush's reply is telling. Gore was trying to make a point about Bush's moral priorities by establishing a series of facts about Bush's behavior. Rather than deny having chosen tax cuts over children's healthcare, or explain his rationale for having done so, Bush changed the subject to more comfortable ground: judging people's hearts. He asked the audience to intuit, based on the way he carries himself, that he is a warmhearted person, and thus to reject out of hand any facts that might clash with this impression.

The point isn't just that Bush refuses to engage with facts he finds inconvenient. (Many fail that test.) It's that Bush rejects reason itself. Reason is a process by which we draw our broader conclusions from an accumulation of specific evidence. When the evidence changes ("Hey, this Putin guy seems to be squelching dissent"), our conclusions can also ("Perhaps he doesn't love democracy as much as he said he did!"). Bush, on the other hand, arrives at his beliefs through intuition. His supporters marvel at the unshakeable certainty of his convictions. Well, no wonder."

---

Just in case you thought it was just me! :)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 05:02 PM

From the Lone Star Iconoclast:

...By Nathan Diebenow
Associate Editor

CRAWFORD — The mother of a U.S. soldier slain in Iraq was denied a face-to-face meeting with President Bush here Saturday after she walked through a ditch-like path in the August heat to the President's Prairie Chapel Ranch.
"I didn't come all this way from California to stand here in a ditch," said Cindy Sheehan, 48, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, attempting to continue her trek to the ranch.
Even though two of the President's aides later agreed to deliver her message to him, Sheehan said that she would remain in Crawford for the whole month, if need be, until she is granted a private audience with the commander-in-chief to ask him for what "noble cause" did her son die overseas.
"If he doesn't come out to talk to me in Crawford, I'll follow him to D.C., and I'll camp out on his lawn," she said, to a round of applause from her supporters. "I'll go to prison. I don't want to live in a country where people are treated this way."
Sheehan's actions, she said, were sparked by President Bush's comments like those made last Wednesday in Grapevine to about 1,800 members of the American Legislative Exchange Council: "Our men and women who've lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and in this war on terror have died in a noble cause and a selfless cause."
"We all know by now that that's not true, and I want to ask George Bush, 'Why did my son die? What was the noble cause that he died for?'" said Sheehan. "I don't want [President Bush] to use my son's name or my family name to justify any more killing or to exploit my son's name, my son's sacrifice, or my son's honor to justify more killing. As a mother, why would I want one more mother to go through what I'm going through, Iraqi or American?
"And I want to tell him that the only way to honor my son's sacrifice is to bring the troops home now."
Her son, Casey Sheehan, 24, of Vacaville, Calif., died in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 4, 2004, when his unit was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
Bush's comments Wednesday coincided with the deaths of 12 Marine reservists from Ohio who were killed in perhaps the deadliest roadside bombing of U.S. troops in Iraq. So far, the lives of about 1,821 Americans in uniform have been taken since the 2003 invasion. Pollsters indicate that Bush's approval ratings are declining in relation to the rise in U.S. casualties in Iraq.
Sheehan, joining anti-war activists at the Crawford Peace House, arrived with a busload of veterans from the Veterans for Peace convention which was held in Irving, near Dallas, since Thursday. The total group of activists there numbered over 50 and included members of Veteran's for Peace (VFP), Military Families Speak Out (MFSO), Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), CodePink, and the Crawford Peace House.
Vietnam veteran Jim Waters, not affliated with any activist group, said that he drove overnight from Lubbock alone in support of Sheehan and the Gold Star Families for Peace because he is "very concerned" about the war in Iraq and wants to ask President Bush, "Why aren't his daughters there?"
"One of the principles of leadership is you don't ask people to do what you yourself don't have the courage to do, and [President Bush] is asking people to fight to their deaths when he himself and most of the architects of this war never served," said Waters, a retired Navy commander and former hospital administrator. "[President Bush] served, but he jumped over 10,000 people to get into the National Guard Champagne Unit, so he could avoid duty in Vietnam. I had to go to Vietnam, and now he's sending them to their deaths — over 1,800 so far.
"I'm sick and tired of what's happening to our country," he continued. "To me it's almost like the White House operation is a mob operation. These guys are scary, and they're dangerous, in my opinion."
The demonstrators gathered around one side of Sheehan as she spoke with the news media. A World War II veteran, Archie Goodwin from Naples, Fla., carrying a sign, stated away from the group that he is for peace, but "Bush isn't." His sign read, "Somebody lied."
Sheehan was accompanied on Saturday by her sister, Dede Miller, and Amy Ranham, another mother of a slain U.S. soldier. Among her fellow supporters present were Ann Wright, a former U.S. diplomat who resigned her post in March 2003 in protest of the invasion of Iraq; Camilo Mejia, a reservist in the Florida National Guard who became a consciousness objector upon returning from service in Iraq; and Persian Gulf War Veteran Dennis Kyne, a former battlefield medic who is outspoken on the effects of depleted uranium weapons.
Captain Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sherriff's Department agreed to lead the caravan of anti-war demonstrators to the Bush Ranch. "As long as y'all work with us, we'll work with y'all," he said.
The situation, however, turned less friendly as the afternoon progressed.
At a checkpoint, the demonstrators, on orders from the peace officers, exited their vehicles about eight miles from the ranch and were told to walk in the direction of the ranch on the shoulder of the road, not the roadway itself, so as to not impede the traffic. The conditions of the shoulder made it increasingly difficult for the demonstrators to walk. Five-to-10-feet wide, the shoulder was sloped inward ditch-like to two-to-three feet in some places and lined with dry, uncut grass and damp dirt.
The deputies finally ordered the demonstrators to halt miles from the ranch because the group had not agreed to its side of the "bargain" by walking on the roadway. "The media is allowed on the road, so why aren't we?" asked one of the demonstrators, to which an officer of the Sheriff's Department replied, "Because they were following you."
Sheehan, making one last attempt to push forward, said, "In the name of 1,828 soldiers that should be alive, I'm going to see the president. He killed my son."
Holding signs that said, "No more blood for oil," "Support our troops, bring them home now," "Iraq is Arabic for Viet Nam," and "Frodo failed. Bush has the ring," the demonstrators then chanted, "W. killed her son. W. killed her son."
This first attempt to meet the President ended up futile. Members of the group, including Sheehan, exchanged a few heated words with the Sherriff's deputies, Secret Service agents, and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers who kept their composure through the afternoon. There were no arrests made during the demonstration.
Other political slogans and chants were heard, including one from Hadi Jawad of the Crawford Peace House who urged the news media keep reporting on the Downing Street memos. These documents are a series of classified, British reports made during a planning session between British and American officials over Iraq months before its invasion. The British officials note in the memos that the United States was "fixing" evidence around the administration's policy to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Sheehan, after the mainsteam media had left to file their reports, said, "This is the beginning of the end of the occupation of Iraq." A wild round of applause followed.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said in response to Sheehan's actions that President Bush also wants the troops to return home safely but their mission must be completed in their honor. Two aides to the President, national security adviser Steve Hadley and deputy White House chief of staff Joe Hagin, later met with Sheehan to say that the president cares, but she, though appreciative, said in a message through The Iconoclast to the President, "George Bush, if you really care about me, why aren't you meeting with me?"
Sheehan, an opponent of the war in Iraq since its inception, took part in a meeting with other military families and Bush in June 2004 at Fort Lewis, near Seattle, Wash. This occured two months after her son was killed in Iraq. In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Sunday, she said that during her first meeting with President Bush, she felt that the President seemed more jovial than sorrowful and expressed no interest in knowing the name of her son or seeing pictures of him.
Sheehan intends to continue to attempt to gain an audience with President Bush. "I'm filled with hope now, too, that we might be able to turn things around," she said, noting that additional support is on its way from throughout the country as she continues her efforts, which will include a candlelight vigil. Caravans from Louisiana and San Diego are on the way, to name a couple, she said.
Before her first attempt to speak to President Bush in Crawford, Sheehan met with two victims of the Hiroshima nuclear bombing, Dr. Satoru Konishi and ex-Marine Paul Ritthaler, and Ritthaler's wife, Betty. A press conference was held at the Peace House on the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 01:36 PM

I am pleased to report that Maureen Dowd, the spicy red-headed NY Times columnist, is back on her station livening up the Old Gray Lady.

"W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq.

There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.
...
A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?

Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.

And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called "Sweet Neo Con," chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.

The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote "Monday Night Football." The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.

Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.

The president met with her family two months after Casey's death. Capturing W.'s awkwardness in traversing the line between somber and joking, and his love of generic labels, Ms. Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.

The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover C.I.A. operative, the Bushies could out him. But even if they send out a squad of Swift Boat Moms for Truth, there will be a countering Falluja Moms for Truth.

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.

It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?

W.'s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.

It's getting harder for the president to hide from the human consequences of his actions and to control human sentiment about the war by pulling a curtain over the 1,835 troops killed in Iraq; the more than 13,000 wounded, many shorn of limbs; and the number of slain Iraqi civilians - perhaps 25,000, or perhaps double or triple that. More people with impeccable credentials are coming forward to serve as a countervailing moral authority to challenge Mr. Bush.

Paul Hackett, a Marine major who served in Iraq and criticized the president on his conduct of the war, narrowly lost last week when he ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold in Cincinnati. Newt Gingrich warned that the race should "serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" about 2006.

Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.

But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute. "

Get it said, Maureen!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Aug 05 - 10:51 PM

"The thing I hate fourth-worst about the Bush regime—after the way they're screwing up the country, dishonoring the flag, and making the world a more dangerous place—is all the ammunition they supply the tin-hat brigade," writes UCLA professor Mark A.R. Kleiman, who thinks the Abramoff scandal belongs in a spy novel. "How am I supposed to convince my students not to believe in elaborate wicked conspiracies when we've got an elaborate wicked conspiracy running the damned country?"

from Slate.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 10:25 AM

Social Security Lessons
             E-Mail This
Printer-Friendly
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 15, 2005

Social Security turned 70 yesterday. And to almost everyone's surprise, the nation's most successful government program is still intact.

Just a few months ago the conventional wisdom was that President Bush would get his way on Social Security. Instead, Mr. Bush's privatization drive flopped so badly that the topic has almost disappeared from national discussion.

But I'd like to revisit Social Security for a moment, because it's important to remember what Mr. Bush tried to get away with.

Many pundits and editorial boards still give Mr. Bush credit for trying to "reform" Social Security. In fact, Mr. Bush came to bury Social Security, not to save it. Over time, the Bush plan would have transformed Social Security from a social insurance program into a mutual fund, with nothing except a name in common with the system F.D.R. created.

In addition to misrepresenting his goals, Mr. Bush repeatedly lied about the current system. Oh, I'm sorry - was that a rude thing to say? Still, the fact is that Mr. Bush repeatedly said things that were demonstrably false and that his staff must have known were false. The falsehoods ranged from his claim that Social Security is unfair to African-Americans to his claim that "waiting just one year adds $600 billion to the cost of fixing Social Security."

Meanwhile, the administration politicized the Social Security Administration and used taxpayer money to promote a partisan agenda. Social Security officials participated in what were in effect taxpayer- financed political rallies, from which skeptical members of the public were excluded.

I'm writing about this in the past tense, but some of it is still going on. Last week Jo Anne Barnhart, the commissioner of Social Security, published an op-ed article claiming that Social Security as we know it was designed for a society in which people didn't live long enough to collect a lot of benefits. "The number of older Americans living now," wrote Ms. Barnhart, "is greater than anyone could have imagined in 1935."

Now, it turns out that an article on the Social Security Administration's Web site, "Life Expectancy for Social Security," specifically rejects the idea the Social Security was originally "designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits," and the related idea that the system faces problems from "a supposed dramatic increase in life expectancy in recent years."

And the current number of older Americans as a share of the population is just about what the founders of Social Security expected. The 1934 report of F.D.R.'s Commission on Economic Security, which laid the groundwork for the Social Security Act, projected that 12.7 percent of Americans would be 65 or older by the year 2000. The actual number was 12.4 percent.

Despite Ms. Barnhart's efforts, however, privatization seems to be dead for the time being. The Democratic leadership in Congress defied the punditocracy - which was very much in favor of privatization - by refusing to cave in, and the American people made it clear that they like Social Security the way it is.

But the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war.

...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 10:06 PM

Well, well, well...

No cut and paste here, folks 'cause Iz here to tell ya what really going down with Bush...

Yeah, okay, the Wsahington Post today reported that Bush had beaten all the reporters in a bike race... Accordin' to my sources the reporters were are ordered to tank the race 'er be shot!!! Yep, according to sources within the administartion, sharpshooters from the Texas National Rifle Association had been brought in, deputized, and told to take out any commir reporter to pass Bush on a bike....

What else? Oh yeah, what is it with these Repubs... They are on a spending spree that makes anything that the liberals have ever dreamed of look like chump change... Yeah, in the last two weeks the Repubs have spread enough pork around toheir own states that would drown most kids under 3 foot tall but don't worry, the Federal Emergency Managemnt Agency (FEMA) has the pork flood on it's radar screen and is ready to jump in any time and pull out the little 'un's...

What else? Oh yeah, the Bush folks today have conceeded that the war in Iraq is lost... Well they didn't actually say that but is admitting that they perhaps has misfigurated the possibilities of actually setting up a democracy in Iraq was not gonna happen the US is now faced with no real reason to saty in Iraq... Yeah, Bush supporters will cintinue to say "Stay the course" but not that the administartion has sent out the message that the course is not reasonable, it would appear that these folks can go home now....

What else? Hmmmmmm? What if I told you that it is foriegn investors who are buying the mortgages of folks buying homes in America and that the housing industry is emplying over 2 million folks??? Would that be of any concern??? Well, it should because that is the situation... This so-called "recovery" is based soley on Americans taking on debt to buy bigger houses??? And Chines and Europeans are bankrollin' this splurge.... This ain't a recovery but a a big ol' fashion short-sheetin'.... When the bubble bursts so will Bush's so called legacy.. You can only hold the credit card out but so long befire the sales clerk says' "Sorry, but yer card has been denied"....

What else? Well, there are plenty... "No Child Left Behind" which is probably the cornerstone of what some might argue is a Bush success is on the rocks.. It's driving local school communities to turn down federal funds becuase the standards are too regid... Like, exactky why should kids with learning disabilities be expected to read on the same level as other kids their age??? These kids never have, never will yet Bush is perfectly willing to cut funding to schools that can't get their most challenges students up to reading at grade level??? Hey, these schools don't need Bush, they need Oral Roberts....

What else? Hey, I'm not sure that there are any Bushites left readin' this thread but I'd bee more than happy to take on an issue where you feel Bush is doing well...

Hey, don't matter which one 'cause I discovered a long time ago that when you come into office with screwed up thinking you ain't going go nowhere but more screwed up thinking...

What really pisses me off is that I mail a lot of money to these screw-ups and I am beginning to really resent ehir ineptitudeness... If I were their boss, I'd fire 'um all and start from scratch...

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Aug 05 - 10:43 PM

From this web site, the following concerned citizen's remarks:

BUSH A COWARD

Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2005-08-15 17:00.
Niagara Falls Reporter

The President of the United States, who lacked the courage to serve his country during the Vietnam War, has once again shown his cowardice. Scores of brave American soldiers have given their lives since he went on vacation a couple of weeks ago. And yet, when the mother of one of our war dead -- Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed awhile back in Sadr City -- showed up at his Texas ranch asking to speak to him, he didn't even have the cojones to ask her in for a cup of coffee.

Instead, he had Karl Rove contact the Drudge Report and other sleazy news outlets across the land with a couple of comments Mrs. Sheehan made to her hometown paper in Vacaville, Calif., shortly after her son's death. Taken out of context, the quotes make her look like she spoke in favor of Bush and his dirty little war. On reading the full interview, however, it is clear that, from the beginning, she thought her son had died for nothing and was -- as we all might in such a situation -- just trying to be polite to the president.

What a coward. What a pathetic excuse for a man. To refuse to meet with, and then attempt to slime, a Gold Star Mother. It's inexcusable. In fact, it's beyond inexcusable.

The moral high ground in this, of course, belongs to Cindy Sheehan and the other mothers of dead soldiers who have joined her on her vigil down in Texas. It clearly does not belong to George W. Bush, who shirked his military commitment at a time when "wimps" like Al Gore and John Kerry were getting shot at in Southeast Asia.

Mrs. Sheehan, a Catholic youth minister for eight years, says the war is unjust, immoral and was predicated on a pack of lies emanating from the Bush administration. She is, of course, correct. No evidence has been produced to show a link between the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States and the regime of Saddam Hussein, and the question of whether the Iraqis were in possession of weapons of mass destruction was resolved a couple of years ago.

They weren't, by the way, despite Colin Powell's masterful deception at the United Nations.

Our president is a coward who lied us into a war we can't possibly win. The blood of more than 1,850 American soldiers, 195 allied troops and at least 25,000 Iraqis is on his hands.

As the writer Juan Cole noted recently, "The war in Iraq is over, and the winner is ... Iran."

Niagara Falls Reporter
www.niagarafallsreporter.com
Aug. 16 2005

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 05 - 05:34 PM

More from my favorite chile roja, Maureen Dowd:

Biking Toward Nowhere
            
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 17, 2005

How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in Iraq?

Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in harm's way?

"I'm determined that life goes on," Mr. Bush said stubbornly.

That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years ago. I was in Kennebunkport then to cover the first President Bush's frenetic attempts to relax while reporters were pressing him about how he could be taking a month to play around when he had started sending American troops to the Persian Gulf only three days before.

On Saturday, the current President Bush was pressed about how he could be taking five weeks to ride bikes and nap and fish and clear brush even though his occupation of Iraq had become a fiasco. "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life," W. said, "to keep a balanced life."

Pressed about how he could ride his bike while refusing to see a grieving mom of a dead soldier who's camped outside his ranch, he added: "So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."

Ah, the insensitivity of reporters who ask the President Bushes how they can expect to deal with Middle East fighting while they're off fishing.

The first President Bush told us that he kept a telephone in his golf cart and his cigarette boat so he could easily stay on top of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. But at least he seemed worried that he was sending the wrong signal, as his boating and golfing was juxtaposed on the news with footage of the frightened families of troops leaving for the Middle East.

"I just don't like taking questions on serious matters on my vacation," the usually good-natured Bush senior barked at reporters on the golf course. "So I hope you'll understand if I, when I'm recreating, will recreate." His hot-tempered oldest son, who was golfing with his father that day, was even more irritated. "Hey! Hey!" W. snapped at reporters asking questions on the first tee. "Can't you wait until we finish hitting, at least?"

Junior always had his priorities straight.

...

"At long last, a senior Bush official admits that administration officials can no longer cling to their own version of reality. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official told The Washington Post.

They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion, hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute to democracy."

The president's pedaling as fast as he can, but he's going nowhere. "

---

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 05 - 01:01 PM

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman revisits the criminal malfeasance of the RNC in 2000 and 2004 not in regret but in a spirit of forewarning.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 11:42 PM

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country." ....George W. Bush

If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." George W. Bush

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child." .Governor George W. Bush

"Welcome to Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts." Governor George W. Bush

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." .Governor George W. Bush, 8/11/94

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century." Governor George W. Bush, 9/15/95

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy but that could change." .Governor George W. Bush, 5/22/98

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'." Governor George W. Bush, 12/6/93

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things." Governor George W. Bush, 11/30/96

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." Governor George W. Bush

"The future will be better tomorrow." Governor George W. Bush

"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world." Governor George W. Bush, 9/21/97

"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history." Governor George W. Bush

"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." Governor George W. Bush to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 12:16 AM

"Don't try to make a monkey out of me, Mr President!" - Chongo Chimp

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 09:18 PM

I'm not sure where to put this...maybe it deserves its own thread

Why I may start taking the anti-evolutionists seriously

Subject: RE: BS: Doctorow on the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 05:33 PM

AN important writer speaks on Bush:

Subject: The Unfeeling President
Note: Edgar Lawrence Doctorow occupies a central position in the
history of American literature. He is generally considered to be among
the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half
of the twentieth century. Doctorow has received the National Book
Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/Faulkner
Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howell
Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the
residentially conferred National Humanities Medal.


From the East Hampton Star - September 9, 2004

The Unfeeling President

An essay by E.L Doctorow

I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is.
He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to
be what they could be.

On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the
lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what
death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of
necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower
could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for
it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the
WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the
stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd,
smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't
understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a
speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the
brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their
country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an
emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he
has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for
the thousand dead young men and women who wanted be what they could
be.

They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or
wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly
torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance
of aborted life.... They come to his desk as a political liability
which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of
their coffins from Iraq.

How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets
nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as
he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his
bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his
mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that rather than
controlling terrorism his war in Iraq has licensed it.

So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have
fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He
had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those
who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war
when it is one of the options, but when it is the only option; you go
not because you want to but because you have to.

This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer
the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president
and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing --- to
take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of
themselves and their friends. A war will do that as well as anything.
You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent
becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not
contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and
wives and children.

He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the
families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million of
us who live in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who
cannot afford health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose
lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of
the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills ---
it is amazing for how many people in this country this President does
not feel.

But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is
relieving the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax
burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the
air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing
the safety regulations for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs,
and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a- half benefits
for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising
them into the professional class.

And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and
the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to
our democracy is choking the life out of it.

But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember
the millions of people here and around the world who marched against
the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused oversoul of
alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it
happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen
coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time.

But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of
people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of
mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of
democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic
republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its
extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a
concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat
that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who
could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than
pre-emptive war.

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the
nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable
national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of
lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people
he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get
us into, is his characteristic trouble.

Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report.
He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can
we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid
and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving,
and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is
a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.

E.L. Doctorow

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 06:05 AM

Leon Rosselson wrote:

Jumbo the elephant, he wasn't elegant,
and his intelligence was small
But he was a helluva nice sort of elephant,
willing and mild, like a lovable child
Obedient to everyone's call

Jumbo lived in the jingle jangle jungle of a concrete town
He worked clearing debris, hauling girders, heaving timber till the night came down
Never known another home,
he was as happy as he could be
Everyone gave him buns,
petted and petted him playfully

And the mayor, who owned half the town and Jumbo, too
And the mayor, taught him all the things that an elephant should do
And the mayor, when the town turned out for the liberty parade
And the mayor, when the crowd waved flags and the brass bands played
Proud as a cat in his cock-a-doodle hat, the fat mayor sat
-- on the elephant's back
Jumbo, the elephant....

Sunday evenings, all the town folk gathered in the market square
They came to watch the elephant performing all the tricks that he'd been taught by the mayor
He could dance, he could prance, everyone laughing to see the fun
Rhumba-ing, lumbering, keeping the time to the beat of the drum

And the mayor
-- the ways of an elephant were ways he understood
And the mayor
-- gave Jumbo champagne as a treat for being good
And the mayor
-- had the word of command as the great beast bowed
And the mayor
-- mounted like a rajah to the cheers of the crowd
Proud as a cat in his cock-a-doodle hat, the fat mayor sat
-- on the elephant's back

Jumbo the elephant....

Then one Sunday, as the dry winds flickered through the summer heat
The mayor was riding Jumbo, at the head of a procession, through the crowded street
Suddenly, for all to see, Jumbo stopped, heard the mayor call his name
Silently, defiantly, Jumbo was playing another game

And the elephant
-- raised his trunk and trumpeted, shattering the sky
And the elephant
-- the crowd fled in terror as they heard his jungle cry
And the elephant
-- rampaging and trampling through the town
And the elephant
-- "Jumbo!" cried the mayor, as he was hurled to the ground
A tit for a tat, you could hear the bones crack, as the elephant sat
-- On the fat mayor's back

Jumbo the elephant, he wasn't elegant, and his intelligence was small
But he was a helluva nice sort of elephant, till he turned wild, like a violent child
You can't trust an elephant at all

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 09:03 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/26/alqaeda.book/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 09:13 PM

Gee -- this looks like a weird attempt to diffuse the focus of this thread by adding irrelevant fodder to it.

If Bush has been waging a campaign against Al Qeda all along, he really should have said so instead of leaping off into a country where there WAS no significant AL Qeda activity until after he chose it as his militant sandbox, regardless of the destruction that decision caused.

As for Paul's entry, I won't deign to comment. It is just methane.

Paul Krugman comments on the economy in today's NY Times. Excerpt:

American families don't care about G.D.P. They care about whether jobs are available, how much those jobs pay and how that pay compares with the cost of living. And recent G.D.P. growth has failed to produce exceptional gains in employment, while wages for most workers haven't kept up with inflation.

About employment: it's true that the economy finally started adding jobs two years ago. But although many people say "four million jobs in the last two years" reverently, as if it were an amazing achievement, it's actually a rise of about 3 percent, not much faster than the growth of the working-age population over the same period. And recent job growth would have been considered subpar in the past: employment grew more slowly during the best two years of the Bush administration than in any two years during the Clinton administration.

It's also true that the unemployment rate looks fairly low by historical standards. But other measures of the job situation, like the average of weekly hours worked (which remains low), and the average duration of unemployment (which remains high), suggest that the demand for labor is still weak compared with the supply.

Employers certainly aren't having trouble finding workers. When Wal-Mart announced that it was hiring at a new store in Northern California, where the unemployment rate is close to the national average, about 11,000 people showed up to apply for 400 jobs.

Because employers don't have to raise wages to get workers, wages are lagging behind the cost of living. According to Labor Department statistics, the purchasing power of an average nonsupervisory worker's wage has fallen about 1.5 percent since the summer of 2003. And this may understate the pressure on many families: the cost of living has risen sharply for those whose work or family situation requires buying a lot of gasoline.

Some commentators dismiss concerns about gasoline prices, because those prices are still below previous peaks when you adjust for inflation. But that misses the point: Americans bought cars and made decisions about where to live when gas was $1.50 or less per gallon, and now suddenly find themselves paying $2.60 or more. That's a rude shock, which I estimate raises the typical family's expenses by more than $900 a year.

You may ask where economic growth is going, if it isn't showing up in wages. That's easy to answer: it's going to corporate profits, to rising health care costs and to a surge in the salaries and other compensation of executives. (Forbes reports that the combined compensation of the chief executives of America's 500 largest companies rose 54 percent last year.)

The bottom line, then, is that most Americans have good reason to feel unhappy about the economy, whatever Washington's favorite statistics may say. This is an economic expansion that hasn't trickled down; many people are worse off than they were a year ago. And it will take more than a revamped administration sales pitch to make people feel better.

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 09:17 PM

My redheaded darlin' Maureen remarks recently, also in the Times:

"...ush Senior made some Republicans worry that he left Iraq too soon. Bush Junior is making some Republicans worry that he is staying in Iraq too long.

"Any effort to explain Iraq as 'We are on track and making progress' is nonsense," Newt Gingrich told Adam Nagourney and David D. Kirkpatrick for a Times article on G.O.P. jitters about the shadow of Iraq over the midterm elections. "The left has a constant drumbeat that this is Vietnam and a bottomless pit. The daily and weekly casualties leave people feeling that things aren't going well."

W. says he can't set a deadline to bring the troops home. But he started the war on an artificial deadline; he declared a "Mission Accomplished" end to major hostilities on an artificial deadline; he was inflexible on deadlines for handing over Iraqi sovereignty and holding elections. And he tried to force the Iraqis to produce a constitution on his deadline when the squabbling politicians of the ethnic and religious factions hadn't even reached consensus on little things like "Do we want one country?"

It isn't only the left that is invoking Vietnam. You know you're in trouble when Henry Kissinger gives you advice on how to exit a war.

The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for making a botched exit and humiliating defeat look like a brilliant act of diplomacy wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post drawing the analogy the White House dreads: Iraq as Vietnam, including an unfavorable comparison: "After the failure of Hanoi's Tet offensive, the guerrilla threat was substantially eliminated. Saigon and all other urban centers were far safer than major cities in Iraq are today."

He said Mr. Bush had only a few things to accomplish: train a real Iraqi Army that includes all religious and ethnic groups, make the Shiites stop hating the Sunnis and the Kurds stop hating everyone, and keep the Iranians from creating a theocratic dictatorship in Iraq. Oh, yeah, and a couple of other teensy little things: our troops have to defeat the vicious Iraq insurgency, and Mr. Bush needs to keep domestic support for the war.

Domestic support is waning because the president remains too stubbornly ensconced in his fantasy world - it's worse than Barbie in her dream house - to reassure Americans that he has a plan to get out.

As we approach the 2,000 mark of coffins coming home that we're not allowed to see, it doesn't even look like a war. It looks like a lot of kids being blown to smithereens by an invisible enemy.

The mother of one of the 16 Ohio marines killed in a recent roadside explosion in western Iraq addressed the president from in front of her Cleveland home. "We feel you either have to fight this war right or get out," Rosemary Palmer said.

Tricky Dick suggested that he had a secret plan to get out of Vietnam. Bikey W. doesn't even have a secret plan, unless it's to recreate forever, and never again have to speed past those pesky antiwar protesters in a motorcade."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 09:36 PM

From a concerned correspondent citing the BBC

..."ll these breakthroughs found their fullest exploitation in the
United States. Indeed, they all contributed to America's pre-eminence
in science-based manufacturing and services.

Think of the personal computer and wonder drugs, of the jumbo
jetliner, video games and the pacemaker, the laser that counts your
groceries and the laser, or the global positioning satellite, that
tells you to turn left at the roundabout.

That is why there is furious bewilderment here in the universities
and the higher levels of business at the chilly indifference - not to
say hostility - of the Bush White House to science. Actually, I've
seen a movie like this once before and I know how it ends.

When I was a science reporter in Britain in the 50s, it was a thrill
to visit the centre of government research, the National Physical
Laboratory at Teddington, Middlesex. It was hallowed ground.

I was in the lab where Watson Watt did his breakthrough work on radar
in time for the Royal Air Force to find the Luftwaffe in the
invisible skies and win the Battle of Britain.

I stood in awe before that much-photographed early computer - the
wall-length monster called ACE - designed in 1945 by the wartime code-
breaker, Alan Turing. It was then the fastest in the world, spewing
out instant answers to reams of calculations I was allowed to feed
into its innards.

Inertia

You would have thought that the National Physical Laboratory would be
the darling of every British Government. Not so. I was invited to
visit at that time because they were concerned the government did not
fully appreciate that science in peace was as vital as science in war.

The researchers were doing what they could on a tiny budget and even
that was about to be cut. Not just in the government, but in business
and society, there was a general indifference to science and
scientific education that seems odd today.

The consequence of that inertia in government and lethargy in
business was that the US came to dominate the computer industry,
despite all the brilliant work of Turing at Manchester University and
others at Ferranti.

The question now tormenting Americans - who don't have a natural
aptitude for worry - is whether the same writing is on the wall for
them. Vinton Cerf is one who thinks it is, and he is no ordinary hand-
wringer.

He's the mathematician who is often referred to as the "father of the
internet". From 1972 to 1986, he was one of the key people in the US
Defense Department who made it possible for distant and different
computers to exchange packets of information - and that's the
foundation of the internet on top of which rides the world wide web
today.

Nothing daunted, he is now working on the protocols for planet to
planet communication. In short, he knows whereof he speaks. And Cerf
has just emitted a cry of pain.

The Bush administration does not take kindly to anyone who has drawn
a federal dollar being critical - and being critical moreover in the
businessman's' bible, the Wall street Journal.

Talent pool

So it is brave of Cerf to risk future disfavour and inveigh against
"the stewards of our national destiny" for cutting money from key
areas of research in its 2006 budget. That's a recipe, says Cerf, for
"irrelevance and decline."

The president's science adviser, John Marburger, concedes that the
budget is "pretty close to flat" but stoutly maintains "we are not
going backwards", pointing to an extra $733 million for research and
development (R&D) funding.

In fact, this is the first time in a decade that federal funding has
failed to keep pace with inflation. And in the entrails of the
complex budget - no one should go there alone - you find there is
indeed less money in real terms for what's called basic research and
less for Cerf's area of particular concern, computer science.

Funding university research for that has been falling through the
first Bush term and is now about half what it was in 2001.

All told, anyway, America now ranks sixth in the world in the
percentage of its wealth it spends on R&D. Yet the downward trend
isn't solely the result of the parsimony of "the hick in the White
House", as one motor mouth put it.

It is largely a reflection of rising educational standards around the
world, so it's a comparative decline. In real terms, no single
country can even come close to matching the US in the total
scientific investment by government, corporations and foundations.

So what is there to worry about? Well, there are some facts Americans
find hard to swallow after decades of striding the frontiers of
science. Fewer of the Nobel prizes go to American scientists, down to
about half from a peak in the 90s. Papers from Americans occupied 61%
of published research in 1983, now the total is just under 29%.

'Freedom of inquiry'

It may not get better soon since a higher proportion of young
Americans are opting for better paid law and medicine over science
and engineering and visa restrictions on bright foreign students
further dilute the talent pool. "The rest of the world is catching
up," says John E. Jankowski, a senior analyst at the National Science
Foundation.

Since some of these trends have been developing on the watch of
presidents from Reagan onwards, I sought a science policy health
check from luminaries in the field.

Professor Neal Lane at Rice University was the science adviser
reporting directly to President Clinton, but as a former director of
the National Science Foundation he cannot be dismissed as partisan.

Like others I spoke with, he is less concerned with the international
league tables and the familiar salami processes of the budget, than
the well-documented readiness of the Bush administration to
manipulate and suppress scientific findings - manifestly to appease
industrial interests and religious constituencies.

This is not just on global warming and stem cells, currently in the
news, but on a whole range of issues - lead and mercury poisoning in
children, women's health, birth control, safety standards for
drinking water, forest management, air pollution and on and on."

See whole story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/4172504.stm

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 28 Aug 05 - 05:36 AM

Bush to face fury over UN changes; By Ewen Macaskill; London
August 28, 2005

AN INTERNATIONAL alliance will confront US President George Bush to salvage as much as possible of an ambitious plan to reshape the United Nations and tackle world poverty. The head-to-head in New York tomorrow comes after the revelation that the US Administration is proposing wholesale changes to crucial parts of the biggest overhaul of the UN since it was founded more than 50 years ago.

A draft of that plan had included a review of progress on the UN's millennium development goals — poverty eradication targets set in 2000 for completion by 2015 — and the introduction of reforms aimed at repairing the damage done to the UN's reputation by Iraq, Rwanda and the Balkans. But it was revealed this week that Mr Bush's new ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, was seeking 750 changes to the 36-page draft plan to be presented to a special summit in New York on September 14-16. Mr Bolton's amendments, if successful, would leave the plan in tatters.

The British Foreign Office confirmed yesterday that Britain was standing behind the original plan, putting it at odds with Mr Bush.
The concern in British and other international circles is that the US objections, if adopted, would severely undermine the UN summit, the biggest gathering of world leaders. At least 175 world leaders have accepted an invitation to attend. The UN said that Mr Bush had confirmed he would be there.

A wide range of organisations, from aid groups to the anti-arms lobby, voiced dismay about Mr Bolton's objections yesterday and expressed concern that the summit may end in failure. The Make Poverty History campaign said there was a danger that the millennium development goals, the original reason for holding the summit, would be reduced to a footnote. A source close to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said it was too early to declare the UN plan dead.

"Bolton wants to knock down the plan and start from scratch," the source said. "He will find that his opinions are not shared by most of the rest of the world."

The president of the UN general assembly, Jean Ping from Gambia, has been working on the draft for the past year, covering issues of poverty, climate change, genocide, small arms, the creation of a permanent UN peacekeeping capability and reform of the UN management structure. A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that Britain and the European Union, of which Britain holds the presidency, "are broadly content with the summit draft. It reflects the ambitious agenda thrown up by Kofi Annan."

GUARDIAN

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 28 Aug 05 - 06:34 AM

IRAQ: Reuters Journalist Held without Charge by U.S.; http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/745; August 25, 2005
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists demands that the U.S. military explain why it is holding a freelance Iraqi photojournalist working for Reuters news agency or release him immediately. "U.S. officials must credibly explain the basis for the detention of Ali Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani and other journalists being held without charge, or release them at once," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper.
Mashhadani, a 36-year-old freelance cameraman and photographer working for Reuters in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, was detained by U.S. troops on August 8, and has been held incommunicado without explanation by U.S. forces since then, according to Reuters.

Mashhadani has worked for Reuters for the past year. He is being held in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, the news agency reported. U.S. officials said he would not be allowed visitors for 60 days.
Mashhadani was taken from his home during a general sweep of the neighborhood by Marines who became suspicious after seeing pictures on his cameras, Reuters quoted his family as saying. "Relatives said that Marines conducting a routine search of the house turned hostile after viewing images stored on Mashhadani's video and stills cameras and his desktop computer," Reuters reported.

Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense, told CPJ he had no additional information on Mashhadani's detention. U.S. and Iraqi military forces routinely detain Iraqi journalists without charge or explanation, and some have been held for months. In May, CPJ raised concern about the detention of at least eight Iraqi journalists held by U.S. and Iraqi military forces because they posed a "security risk to the Iraqi people and coalition forces." However, no further details were provided about the journalists who included local staff for Agence France Presse and CBS News. It is unclear how many of those eight detainees remain in custody.

Last year Reuters revealed that three of its Iraqi employees were subjected to sexual abuse and humiliation when U.S. troops arrested them near Fallujah on January 2 while they were covering the downing of a U.S. helicopter. U.S. military officials have voiced suspicions on several occasions that some Iraqi journalists collaborated with Iraqi insurgents and had advance knowledge of attacks on coalition forces. But the military has never provided evidence to substantiate any claims.

"We believe our colleagues are being detained for merely carrying out their professional work. These long-term detentions by the U.S. military are a further unacceptable curb on journalists who already operate under near impossible conditions in the field in Iraq," she added.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 04:34 PM

Maureen Dowd reviews the record:

"...Op-Ed Columnist
My Private Idaho
             E-Mail This
Printer-Friendly
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 24, 2005
W. vacationed so hard in Texas he got bushed. He needed a vacation from his vacation.

The most rested president in American history headed West yesterday to get away from his Western getaway - and the mushrooming Crawford Woodstock - and spend a couple of days at the Tamarack Resort in the rural Idaho mountains.

Skip to next paragraph

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

More Columns by Maureen Dowd

Forum: Maureen Dowd's Columns
"I'm kind of hangin' loose, as they say," he told reporters.

As The Financial Times noted, Mr. Bush is acting positively French in his love of le loafing, with 339 days at his ranch since he took office - nearly a year out of his five. Most Americans, on the other hand, take fewer vacations than anyone else in the developed world (even the Japanese), averaging only 13 to 16 days off a year.

W. didn't go alone, of course. Just as he took his beloved feather pillow on the road during his 2000 campaign, now he takes his beloved bike. An Air Force One steward tenderly unloaded W.'s $3,000 Trek Fuel mountain bike when they landed in Boise.

Gas is guzzling toward $3 a gallon. U.S. troop casualties in Iraq are at their highest levels since the invasion. As Donald Rumsfeld conceded yesterday, "The lethality, however, is up." Afghanistan's getting more dangerous, too. The defense secretary says he's raising troop levels in both places for coming elections.

So our overextended troops must prepare for more forced rotations, while the president hangs loose.

I mean, I like to exercise, but W. is psychopathic about it. He interviewed one potential Supreme Court nominee, Harvie Wilkinson III, by asking him how much he exercised. Last winter, Mr. Bush was obsessed with his love handles, telling people he was determined to get rid of seven pounds.

Shouldn't the president worry more about body armor than body fat?

Instead of calling in Karl Rove to ask him if he'd leaked, W. probably called him in to order him to the gym.

The rest of us may be fixated on the depressing tableau in Iraq, where the U.S. seems to be delivering a fundamentalist Islamic state into the dirty hands of men like Ahmad Chalabi, who conned the neocons into pushing for war, and his ally Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who started two armed uprisings against U.S. troops. It was his militiamen who ambushed Casey Sheehan's convoy in Sadr City.

America has caved on Iraqi women's rights. In fact, the women's rights activists supported by George and Laura Bush may have to leave Iraq.

But, as a former C.I.A. Middle East specialist, Reuel Marc Gerecht, said on "Meet the Press," U.S. democracy in 1900 didn't let women vote. If Iraqi democracy resembled that, "we'd all be thrilled," he said. "I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy."

Yesterday, the president hailed the constitution establishing an Islamic republic as "an amazing process," and said it "honors women's rights, the rights of minorities." Could he really think that? Or is he following the Vietnam model - declaring victory so we can leave?

The main point of writing a constitution was to move Sunnis into the mainstream and make them invested in the process, thereby removing the basis of the insurgency. But the Shiites and Kurds have frozen out the Sunnis, enhancing their resentment. So the insurgency is more likely to be inflamed than extinguished.

For political reasons, the president has a history of silence on America's war dead. But he finally mentioned them on Monday because it became politically useful to use them as a rationale for war - now that all the other rationales have gone up in smoke.

"We owe them something," he told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion). "We will finish the task that they gave their lives for."

What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself.

Just because the final reason the president came up with for invading Iraq - to create a democracy with freedom of religion and minority rights - has been dashed, why stop relaxing? W. is determined to stay the course on bike trails all over the West.

"

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 04:37 PM

And again, a day earlier (Dowd's columns are available on the NYT website):

"...Then, as president, he jumped the couch by pedaling through the guns of August - the growing carnage and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He did do a few minutes of work this month, calling a Shiite leader in Baghdad a few days ago to lobby him to reach a consensus with the Sunnis, so Iraq doesn't crack apart. But the Shiites and Kurds ignored the president and skewered the Sunnis.

Iraq, it turns out, is the one branch of American government that the Republicans don't control.

W. had a barbecue for the press on Thursday night. (If only the press had grilled him instead.) He mingled over catfish and potato salad with the reporters, who had to ride past Cindy Sheehan's antiwar encampment to get to the poolside party.

Dan Froomkin wrote on the Washington Post Web site that many of the reporters "fawned over Bush, following him around in packs every time he moved." W. chatted about sports and the twins, still oblivious to the cultural shift that is turning 2005 into 1968.

As the news correspondent Dan Harris noted on ABC on Wednesday, the mood is much different now from what it was when the Dixie Chicks got pilloried for criticizing the president just before the war began.

The No. 1 music video requested on MTV is Green Day's antiwar song, "Wake Me Up When September Ends," about the pain of soldiers and their families. On Sunday, Joan Baez sang peace anthems at Camp Casey, including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" The N.F.L. did not cancel its sponsorship of the Rolling Stones tour, even though the band has a new song critical of Mr. Bush and the war.

Gary Hart began his Washington Post op-ed piece this week by quoting from an anti-Vietnam War song, "Waist-deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on."

The former campaign manager for George McGovern's antiwar campaign in 1972 wrote: "We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began. Who now has the courage to say this?"

Anxiety is growing among politicians on both sides of the aisle. More and more Americans don't want to stay-the-course on stay-the-course.

You'd think that by now, watching the meshugas in Iraq, the Bush crowd would have learned some lessons about twisting facts to suit ideology, and punishing those who try to tell the truth. But they're still behaving like Cinderella's evil stepsisters, who cut their feet to fit them into the glass slipper: butchering reality to make the fairy tale come out their way.

Eric Lichtblau reported in The Times this week that the administration was dumping the highly respected Lawrence Greenfeld, appointed by President Bush in 2001 to head the Bureau of Justice Statistics, because he refused superiors' orders to delete from a press release an account of how black and Hispanic drivers were treated more aggressively by the police after traffic stops. The Justice Department study showed markedly higher rates of searches and use of force for black and Hispanic drivers, compared with white drivers.

Fearing that the survey would give ammunition to members of Congress who object to using racial and ethnic data in terrorism and law enforcement investigations, Mr. Greenfeld's supervisors buried it online with no press release or briefing for Congress.

Mr. Lichtblau wrote that when Mr. Greenfeld sent the planned press release to the office of his supervisor, Tracy Henke, then an acting assistant attorney general, the section on the treatment of black and Hispanic drivers was crossed out with a notation: "Do we need this?" Ms. Henke herself had added a note: "Make the changes."

Like Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton and others who helped spin reality to suit political ends, Ms. Henke was rewarded by the president. She has been nominated for a senior post in the Homeland Security Department.

I feel safer already."

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Aug 05 - 04:50 PM

DESTROYING THE NATIONAL PARKS

ANother cute stunt from the Boys Of Endless Viagra:

" Most of us think of America's national parks as everlasting places, parts of the bedrock of how we know our own country. But they are shaped and protected by an underlying body of legislation, which is distilled into a basic policy document that governs their operation. Over time, that document has slowly evolved, but it has always stayed true to the fundamental principle of leaving the parks unimpaired for future generations. That has meant, in part, sacrificing some of the ways we might use the parks today in order to protect them for tomorrow.

Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience.

Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration.

Some of Mr. Hoffman's changes are trivial, although even apparently subtle changes in wording - from "protect" to "conserve," for instance - soften the standard used to judge the environmental effects of park policy.

But there is nothing subtle about the main thrust of this rewrite. It is a frontal attack on the idea of "impairment." According to the act that established the national parks, preventing impairment of park resources - including the landscape, wildlife and such intangibles as the soundscape of Yellowstone, for instance - is the "fundamental purpose." In Mr. Hoffman's world, it is now merely one of the purposes.

Mr. Hoffman's rewrite would open up nearly every park in the nation to off-road vehicles, snowmobiles and Jet Skis. According to his revision, the use of such vehicles would become one of the parks' purposes. To accommodate such activities, he redefines impairment to mean an irreversible impact. To prove that an activity is impairing the parks, under Mr. Hoffman's rules, you would have to prove that it is doing so irreversibly - a very high standard of proof. This would have a genuinely erosive effect on the standards used to protect the national parks.

The pattern prevails throughout this 194-page document - easing the rules that limit how visitors use the parks and toughening the standard of proof needed to block those uses. Behind this pattern, too, there is a fundamental shift in how the parks are regarded. If the laws establishing the national park system were fundamentally forward-looking - if their mission, first and foremost, was protecting the parks for the future - Mr. Hoffman's revisions place a new, unwelcome and unnecessary emphasis on the present, on what he calls "opportunities for visitors to use and enjoy their parks."

There is no question that we go to national parks to use and enjoy them. But part of the enjoyment of being in a place like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon is knowing that no matter how much it changes in the natural processes of time, it will continue to exist substantially unchanged.

There are other issues too. Mr. Hoffman would explicitly allow the sale of religious merchandise, and he removes from the policy document any reference to evolution or evolutionary processes. He does everything possible to strip away a scientific basis for park management. His rules would essentially require park superintendents to subordinate the management of their parks to local and state agendas. He also envisions a much wider range of commercial activity within the parks.

In short, this is not a policy for protecting the parks. It is a policy for destroying them."

See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/opinion/29mon1.html

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 10:55 AM

qThe following letter was written by a private citizen for publication in his local newspaper, and forwarded by a friend:

"Letter to George W. Bush

Listen up, Mr. President, because I'm not going to say this twice. You have been a pitiful, weak and pathetic Commander and Chief when the people of this country, your country, needed you in their darkest hour. You sabotaged the shoring up of the levees that protect the city of New Orleans from the flooding that is now occurring; you and your advisors knew that a major hurricane was on its way to the Gulf Coast and you stalled; you set up a Department you called "Homeland Security" and it failed to keep the people secure. You dilly-dallied in Crawford after Katrina hit, assumably reluctant to end your vacation and get back to the real job in Washington. You failed to immediately order sufficient troops, food, water, and medical supplies to New Orleans, other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi when it became so apparent that stranded people were in desperate need. You made a token flight over the destruction that Katrina wreaked, but you didn't tell your Air Force One pilot to set your safe airplane down so you could walk through the flooded, devastated neighborhoods or comfort the families who had lost everything. No, you waited until you had your public relations set up, and your photo opportunities in place before you dared to be with the people, your people, who look for your leadership.

You, Mr. President, are the worst excuse for the leader of the Free World anyone could possibly conceived of. While you were casting about for someone to blame, like the head of FEMA, or local government, you failed to respond to the frantic pleas from the mayor of New Orleans, you failed to order and provide for an evacuation to take place NOW. You let old people die from dehydration and lack of medical care; you watched from your comfortable place in Washington D.C. as mothers wept when their babies became listless and unresponsive; you clucked your tongue and shook your head as doctors and nurses called repeatedly from the hospitals where conditions deteriorated and patients were dying. You called the response "unacceptable".

Well, Mr. President, if this is so unacceptable then you're the man. It's on your back, Mr. President. You are the guy in charge. And every one of these people whose misery exceeds anything they could possibly have imagined in America, every mother, father and grandparent….they won't forget that their President did not come to their aid at once when their cities and their lives were destroyed. Your delay in leading, in ordering immediate aid is unforgivable. You abandoned your citizens.
You call yourself a dedication Christian. You talk about God frequently and have even suggested that you were chosen by God to lead this nation. I'm here to tell you and your administration that you need to study the principles of Christianity before you ever again dare to breathe the word. You need to understand that "loving your neighbor as yourself" and "caring for the least of these." are not a set of pretty words. You need to develop some compassion that is real and not staged.

We, the people of the United States, will neither forget nor forgive you for your failure to protect our own citizens in their hour of need. Never."

---

I can only concur.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 05 - 10:22 PM

From MSNBC: The "city" of Louisiana (Keith Olbermann): Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 09:23 AM

From Capitol Blue, a liberalist website:

"...Bush's behavior, according to prominent Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Justin Frank, author of "Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President," is all too typical of an alcohol-abusing bully who is ruled by fear.

To see that fear emerges, Dr. Frank says, all one has to do is confront the President. "To actually directly confront him in a clear way, to bring him out, so you would really see the bully, and you would also see the fear," he says.

Dr. Frank, in his book, speculates that Bush, an alcoholic who brags that he gave up booze without help from groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, may be drinking again.

"Two questions that the press seems particularly determined to ignore have hung silently in the air since before Bush took office," Dr. Frank says. "Is he still drinking? And if not, is he impaired by all the years he did spend drinking? Both questions need to be addressed in any serious assessment of his psychological state."

Last year, Capitol Hill Blue learned the White House physician prescribed anti-depressant drugs for the President to control what aides called "violent mood swings." As Dr. Frank also notes: "In writing about Bush's halting appearance in a press conference just before the start of the Iraq War, Washington Post media critic Tom Shales speculated that 'the president may have been ever so slightly medicated.'"

Dr. Frank explains Bush's behavior as all-to-typical of an alcoholic who is still in denial:

"The pattern of blame and denial, which recovering alcoholics work so hard to break, seems to be ingrained in the alcoholic personality; it's rarely limited to his or her drinking," he says. "The habit of placing blame and denying responsibility is so prevalent in George W. Bush's personal history that it is apparently triggered by even the mildest threat."

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 05 - 10:28 PM

From a Japanese discussion site:

He`s out of his protective bubble
and making a fool out of himself.
Showing himself to be what 51% of the voters last November still couldn`t understand for some unfathomable reason. A mediocre man in every respect, who got into the White House because...well we`ve been down this road before.

Trent Lott`s house is in "rubbles."
Wow, now rubble is a countable noun.

Bush was quoted just after left his ranch to fly over NO as saying: "This is the worst national disaster in our nation`s history." Curiously, I read the same quoted changed to "natural" later. Somebody has got to cover up for Dubya`s verbal gaffes. (Somebody needs to put a lid on his mommy, too.)

George-no standing on "rubbles" like you did in N.Y. and making an impassioned plea to patriotism is going to work this time. The American people are waiting for you to show some real leadership this time. But you can`t, can you? When everything is not scripted, you just fall apart. When there is not a secret microphone you can use to get answers, you`re at a loss for words.(Well, words that make sense anyway.)

Yep-the perfect world scenario you were following at the behest of your right-wing, neoconservative buddies doesn`t exist anymore, and probably won`t for the rest of your term. Things were falling apart before the hurricane devastated the Gulf Coast. Can you really focus on domestic issues? Do you really even understand the implications of Hurricane Katrina on the lives of millions of people throughout the U.S.?(there`s going to be a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy in the months ahead)

Of course the refugees are better off in other places-like Texas. Sure, sure, sure...
I wonder if your mommy knows that Texas is already a majority-minority state anyway?
No more time for bicycle excursions at taxpayer expense in the near future for you, George. What to do? No worries...

Your daddy and Bill Clinton will take care of everything.(And of course your eminently qualified FEMA director will do his share as well.)

They`ll try to help you-but they won`t be able to do enough.
It all falls apart, George.
A presidency that started in lies/fraud, started wars based on deceit, will continue to go downhill til you are eventually recognized as what you truly are-the most incompetent man in the White House since Warren G. Harding.

Another comment from the same discussion:

"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house — he's lost his entire house — there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch," he said on a tour of the region Friday, drawing nervous laughter.'

Oh dear, George - you astound me. And now your Mother is joining the freak show too.

Bush is the kind of man that is a blueprint for building an idiot."

These are Japanese comments, and perhaps they take delight in speaking English better than the Resident.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: *Laura*
Date: 09 Sep 05 - 07:04 AM

I bet this thread would be shorter if it was called 'Views of the Popular Bush Administration' - kind of like one of the world's thinnest books.

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 10:01 AM

Paul Krugman presents an interesting tally of government responsibilities that, like FEMA have been left in tatters by Bush's political hackery and thwackery.

THe man is a catastrophe.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:44 PM

On September 10, 2005 the AP-Ipsos poll reported that President Bush's job approval has dropped below 40 percent for the first time, reflecting widespread disgust with the ongoing Iraq war, his response to the human catastrophe to Hurricane Katrina, and his "friends" in the oil and energy corporations, who have taken advantage of both the war and the hurricane to engage in price gouging and raise gas prices dramatically. Bush's systematic shredding of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is another principal factor that accounts for the rising tide of disgust and outrage.

Sign the petition:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/accountability

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,G
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 09:35 PM

Amos, why not wait until this all plays out?

Do you think Krugman is unbiased?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 04:39 PM

G:

Krugman unbiased? No, I don't. Actually I don't think anyone is. But I think Krugman is biased toward a sense of justice, effective organization, intelligence and good relations between nations. By contrast, the neocons seem to be biased in the direction of self-service, advantage-grabbing, crony profits and power-absorption.

However, I came over here today to point out a new plateau in Mister Bush's behaviour:

"Bush takes responsibility for blunders "


Tuesday, 13 September , 2005, 23:52

Washington: President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.

"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.

He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.

As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives." "

---

Now it is downright nice to hear him talking the talk, saying words like "I" and "responsibility" in the same breath for the first time since he walked all over the 2000 elections.

I hope I may be forgiven if I suggest waiting until it all plays out to decide whether he is also going to walk to walk, or just flap his lips.   His record doesn't show a lot of past acheivfement or growth in the responsibililty department. But I have my fingers crossed he still might show himself as a human being.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 06:30 PM

From a project manager:

"
I find it beyond preposterous that anyone can seriously assert that
nobody -- NOBODY -- except Tom Clancy forecast the use of a
commercial airliner as a suicide attack vehicle.

By itself, the 8/6/2001 PDB "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US"
should have provided enough connectible dots to forecast such a
scenario: (1) intention to conduct terrorist attacks in the US, (2)
intention to use operatives who are based in the US, (3) intention to
hijack US aircraft, (4) preparations for other kinds of attacks such
as surveillance of Federal buildings in NYC, (5) plans to attack
using explosives, and even (6) references to the World Trade Center
and Washington DC.

Then there were reports of al Qaeda followers seeking flight training
in various locations. Why would al Qaeda be doing that? One would
need little imagination to figure that out, given their previous
suicide attacks using explosive-laden boats.

What else was needed, a frigging flight plan!?

I am sick to death of hearing apologists go on and on about how
nobody could have anticipated the tragic disasters that have befallen
our current government, from 9/11 to Iraq to NOLA. Such statements
ring with the same deafening cognitive dissonance as "nobody
anticipated the levees would be breached". I am inclined not to
attribute such massive failures to lack of information, coordination,
imagination, or capability, but instead I attribute them to refusal
to listen, misplaced focus of attention, agenda-driven priorities,
and a policy of rewarding blindly loyal dilettantes over competent,
experienced experts.

I'm not involved in government or life-critical matters, I am just a
lowly technology project manager. But I can say that in my line of
work, where failures may only result in some lost revenues or or a
tarnished corporate reputation, I would expect to be FIRED ON THE
SPOT for such gross incompetence as has been repeatedly displayed by
Bush's administration and appointees.

And it is there that I must be lacking in imagination, because I
cannot imagine why the highest office in our country and so-called
leader of the free world should be held to a lower standard of
integrity and competence than I am."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 07:56 PM

This article in The Washington Monthly establishes an index of mendacity and measures the lie-telling of Reagan, George I, Clinton and W on that index scale.

Guess who comes out as the most mendacious of those assessed?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:07 PM

Yeah, anyone can say they accept responsibility... But whoop, ven fir the Bushites...

...but it ain't about acceptin' responsibility but what you do about it...

...which will be, ahhh, not much at all....

Oh yeah, he'll pour billions into New Orleans and it will be rebuilt with shoppin' mauls, Trent Jones designed golf courses and white folks will move into it and live their little white gentrified lives but it won't have the cultural feel of old New Orleans but yet another gentrified white guys suburb...

No, what I'm talkin' about is what Bush will do to rebuild the homes of the black and the poor....

He won't!!!

Reminds me of when he had to get the Christain Right on his side he went before them and said, "Yeah I have sinned" and they ate it up like it was honey but since then, other than throwin' them a few bones on abortion and gay marriages, whcih have nuthin' to do with nuthin', he ain't done jack as a professed Christain... More to Christianity than makin' babies... Lie what you gonna do to make sure they have opportunities....

Bush couldn't care less 'bout no Niggra baby born to a poor woamn in New Orleans...

He's a fake Christain....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 05 - 10:57 PM

Bill Maher's closing remarks Sept. 9 on his HBO show "Real Time With Bill Maher": "Now, I kid, but seriously Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 10:49 AM

"The American president shuts his eyes to the economic and human damage that the failure to protect the climate inflicts on his country and the world through natural catastrophes like Katrina," Germany's environmental minister, Jurgen Trittin, wrote in an opinion piece printed Aug. 30 in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 11:01 AM

Lets all get a grip, this man George is merely misunderestimated, misunderstood, misinformed and
MISQUOTED: http://www.spikedhumor.com/Article.aspx?id=1248

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 16 Sep 05 - 11:10 AM

Very funny film... oh... 1300 by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Sep 05 - 10:30 AM

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/repcon5.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Sep 05 - 09:34 AM

Two voices of outrage on Bush's efforts to turn PR out of the fiasco of Katrina:

"The president, as he fondly recalled the other day, used to get well lit in New Orleans. Not any more.

On Thursday night, Mr. Bush wanted to appear casually in charge as he waged his own Battle of New Orleans in Jackson Square. Instead, he looked as if he'd been dropped off by his folks in front of a eerie, blue-hued castle at Disney World. (Must be Sleeping Beauty's Castle, given the somnambulant pace of W.'s response to Katrina.)

All Andrew Jackson's horses, and all the Boy King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. His gladiatorial walk across the darkened greensward, past a St. Louis Cathedral bathed in moon glow from White House klieg lights, just seemed to intensify the sense of an isolated, out-of-touch president clinging to hollow symbols as his disastrous disaster agency continues to flail...." From Disney on Parade.

And from Frank Rich:

"...Message: I Care About the Black Folks

By FRANK RICH
Published: September 18, 2005

ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush.

The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassionate conservatism," the lack of concern for the "underprivileged" his mother condescended to at the Astrodome, the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts, the use of spin and photo-ops to camouflage failure and to substitute for action.

In the chaos unleashed by Katrina, these plot strands coalesced into a single tragic epic played out in real time on television. The narrative is just too powerful to be undone now by the administration's desperate recycling of its greatest hits: a return Sunshine Boys tour by the surrogate empathizers Clinton and Bush I, another round of prayers at the Washington National Cathedral, another ludicrously overhyped prime-time address flecked with speechwriters' "poetry" and framed by a picturesque backdrop. Reruns never eclipse a riveting new show.

Nor can the president's acceptance of "responsibility" for the disaster dislodge what came before. Mr. Bush didn't cough up his modified-limited mea culpa until he'd seen his whole administration flash before his eyes. His admission that some of the buck may stop with him (about a dime's worth, in Truman dollars) came two weeks after the levees burst and five years after he promised to usher in a new post-Clinton "culture of responsibility." It came only after the plan to heap all the blame on the indeed blameworthy local Democrats failed to lift Mr. Bush's own record-low poll numbers. It came only after America's highest-rated TV news anchor, Brian Williams, started talking about Katrina the way Walter Cronkite once did about Vietnam."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 06:46 PM

---

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/23/AR2005092301665.html

Bill Would Permit DNA Collection From All Those Arrested

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 24, 2005; Page A03

Suspects arrested or detained by federal authorities could be forced to
provide samples of their DNA that would be recorded in a central
database under a provision of a Senate bill to expand government
collection of personal data.

The controversial measure was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee
last week and is supported by the White House, but has not gone to the
floor for a vote. It goes beyond current law, which allows federal
authorities to collect and record samples of DNA only from those
convicted of crimes. The data are stored in an FBI-maintained national
registry that law enforcement officials use to aid investigations, by
comparing DNA from criminals with evidence found at crime scenes.

[...remainder snipped...]
__________________________

---

It is easy to say "it's just like fingerprints" and let it go, because criminals deserve whatever they get, right?

On the other hand when you combine it with the authority to label anyone a criminal at will, recently defended by the Bush court, AND the trend against civil liberties in this nation not seen since the heyday of McCarthy, AND the gross dereliction of intelligence as regards the use and nature of science that this administration has moved to unprecedented depths, it smells a bit more like something else -- eugenics. The fine art of using vasectomies and hysterectomies on people without their informed consent in order to make sure that they do not reproduce because they don't meet certain standards of citizenship and right-thinking. Back in the ra from 1900 to 1930 a largew movement in favor of eugenics to purify the pooulation grew up in the United States and a number of states passed acts into law. With two tame doctors anyone could have their family tree cut short. The idea faded out here -- the idea that nurture and environment were more responsible for criminality and sloth than genes gradually supplanted the eugenic idea. But another reason it faded out here is because the American groundbreaking poapers and organizations inspired a European movement which took the subject to new heights, under the flag of the Aryan culture and the Third Recih. They based their arguments on the American model, according to historical research done by Jodi Picoult in support of her novel, "Second Glance", where she provides a bibliography of supporting references.

The invasion of person represented by this proposal is unthinkably crass and ignorant of the better principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is typical of the Bush administrations bulldozer-brainlessness that they believe this to be a tenable position in terms of civil rights. Involuntary surrender of DNA samples as a matter of law is comparable to involuntary surrender of property while under suspicion only, a status more and more popular with the thugs that run Washington and its organs.

"...And when they came for the folksingers, I said nothing...".

For some history see www.uvm.edu/~eugenics, or do a Google on Henry Perkins and the Voluntary Sterilzation laws he promoted.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 05 - 11:02 PM

From a correspondent:

Geee ... and here I thought the conservatives and those on the
"Right" LIKED Posse Comitatus -- the 1878 Act prohibiting presidents
from using the military to conduct "consequence management
operations" normally limited to civil police agencies under LOCAL and
STATE control. (But then again, I thought the "Right" also opposed
run-away government pork/spending, too. Silly me!) --jim






"Look what got created in 2002.



http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=s.whoweare


It's mission statement reads like a blank check.

The command's mission is homeland defense and civil support,
specifically:

Conduct operations to deter, prevent, and defeat threats and
aggression aimed at the United States, its territories, and
interests within the assigned area of responsibility; and
As directed by the President or Secretary of Defense, provide
defense support of civil authorities including consequence
management operations.
U.S. Northern Command plans, organizes, and executes homeland
defense and civil support missions, but has few permanently
assigned forces. The command will be assigned forces whenever
necessary to execute missions as ordered by the President.

Approximately 1,200 civil service employees and uniformed personnel
representing all service branches provide this essential unity of
command from U.S. Northern Command's headquarters at Peterson Air
Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo.

I wondered why the President was riding out Rita there....

---

The law of Posse Comitatus:

Posse Comitatus Act

Section 1385 of Title 18, United States Code (USC), states:

"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."




The PCA does not apply to the U.S. Coast Guard in peacetime or to the National Guard in Title 32 or State Active Duty status. The substantive prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) were extended to all the services with the enactment of Title 10 USC, Section 375. As required by Title 10 USC, Section 375 the secretary of defense issued Department of Defense Directive 5525.5, which precludes members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps from direct participation in a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity unless participation in such activity by such member is otherwise authorized by law.

The PCA generally prohibits U.S. military personnel from direct participation in law enforcement activities. Some of those law enforcement activities would include interdicting vehicles, vessels, and aircraft; conducting surveillance, searches, pursuit and seizures; or making arrests on behalf of civilian law enforcement authorities. Prohibiting direct military involvement in law enforcement is in keeping with long-standing U.S. law and policy limiting the military's role in domestic affairs.

---

I recommend we keep it that way except in dire emergency. I have no objection to the Navy helping bail out New Orleans. The minute there is a sniff of them being used as law enforcement, I start seeing redcoats.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 09:53 AM

The New York TImes in today's editorial disapproves of the rampant old-boyism steering the profits from Katrina's repair bill:

"...And there's more. An article in yesterday's Times by Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon reports that more than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by FEMA for Katrina work were awarded without bidding or with limited competition. The Times article even finds a federal employee - Richard Skinner, the inspector general for the Homeland Security Department - willing to go on the record with his concern, saying, "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."

So are we. The government is spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars every day on rescue, relief and reconstruction along the Gulf Coast. Anyone who pays taxes in America should be concerned about how the money is being spent and who is profiting. We think that when Congress appropriates money for disaster relief, the advantage should be maximized for the victims, not for the same cast of characters that have been profiting from no-bid contracts in Iraq. Kellogg, Brown & Root, Americans may recall, is the company that came up with those $100-per-bag laundry bills for work in Iraq.

All of this comes back to cronyism. The resignation of the FEMA chief, Michael Brown, was only one of the recent departures. The head of federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget resigned just before he was arrested on charges of lying to federal investigators, and the Pentagon's former inspector general has left for the private sector but remains the target of a Congressional inquiry.

Last week, the Homeland Security Department appointed the National Weather Service's chief financial officer, Matthew Jadacki, to head a new Office for Hurricane Katrina Oversight. That's a step in the right direction. The office itself is a good idea, and Mr. Jadacki's experience is a welcome contrast with that of many of the inexperienced political appointees who have been exposed by this crisis. But the administration will have to go a lot further if it wants any chance of regaining the American people's trust, which it has so squandered. The true test of the new oversight office will be in its financing and staffing. America doesn't need a public relations stunt; it needs a functioning means of curbing abuse. "

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Teribus
Date: 27 Sep 05 - 10:02 AM

Well things sure as hell haven't changed round here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 10:23 PM

Amos have you tested yourself with the E-meter lately?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 10:42 PM

George Bush in Hell
by David Michael Green

You would not want to be George W. Bush right now.

Not that you ever would anyhow, but especially not now. Indeed, there are indications that not even George W. Bush wants to be George W. Bush right now.

That second term in office, the one that just a year or two ago seemed so precious that he was willing to launch a war just to obtain it, now feels like a life sentence. Plans for four years spending political capital now look a lot more like endless months of capital punishment.

The Bush Administration has nowhere to go but down, and that is precisely where it is headed. Poll data show that even members of his solid-to-the-point-of-twelve-step-eligibility base are now deserting him as his job approval ratings plunge like so much Enron stock, lately crashing southward through the forty percent threshold. With almost his entire second term still in front of him, Bush is poised to set new records for presidential unpopularity. That scraping noise you hear? It's the sound of sheepish voters creeping out to the garage late at night, furtively removing "Bush-Cheney 2004" bumperstickers from the back of their SUVs when no one is looking.

Meanwhile, as the scales fall from the eyes of the hoi polloi, even the one constituency which could plausibly make the claim that Bush has been good for America (read: their wallets), is speaking the unspeakable as well. Robert Novak, of all people, wrote a column last week chronicling his experience watching rich Republicans at an Aspen retreat bash the idiocy of Bush administration policies on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, stem-cell research and more. Perhaps these folks realized when they saw Trent Lott's house go under that Mother Nature doesn't care whether you're rich and well-connected any more than does al Qaeda. You may be on Karl Rove's Rolodex, but now Bush is taking you down and your yacht too, not just forgotten kids from the ghetto who enlisted in the Army as the only alternative to a life of poverty.

Even conservative columnists like David Brooks (though not Novak) are writing articles nowadays accurately describing the changed mood of the American public. Where those powerful currents are heading is unclear, but given the radical right experiment of the present as their point of departure, there would seem to be only two choices. We can either go completely off the deep-end and finally constitute the Fascist Republic of Cheney, or we can turn to the left, toward some semblance of rational policymaking. The latter seems far more likely, especially as America increasingly regains its senses after a long bout of temporary insanity. These are bad bits of news for poor George, but worse yet is that they are only the first signs of the coming apocalypse. The real fun stuff is just around the corner. I'll confess to more than a little schadenfreude as I contemplate the ugly situation staring Republicans officeholders in the face right now. They are tethered to a sinking ship, and have only two lousy options to choose from as November 2006 approaches. One is to stay the course and drown. The other is to start renouncing Bush and his policies, appear to voters as the complete hypocrites and political whores many will prove to be, and then still drown anyhow. Nobody could be more deserving of such a fate, with the possible exception of Democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who have been even more hypocritical yet in facilitating many of the president's disastrous policies.

Watching these GOP opportunists jump ship will certainly be fun, but the greatest fun awaits the president himself. Bush has now lost everything that once sustained him. That includes 9/11, now safely in the rearview mirror for most Americans. That includes his wartime rally-around-the-flag free pass, as he has failed to capture America's real enemy, while lying about bogus ones to justify an invasion pinning our defense forces down in an endless quagmire. That includes, post-Katrina, the ridiculous frame of Bush as competent leader, and the former reality of the press as frightened presidential waterboys.

And that's the good news for W. The bad news is all the chickens coming home to roost. The economy is anemic and fragile, and yet Bush has played the one card in his deck ostensibly (but never really) intended to remedy the country's economic woes. (Remember during the 2000 campaign when times were flush and tax cuts were the prescription? Remember in 2001 when the economy was in a recession and tax cuts were still the prescription?). In any case, Bush's one-note economic symphony has succeeded in producing precisely the cacophony of disaster that progressive commentators have predicted all along: massive deficits, little or no economic boost, a hemorrhaging of jobs overseas, and a vastly more polarized America of rich, poor and a disappearing middle class.

...

Excerpted from this article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 10:44 PM

Ahhhhhh, all I want to know is why the heck it is so danged imoportant to "rebuild" New Orleans as a population center???

Ahhhhh, like whay isn' this discussion occuring???

Well, I'll tell ya why....

Bush and his buddies are in cohoots to rebuild because they can do it with yert more no-bid contracts... Thwere is nuthin' than Bushites love more than no-bidders since in't money in the bank to their cmapiagn contrubotors.... Hmmmmmm?

(Like what are you tryin' to say, Bobert? Is this adminisration corrupt?...)

Is the Pope Catholic???

Yeah, that's why there isn't this big and important discussion about the validity of rebuilding NO.... Such a discussion would piss off some folks and would, equallu or more importantly, piss off some of Bush's campaigen contributors...

Meanwhile, no one is talkin' about the feasibilty of rebuilding NO????

But lotta folk gettin' rich!!!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 10:55 PM

..."George W. Bush says that one's service to one's country is a "noble cause", with the sacrifice of one's life being the highest offering. But why is one's service to one's country not noble enough to merit being able to pay homage to the war dead in one's own chosen way? Why is dying in Bush's war, the so-called noble cause, not worthy of visibility as the dead return home under secrecy and the cover of darkness? Why are Bush's the dead of Bush's "noble cause" hidden from view the way that the executioner's face is always well hidden? Bush's "noble cause" perversely requires that the United States and Iraqi dead and maimed be hidden from public view. Why do the United States people allow this administration to callously use the dead for their own political purposes? How many names will there be on the yet-to-be-built Iraq war memorial? How many names on the Afghanistan war memorial? The future Iran war memorial? The future Syria war memorial? The next and ad-infinitum war memorial? Can the United States of America exist without waging some war, some place in the world, all of the time? Has perpetual war become a defining parameter of the United States? Is war a necessary component for neo-liberalism's survival? Someday, the peoples of the world will put up a memorial to the fallen victims of United States imperialism. How many acres and acres of marble walls would that take? How many tens-of-millions of names would there be on this wall? How many native American names? How many African American names? How many Southeast Asian names? How many Central and South American names? How many names from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, Fallujah, etc.?

Wrong Person Arrested

Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star Mother for Peace, along with her sister and 370 others were arrested at the White House on Monday, September 26, 2005. After being refused a meeting with George W. Bush, Cindy Sheehan and others sat in front of the White refusing to move until George W. Bush came out to met with them. George wasn't coming out. They were arrested. Cindy wrote of her arrest on her website, www.afterdowningstreet.org,

We all know by now why George won't meet with parents of the soldiers he has killed who disagree with him. First of all, he hates it when people disagree with him. I am not so sure he hates it as much as he is in denial that it even happens....he is a coward who arrogantly refuses to meet with the people who pay his salary... [The] reason why he won't talk to us is that he knows there is no Noble Cause for the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. It is a question that has no true answer."

Excerpted from an article called "What Noble Cause?"
Jozef Hand-Boniakowski
http://www.metaphoria.org

---

For a complete timeline of the Bush administrations evasions, manipulations and skullduggery resulting in the war in Iraq, see this compilation by Congressman John Conyers.

Lest we forget...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 10:32 PM

From today's NY Times:

BERT PEAR
Published: October 1, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education."

The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."

The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.

When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism. At a news conference in January, Mr. Bush said: "We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."

But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr. Williams, saying his commentaries were "no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public."

The G.A.O. said the Education Department had no money or authority to "procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition" in federal law.

The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department is supposed to report the violations to the White House and Congress.

In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a previously undisclosed instance in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the "declining science literacy of students," was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education.

The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by the Education Department. The segment, a "video news release" narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children "gets an A-plus."

Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not state that they had been prepared and distributed by the government. The G.A.O. did not say how many stations carried the reports. ...

---

Balance of article can be found at this page

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 10:24 PM

Excerpt from a funny web log:

"GOP Looks Toward Future, Prison
Conservative leaders seek cozier nest for jailbirds

CNN -- September 28, 2005 – 03:46 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC -- Top Republicans have been quietly raising money to expand the minimum security prison in Yazoo City, Mississippi, CNN has learned. A new wing will be built to house members of the Bush Administration.

Each cell in the so-called Freedom Wing will feature an ornate cot with sheets made from 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton, a whisper-quiet flush toilet, and a 42-inch plasma TV pre-programmed to Fox News and the 700 Club.

"We're trying to make their transition to incarceration as painless as possible," said one fundraiser who asked to remain anonymous.

Over the past 10 days, a Texas grand jury has indicted House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX), federal agents have arrested White House acquisitions chief David Safavian, and the SEC launched an investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), whose alleged insider trading may have netted him between $2 and $6 million.

Republicans also fear that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, scheduled to wrap up his investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame next month, will issue a raft of indictments for top White House officials on charges of perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

At current rates, roughly 27 percent of top Republican leaders could be behind bars by 2007.

"We're not conceding that they're all guilty," says the donor. "We just want to have the resources in place in case the worst happens."

Toward that end the Republicans have hired Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root to build the new wing, while recent ex-con Martha Stewart will consult on interior design. Stewart is said to be considering abandoning her usual muted pastels in favor of a bold black-and-white motif, since most of the inmates are unable to see the world in any other way.

He added that a neocon think-tank, The American Enterprise Institute, might open a satellite office in the prison."

The whole piece and searlier ones of similar wit can be found at http://witlist.blogspot.com/2005/09/gop-looks-toward-future-prison.html


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: JennyO
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 01:31 AM

a whisper-quiet flush toilet

Well, at least they won't hear the flush of a distant toilet

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 05 - 01:47 PM

In the following transcript of recent remarks by George Bush addressing the National Endowment for Democracy Thursday, I am forced to concede that it is the most articulate defense of Bush's foreign policy in rear-view I have seen to date. It is a well balanced rationalization of what I have always seen as irrational. I still see it as irrational, but I am much impressed by his new speechwriter's ability to paint a picture. He is fluent enough to make you believe Dulce et decorum est. I am not sure whether this is deep betrayal of the language or simply artful use of it; perhaps some of each, even worse.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Oct 05 - 07:54 AM

LONDON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush allegedly said God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, a new BBC documentary will reveal, according to details.

Bush made the claim when he met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and then foreign minister Nabil Shaath in June 2003, the ministers told the documentary series to be broadcast in Britain later this month.

The US leader also told them he had been ordered by God to create a Palestinian state, the ministers said.

Shaath, now the Palestinian information minister, said: " President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God.

'God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan'.'

"And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq...' And I did.

"'And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it'," said Shaath.

Abbas, who was also at the meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, recalled how the president told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation.

"So I will get you a Palestinian state."

A BBC spokesman said the content of the programme had been put to the White House but it had refused to comment on a private conversation.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Oct 05 - 08:56 AM

The New York Times seems less enthralled:

"...No matter what the terrorists are up to, it is not possible to feel safe if the federal government does not appear to know what it is doing on so many different levels.

Yesterday was an ideal moment for Mr. Bush to demonstrate that he was really in control of his administration. He could have taken any one of a number of pressing worries and demonstrated that he was on the job, re-examining the problems, working on answers. For instance, he could have addressed the crisis facing the overstretched military due to the endless demands made by Iraq on both the Army and the beleaguered National Guard.

The speech came one day after the White House threatened to veto a bill onto which the Senate added a ban on the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against prisoners of the American government. This president could not find the spine to veto a bloated transportation bill that included wildly wasteful projects like the now-famous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. What kind of priorities does that suggest? If we ever needed the president to demonstrate that he has a working understanding of exactly where he wants to take this country, we need it now.

The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Molotov
Date: 07 Oct 05 - 12:48 PM

E-Meters Replace Guns

Terrorists and subversives are far more afraid of E-Meters than guns. An E-Meter is a small, inexpensive box of electronics that ably distinguishes the subversive or the criminal from honest men.

Socialism and Communism, growing ever stronger in the Northern Hemisphere, are a raid on the production of labor by the privileged few. Socialism and Communism seek to have a people's labor for no return.

To turn this tide, use E-Meters, not guns.

The E-Meter is violently hated by the subversive who already knows of it and will try to tear the sky off to prevent its use.

LRH asked for volunteers to accompany him on a special mission on the Avon River.

Amos Jessup was among the first to step forward. 'He didn't tell us ahead of time what we were going to do, but it didn't matter to me, I'd have followed him through the gates of Hell if I had to. I was glad to do anything for him because I felt that what he had done to help others was so great an accomplishment he deserved whatever help I could offer. People felt he was a miracle worker, someone who had demonstrated a far higher level of competence than anything we could aspire to. It was as exciting and stimulating as hell to be with him. You had to be on your toes, put out your maximum effort, but it was always very refreshing and therapeutic.'

'I nearly said, "Go and fetch that fat bastard up there! He's the dishonest one! Throw him overboard." I should have done; I wish I had, it would have broken the spell they were all under. I was grabbed by these four big thugs and flung over and I started laughing and laughing. I thought, "Jesus, I'm going to get off this floating insanity even if I have to swim to Yugoslavia

MO

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Oct 05 - 04:22 PM

Gee, MO, kind of OCD arentcha? Mixing up multiple chunks of trash and calling it soup? Wherever are you pumping this sewage from in your sorry little brain?

Just in case you are concerned, E-meters do not replace guns. Guns are for killing, of course. That's why people like Mister Bush (and, I presume, yourself) are so fond of them. E-meters, on the other hand, are used by folks who are trying to help other people, even if in doing so they are sometimes misguided. They do not do the trick as efficiently as guns do theirs, but, hey, you can't have everything.

The remark about the fat bastard was not mine, but was spoken by a charming but gay Englishman. I knew both him, and the fat bastard in question, in my wild-oats period many years ago. If you want to know about them, feel free to PM me. Meanwhile, I would take it as a favor if you were to keep your ugly and cowardly puss out of this thread.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 12:01 AM

What could be more cowardly than someone entertains himself by digging up all the negative shit he can find about one person that he personally dislikes and then promotes it as the truth?

That has all the earmarkings of some sort of massive psycological psychological of a burned out scientologist. All that wierd shit you belived in must have fucked up your brain permanently.

How may cult leaders did mr Bush blindly follow? How many murders was he involved in? It is all there on the net for anyone who searches for Amos Jessup.

All you want to hear is your own anti Bush drumbeat because it drowns out all those ghosts from the past and gives you a kind of purpose.

Get a grip. The world is not ending. Try a positive though for a change. The sun is going to come up tomorrow morning just like it allways has.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 12:12 AM

Jeeze, old guy, you are getting close to really being insulting here. As well as flinging rather bizarre falsehoods about.

Thanks for revealing yourself anyway. Your analysis is a little of the mark, though.

I am not worried about the sun coming up thanks. I do have some concerns about the American Constitution.

But thanks for the reassurance.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 10:57 AM

Lets hear the truth about you and scientology.

Are you fully qualified to define what other people can say?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 11:31 PM

Old Guy:

I start3d hanging around with old man Hubbard when I was 21; I left about ten years later.

I am not qualified to define what others can say, and neither are you. But when you invent falsehoods and then say them about other people, you are crossing the line into slander.

If you think you know something about me, I suggest you do me the courtesy of finding out first, Meanwhile this has nothing to do with this thread.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 11:11 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 11:12 AM

The Conscious Explorer??? Is this the same chap??

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 03:03 PM

Today's Op Ed in the Times is by Kitty JKelly who has done extensive research into the histories of Bushes (Prescott, H, and W) and their clansmen as a biographer.

She points out:


"SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.

But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.

Before that executive order, the National Archives had controlled the release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which stipulated that all papers, except those pertaining to national security, had to be made available 12 years after a president left office.

Now, however, Mr. Bush can prevent the public from knowing not only what he did in office, but what Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan did in the name of democracy. (Although Mr. Reagan's term ended more than 12 years before the executive order, the Bush administration had filed paperwork in early 2001 to stop the clock, and thus his papers fall under it.)

Bill Clinton publicly objected to the executive order, saying he wanted all his papers open. Yet the Bush administration has nonetheless denied access to documents surrounding the 177 pardons President Clinton granted in the last days of his presidency. Coming without explanation, this action raised questions and fueled conspiracy theories: Is there something to hide? Is there more to know about the controversial pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich? Is there a quid pro quo between Bill Clinton and the Bushes? Is the current president laying a secrecy precedent for pardons he intends to grant?

The administration's effort to grandfather the Reagan papers under the act also raised a red flag. President Bush's signature stopped the National Archives from a planned release of documents from the Reagan era, some of which might have shed light on the Iran-contra scandal and illuminated the role played by the vice president at the time, George H. W. Bush.

What can be done to bring this information to light? Because executive orders are not acts of Congress, they can be overturned by future commanders in chief. But this is a lot to ask of presidents given the free pass handed them by Mr. Bush. (And it could put a President Hillary Clinton in a bind when it came to her own husband's papers.)

Other efforts to rectify the situation are equally problematic. Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, has repeatedly introduced legislation to overturn Mr. Bush's executive order, but the chances of a Republican Congress defying a Republican president are slim.

There is also a lawsuit by the American Historical Association and other academic and archival groups before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. A successful verdict could force the National Archives to ignore the executive order and begin making public records from the Reagan and elder Bush administrations.

Unless one of these efforts succeeds, George W. Bush and his father can see to it that their administrations pass into history without examination."
...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Oct 05 - 06:33 PM

Stunning New Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq

By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if (like there's any doubt!) he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org and conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. 

http://democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-1

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 10:07 PM

I got my information here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=amos+jessup+scientology&btnG=Google+Search
And here:

http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso88591&q=amos+jessup+scientology&rys=0&itag=crv&_sb_lang=pref

To my knowledge you have never deounced Sicentology so You must still belive in that Voodoo bullshit.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 10:29 PM

ol' Guy,

Give the heck up... Word on then street is that Bush is gettin' ready to resign and take over a company that his daddy just bought, the Lone Star Prtezel Company", with pretzels being sold in over 10,000 outlets in Texas...

Yeah, seems that the lies and scandals have takin' a toll on the boy and likie the Texas Rangers (which daddy bought for him) and Harkin Energy (which daddy bought for him), and America (which daddy bought for him)... the boy just ain;t up to the big jobs....

Maybe runnin' a pretzel company will work fir him???

God knows... The boy knows his pretzels...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 11:00 PM

'Splain this on me Bush Meister:

'A sort of "Lord of the Flies syndrome" began working with the messengers,' said Rebecca Goldstein, who had been recruited into Scientology by her brother, Amos Jessup. 'They were so drunk with their own power that they became extremely vengeful, nasty and dishonest. They were a very exclusive, dangerous little group.'

http://www.byington.org/Carl/bfm/bfm19.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 12:48 AM

http://warrior.xenu.ca/1996-0920b.html

"SOME HAVE SAID that BLACK PR, i.e., covert destruction techniques, outright fabrication of lies, destroying the repute of individuals and groups, spreading lies by hidden sources, distortion of truth, covert slandering of "enemies", degrading, villifying and discrediting opponents is an acceptable activity for a church.

The "Church" of $cientology IS EXPERT on BLACK PROPAGANDA METHODS; their leader wrote lots of policies about the subject."

Amos is obviously still very much a Scientologist because he uses these tactics.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 03:26 AM

http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/bfm/bfm17.htm

"Amos Jessup was among the first to step forward. 'He didn't tell us ahead of time what we were going to do, but it didn't matter to me, I'd have followed him through the gates of Hell if I had to. I was glad to do anything for him because I felt that what he had done to help others was so great an accomplishment he deserved whatever help I could offer. People felt he was a miracle worker, someone who had demonstrated a far higher level of competence than anything we could aspire to. It was as exciting and stimulating as hell to be with him. You had to be on your toes, put out your maximum effort, but it was always very refreshing and therapeutic."


Old Guy Jus reportin' the facs.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 11:17 PM

http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/bfm/bfm16.htm

(Amos) Jessup had gone to Saint Hill in 1966, while he was studying in Oxford, to try and get his young brother out of Scientology and instead had become converted himself. 'I was soon convinced', he said, 'that instead of being some dangerous cult it was an important advance in philosophy.

Freedom of speach is a double edged sword ain't it?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 02:02 AM

Hey, ya ole fart:

If yer gonna bring religion into it, you should include the fact that I walked out on the Scientology gang many years back, and that I am on their permanent list of black sheep. Just so you include all the facts. No Scientologist in his "right" mind would be caught dead talking to me; reason being, I practice too much freedom of speech for comfort, kind of like with you. And, like you, they have done what they could to shut me up. But, like you, it didn't amount to much anyway. Because, like you, they are motivated by spite and bitterness.

And no, freedom of speech is not a double edged sword. But if frittering away one;s youth in a fringe outfit is the worst crime you can find on my back-line, I still feel a few feet closer o heaven than your double-tonguing fry-brain meathead of a Pruzident.

By the way, Old Guy, what;s your religion? You still worshiping Jack Daniels, old automobiles, or pinning your hopes on imaginary playmates? Mebbe you could talk to God about his conversations with George -- seems to me they're a little behind the times. Like, B.C.E. out of date.

Mebbe Small-Minded George never heard about the New Testament, though. A lot of good Christians seem to forget that part handily.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 03:14 PM

Amos:

You may have left the cult but it appears you have were permanently brainwashed.

I don't have a religion but I am not anti-religion either. I see the good and bad in people and I go with the good guys.

I have come to the conclusion that wars are usually caused by religion. Sometimes you have to defend yourself though.

If you anti-war Jello Brains had your way we would be speaking Japanese or German right now, Poor as shit and suffering like the North Koreans because we would be under the thumb of a dictator that you anti-war pukes refused to fight.

You don't know how lucky you are to have people willing to fight for your freedom while you call them names.

"Scientology joins the anti-war campaign. In Portland, Oregon a coalition of "mainstream religious organizations" has joined the protest against war with Iraq. And that coalition "also includes such fringe religious organizations as the Church of Scientology," reports The Portland Tribune."

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:55 PM

Ahhhh, fir starters, "Bite Me!", O-Guy...

And fir a close second, fir an old guy you certainly got yerself a nice stash of mind-alterin' substances...

Ain't no one callin' nobody names who are out on the front lines, pal, but maybe you'd like to back up that bull with some real posts of folks sayin' they are blamin' the folks who are fightin' Bush's oil/powr/politics war!!! I don't think you will find one post where Amos, I or anyone else here in Mudville has ever said anything nasty about the troops... Find my just one, Big Guy... Just one...

And what does Amos's past have to do with George Bush's evil, immoral and corrupt administration??? Did Amos make up the lies that Bush used to sell this now very unpopular to the American people??? Did Amos rat out a CIA agent because her husband debunked one of the lies??? Did Amos award no-bid contracts to Brown & Root, a subsiderary of Halliburton, a corporation that Dick Cehney ran and still collects annual money from??? Did Amos hire the goons and lawyers in 2000 to go to Florida and steel an election??? Did Amos push thru a tax cut fir the upper 1% that we were told would be reinvested in the American economy only to be reinbvested in overseas companies??? Yeah, did Amos really do that??? Did Amos stand up before the Christain Right and tell these folks that he was all fir them while doing all the things that would make Jesus puke out his guts???

Yeah, Old Guy, the drugs must be fine in yer stash box...

You really oughtta share...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 08:40 PM

Old Guy:

Ya know you really twist things around, sometimes. You think being opposed to unnecessary war is "brainwashed"? Well, I think causing wars unnecessarily is psychotic, and supporting them blindly is mindless sycophancy.

Thanks, as well, for trying yo hijack this thread, most of which contains remarks by people neither of us even know, by twisting into an ad hominem issue.

If you are really that intent on making stuff up out of whole cloth, why don't you start by dreaming up justfications for invading Syria? That seems to be what the machinery on the Hill is looking at next.

Obviously the spilling of blood, the destruction of families, the accidental blowing away of babies, the incineration of passersby like so many overcooked strawberry pop-tarts -- all that violence is just a piece with any old overheated rationalization that can serve to protect your brain from seeing past your nose.

Tell ya what, corpse-breath; start your own thread on a topic of your choice, as I did this one, and I promise to stay the hell out of it.

Until then I echo Bobert's initial sentiments.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 10:07 PM

Yeah, old guy, what Amos said about what I said...

Bite Me, Big Guy!!!

You worship an jerk! What does that make you???

Yer "jerk" is a major problem... He decides stuff as if he had a history of runnin' successfull companies... He don't... He ain't never run nuthin' that was successfull... His daddy done give him one successfull company after another and hem blew 'um all up!!!!

Yeah, you can go to grave worshippin' a perennial looser, Old Guy...

Says more about you than the looser you worship...l

Think about it....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 08:24 PM

And....Bite Me...

Bobert

(Just keepin' the thread goin' without havin' to work up no sweat...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Oct 05 - 11:36 PM

The Old Fart said: If you anti-war Jello Brains had your way we would be speaking Japanese or German right now, Poor as shit and suffering like the North Koreans because we would be under the thumb of a dictator that you anti-war pukes refused to fight.

You don't know how lucky you are to have people willing to fight for your freedom while you call them names.


I haven't been back to this thread for a long time, and I will tell you something. I was doing some silly research for MOAB last week and I did a spontaneous little search for quotes and was surprised to find all of the Scientology stuff about Amos. The difference is, I did some critical thinking while I was reading, and weighed this with the fact that I've been talking to Amos himself for a long time now here at Mudcat. I was able to evaluate what I was reading. The Old Fart doesn't seem to be able or want to do that. I count Amos a friend and am continually astonished by his deep grasp of many subjects. It didn't take long to conclude that the Scientology episode was in the past, and that, as I have always known, for Amos the present as it leads into the future is what is important. The view to the future looks pretty grim right now, with Bush's cadre making war and enriching their corporate friends as fast as they can before they get caught and stopped at the next election. The Old Fart just wants to try to stir up old stuff, out of context, and drag it forward to hamstring someone who has lucid understanding and articulate criticism of Bush and his cronies.

How pathetic. That the Old Fart would pull out the soldiers-fighting-wars-for-you-and-me dogerel when he's clearly decades out of touch with the world. No wonder we're facing global warming, with such gaseous windbags around.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 01:36 AM

I thought that would get you crybabies going. Now keep it up and expend all your energy and thought on bullshit. Maybe go out and have a peace rally and bust up something.

You all cluster here because you prop each other up. "look there is a lot of peoples here who think like I does so I must not be so fucked up after all"

Amos thinks this is his private little forum so he can feel he has accomplished something. His memorial to himself. "don't post anything here about me or against my way of thinking"

Well he is just as full of shit now as he was when he was being brainwashed by the Scientologists.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Xenu
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 08:52 AM

I Know the necessity of war:

"Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then, with the help of psychiatrists, he called in billions of people for income tax inspections, where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyse them. Then they were put into space planes that looked exactly like DC8s (except they had rocket motors instead of jet engines).

These DC8 space planes then flew to planet Earth, where the paralysed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in their hundreds of billions. When they had finished, they lowered H-bombs into the volcanoes. Xemu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed."

Excerpt from the writings of Amos's former fearless leader, LRH which forms the core belief in the religion known as Scientology.

Xenu

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 10:05 AM

Thanks, Old Guy. You're kinda fulla shit your own self. Twisting stuff and changing it around.

What I said was, ad hominem attacks aren't the topic of this thread. If you had a bunch of public opinions in support of your furless leader...well, it ain't likely, but you could post them here. That's what the thread is for.

Mister Hubbard was a bit of a whacko, I don't deny, but he never caused thousands of violent and unnecessary deaths, destroyed homes and villages, or massive destruction. And he also built up some pretty interesting stuff. He could outsmart your candidate by about ten-to-one before waking up in the morning.

Your excerpt about Xenu is not, as you describe it, a core belief. It is as far from core belief as you can get -- but being as whacky as it is, it gets a lot of attention. You do seem well-qualified to comment on Hubbard and his works, so you could start that as a thread if you like. Sounds like you know a lot about 'em.

In any case, most anyone who knows me knows that I am brainwashed, but not by Scientology. I am stunod and devoid of all rational thought in the presence of Vibrant Pulchritude. Now, there' s something to get brainwashed by!! That's why I founded my own religion, the Temple of the Golden Globes. Come by sometime and take a free chest measurement.

Oh...you meant the other brain? Sorry...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 10:41 AM

This thread was started by Amos in order to air important stories about a morally bankrupt and probably indictable world leader who needs the bum's rush out of office, along with his friends and most of his party. Regime Change needs to happen at home, not overseas. Amos knows that and is confining much of his eye-rolling and criticism to the thread he established so like-minded individuals can share in the information, or so those who want to know what it's all about can stop by to read.

What about that don't you get, Old Fart? The fact that this is a public forum and you've barged in making a stink and naughty noises just goes to your immaturity. There is always the risk that when one starts a topic on a given subject that there are those who would rather break up the party than settle down and really learn something or join the discussion in a serious manner.

You have inhabited Mudcat as a Guest for just over a year, and in that entire time you HAVE NOT POSTED A SINGLE REMARK TO A MUSIC THREAD. You're here exclusively to wallow "below the line" where you can vie for the attention of others by being a pain in the butt.

Amos, this kind of behavior happens often enough that we know that if the juvenile behavior is ignored the party in question goes away to see if he can stir up someone else.

Keep up the good work and add substance to the thread. I think it's about to the point where the oddsmakers are hesitant to bet that Bush will make it through a full second term (used loosely, since he was only elected once). Ignore the Old Guy and he'll go away and look for someone else's sandbox to poop in.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 11:38 AM

The SF Chronicle is critical of the right-wing pundits who abandoning Bush in his time of sinking polls:

Miers has yet to face a Senate hearing. On "Face the Nation" last Sunday, Bob Schieffer of CBS, an alumnus of the U.S. Air Force and the Fort Worth police beat, asked: "Most of the opposition seems to be coming from the Republican pundits, not really from Republican senators. Do you think senators are just sitting back and letting the pundits do the dirty work for them?"

From the low expectations set by her critics, senators might expect to hear a witness with all the qualities of Carol Channing, Gracie Allen and Betty Boop.

Senators can ask her the same questions they asked Roberts. Miers can give the same non-answers given by Roberts and by Clinton nominees Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

They should ask one important question about cronyism. Another Texas president, Lyndon Johnson, appointed his pal Abe Fortas to the court in 1965 but did not let go of Fortas as a friend and adviser on the war in Vietnam. No justice should remain a presidential crony.

Senators might usefully ask the nominee whether she and the president agreed with the observation of Henry Adams: "A friend in power is a friend lost."

Miers may or may not be confirmed, but President Bush, abandoned by so many intellectuals he had eagerly courted, can ponder the wisdom of a predecessor. "If you want a friend in Washington," Harry Truman said, "get a dog."

---

Full article here.

An interesting almost pro-Bush survey of the Miers cronyism scandal.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 11:52 AM

From some blogs coordinated by a website called the TPM Cafe, some reflections on our foreign policy...if that is what it is:

"Why We're in Iraq
By Ivo Daalder | bio
From: America Abroad
Secretary Rice traveled to Capitol Hill today to testify, for the first time ever, on the biggest foreign policy issue confronting our nation: Iraq. In her opening statement, Rice said this about our objectives:

We know our objectives. We and the Iraqi Government will succeed if together we can:
-- Break the back of the insurgency so that Iraqis can finish it off without large-scale military help from the United States.
-- Keep Iraq from becoming a safe haven from which Islamic extremists can terrorize the region or the world.
-- Demonstrate positive potential for democratic change and free expression in the Arab and Muslim worlds, even under the most difficult conditions.
-- And turn the corner financially and economically, so there is a sense of hope and a visible path toward self-reliance.

Now, read that again, and tell me if this is serious.


Oct 19, 2005 -- 01:07:20 PM EST

Let's remember, there was no insurgency in Iraq before we invaded the country and then totally bungled the aftermath. And there was little chance of Iraq becoming a safe haven for terrorists before we invaded the country and then totally bungled the aftermath. In other words, our first two objectives in Iraq are to undo the disaster our own actions and inactions created!
As for the remaining objectives, demonstrating the "positive potential for democratic change and free expression" is a very long cry from establishing a viable democracy in the heart of the Arab world, which a couple of years ago was declared the official aim of our continued involvement in Iraq. And "turning the corner financially and economically," though difficult, doesn't strike me as setting the bar terribly high.

Which leaves me with this thought: the limited nature of these objectives suggests that the administration may finally be realizing the extraordinary disaster we're in and is trying, desperately, to find a way to declare victory so we can get out."

---

Anyone who HAS been in war knows that unless you are in desperate straits, you think your way out before you go in, but this little detail escaped not only The Amazing Rumsfeld and his bald-minded leader, but apparently those whose profession presumably qualified them to lead actual war machines in bloodshed.

The Big Question, of course, is whether there IS a "necessity" for war, and if so when and what it looks like?

It seems to me that claiming such a necessity, when one does not exist, is an immorality of the highest order. Denying such a necessity when it DOES exist is pusillanimous, to be sure; but the inverse is the rampant unleashing of deep psychosis. It requires a self-bound egotism of extraordinary force, so anchored to its fear-driven center as to rule out any objectivity, compassion, or desire to make things better. In fact it stems from an immediate ravening hunger to make things worse.

Thus, W.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 12:28 PM

The Xenu thing was only fed to the people who reached level 3 "OTIII" by paying mucho dinero to the "church of Scientology"

What I am pointing out is that anyone who fell for that line of bullshit does not have the mental capacity to tell bullshit from the truth.

This person has no credibility. I would sooner believe Saddam saying he is innocent.


I never paid any attention until I saw the rantings of one Amos Jessup. I wondered if he was Muslim extremist but I searched the internet and found out otherwise.

Just like a house of cards, all these anti-war idjits hang out here and prop each other up. They choose they facts they want to hear and blot out the rest from their memory such as the terrorist training camps in Iraq. Eg. Salman Pak.

You never hear anything out of these antiwar koolaid drinkers about a plan to combat terrorisim, just criticisim of anybody that does have a plan. Nothing positive or creative, just harping and bitching, crying and sucking snot.

If GB had done nothing about Iraq or Afghanistan, where would we be right now? Shit like x number of soldiers and civilians would not have died don't cut it. How may terrorist attacks would we have sustained?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 01:27 PM

If GW had done nothing about the situation that unfolded in September he would have been a bigger ass than he is now. Wherever did you get the idea that anyone here thought he should have? Or are you just tilting at artificial windmills? Is your mind so hampered by bigotry that you can envision no course of action between "nothing" and starting a war only marginally related to the Al Queda attack?

Speaking of Al Queda, do you think Saddam Hussein is a reasonable substitute? That toppling the regime in Iraq is equivalent to striking a blow against fanatic Al Qeda style terrorism? Did you think the terrorist attacks were coming from Iraq for some reason?

Sanity includes, among other things, finding the right source for a problem. Finding the wrong source, and striking out against it, is just mindless complex reaction which makes the situation worse.

Thus, W.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 03:09 PM

Just like I said. Nothing about what to do just criticisim of what was done. You don't have a windmill to tilt at or the balls to tilt at anything.

Fact is you anti-war ballon heads don't know what should be done. If you had your own country to run it would last a week before it collapsed from indecision. Move on up to Canada, run them into the dirt and leave the US for normal people to enjoy.

Oh and previously you said there was no connection between Al Qeda and Saddam, The evil GB administration thought it up just to grab the oil in Iraq. Were you wrong then or wrong now?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 06:29 PM

Old Fart:

You are so busy twisting things you make a fool of yourself.

I never said Saddam and Al Queda were connected, and I think the same thing now as I thought back then, whatever it was I said. They were separate and not even interested in each other. Until Georgie Porgie decided to make Iraq into a common sandbox for all Muslims anywhere to come and shoot at Americans in.

What should be done now is very different from what should have been done in late September 2001.

I take it from your language that you are pro-war -- not any particular war, but in favor of war in general.

That is, you espouse the belief that it is preferable to engage in slaughter of your species from time to time in order to resolve issues.

I wish you great happiness, Old Guy, and a little sleep at night; I feel sorry for your soul and your mind, though.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Oct 05 - 09:03 PM

Well, Old Guy, one thing is true and that is the world's bigest fool is unknown until he opens his mouth and so Iz goina' present you with the:

WORLD'S BIGEST FOOL AWARD!!!

And a big ol' congrates... Well done and well earned...

But besides the accolades, hey, seein' as you ain't been 'round here that long, there have been folks who you would call allies here in Mudville who would post right winged Bushite stuff on threads like "D Modal Tuning" or "Lyrics needed: "Puff the Magic Dragon"...

Here waht Amos has done is create kinda a clearing house thread of Bush related stuff... He ain't lightin' off stink bombs in every imaginable thread...

This should make you happy because among a half a dozen of us we could wreck this joint with anti-Bush posts on every danged thread...

But that prolly jus' shot right over yer head...

No matter, rather than address the specific criticisms of yer hero, George W, you attack the messengers... Ahhhhh, you ever want to take one of Bush's policies and defend it without the usual, if you don't like America, leave it crap....

Your arguments are so tired and juvinile that sometimes when I read yer posts it's like readin' not an Old Guy, but a 13 year old who doesn't even know what the word "policies" means...

Yeah, why don't you ever want to talk about specific policies???

Afterall, when everything is said and done, at the end of the day, success or failure comes down to policy decisions, not name callin', not a bunch of juvinilistic crap, but policies...

Just which of Bush's policies are you ready to defend???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 07:50 PM

Still waitin', Old Guy, on which Bush policy you'd like to defend...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 08:13 PM

Please tell us Old Guy...how many terrorist attacks has GWB prevented? (include a reference please)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 08:57 PM

"What I am pointing out is that anyone who fell for that line of bullshit does not have the mental capacity to tell bullshit from the truth."

Well, Silly Old Fart, I'm afraid I can't quite agree with that. We all do things from time to time that we look back on and say, "Well. that wasn't too bright!" That doesn't mean that we're not too bright, it means that what we did was not too bright. What is bright is that we rcongnize that fact and move on from there. You get the distinction?

Let me put it this way:   I used to be a conservative. But I saw the error of my ways.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,a
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 09:28 AM

"..A CLEARING HOUSE OF BUSH RELATED ITEMS....." Hand picked, I notice.
Bobert, ever contemplate the word non-biased?

I used to be a Liberal until I saw the error of my ways.
Doesn't say anything either.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 09:51 AM

Well, stranger, I never said I didn't have a point of view. I have told the detractors and will now repeat it to you that if you have any kind of public view about Bushie that you wish to posthere, please feel free. That's what the thread is for.

Of ocurse, the more intelligent, factual, or at least interesting the material, the better your chance of getting an answer...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 10:47 AM

I have been writing and illustrating the New Bush Times for 6 years.
It is a kind of Daily Show satire of fake news.
ex. Headlines: ( Hussein plans Asteriod Attack )

Back then I was banned from dozens of websites and got plenty of hate mail, but with approval ratings what they are today people are at least laughing again, in between mourning for the dead and wounded.

What makes me most indignant are the talking head apologists who now say "NO ONE COULD HAVE IMAGINED five years ago that:
AlQada would have grown by 80%, bin Laden would still be loose, Worldwide hatred and vengence against the US is at an all time high, the deficit is at an all time high, that we are bogged down in a war with no more strategy than driving around until shot at - punctuated by several genocidal ethnic cleansings of cities like Falluja...etc.
.......
Let me tell you that I knew this 5 years ago, and I'm damn sure most of you knew it as well.

The devil is in the details and that will be the Achilles heel for the worst of the liars/killers (aka neocons - The Realist School of National Policy).

The bad guys are always better organized.
They need to be if only to evade prosecution.
They may never face a war crime tribunal.
They will not fall based on the big issues but will be slowly devoured, as if by ants taking tiny bites of the little lies until only the clean white bones remain.

We will be heard after the fact although we have been vocal all along.


This is an illustation of perhaps our worst and longest lasting (semi secret) war crime in Iraq:
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/metalofdishonor3.jpg


Thank you again, and now back to our regularly scheduled complaints ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,a
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 10:47 AM

Point well taken, Amos. This is my first trip through this thread and I notice some of the sources are somewhat dubious.

Factual or interesting? Perhaps ten percent of the preceeding are worth discussing and that is not to say the ten percent are factual.
I guess it comes down to what one wants to hear, be it truthful or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 11:12 AM

I am always open to facts, sir.

When it comes to interpretation, I reserve my judgement.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 01:11 PM

I think it is also fair and reasonable to remember the actual enemy, who has taken advantage of Bush's policy to make a staging area out of Iraq, a country they were once scarce in. This is what the organization that bombed the Twin Towers with stolen airplanes full of (relatively) innocent passengers is up to lately:

"Al Qaida claims hotel bombings


Al Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings of Baghdad hotels that killed 17 people.

The claim, made in an internet statement posted on a website that carries extremist material, said the attack targeted the "dirty harbour of intelligence agents and private American, British and Australian security companies."


"The lions of monotheism hit the heart of the security cordon," said the statement, which could not be immediately verified.

Tuesday's bombings targeted central Baghdad's Palestine and Sheraton hotels, which house Western journalists and contractors.

The statement said the group carried out the operation despite high-profile security measures including concrete barriers, barbed, checkpoints and surveillance cameras.

Al Qaida in Iraq said militants from its Brigade of al-Baraa bin Malek carried out the attacks.

The statement said the militants fired missiles at security forces before the suicide bombers - including one driving a cement truck through a gap blasted in a surrounding wall - detonated the explosives."

These are not freedom fighters.

They, like our own right wing fanatic Christians, are extremists using religion as a justification for anti-social psychotic acts, an insane desire to either control or destroy others, anti-human and anti-productive and grimly destructive. Individual by individual they may be less so; but when you take on the colors of a band of pirates or a pack of wolves, it is not persuasive to argue that you are basically a puppy and a family man; it is too disonant to bear much credence. Th eindividual is the responsible thrust-bearing for the acts of the group in which he participates.

I have been variously labeled as a pinko peacenik of various kinds, both in this thread and elsewhere. So I bring this issue up to point out that given the correctly identified enemy, and no other means to bring about a more amenable frame of mind on his part, I am persuaded that force may sometimes be unavoidable. But human decency requires that the effort to avoid it be made, and that the enemy be identified correctly, and that the standards of human compassion be maintained even in violence insofar as humanly possible.

Otherwise, there is no just battle; it is then all a bestial, godforsaken and rotting stew to which the vultures naturally gravitate.

Thus, W.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 03:34 PM

In one of the many scandals now caving in around the lie-weary Bush warriors the following development from the Post and the Times is of interest because it indicates things run deeper than previosuly expected:

"
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; 1:39 PM

The New York Times this morning reports that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby apparently first learned that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent from none other than his boss -- Vice President Cheney.

This new revelation suggests that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity has reached even closer to the vice president than was previously known.


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Fitzgerald is expected to wrap up this week, possibly tomorrow. Libby and Bush senior adviser Karl Rove are widely seen as most likely to be indicted.

Just how the White House first learned of Plame's identity has been one of the elusive mysteries of this case.

Rove is said to have initially told the grand jury he first heard about Plame from some reporter, but he couldn't remember who. Then he said he heard it from Libby.

Libby is said to have initially told the grand jury he first heard about Plame from reporters -- but they denied it. And now, says the Times, Libby's own notes show he heard it from Cheney.

But today's news raises even more questions than it answers, among them:

* Who told Cheney, and under what circumstances?

* Did Cheney acknowledge his own role when he spoke to prosecutors last summer? If not, could he be indicted himself?

* Did Cheney encourage Libby not to disclose their conversation?

* Did President Bush know about Cheney's role?

* Who leaked this latest development -- and what was their motivation?

* Does this mean the White House will stop blaming reporters for everything? (That one was rhetorical: The answer is no.)

The Story



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


David Johnston, Richard W. Stevenson and Douglas Jehl write in the New York Times: "I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

"Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

"The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war. . . .

"It would not be illegal for either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby, both of whom are presumably cleared to know the government's deepest secrets, to discuss a C.I.A. officer or her link to a critic of the administration. But any effort by Mr. Libby to steer investigators away from his conversation with Mr. Cheney could be considered by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case, to be an illegal effort to impede the inquiry."

The Times reporters wonder "why Mr. Libby would have suggested to the grand jury that he might have learned about Ms. Wilson from journalists if he was aware that Mr. Fitzgerald had obtained the notes of the conversation with Mr. Cheney or might do so." Good question.

The conversation between Libby and Cheney apparently took place on the day The Washington Post published a front-page story by Walter Pincus about an unnamed diplomat, later publicly identified as Wilson, and his mission to Niger.

"A key component of President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address last January that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program -- its alleged attempt to buy uranium in Niger -- was disputed by a CIA-directed mission to the central African nation in early 2002, according to senior administration officials and a former government official," Pincus wrote.

David Shuster reports for MSNBC this morning: "The story in the New York Times has huge implications, because it places Vice President Cheney for the first time in the heart of this investigation." . . .

---

Look for a breaking scandal on the Judith Miller front to appear soon, linking Scooter and Judith romantically. The perfect explanation! I shoulda been a gossip columnist!! :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 08:18 PM

10 Mind-Numbingly Stupid Quotes by Tom DeLay

1) "So many minority youths had volunteered that there was literally no room
for patriotic folks like myself." --Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988 GOP
convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not serve in
the Vietnam War

2) "Now tell me the truth, boys, is this kind of fun?" --Tom Delay,to three
young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome inHouston, Sept.
9, 2005

3) "I AM the federal government." --Tom DeLay, to the owner of Ruth's Chris
Steak House, on why he should have been allowed to smoke a cigar, despite
federal government regulations banning smoking, May 14,2003

4) "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." --TomDeLay,
explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002interview with Fox
News

5) "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes."
--Tom DeLay, March 12, 2003

6) "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of
youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the
teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth
control pills." -- Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High Schoolmassacre,
1999

7) "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide
structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability,
I'm not saying that. It does take a father, though." --TomDeLay, in a
radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004

8) "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the
Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a
government church."   --Tom DeLay

9) "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an
hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately,such
families do not exist." --Tom DeLay, during a debate in Congress on
increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996

10) "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is
the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am
in the Constitution." -- Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview,Dec. 19, 1995

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 08:22 PM

From Newsview (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Cheneys_Role.html)

...
"The New York Times, quoting unidentified lawyers involved in the case, said Libby's notes differed from his grand jury testimony. Libby reportedly told grand jurors he learned Plame's name from reporters.

There is nothing in the public record to suggest that Cheney, like perhaps Libby and deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, pointed reporters toward the CIA official in conversations about her husband, diplomat Joe Wilson.

But the investigation has lifted the veil on the White House's brass-knuckle political culture - and Cheney's role in it.

The latest disclosure also raises fresh questions about the vice president's credibility, long-ago frayed by inaccurate or questionable statements on Iraq.

Cheney told NBC on Sept. 14, 2003, that he didn't know who sent Wilson on a mission to Niger to explore claims that Iraq was seeking nuclear material. "He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back," Cheney said at the time. "I don't know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him."

He made those remarks months after the reported conversations with Tenet and Libby, where he would have learned about Wilson and his wife.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked whether Bush still had confidence in Cheney, replied, "The president appreciates all the things that he's doing."

And he's doing a lot. A former congressman, Cheney is the president's point man on Capitol Hill. A former oil man, he spearheaded the White House energy task force and fought to keep its deliberations secret. A former defense secretary, Cheney is one of Bush's most trusted foreign policy advisers and a staunch defender of the war in Iraq.

It was Cheney who all but made a direct link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks, then denied that he had ever done so.

He also insisted there was a link between al-Qaida and Iraq.

Cheney said in May that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes," an assertion rejected by military leaders.

White House officials are circling the wagons around Cheney, defending the vice president while privately pointing to news accounts that take issue with Libby's grand jury testimony. Many also are still holding out hope that Rove, the president's top adviser, will not be indicted in the case.

Two senior Republican officials close to the White House, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution, said administration officials are worried that Cheney's role in the case has created a public relations problem by bringing the CIA leak a step closer to the Oval Office.

There is less concern about the vice president's legal vulnerability, the officials said, but any uncertainty adds to an already tense situation at the White House.

This all started in 2003 after the war began. The fighting wasn't going well, despite Bush's "mission accomplished" speech, and the president was reeling from criticism over mentioning an Iraq-nuclear connection in his State of the Union address.

Wilson was a threat, and Bush's advisers had reason to doubt his credibility.

So they sprang into action.

Fitzgerald will soon decide whether to file charges or write the episode off to what Hess calls typical Washington "malicious gossip."

"Cheney had a conversation with his chief of staff. They talked about something that was bothering them. ... He asked the director of the CIA what gives, and they had a conversation. All of this seems to be the way you'd expect people to do business. Yada, yada, yada - and so we go," Hess said.

In purely political terms, the question is whether the public will be as blase about the White House response to Wilson once the whole story is out.

Or whether they will lose faith in the president and his Mr. Fix-It....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 08:32 PM

From Salon :

"Now They Tell Us

Why didn't Bush's foreign-policy critics speak out a year ago?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Oct. 24, 2005, at 3:10 PM PT


Scowcroft criticizes George Jr.

Two erstwhile loyalists have come out roaring against President George W. Bush this past week, attacking not just his conduct of the war in Iraq but the foundations of his foreign policy generally.

The critics are retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a longtime friend and former national security adviser of Bush's father, who attacks his targets in a profile by Jeffrey Goldberg in the latest issue of The New Yorker, and retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, another admirer of Bush Sr. and Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who launched his artillery in an Oct. 19 speech at the New America Foundation.

Scowcroft, besides voicing dismay over the invasion of Baghdad, slashes the administration—especially his old friend Dick Cheney and his own former underling Condoleezza Rice—for their "evangelical" notion that they can export democracy at the point of a gun.


Wilkerson goes further, charging Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with running foreign policy like a "cabal"—worse still, an "incompetent" cabal that has "courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran." He says they've gotten away with it because the president is "not versed in international relations and not much interested in them either."

There's nothing novel about the substance of these critiques; many analysts have made similar points for quite a while. The startling thing here is the critics—consummate insiders, veteran military officers, who as a rule don't reveal secrets or attack presidents, especially those named Bush. (snip...)"


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 08:45 PM

Okay, Old Guy, don't like Amos's cut an' pastes, just waitin' fir butt to pick that one Bush policy that makes you feel all warm an' fuzzy...

Don't matter which one it is 'cause this ol' hillbilly ain't gonna cut and paste ya, I'm just gonna shread yer arguements...

Bring it on, Big Guy, ol' BObert got somethin' fir ya...

And you get to pick the weapons...

No Child Left Behind???

Oh, yeah, I hope you pick that one...

Homeland Defense???

Oh yeah, pcik that one???

Don't matter to me...

You pick the one policy that you feel "YOUR" president has done a good job on...

Still waitin'...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 26 Oct 05 - 01:18 PM

Mr. Bobert, what about Homeland Defense? What is your point, if any, or is this just another one of your hollow threats that, if countered, will then be ignored by you?

Give me one 'thing', or whatever your implication is, concerning one child left behind.

I an a newbie here but it takes very little time to uncover the harsh bluffers from those who attempt to make a point.
While I seem to disagree with Amos amd may doubt a lot of his source material, he would be a force to reckon with in a debate, unlike some of you who seem to employ the tactics of a bully.

But, Amos, quoting Wilkerson is a bit of a stretch. Who, after all, is responsible for formulating foreign policy?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Oct 05 - 07:49 PM

Which one, GUESTa... "Homeland" 'er "No Child"???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 08:49 AM

Bobert; reread my post, could you not perceive that I asked for both?

Amos; Your 25 Oct 05 03:34 post and I quote: "I shoulda been a gossip columnist." Amos, you are basically that.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 09:10 AM

From Amos: "a war only marginally related to the Al Queda attack"
Was it related or not?

From a PBS Frontline interview    with Sabah Khodada:

"Can you explain what's on this map that you drew?

The surrounding area around this camp is an area for fitness training. This is a Boeing 707, where they trained how to hijack it. And also they were trained how to resist or stop hijacking operation.

Next to it, there's a double-decker bus in which they could do the same thing -- training, hijacking. And this is next to it, there is a village, built houses like a model of a village. They will train how to plant TNT and explosives. And very next to it, there's a single house, where they're trained how to enter it, or sabotage it or explode it.

The railway track is where the train is. That's where they would have the same training for hijacking of a train. I would like to also tell you that this is a village where farmers would live. Those farmers, by the way, are employees by the Iraqi intelligence -- all of them. They look like normal families, but they are not as you think. They are employees of the Iraqi intelligence to put cover and protection to the base."

707? Train? Double decker bus? This is from 2001 before Madrid and London. Does it sound a little erie to you?

Well shit for brains, what kind of a long range plan can you come up with for combating terrorisim in the world?

You can't because your mental capacity is limited to picking apart anybody with a plan who tries to carry it out.

I see nothing here that does anybody any good. You antiwar zeroheads come here for support for your fucked up, crybaby complaints. Grow up.


Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 02:17 PM

Old Fart:

Your love of violence is kinda pathetic.

If you had bothered to participate in this community for any time, you would see many efforts to produce alternative plans.

Back when your clan of rock-brained war-mongers was insisting on launching mass slaughter, a lot of discussion about alternative approaches occured.

I've seen your ancient screed before. I kind of doubt it has much merit, given the known antipathy between Hussein and Al Queda before 9-11. Since then, of course, their people have become close allies, partly as a result of Bushwhackoff's diplomatic skills.

But this thread is not about the war. There ar eplenty of others you can go spill your bile into. If you have some substantive remarks to make about the Bush administration here, welcome.

For example, why do you think Meiers backed off yesterday? To protect Bush from embarassment? Or, as she said in her letter, to protect his right to keep his business secret from the masses?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 05:26 PM

From a discussion group:

http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/000428.html

GOVERNORS URGE PRESIDENT TO SUPPORT FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH

The governors of 27 states have sent a letter to President Bush
urging him to "ensure that federal funding for university-based
research remains a top national priority" in FY 2006 and beyond. In
their letter, the 16 Democratic and 11 Republican governors make the
case that basic research has been the fuel for innovation in their
states -- as well as a creator of high-wage jobs and an enabler of
workforce productivity -- and they credit the universities and labs
performing the research with being "the training ground for our
country's next generation of highly-skilled workers." They also cite
the changing competitive environment that challenges current U.S.
dominance in technology innovation:

    "Through economic globalization, competition in research and
development has risen dramatically in the last few years. Asian and
European countries have committed new resources to scientific and
engineering research programs at nearly unprecedented rates. While
the U.S. currently remains a global leader in science and technology,
we must continue to be at the forefront of discovery and development.
Only by investing in the research of today can we take full advantage
of the innovations of tomorrow. Despite a period of scarce resources,
basic science and engineering research is a vital national investment."

This is an important message for the President to hear, especially as
the Administration is working now to put together his FY 2007 budget
in time for its February release.

Unfortunately, the U.S. basic research enterprise is going to need
all the help it can get. As we've noted before, it appears that
pressures will be high on Congress to cut mandatory and discretionary
spending (including federal science agencies) to offset the spiraling
costs for hurricane relief and a possible tax cut. Yesterday, House
Majority Leader Roy Blunt noted that Congress will be focusing on
three pieces of budget legislation before they wrap up the current
session this fall: a package carving savings from mandatory programs,
an across-the-board cut in discretionary spending and a new hurricane
relief package. Any across-the-board cut is likely to once again fall
on agencies like the National Science Foundation, which suffered a
similar 2 percent cut last year.

So any effort by an influential group like the 27 governors who
signed this letter (and thanks to the Science Coalition for "working"
this letter), is useful in the attempt to reverse what is becoming a
very damaging trend of cutbacks in federal support for fundamental
research.

Here's the full letter:
http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/
Governors_Letter_BasicResearch.pdf (pdf, 1 mb).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 09:40 PM

Well, well, well...

So it's Homeland Security that you GUEST A, wants to defend???

Ahhh, before we get into some of the particlars I'd just like to know if you are aware of the fact that Bush din't think much of creatin' a Department of Homeland Security... No, might of fact it took some purdy hard pushin' by Joe Lieberman and some fellow Dems to push Bush into a corner where he he didn't support the idea then it would make it look as if he didn't give a rats butt about fightin' terrorism...

Can we agree on that???

If so, I have no trouble going forward in discussin' hopw Bush has totaly messed a program that came not from him or his folks but a program (leadin' to various policies) advocated my the Democrats...

If we can't get beyond an accepte3nce of this part of the story then there's little chance that you will buy the rest of what I have to say but, hey, the Repub "Revisionists" haven't made it a priority to change this part of the story so I would assume that we can go forward with my "bill of particulars" against the way Bush and his cronies have manipulated a situation in history to harrass and snoop on innocent Americans in the nmae of "homeland security"...

I'll await yer response, GUEST A, on whether or not we can agree that Bush was not the guidin' light behind the legislation that brought us the DoHS....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 09:57 PM

From todays NY Times, excerpted:

"..."They're not reaching out; they're in a bunker mentality," said one longtime Republican familiar with the thinking in the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of offending the president. "The idea that they're going to blame the Senate process for her going down says to me there's no introspection going on."

Second-term presidents are notoriously insulated from second-guessing, and Mr. Bush has never been one to invite private criticism or confess public error. His high premium on staff loyalty may well have led him to misjudge how his nomination of Ms. Miers - by all accounts the ultimate loyalist - would play.

"In the end, I always thought the thing that would bring her down was that she was his lawyer," Mr. Smith, the historian, said. "That makes people uncomfortable. It's just too inside."

President Lyndon B. Johnson's nomination of his longtime confidant, Abe Fortas, to be chief justice collapsed in 1968 partly for the same reason.

Richard D. Friedman, an expert on Supreme Court history at the University of Michigan law school, said Ms. Miers's withdrawal reflected the reality that modern confirmations had become "so contentious that the president has an incentive to pick somebody whose ideology he believes is compatible with his, but about whom little is known," while the Senate "then feels duty-bound to find out what it can about the nominee's ideology."

He added: "The nominee and the administration put up a wall, but in this case, it crumbled," in part because of doubts in both parties about Ms. Miers's stature.

The conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan wrote in Human Events Online that, by withdrawing, Ms. Miers "may just have helped" Mr. Bush "save his presidency." On the same Web site, the right-wing columnist Ann Coulter allowed: "Bush has us back on the team, ready to cheer for him unreservedly."

But former Senator John B. Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat who is pressing for the nomination of his home-state candidate, Judge Edith Brown Clement of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, had a much different view of what Ms. Miers's withdrawal portends for Mr. Bush's power to influence his own party, much less the opposition, for the rest of his term.

"It means," Mr. Breaux said, "that the fear factor is gone."

---

Less fear is always good, isn't it? That's what fighting terror is all about.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Oct 05 - 10:42 PM

Well, gol danged, Amos...

Here I'z tryin' to lead either Old Guy 'er GUEST A into a defense of how Bush has done such a fine job with the Department of Homeland Security and ehre you go messin' wid the bait???

Like, who care about Harriet Miers???

(Ahhh, Bobert, you should...)

Okay I do, but not becuase of her danged popsitions on abortion or affirmative action but her thoughts on the powers of corporations... Yeah, them scared the heck outta me... Glad she's gone but I fear anothe corporate shill will get the next appointment...

This ain't got one thing in the world to do with flag burnin', 'er abortions, 'er affirmative action, 'er gay amrriages... Not a danged thing... Them is jsut smoke=screen issues to keep folks away from the real fact that Boss Hog is still real steamed about stuff like Medicare and Social Security and average folks ever gettin' to, ahhhh, like friggin' retire??? So Boss Hog wants a good-ol-boy corportist on that Supreme Court who will let the corporation run rampant over the average workin' man or woman in Amerika...

Yeah, this ain't got one thing to do about no sissy cultural thing... It's about money and power... And the folks with the money have bought them the best governemnt that money can buy and now it's time fir the workin' class to bend over and take a big ol' "Deliverance" screwing from Boss Hog...

No vasciline, either...

So, if you ain't part of Boss Hog's world, just bend over...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 12:52 AM

I see when I addressed no one in particular as shit for brains Amos was the first one to answer with more bullshit and no plan. Swallowed the bait all the way.

And who proposed the department of homeland security?
Have we forgotten this campaign ad from the DNC in 2004?
"John Kerry fought to establish the Department of Homeland Security. George Bush opposed it for almost a year after 9/11."

   Ari Fleischer (Oct 24, 2001): "The president has suggested to members of Congress that there does not need to be a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security because there is such overlap among the various agencies, because every agency of the government has security concerns."

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:10 AM

You are one dumb redneck, Old Fart.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 01:22 PM

Enlighten me oh literate one.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 01:30 PM

There are tasks far too monumental for anyone to even attempt. Or bother with.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 01:44 PM

WASHINGTON - The vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr., was charged Friday with obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation, a politically charged case that will throw a spotlight on President Bush's push to war. Libby resigned and left the White House.

Karl Rove, Bush's closest adviser, escaped indictment Friday but remained under investigation, his legal status a continuing political problem for the White House.

The grand jury indictment charged Libby, 55, with one count of obstruction of justice, two of perjury and two false statement counts. If convicted on all five, he could face as much as 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines.

The charges stem from a two-year investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald into whether Rove, Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame or lied about their involvement to investigators.

Libby is accused of lying about how and when he learned about Plame's identity in 2003 and told reporters about it. The information on the officer was classified.

He is also accused of lying when he told Fitzgerald's investigators that he learned about Plame's CIA status from Tim Russert of NBC. He learned it from several government sources, including Cheney, the indictment says.

Any trial would dig into the secret deliberations of Bush and his team as they built the case for war against Iraq.

Bush ordered U.S. troops to war in March 2003, saying Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program posed a grave and immediate threat to the United States. No such weapons were found. The U.S. military death toll climbed past 2,000 this week. ...

(From the AP WIre for 10-28-05)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:15 PM

Just heard on the news a few minutes ago that Karl Rove is not off the hook yet. Rove's attorney has managed to convince special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he may have misinterpreted something Rove said during the hearings. The special prosecutor allowed as how this may possibly be true, and although he won't have time to do it this session, he will go over the transcripts and investigate the matter further. So Rove is still hanging in mid-air.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:32 PM

Oh enlightened one was referring to Amos but he only responds when I call him shit for brains.

Telling isn't it?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 02:38 PM

You know, Old Guy, that what you post is saying nothing about Amos, but it speaks volumes about you. Your credibility is nonexistent.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 03:16 PM

Bobert, what I am refering to was posted yesterday.
One more time, however, you were implying that No child left behind and Homeland Security had major problems. I said give me one from each and I will respond accordingly. You now seem to be beating around the bush, so to speak.

AND YES, I know GWB was not very much in favor of a Homeland Security department by itself. And possibly he was correct. After he was forced into it, the Dems insisted that that FEMA be part of it.
Sooooooo, after a once very effective FEMA was buried in the new organization, it was not able to respond as effectively as it once did.

AND, DUMB BASTARDS like yourself were the first to blame Bush. Yes, it was a Government agency but was now NOT the way GWB said it should be. And please try not to forget that FEMA was never a "first responder". Even some of the Floridians did not follow instructions with regard to having 3 days food and water which had some clamoring for help within a day of the passing of Wilma.

Folks, lets' try to be fair. The government should not be depended on for our salvation, for more reasons than one.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 04:23 PM

From www.spiked-online.com, in an article entitled "How Low Can Bush Go?"

http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CADFF.htm

How low can Bush go?
The president's retreat on Miers leaves him and his party in a lose-lose situation.

by Helen Searls


"...The failure of the Miers nomination came in the middle of what the New York Times described as Bush's worst ever political week. Bush's stock is already very low; he has never recovered from the slump he faced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina at the start of September. The grim reality of his failures in Iraq was brought home clearly this week when the death toll of US soldiers in the conflict reached the 2000 mark. With news bulletins peppered with heart-wrenching stories of loss, coupled with grief-stricken mothers questioning their sons' sacrifices, nobody seems to be prepared to give a ringing endorsement of the president's foreign policies.


Nor is the domestic arena any refuge. The White House and the Republican Party are awash with scandal. Former house lead Tom Delay has been indicted by a Texas grand jury for the fraudulent use of party funds. Senate leader Bill Frist is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Washington is awash with speculation about impending indictments within the White House. Two leading White House players, Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, are awaiting the pronouncements of the special prosecutor over allegations of wrongdoing concerning their involvement in leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent and the subsequent cover-up.


It is against this backdrop that Bush withdrew the Miers nomination. To back off from a fight, when things are going so badly, just confirms the view that the president and his allies have lost their way.


One need only consider future nominations to the court to see what difficulties have been created. Whomever Bush nominates next, the nomination will have the feeling of being provisional rather than absolute. If a determined section of the Republican Party can derail one nomination that did not fit their plans, what is to stop them or others from doing the same next time?


Indeed, it is difficult to see whom the president could nominate next without coming out weakened and damaged. If he nominates another candidate like Miers, or even a more moderate candidate, he runs the risk that the candidate will be derailed again by sections of his own party. But if he picks a more openly conservative candidate with a clearer ideological agenda, he looks like he is being dictated to by the religious right. Moreover, moderate Republicans may find it hard to vote for such a nominee. The fight that this would provoke might do real damage to the future election chances of the Republican Party.


Despite all the noise made by the conservative right, absolutist conservative policies like banning abortion do not have majority support among the electorate. While anti-abortion politics galvanise religious conservatives, such policies are not election winners at the polls.


Bush has always understood this. When anti-abortionists have pressed him to promise to appoint judges to overturn Roe v Wade (the ruling that safeguards women's right to abortion), Bush has said he thought the country was not ready to take such a step. Throughout his presidency he has been careful to keep the issue on the back burner. While he signed the ban on the so called 'partial birth abortion' procedure - a measure that was not so controversial - he has been careful to remain quiet on the broader issue of outlawing abortion.


The president and the Republicans may now be so directionless and consumed with their own internal difficulties that they no longer recognise how fragile is their own political cohesion. With nothing on the political horizon to galvanise the party, a bitter fight over conservative values in general and abortion in particular is the last thing that either the president or his party needs. ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 04:38 PM

Delay is a talking head on MSNBC a lot these days. He has extra time without his leadership meetings. Ounce for ounce he is far more intelligent than GWB.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 05:39 PM

Okay, we can get right down to specifics on DHS but lets look at the facts... Rather than gear it up toward, ahhhh, fighting terrorism and findin bin Forgotten, it has become a whipping boy for Bush and Co. to whup up on any American of the DHS's chosin' who:

1. Goes to the library

2. Gets medical care

3. Owns a computer

4. Uses a leagally obtained perscription drug

5. Supports a chucrch group

6. Gives to a charity

And guess what? Seems that if you give to a charity that you had no idea was givin' funds to a group that DHS deems, without evidence of wrong-doing, is a terrorists organization, you can be arrested and taken off to Guantanemo Bay, helf there without legal reprseentation, or even ever being charghes of doinhg anything wtrong anf kept there indefinately... And if Dick Cheney gets it his way, according to a recent Washington Post article, you might even end up with a lethal injection or just plain tortured to death... You see, Section 215 of the Patriot Act (Which it ain't...) removes the "probable cause" provision that the American system of justice has relied on going back to the Founding Fathers... Without "probabal cause" you have the makings of a police state...

Hmmmmmm, I thought we were trying to catch the bad guys??? Instead, what Cheney and Bush have done is taken a major step in making George Orwell look purdy right on, just missin' the actual date of governemnt in every bedroom in America...

Now you, GUEST A, might like police states... I don't, and I don't like George Bush, Dick Cheney and Admiral Poindexter spendin' my hard earned tax bucks snoopin' 'round my life 'cause I don't agree with them... They ooughtta be snoopin' 'round bin Forgotten's life, thank you...

And lets take this thing one step further... What was the original purpose of the DHS??? To make us safer... Are we any safer??? The incidents of terrorism have increased globally have increased every year since it went into existence...

And lets look at another aspect of the mission of the DHS and that is the issue of steppin' in when there is a regional catastrophy... Think Katrina here...

So my two major problems with the way the Bush administartion has administered the DHS are:

1. Rather than go after terrorists, Bush and Co. have turned the US into a police state.

2. The Bush adminstration is nhot prepared to deal with catastropies, either man-made or natural... Plastic and duct tape ain't leadership... It's a friggin' joke...

Well, lets see how Old Guy and GUEST A respond to this mere introduction of my "Bill of Partriculars" on Bush's leadership of the DHS, then maybe we'll get into "No Child Left Un-Recruited"...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 07:50 PM

BTW, do you know about Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordon??? Might wanta Google search 'um before yer rebuttals???

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 09:21 PM

Yes I was never a cult follower so I do not have the credibility of someone that was and as far as I can tell still is.

One that falls for bullshit becomes an expert on bullshit to the point that all he knows is bullshit. All he spews is bullshit.

One day he says that there was no connection between Iraq and Al Quaeda. Then he says there was a marginal connection. When I call him on it all he can say is the never said there was a connection. Vast amounts of credibility there.

This same person declares a thread belongs to him and he says what can be posted there. Rather childish but still credible.

Then when asked what should be done to fight terrorisim he has nothing to say but "If you had bothered to participate in this community for any time, you would see many efforts to produce alternative plans"

Now there's a plan. And did this credible person's hero just before the last election claim "John Kerry fought to establish the Department of Homeland Security. George Bush opposed it for almost a year after 9/11."

Now I am asking again, Who's idea was homeland security and who's idea was it to make FEMA part of homeland security. And what is Mr Amos Jessup's recomendation for a long range plan to fight terrorisim?

And in case I am accused of not answering questions, I do support GB's policy of not listening to the anti-war idiots. I do not support all of his policies though. I am not a blind cult follower. For example I do not support his policy on enforcing immigration and border enforcement.

Now are you going to answer or do I have to start a thread titled "Amos has shit for brains" so you will answer?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 09:36 PM

Well, I'll say this...

I have sat and listened to Amos talk fir 3 or 5 minutes and I have just read Old Guy's last post and I'd have to give Amos a upperhand, by far, in just communication skills, for being able to put together cognitive thoughts without interspersing a single "shit for brains" interjection...

Might of fact, I think that this level of discourse is below Amos's inner self, outer self and any self in between...

Old Guy,

Just a suggestion here... Try stickin' with the issues more... The meat and potatoes of issues... Not the sound bite translations... Though you may be very informed about stuff, you certainly don't come accross as someone who, ahhhh, no disrespect intended, reads alot...

Bobert

p.s. Yeah, I'm sure you coulod say that 'bout me 'cause I don't type 'er spell too well but, hey, I do read... a lot....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 10:13 PM

I never questioned his intelligence, only his dogged persuit of posting every nit shit thing he can find that is negative to GWB even if it is from Al Jazeera. Are we really interested in the writings of Clarissa Pinkola Estes?

He is simply building a monument to himself. Something he can consider an accomplishment.

However his judgement is poor and his mission is counter to the furtherance of freedom and peace in the world. Rather, it is counter productive.

I attribute this to his weakness for following cults. Maybe he is attempting to build his own anti-bush cult. I think it is surely the result of an imbalanced mind.

I can't imagine believing anyone who believed in an E Meter. That's like believing Louis Farrakhan who says there is a spaceship shaped like a wheel orbiting the earth in making preperations to eradicate white people from the earth.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 10:28 PM

Think about it this way, Old Guy...

Before you showed up 'round here just about every thread got highjacked with politics... Hey, you could start a thread entitled "Best Key for 'Puff the Magic Dragon'" and next thing you'd know it was about Iraq???

Go figure???

Well, unlike my rowdy self, Amos has the discip-line and respect fir Mudville to kkep all of the Bush stuff in one nice little thread...

Now you may think that is abd but the alternative is much worse... Believe me... Take a little time and go back and reread some threads from the pre-Iraq-invasion and you'll come back with a different perspective...

Amos ain't rying to build nuthin' here... It's just a danged "claering hose" kinda thread where folks get to bring in stuff about the Bush admionistration, which even the most loyal, would have to admit ain't doina too much a bang up job these days...

So, please, Old Guy, the shit fir this an' shit fir that aonly makes you sound ignorant... I don't know if yer ignorant or not and, if you are, you don't either but, hey, get off my boys butt, will ya???

Disagree with him... Disagree with the links... But don't personalize it, my friend...

Okay?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Oct 05 - 11:05 PM

The modus operandi of the Right Wing these days is to avoid meeting the main issue head on, where more often than not, they don't stand a chance, and duck off to the side and attack by bringing up something completely irrelevant. E.g., note how often, when the Bush administration comes in for criticism, that the Right Wingers around here suddenly bring up Bill Clinton's petty peccadilloes and try to make something world-shaking out of it. If it even goes into the history books at all, it will only merit a footnote, and as has been pointed out by a number of people so far, Clinton's indiscretions and subsequent lie did not result in one single death, let alone the deaths of 2,000 American soldiers and upwards of 30,000 Iraqis. Nor did it embroil this country in yet another quagmire that it will quite possibly be decades getting itself out of.

Now, here, in this thread, we have Amos calling attention to the writings of those who are critical of the Bush administration. Admittedly, Amos is trying to make a point. That's fine. It's his right. As a matter of fact, one could say that as a good citizen, it is his duty both to himself and to his country to express his considered viewpoint and call attention to material that supports it.

So—in response to this, what do the Right Wingers around here do? They make use of another diversionary tactic to attack Amos on matters that are totally irrelevant to the subject of this thread. It makes no difference what philosophical or religious viewpoints and beliefs Amos may have held in the past, or, for that matter, what philosophy or beliefs he holds now. This, in no way, alters the truth or falsity of the articles he is calling to our attention.

This is yet another blatant example of the resident Right Wingers attempting to divert attention from the main points of an argument by invoking a very popular fallacy with them—the argumentum ad hominem: this consists of attacking the person asserting the argument rather than the argument itself. It makes no difference to the truth or falsity of the argument if the person making the argument is a liar, a thief, an axe-murderer, or a maniac—or whether or not he can walk on water. If the argument is true, it is true independent of the person asserting the argument. Likewise, if it is false, it is false regardless of the presumed credibility of the person making the assertion.

For a thorough exposition of the argumentum ad hominem, see the following:—
One More Time!   
[And as many times as it takes before people stop using it and stick to the point.]
In a nutshell, rather than attempting to refute the argument itself, those who use the argumentum ad hominem do so in order to divert attention from the argument by attacking the credibility of the person asserting the argument.

This, obviously, is what GUEST,Old Guy (whom, I suspect, is an apprentice of Karl Rove) is knocking himself out in an effort to do.

I don't know Amos personally—we have never met face to face—but from his posts, I have always found him to be quite sane, well centered in reality, intelligent, and articulate. In fact, he has what some might regard as "a dangerous gift of eloquence" (and therein lies the problem that some people here seem to have with him). But if Amos were flitting about as an Operating Thetan, or running around and foaming at the mouth (neither of which, as far as I can tell, he is doing), it would have absolutely nothing to do with the truth or falsity of anything he says or of any article he calls our attention to.

Old Guy (and you too, "Xenu"), you may as well get off that bus because it isn't going anywhere. It results only in making you look like a bit of an ass.

Don Firth

"If the words are true, what does it matter who speaks them?" ~~Kahless, the Klingon Messiah.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 03:58 AM

Old Guy:

I don't have a plan for this mess. If I did you can be sure I would be pounding the drum for it/ Do you think Bush has one, aside from "make Iraq be a democracy and then bring the troops back"? That;s not a plan, by the way --at best it is a vision. If I was being critical there are other terms I could use for it. I'd have one pretty quick if it was my job to, though.

As for combatting terrorism, my approach would be to track down those who initiate it and find out what they are doing and why and based on some understanding, plan accordingly. Your furless leader did not find out who, or why, or acquire much understanding. He just decided and spread false information to support his decision.

Having demonstrated that he cannot be trusted to communicate the truth, I have no way to adjudicate the real merit of anything that comes out of his mouth.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 04:51 AM

Bobert, as I said elsewhere, thanks for bringing up Katrina. If Homeland Security had not been invented and FEMA would not have been incorporated into it, then perhaps the response to Katrina would have been to your liking. This is to disregard the performance of the LA local and state governments.

Could you please explain to me how you can blame this administration for the performance of an agency they did not want to begin with, knowing it was set up by the Congress and not by those who would become responsible for its' operation.
No, you really can't, not to me or any other individual who favors fairness.
I think this debate has concluded.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 08:43 AM

Yes, GUEST A, aqnd in lenght, but not this mornin'... I've gotta get my guitars loaded to play a picnic/party at the last Farmer's Market in Luray...

But, yeah, I not only can but will show you why I blame the Bush administration fir the poor handlin' of Katrina...

BTW, just a little homework here fir ya, pal... You might wanta Google the Congressional testimony of Michael "Brownie" Brown fir a clue here... There's a lot more than what was chiozen fir the 30 second sound bite where he angrilly said "(I) did my best"... Yeah, if you read the entire testimony you'll prolly come back with some different perceptions...

Or if you just want to wait 'til tonight, I'll be glad to save you the homework time...

Gotta go...

Work before play, ahhhhh, play before play, ahhhhh, whatever... Gonna get fed well either way...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 08:47 AM

Amos:

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. First of all there is no easy or sure way to combat terrorisim but something must be done. Some action must be taken based on whtever knowledge is at hand.

Here is what the anti-war get nowhere people believe: "He just decided and spread false information to support his decision"

The information he "spread" was the best information available at the time. Democrats, foriegn governments, foriegn intelligence agencys, bunches of people around the world believed it.

Now that it turns out to be not entirely true every looks for a scape goat to dump on as if to cleanse themselves of any mistaken beliefs.

If you would use your internet skills for ferreting out quotes about the existance of WMD's from people like Clinton, Kennedy, Kerry and others on down to the level of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, you would find a huge body of popular opinion that Saddam did have WMD's.

Now all of this is forgotten and the spyglass on on GWB. "He lied" is the fashionable hue and cry of the people without the guts for war.

If the Anti-war and anti-Bush people would shut the hell up, this war would be over sooner with less dying on both sides. As it is, the terrorists see that if they keep it up long enough the American people will loose their resolve and withdraw.

Now people are saying Iraq never had anything to do with Al Quaeda or training terrorists that attacked the US. When confronted with the evidence they choose to go back to the "He lied" chant to shut out the evidence.

There is one fact that no one disputes. Saddam paid a $250,000 reward to the familys of Palestinian suicide bomers after they attacked Israel. I am no fan of Isreal but this action is still an act of supporting and propagating terrorisim. If he was capable of that he was capable of training terrorists in Iraq. To me Salman Pak proves that he did.

Now why don't these people that expend so much effort on negative things that accomplish nothing and even cause more damage to the war on terrorisim, focus their energy on something positive like fighting poverty and homelessness in the US. There are better things to do with your time.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 12:41 PM

I find it most odd that you believe the cost of in blood and treasure is made worse by those who oppose the war. The voices of those who don't go along with this escapade in blood, guts and idiocy may well have added a tenth of a per cent. But I think the real stress induced by vocal opponents to this war is in the uncomfortable minds of those who settled for slaughter without trying very hard to find another path.

Let me point out that hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of human bodies have been poured into this rathole because of one decision, and one decision only. When you take un that sort of command responsibility, you by God owe those you work for a due diligence in understanding. It is not clear to me why the half of American voters who did so wanted to invest that much power into the hands of a man who was flagrantly inarticulate, dumb as a rock, with a history of extreme alcohol abuse and cultish epiphanies. But no matter. Once they had done so, he was obliged to find out before he acted, and he did not do so.

What Clarissa P Estes or anyone else outside the Oval Office said or thought is scarcely germane to the lethal bloodshed unleashed by his single stupid decision. Not the only such, but the most bloodthirsty.

So let's make this clear: I am not going to shut up just because you think criticizing the President is aiding and abetting the enemy; that is the logic of totalitarianism, in case you didn't notice. My moral obligation is to speak freely in good conscience to the truth as I see it.

THere is only one possible rationale that could justify Bush's decision to invade Iraq. If he had conceived that this "common sandbox" strategy, drawing Muslim extremists from all around Allah-land to one battlefield because we had tactical superiority in a more traditional military scenario and they had tactical superiority in continuing their hide, kill, and flee methods. Like the British army of 1770, we aren't build for small S&D missions as our primary military approach -- we build BIG war machinery.

But I am pretty sure that no such grand strategic decision formed any part of his watery thought processes on the issue. No mention of such a strategy have I ever heard, except in my own discussions. So I am of the opinion that this was just an unforeseen after-effect of his simple, bullheaded decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam for Poppa, or some such foolish notion.

And don't try to get him off the charge of intentional falsification. He had been told long before his State of the Union address that the Nigerian uranium issue was bogus, and he trotted out the false story anyway. Then he tried to pin it on the CIA.

He asked for war-plans for Iraq BEFORE September 11th and immediately after it he (or his string-pullers) decided to tack it onto the military plan as fast as they could. It had nothing to do with WMD at the time.

He has not come forth and described his ACTUAL discussions or strategic planning or intell. even years after the fact. Why not?

He has done little to pursue Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the extremist attacks. Why not?

Don't get me wrong -- if the people of Iraq want a constitution and want citizen's rights and protected democratic priveleges, they should have it, and I am not adverse to helping them get it. But there are higher purposes toward which this nation could steer its diminishing wealth than getting caught in an extremist crossfire fueled by people who cannot even say "separation of church and state", especially at the hands of a leader (so-called) who doesn't much believe in such separation himself -- another clear indication that he is unqualified for the job. If this is leadership, amigo, then I ain't following.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 01:06 PM

By the way.... :-)

Bush presidency on shaky ground as top aide charged
By Alec Russell October 30, 2005; Telegraph, London


George Bush's presidency has been rocked to its core by the indictment of senior White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and other criminal charges. The scandal threatens to expose the inner workings of Mr Bush's administration in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Even as the US Administration confronts the growing challenge of Iran and the mounting difficulties of the war in Iraq, Mr Bush's team risks seeing out the last three years of his presidency in a mire of legal and judicial uncertainty. Libby immediately resigned from his role as Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

The President's own chief political adviser, Karl Rove, escaped indictment for the time being, but he was warned he would continue to be the subject of the criminal investigation into a White House intelligence leak at the heart of the Administration's case for going to war in Iraq. Libby was charged by federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald with two counts each of perjury for lying to a grand jury, two counts of making false statements by lying to federal investigators, and one count of obstruction of justice by hindering a grand jury investigation into the leak.

Libby predicted that, "at the end of this process I will be completely and totally exonerated".

Mr Fitzgerald issued the indictment on the last day of a two-year investigation into whether Libby or other White House aides knowingly "outed" a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, in July 2003. Unmasking a spy can be a Federal offence. If convicted on all five charges Libby could face 30 years in jail and a heavy fine. But far more damaging to the US Government is that the case threatens to expose the workings of the key decision-makers in the countdown to the increasingly unpopular Iraq war. Mr Cheney himself is mentioned in the indictment and may have to testify in the trial.

Mr Fitzgerald said the indictments showed "the world that this is a country that takes its justice seriously, that all citizens are bound by the law". The White House was spared its ultimate nightmare, the loss of Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief adviser, another key suspect in the case, who is known to his critics as "Bush's brain". But Mr Fitzgerald has made it clear to Mr Rove he remains under investigation and at risk of legal action.

Many Republicans believe Mr Bush's difficulties in recent weeks stem from his aide's preoccupation with the case. The indictment is the climax to a disastrous week for Mr Bush with the number of US deaths in Iraq passing 2000 and the collapse of the President's attempt to install a friend and aide, Harriet Miers, on the Supreme Court. Mr Bush's nomination of Ms Miers, who has been the President's lawyer, was rejected by his own party.

Ms Plame was unmasked by a conservative columnist citing senior administration officials, just a week after her husband accused the White House of twisting intelligence to make the case for war. Ms Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, said that she had been "outed" to punish and discredit him. Libby was not charged with the alleged original crime of leaking Ms Plame's identity. Instead, the prosecutor has accused him of lying about how and when he learnt of her CIA role.

The prosecutor dismissed the argument of Bush loyalists that Ms Plame was not a covert agent. He said her cover was blown in 2003 and that before then even friends and neighbours did not know she worked for the CIA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 06:40 PM

Freda, my opinion of the "Bush presidency rocked to the core" by the indictment of Libby (5 indictments)will no more be true than the Clinton presidency was rocked to the core by the indictments of
Henry Cisneros (18 indictments), Mike Espy (39 corruption counts), Billy Dale (2 counts of embezzlement).

It is simply, and to our detriment, a part of the system.

I am, however, still perplexed that the real reason for the two year investigation did not result in a charge. And yes, the investigation is complete. Even the hardcore Democratic legal beagles attest to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:10 PM

No, Old Guy, you are wrong...

The inforamtion that was presented to the Democrats was "cooked"... By whom??? Ahhhh, looking a lot like Dick Cheney's office... Hey, you yell "Fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, that ain't like yere 1st Ammenrdment right, tyhat is criminal...

There were a lotta folks in position to know stuff about Iraq who were absolutely "blackballed" from the Bush administartion aqnd by the media... Scott Ritter was one such person... Having been part of the weapons inspection team that left Irag in the late 90's he should have had some cedibility but guess what... He weren't singin the company fight song... No, he was telling what turned out to be the truth and he paid dearly for it....

Si I ain't buyin' yer claim that we aqcted on "best" intellegence... We acted on "cooked" intellegence... Former Treasury Secrtary O=Niel said that Bush was intent on attacking Iraq from Day One...

Oh, yeah, we're making all this up??

No, we aren't. The story is there if yer willin' to get her head outta Fox News fir a minite or two... I know that's hard to dio but, "Garbage in, garbage out" and we're getting a lot of "garbage out "outta you so I figgure it must be coming from some place???

Ahhhhh, Guest A, don't fret none... I'll get 'round to you as well... I'm on dial up so I don't have much luck with Mudact but I'll try again...

Better post while I have 'nuff dial up to at least get this one thru...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 09:57 PM

Well, well, well...

That one took okay so lets reload with GUEST A's name on this one...

Quoting Alison Young (Knight Ridder reporter) in regardes to DHS:

"In Januaryof this year, the DHS unveiled their National Response Plan. This was supposed to be a blueprint in this post-September 11 world for how we werer going to deal with a massive catastrophe. While certainly terrorism was an emphasis behind this document, it very clearly says that this is to be uswed when you have a major catastrphic natural disaster, such as a hurricane.... It very clearly says that in a catastrope that locals have become overwhelmed by the situation, both in terms of resources and the structure, that the fedewral governemnt is supposed to to take the proactive- proactive steps to protect the lives of citizens..."

Okay, now lets look at the orgaization chart here that has at the top, the president. Right under him is the Secretary of the DHS and under him is the head of FEMA... Like one, two, three..

Fast forward, 'er rewind to the Congressional hearin's about the poor showing on the feds side and here's part of the text:

Rep. Christopher Shays (adressin former" FEMA head, Michael Brown):
"Now, with the non-evacuation, when you knew that neither thr governor or mayor were going to do their job, did you call-- and I would like to bring the Presdient in. When did you contact the President to say we have a catastrpe happening with an incompetent mayor and an incompetent governor not responding to this? When di you contact the President to let him know of this extraordinary crisis that would impact our country?"

Brown: "I talked with the White House on both Saturday (2 days before Katrina)and Sunday (1 Day before Katrina)"... It might have been Friday, but I have to go back and check my records."

Shays: "Did you ask for a higher authority to help you out? You're the head of FEMA, but the governor and mayor aren't paying attention to you. I want to know who you asked for help."

Brown: "On SDaturday and Sunday, I started talking with thwe White House."

Shays: "The White House is a big place. So give us specifics. I'm not asking about conversations yet, I want to know who you conatcted."

Brown: "I exchanged emails and had phone calls with Joe Hagin, Andy Card and the President."

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, GUEST A, seems that given the circumstances, the recently released "National Response Plan" with its options, the contact by Brownie with the President forwarning him of A., the category 5 storm about to hit the gulf coast and B., the difficulties of the mayor and governor of Lousinana, that a President with his head in the game (i.E. knowin' A and B and knowing about then National Response Plan" WOULD HAVE had better things to do than vactaion and go off to some country music thing..

Now maybe you thing it's perfectly okay to contiunue the finger pointin' in the direction of the governor and mayor and that perhaps is another issue but...

... bottom line, Bush's folks set up the system and it failed...

This ain't got one thing to do with the governor or the mayor becuase everything that had been pre=supposed happened and the Bush adminstartion didn't act accoring to what they had planned to do if such an event would occur...

Worse than that, 3 days into the misery in New Orleans, with folks hungry, the feds ordered the Red Cross out from NO where the Re Cross had food to deliver...

Yeah, this is just the tip of the iceberg, GUEST A, of what should be America's "Bill of Particulars" against Bush and his boys...

And lets not even go into how many billions went into rich retirees bank accounts after Hurrican Fancis just before the 2004 ele3ction...

Maybe you'd like to just makie a response to what I have---NO CUT 'N PASTE--- have just laid out here???

Retard Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 10:02 PM

And 1400, to boot...

Now 1401...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 05 - 10:18 PM

Well done on capturing 1400, Bobert!

The UK Independent takes dim view of the Oval Office at the moment:

...Special report: Bush faces his Watergate
Sleaze, leaks and an indictment add up to the worst presidential crisis since Nixon. And it will get worse. The White House has lost one key man but the whole chain of command may be engulfed by a scandal slowly revealing the lies that led to war.

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 30 October 2005
Presidential second terms are prone to scandals, from Bill Clinton's embarrassments over Monica Lewinsky to Ronald Reagan's implication in the Iran-Contra imbroglio. But the troubles now circling George Bush's White House could be even worse than Watergate.

It might not appear that way at first. Mr Bush is unlikely to have to join Richard Nixon, the only president in US history forced to resign from office. But the issues raised by "Plamegate" - the leaking of the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent - are far more significant than those involved in the "second-rate burglary" of the Democratic National Committee's offices in Washington's Watergate complex in the 1970s. They go to the heart of why America, and its faithful ally, Britain, went to war in Iraq.

The immediate problems are bad enough. On Friday Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted for obstruction of justice and making false statements to a grand jury. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor appointed to investigate Ms Plame's outing, announced that he was not indicting Karl Rove, President Bush's closest adviser, although he remains under investigation and may have to give evidence against Mr Libby...."

As ye sow, Mister President, so shall ye...

President: I don't sew. I leave that stuff up to Laura (wink). But my faith is mighty important to me....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 12:06 PM

Last year, President Bush promised that anyone at the White House involved
in the leak would be fired [3]. We believe that the President should stick
to his word. That's why we're calling on him to fire Karl Rove.

Valerie Plame was an operative working on stopping the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction--the most important beat at the CIA and one of
the most important jobs in the country [4]. Rove revealed her identity and
destroyed her network of connections to settle a political score. He
weakened America's national security. For that alone, he deserves to be
fired.

But as it turns out, that's also the White House's official position.
Press Secretary Scott McClellan told the press in September of 2003, when
the story first broke, that anyone at the White House who was involved
would be fired "at a minimum." [5] And when asked on June 10th, 2004, if he
would "stand by your pledge to fire anyone found" to have leaked the
agent's name, President Bush responded, simply, "Yes." [6]

Of course, in the past the White House has strenuously denied that Rove
had anything to do with it. In 2003, McClellan said that he'd asked Rove if
he was involved, and Rove had said he wasn't [7]. "The president knows that
Karl Rove wasn't involved." [8] "I've made it very clear, he was not
involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was." [9] Asked
again if Rove was involved, McClellan responded, "That's just totally
ridiculous." [10]

So what did McClellan have to say about the clear discrepancies between
what the President Bush and he had said in 2003 and what Newsweek reported
on Sunday? Nothing. Here's an excerpt from the transcript:

Q: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove, Karl Rove, was not
involved in the Valerie Plame expose?

A: I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this
point. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the
investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation,
that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.

Q: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was
definitely involved.

A: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Q: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?

A: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be
commenting on it nor is ... .

Q: Any remorse [11]?

It's worth noting that both Bush and McClellan have commented on the case
repeatedly since 2003.[12]

Republicans claim that the furor over this case is just politics as usual.
But what Rove did has serious ramifications. Here's the story in a
nutshell: In 2002, former Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent by the CIA to
investigate rumors that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium
from Niger. Wilson found nothing, and wrote about it in a New York Times
op-ed column on July 6, 2003 after President Bush used the claim as part
of the case for war. Wilson was married to Valerie Plame, an undercover
operative, who was revealed shortly thereafter by conservative columnist
Robert Novak. Novak cited "senior administration officials" as his source
that Plame was an operative [13].

Why out Plame? While we don't know the full story, there are a couple of
reasons to do so: to exact revenge on Wilson for refusing to toe the
Administration line, and to send a message to would-be whistle-blowers
that they should keep their mouths shut.

In any case, Plame's work was important, and by exposing her identity, the
leaker destroyed ten years of covert relationship-building and could have
jeopardized the lives of other covert agents in the field. At best, it was
recklessly irresponsible; at worst, it was malicious; and either way, the
leaker undermined our national security.

That's why we, like the President, believe it's time to fire anyone who
was involved with the leaking of Plame's name. And now we know that means
firing Karl Rove.

Sign our petition now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/firerove/?id=5782-137503-L51VFFQnBKO_KG40XoQzlQ&t=2

And thanks for everything you're doing.

(Excerpted from a MoveOn broadside).

FOOTNOTES:

1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek
2. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=776
3. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=777
4.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002374617_leak12.html
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/print/20030929-7.html
6. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=777
7.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
8.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
9.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
10.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
11.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071100991.html
12.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071101284.html
13.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/printrn20030714.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 12:23 PM

From today's Washington Post:

White House Ethics, Honesty Questioned
55% in Survey Say Libby Case Signals Broader Problems
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 30, 2005; Page A14

A majority of Americans say the indictment of senior White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby signals broader ethical problems in the Bush administration, and nearly half say the overall level of honesty and ethics in the federal government has fallen since President Bush took office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

The poll, conducted Friday night and yesterday, found that 55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an "isolated incident." And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush....




A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 12:30 PM

In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role
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By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: October 30, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - Vice President Dick Cheney makes only three brief appearances in the 22-page federal indictment that charges his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., with lying to investigators and misleading a grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case. But in its clear, cold language, it lifts a veil on how aggressively Mr. Cheney's office drove the rationale against Saddam Hussein and then fought to discredit the Iraq war's critics.

The document now raises a central question: how much collateral damage has Mr. Cheney sustained?

Many Republicans say that Mr. Cheney, already politically weakened because of his role in preparing the case for war, could be further damaged if he is forced to testify about the infighting over intelligence that turned out to be false. At the least, they say, his office will be temporarily off balance with the resignation of Mr. Libby, who controlled both foreign and domestic affairs in a vice presidential office that has served as a major policy arm for the West Wing.


Jason Reed/Reuters
Vice President Dick Cheney, left, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., far right, after a White House meeting in July.



Timeline of the Leak: All Events
A trip by Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger nearly four years ago was the beginning of a series of events now being investigated by a special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

TEXT
News Release | Indictment (pdf)
Fitzgerald's News Conference:
Transcript | Video
Reaction: Bush | Cheney
Bloggers React
Key Articles and Documents

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Vice President Dick Cheney, shown last month after a luncheon in Washington, has played a major role in setting Bush administration policy.
"Cheney has had a tight, effective team, and they have been an incredible support system for the presidency," said Rich Bond, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. "To the degree that that support system is weakened, it's a bad day at the office. But no person is indispensable." For now, David Addington, the vice president's counsel, is the leading candidate to replace Mr. Libby.

Mr. Cheney's allies noted that there was no suggestion in the indictment that the most powerful vice president in American history, with enormous influence in all important corners of administration policy, had done anything wrong. They also said that Mr. Libby, whose role had been diminished in the past year as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became more powerful and the leak investigation took its toll, could be quickly replaced from the vice president's large Rolodex of support.

"His reach within both the party mechanism and the policy structures of the government is so deep that I believe that it is possible to find somebody who would provide the technical and intellectual support that Libby did, even if he doesn't have the same personal relationship that he had with Libby," said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican with White House ties. "That's very hard to duplicate."

The indictment against Mr. Libby, known as Scooter, alleges that the vice president's office was the hub of a concerted effort to gather information about key critics of the Bush Iraq policy. [Page 28.]

The larger question, Republicans said, was Mr. Cheney's standing with the public - and what his staff has often called the vice president's constituency of one, Mr. Bush.

Christie Whitman, the president's former E.P.A. administrator and a longtime Bush family friend who was critical of the White House and the Republican right wing in a recent book, said that she did not expect the president's personal relationship with Mr. Cheney to change. Nonetheless, Ms. Whitman said she believed that if more information about Mr. Cheney's involvement in the leak case became public, "and if it keeps hanging around and getting close to the vice president, he might step aside - but that's an extreme case."
\

---

I submit that given the range and depth of the Administrations encroachments on peace, justice, Constitutional rights, economic well-being and the unity of the nation, and dismantling of Misters Rove and Cheney's power-mucking machinery is all for the good, despite any transitional confusion it might cost the inebriates.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 12:47 PM

n his radio address, Bush said Iraq had passed an important milestone with the certification of passage of its new constitution.

"Three years ago, when Saddam Hussein ruled with an iron grip, the prospect of Iraqis voting on a democratic constitution would have been unthinkable," he said.

"Now, the Iraqi people have shown that individual rights and rule by the people are universal principles, and that these principles can become the basis for free and decent governments throughout the Middle East."

Bush said Iraqi voters had refused to surrender to intimidation and had risked their lives for liberty.

"Our security at home is directly linked to a Middle East that grows in freedom and peace. The success of the new Iraqi government is critical to winning the war on terror and protecting the American people. Ensuring that success will require more sacrifice, more time, and more resolve, and it will involve more risk for Iraqis and for American and coalition forces."

"The progress we have made so far has involved great sacrifice. The greatest burden has fallen on our military families. We've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in the war on terror," the president said.

---

Ya know, for a minute there, he had me going. The speechwriter who composed the first few paragraphs of this quote is the most coherent statement of post-invasion rationalization I have seen.

But then you get to the end and it all falls apart. I remember that Iraq was not involved with those who launched 9-11, and the logic of this glorious facade crumbles into ugly smithereens. It is quite unclear how Iraq became the focus of the wa

Three cheers for brave Iraqis holding out for democratic freedoms, I say.

And a tip of the hat to the brave men and women daily getting cut to ribbons in support of making that happen.

And a flying cow-turd to the numb-nuts who sent them there.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 01:18 PM

Old Guy's remarks that those who oppose the Iraq War (or the so-called "war on terrorism") are to blame for prolonging it is the same tired old wheeze that people of his ilk used during the Vietnam war. The fact is that, in both cases, we had no business being there in the first place. And again, in both cases, when this fact finally sank into the minds of a sufficient number of the American population (many of whom knew this right from the start), they began to assert their democratic right—indeed, their democratic obligation—to begin to question the government that led them astray and call them to account.

In both cases, the aim of the United States government was to establish and maintain geopolitical power in the area. Lest anyone be bit remiss in their history, this is just the same old imperialism, having retired the toga, the crown and scepter, and the jackboots, and kitting itself out in a power suit and red necktie.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 02:07 PM

Reid Calls for Rove to Resign
By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 30, 2005; 12:30 PM

The leader of the Senate Democrats today called for White House chief political strategist Karl Rove to resign, saying it's time for President Bush to "come clean" with the American people about the administration's role in the disclosure of a CIA operative's name.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), speaking on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," said both Bush and Vice President Cheney owe an apology to the American public.

Reid said Bush should pledge not to pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff who was indicted Friday on five charges relating to statements he made to the FBI and a grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

He took aim at Rove, whose actions were probed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Rove is reportedly still under investigation.

"I think Karl Rove should step down," Reid said about the White House deputy chief of staff. "Here is a man who the president said if he was involved, if anyone in the administration was involved, out they would go. Anybody who is involved in this, they're gone." (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 04:33 PM

So, Amos, I persume you have nothing better to do with your time. Nothing mor peoductive to do.

You have whanged your anti-bush drum a few more times, evaded the argument that Saddam did support terrorisim and the fact that GWB was not the only one that believed Iraq had WMD's.

And you still have no alternative strategy. Looks like you are caught up in an unwinable struggle with the way things are in the world.

Just answer this one: Why was there a 707, a double decker bus and a train set up in a taining camp in Iraq where muslims from outside of Iraq trained?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 06:23 PM

Ahhh, Old Guy...

Give it up, fir gosh sakes... You can't be so ill-informed that you still believe all that old PR crap, can you???

Tell ya what, bin Laden woouldn't have lasted a week in Saddam's Iraq... Not a week... Saddam didn't have no use fir radical Islamists...

Maybe you'd like to come forward with any shread of evidence to the contrary???

And where do you get yer information that Iraq was a safe haven for trainin' terrorists under Saddam??? Ivf Dick Cheney had this levidence he's be screamin' from the top of this house and he ain't screamin' nuthin' of the sorts..

So, I say, until you can back up what you have obbviuosly made up or heard on some obscure right winged entertainment show, you have taken several steps back away from the credibility line...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 07:43 PM

"Well [totally uncalled for expletive, about which far to much has also been said, but it does show the level of debate espoused by the fellow who used it], what kind of a long range plan can you come up with for combating terrorism in the world?"

Okay, Old Guy, I'll tell you what kind of long-range plan is absolutely guaranteed not to work:   invading countries with large armies and destroying the infrastructure (power, water supplies, blowing up roads, bridges, buildings, etc.) that people depend on, and killing some 30,000 civilians and wounding and maiming an undetermined number.

This is a sure-fire way of pissing off a lot of people and thereby encouraging recruitment for the various terrorist organizations around the world in order to fight the "Great Satan." Osama bin Laden and those of his ilk can claim (and are claiming) that this provides irrefutable proof that America is indeed that "Great Satan," there to steal their oil and gas resources, keep them oppressed, and in the process, attempt to obliterate Islam. Iraqis who lived under the yoke of Saddam Hussein are not so dumb that they don't know that Hussein was our tyrant, and we didn't want to take him out (read "replace him") until he got delusions of grandeur and became hard to handle. Most of them are glad to see him gone, but being right there, they're not as easily fooled as to the true motives of the American government as the American public seems to be, thousands of miles away and receiving their news from the corporate media.

There are a number of very effective ways to combating terrorism. Immediate deterrence can best be accomplished by good intelligence leading to carefully targeted surgical strikes. But the best long-range plan is to find out why these folks are so pissed off at us and see if we can find ways to stop pissing them off. And no, it's not just because the people who become terrorists "hate freedom and our way of life." They don't. In fact, they would like some of it themselves. Therein lies the key.

Terrorists spawn like mosquitoes in a swamp of hopelessness and despair brought on by injustice, oppression, and exploitation, much of which is caused by the policies of the United States and a number of European countries that have been exploiting them for generations, if not centuries. This is why these are the countries in particular that have been, and will continue to be, targets of terrorist attacks. The way to stop mosquitoes from breeding is to drain the swamp.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 08:38 PM

As for what I have time for, Old Fart, I have two jobs and in addition am working a medium size construction project, building a waterfall, and am also overseeing a complete renovation of a bathroom and a separate flooirng project for the home office and the kitchen -- all happening at once. I have 1 novel, two CDs and a sound editing project to fill the gaps. What I do NOT have time for is Fox News and its knee-jerk brothers in rabble-rousing, pop TV shows, NASCAR, raising dogs, studying old firearms, or watching soap operas or going to third rate movies with first-rate ad budgets. Those are my own choices, and I am perfectly content with them. I hope you are similarly happy with yours.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 08:49 PM

But, Amos, how can you turn ywer back on Stroker Ace in points run fir the NASCAR championship???

He needs you as much as the #39 Halliburton/DOD/Budweiser/Brown & Root car needs you!!!

Hey, buddy, this is crunch time!!!

What kind of American are you, anyway???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 10:58 PM

Bobert, if you're rootin' for him, then I am too; lemme know how it turns out. I just don't have time to get into the sport just now!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 30 Oct 05 - 11:24 PM

"So, I say, until you can back up what you have obviously made up or heard on some obscure right winged entertainment show, you have taken several steps back away from the credibility line"

PBS Frontline has now been declared a right wing entertainment show:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html

Obviously this judge is an idiot:

Friday, May 9, 2003 7:22 a.m. EDT
9/11 Bombshell: Judge Rules Saddam Trained Hijackers

In a bombshell finding virtually ignored by the American media, a U.S. district court judge in Manhattan ruled Wednesday that Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein's airplane hijacking school located on the outskirts of Baghdad, played a material role in the devastating Sept. 11 attacks on America.

The ruling renders moot complaints from Bush administration critics that the U.S. has so far failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, since an official verdict that Baghdad was complicit in the attacks provides more than enough justification for the decision to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.

In reporting Judge Harold Baer's $104 million judgment against Hussein and Osama bin Laden, only the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chinese news service Xinhua mentioned Salman Pak by name.

And why do they hate us?

Oniel has a book book to sell and so does Wilson so how can they get themselves publicized?

Amos I do watch Fox which is the leading news channel. "According to Nielsen Media Research the channel was the only cable news service in August to grow in viewership from a year ago, gaining 20 percent in primetime and 29 percent across the entire day. By comparison, CNN fell by 9 percent. This past August was in fact the 28th consecutive month that Fox was the leading news channel." You must be watching the rabble rousing channels.

I hate soap operas, don't own any dogs or guns, don't watch Nascar or any kind of racing and I wait for the movies to come on TV. Anything else you know about me?

Can't you answer the question about Salman Pak?

All those other activities you are pursuing but you are still compelled to bitch about Bush tells me that you suffer from OCD, compulsive obsessive disorder amongst other things. "Compulsions, are repetitive behaviors or rituals that the patient performs to counteract the anxiety and distress produced by obsessive thoughts"

Try some Zoloft.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 06:54 AM

Old Guy, you using actual facts here and I think that is against the laws governing posts in this and other threads.
Good work, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 07:19 AM

Another Bobert prediction here:

If this story is even somewhat true about this judge's rulin' it will be debunked... Just as all the others have been...

Why would I predict this???

Well, it's rather obvious.... Seein' as every other reason for invading Iraq has been debunked if the Bush administration thought it was true they'd have this story splattered accross the world...

Don't need no Scooter Libby to figure that one out...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 12:26 PM

Old Guy:

I am SO pissed. I just spent twenty minutes composing a thoughtful reply to your article, which I read with care and interest. And JUST as I went to post it here, the Cat farted and ate the damn post whole.

I will try and reconstruct some of it -- but you know that's never a sgood as the original.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 01:51 PM

Time Magazine's Joe Klein, columnist, comments on the relative skills of various Presidents' administrations on the "Permanent Campaign" of PR that is required of the Administration by our ravenous media community and technology:

"..George W. Bush may be the very best. Indeed, his Administration represents the final, squalid perfection of the Permanent Campaign: a White House where almost every move is tactical, a matter of momentary politics, even decisions that involve life and death and war. That is what the Scooter Libby indictment is really all about.

"It is about trying to spin a war.

"Bush's White House is a conundrum, a bastion of telegenic idealism and deep cynicism. The President has proposed vast, transformational policies—the remaking of the Middle East, of Social Security, of the federal bureaucracy. But he has done so in a haphazard way, with little attention to detail or consequences. There are grand pronouncements and, yes, crusades, punctuated with marching words like evil and moral and freedom. Beneath, though, is the cynical assumption that the public doesn't care about the details—that results don't matter, corners can be cut and special favors bestowed.

"Bush opposed a Department of Homeland Security, then supported it as a campaign ploy—and then allowed it to be slapped together carelessly, diminishing the effectiveness of the agencies involved.

"The White House proposed a massive Medicare prescription-drug plan and then flat-out misrepresented the true costs (and quietly included a windfall for drug companies). Every bit of congressional vanity spending, every last tax cut, was approved. Reagan proved that "deficits don't matter," insisted Vice President Dick Cheney. ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 02:52 PM

Bush's call for sacrifice made manifest:

"Four soldiers from the Army's Task Force Baghdad soldiers died Monday when their patrol struck a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad in an area known as the ``triangle of death.''

Two other soldiers from the 29th Brigade Combat Team were also killed in a bombing Monday near Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The U.S. military also said a Marine was killed Sunday near Amiriyah, 25 miles west of Baghdad.

Those deaths raised the death toll for October to more than 90, the highest monthly total since January when 107 American service members died. The latest deaths brought to 2,025 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war began in March 2003.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said there is no readily apparent explanation for why the number of U.S. casualties was higher in October than in previous months. But he said the insurgents' roadside bombs - which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IEDs - are getting more sophisticated.

``We see an adversary that continues to develop some sophistication on very deadly and increasingly precise stand-off type weapons - IEDs, in particular. They're obviously quite capable of killing large numbers of noncombatants indiscriminately, and we're seeing a lot of that, too,'' Di Rita told reporters.

The insurgents continually search for new and more effective ways to use IEDs, he said, while U.S. forces look for new ways to counter the IED threat.

``We're getting more intelligence that's allowing us to stop more of these things, find more of them. So we're learning from them (the insurgents) and the enemy is learning from us, and it's going to be that way for as long as there is an insurgency,'' Di Rita said.

Before dawn Monday, Marines backed by jets attacked insurgent positions near the Syrian border, destroying two safe houses believed use by al-Qaida figures, a U.S. statement said. The statement made no mention of casualties, but Associated Press Television News video from the scene showed residents wailing over the bodies of about six people, including at least three children.

At the local hospital, Dr. Ahmed al-Ani claimed 40 Iraqis, including 12 children, were killed in the attack. But the claim could not be independently verified.

APTN footage from the scene showed Iraqi men digging through the rubble of several destroyed concrete buildings with a pitchfork or their hands. In the building of a nearby home, women cried over the bodies of about half a dozen blanket-covered bodies lined up on a floor. Some of the blankets were opened for the camera showing a man and three children.

``At least 20 innocent people were killed by the U.S. warplanes. Why are the Americans killing families? Where are the insurgents?'' one middle-aged man told APTN. ``We don't see democracy. We just see destruction.'' He didn't give his name.

Elsewhere, two separate mortar attacks in Baghdad and northern Iraq killed three Iraqi people and wounded 11 on Monday. "

(From the UK Guardian, this date).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 03:16 PM

Amos:

It have trouble with my dialup cutting out before I post. I use wordpad and paste it into the text box.

Anyway how about Salman Pak and the double decker bus?

The site I quoted at PBS.org has conveniently put a disclaimer on the right hand side of the screen since they published the interview. That's because they, like the Dem=mocrats, want to distance themselves from their previous thinking that Iraq had WMD's

There were aerial images of Salman Pak that you could on the 707 in on the net but they have all disappeared except at Rush Limbaugh's site. If I put a link here to something from Rush Limbaugh it would certainly bring an outcry from the anti-war crybabies here.

Also why do the Muslim extremists hate us and want to kill us?

I think it is because we support Israel. The next time Israel does something not to our liking we should cut them off. Let them go it alone. The Arabs would attack and Israel would make mincemeat out of them. Israel is fierce, well disciplined (unlike a lot of Americans) and fully capable of defending themselves.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 05:39 PM

Hatred is inherent in insanity, often. If group "X" wants to kill "group Y" it is always because they have been given ugly information about that group. In most cases the vast majority of any group do not have the despicable attributes that are plastered onto them by the hate-mongers. "They" is always someone, and a small minority of any "they" is actually as rabid as they are painted.

Because this is true I get very leery of anyone making grand assertions about hatred.

As to Salam Pak I think the article you presented to is very powerful and persuasive. But I don't think it is true. The reason i do not is essentially that the only reason those who wanted a war with Iraq woul dnot have promoted this interview all over creation is because they (a) knew it would be debunked and knew it to be false or (b) they were too dumb to realize a golden opportunity had been handed to them on a platter to demonize Iraq and everything about the regime therein in one fell swoop. I seriously doubt the latter; however mad these men may be, they are not stupid in managing PR. Short-term, anyway. Given the number of media outlets BEGGING for a jot or tittle of something electrifying to feed their revenues from the Administration, why was PBS's cut-and-dried case for aggression against the U.S. by Hussein never raised on high as a rallying flag for war? Doesn't make sense, given how many other far-fetched or downright false data points the Bush machine has flau8nted as an excuse for all this killing.

So although it is really interesting and compelling data, I have to discount it, on the basis that it is the work of a single source, and lacks certain earmarks of fact that I would expect to see. You will recall a similar cloud of false information about Saddam Hussein and his WMD program was promoted by (primarily) one self-serving Iraqi exile all over Washington, and he storred up a real hoorah's nest with his assertions of WMD that never materialized -- the ones thart Rumsfield confidently said would be found around Tikrit to the north, south, east and west (meaning anywhere at all).

I'd be interested if any other independent sources came up with the same diagnosis of that camp. Independent verification can be very important sometimes. Especially wherte assertions of hatred and manslaughter on a large scale are involved.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 05:55 PM

"Also why do the Muslim extremists hate us and want to kill us?"

Well, Old Guy, I'm not sure that all of the terrorists and potential terrorists start out as "Muslim extremists." And as to why so many Middle Easterners hate us so much, I think I gave a pretty good explanation of that at 30 Oct 05 – 07:43 PM. I sometimes wonder if you read any of the other posts on this thread. Go give it a look.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 06:45 PM

And just fir the record, Old Guy, from my vantage point seems that you do more than yer fair share of playin' crybaby...

Sometimes it takes more courage and wisdom not to fight...

In the discipline of martrial arts that I learned the question was asked, "When is it RIGHT to fight" The answer, "Never"... No, while defense is sometimes necessary it is not RIGHT... That's why I learned the concept of "minimum force"...

If the Bush administration had more folks who understand fighting, war and defense, then they would never have attacked Iraq... The folks who made these decisions-- desisions made for political and business (oil) interests-- were not folks who knew much about anything other than politics... None of the inner circle had even fought in a war... Most had never even served in the military and the one who had, didn't fight and went AWOL!!!

This does not make for wise decision making... About the only person who was trying to slow down the push was Colin Powell but even he could not slow down the thrisrt for war by a bunch of folks who knew nuthin' of war...

Yeah, you may think that being anti-war is somehow being a crybaby... You couldn't be more wrong if you lived to be a thousand years old...

But don't just take my word fir it... Google in Massanutten Military Academy (1963 thru 1965) and see how many of my good friends, guys I had played sports with and partied on weekends off, died in Vietnam... Then consider that there were only about 80 of us in each class... You do the math...

Yeah, you wanta call me a crybaby, pal, fine but you don't have a friggin' clue...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 07:47 PM

No, let me make it even easier fir ya, Old Guy...

Just cut and paste:

http://www.massanuttenalum.org/memorial/...

Hey, I don't know if you went to Vietnam or didn't... I didn't but a large number of my classmates did... Far larger in percentage than in other schools... These are just the friends I lost... Many more came home really messed up...

We ain't atlin' about a school that gradutates 300 kids, Old Guy, but maybe 80...

Yeah, please check this out and I don't care what you call me but these friends of mine laid down their lives in a stupid war started by a bunch of folks who, like the current batch, din't know squat about war...

Yeah, you take a good look into the faces of my friends who died and come back and twell me just why you support this current stupid war...

Will ya do that, neighbor???

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 07:51 PM

Hmmmmm?

http://www.massanuttenalum.org/memorial/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 07:56 PM

Yeah, that one works...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 08:20 PM

Let me make it real easy:   CLICKY.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 08:29 PM

Today's News after the fall under indictment of Scooter Libby:

Cheney's new security adviser linked to bogus information on Iraq


BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY AND WARREN P. STROBEL

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney replaced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as his national security adviser on Monday with an aide identified by a former Iraqi exile group as the White House official to whom it fed information on Iraq that turned out to be erroneous.

The Bush administration relied on some of the information from the Iraqi National Congress to argue that Saddam Hussein had to be ousted before he could give banned biological or chemical weapons to al-Qaida for strikes on the United States.

But no such weapons were discovered after the March 2003 invasion, and U.S. intelligence agencies and the independent commission on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks found no evidence of operational cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida.

The White House announced on Monday the elevation of John Hannah to replace Libby as Cheney's national security adviser. Earlier in the day it announced that Libby would be arraigned Thursday in federal court on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice. He was expected to plead innocent.

The White House also announced that David S. Addington, who's been Cheney's legal counsel, would assume Libby's duties as chief of staff. Like Hannah, Addington has played a quiet, though influential, role in the vice president's office. The Washington director of Human Rights Watch accused Addington of helping draft policies that led to the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice president's office has previously denied that Hannah received INC information. Cheney's office didn't respond immediately to questions Monday about Hannah and Addington.

The INC's leader, Ahmad Chalabi, now a deputy prime minister in Iraq, was close to Cheney and other senior administration architects of the invasion. The INC supplied Iraqi defectors whose information turned out to be false. It has insisted that it tried its best to verify defectors' claims before passing them to the United States.

On June 26, 2002, the INC wrote a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee staff identifying Hannah as the White House recipient of information gathered by the group through a U.S.-funded effort called the Information Collection Program. Knight Ridder obtained a copy of the letter and previously reported on it.

The letter, written by Entifadh Qanbar, then the director of the INC's Washington office, identified 108 articles in leading Western news media to which it said the INC had funneled the same information that it fed to Hannah, as well as a senior Pentagon official.

The information included a claim by an INC-supplied defector, Adnan Ihsan al-Haideri, that he had visited 20 secret nuclear, biological and chemical warfare facilities in Iraq.

Haideri's claim first appeared in a Dec. 20, 2001, article in The New York Times and then in a White House background paper, "A Decade of Deception and Defiance," released in conjunction with a Sept. 12, 2002, speech to the U.N. General Assembly by Bush.

Haideri, however, showed deception in a CIA-administered lie detector test three days before The New York Times article appeared, and was unable to identify a single illicit arms facility when he accompanied U.S. weapons inspectors to Iraq in January 2004, Knight Ridder reported in May of last year.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 08:31 PM

A New York Times editorial speaks critically of the hypocrisy of the House and the so-called "Patriot Act", done in darkness, without debate, and serving no patriot:

The House's Abuse of Patriotism

Published: October 31, 2005
In the national anguish after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress rushed to enact a formidable antiterrorism law - the Patriot Act - that significantly crimped civil liberties by expanding law enforcement's power to use wiretaps, search warrants and other surveillance techniques, often under the cloak of secrecy. There was virtually no public debate before these major changes to the nation's legal system were put into effect.

Now, with some of the act's most sweeping powers set to expire at the end of the year, the two houses of Congress face crucial negotiations, which will also take place out of public view, on their differences over how to extend and amend the law. That's controversy enough. But the increasingly out-of-control House of Representatives has made the threat to our system of justice even greater by inserting a raft of provisions to enlarge the scope of the federal death penalty.

In a breathtaking afterthought at the close of debate, the House voted to triple the number of terrorism-related crimes carrying the death penalty. The House also voted to allow judges to reduce the size of juries that decide on executions, and even to permit prosecutors to try repeatedly for a death sentence when a hung jury fails to vote for death.

The radical amendment was slapped through by the Republican leadership without serious debate. The Justice Department has endorsed the House measure, and Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Judiciary Committee chairman, who is ever on the side of more government power over the individual, is promising to fight hard for the death penalty provisions. ....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 09:25 PM

First of all, Don, thanks fir the assist... Sometimes when folks is out wavin' the flag they forget to put the faces and stories with that daily death tolls...

I knew 3 of the 6 purdy well and was real close with Guy Nelson...

Hey, he should have a wife and kids but when we all graduated we could go straight into training and be in Nam within a few months as officers... My friends din't get achance to have a wife and kids 'cause of another stupid war fought fir another list of astupid lies and reasons...

Now, as fir the Patriot Act???

It is a shame... Whe the US most needed a handle on dealing with terrorism, the Bush administartion took to spyin' on it's own citizens????!??!?!?!?!?!?!?

Like how many US citizens were involved in the 9/11 attcaks???

Like in case Old Guy wasn't countin', it was ZERO!!!!

But it seesm that the main thrust of Bush's war on terrorism is spyin' on Americans??????

Like, maybe Old Guy would like to explain this logic???

Or not....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 10:24 PM

I am familiar with Massanutten Military Academy having had two sons that went there.

Tell me why people join the military? Why do people become policemen or firefighters? They will eventually be exposed to danger and the possibility of dying in action.

Non of them are drafted. Why don't you picket the recruiting offices?

How many of your buddies died from auto accidents, drugs, tobacco or alcohol? All those deaths could have been avoided if common sense prevailed. Time Mag showed a soldier in Iraq smoking a cigarette. I said that the soldier had a bigger chance of dying from cancer caused by the tobacco than he did from combat.

Why do we have military forces? To kill people that want to kill us.

Have you seen any attacks in the US lately? Maybe it is because the people that want to kill us are fighting us in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yes it is a mean old world and I ain't crying about it. I didn't make it but I grasp it the way it is instead of the way I think it should be.

Now you guys and girls with no stomach for life as it is can make yourself miserable if you want. You can seek out an individual to blame everything on in an attempt to feel better. You can come to Amos for some support for your crybaby position on life but tomorrow, next year, ten years from now the world will be the same or worse.

I am not having any of it.

There was a 707 at Salman Pak. I could see it in the satellite image. It had two different wings. It was just pieced together out of junk for training purposes. Nothing like that existed in Afghanistan.

I could not see the double decker bus or the train but I think they were most likely there. Look for yourself:
http://www.tortlaw.com/images/Salman%20Pak%20terror%20facility.jpg

I first heard about Salman Pak on PBS in a program narrated by a former Clinton staffer.

Also I just found this on PBS.org by R. James Woolsey director of the C.I.A (1993-1995)

"What do you make out of the reports that his (Saddam's) ambassador in Turkey, for instance, was an intelligence operative or official, and that he went to see bin Laden in Afghanistan? Is that substantial?

I've heard those reports, and if Mr. Hijazi went to see bin Laden or anybody in the leadership of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan -- I think that was in 1998 -- that, to me, would be yet another substantial piece of information suggesting that Saddam and not only Al Qaeda has been behind some of these terrorist incidents against us and indeed, that Saddam and Al Qaeda could quite well be working together."
"We shot a few cruise missiles into an empty building in the middle of the night. I think he probably laughed at the time and is still laughing. I think that the fact that he did that and the fact that he's working hard on weapons of mass destruction -- ballistic missiles, nuclear, chemical, bacteriological especially -- that's enough as far as I'm concerned."
http://www.pbs.org/search/redir/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/woolsey.html
Of course this interview was before the "Bush Lied" era.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 05 - 11:24 PM

God, Old Guy, those ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons programs were all Bushwah! The missiles could not have reached past Kuwasit despite all claims earlier to the contrary by yer guy, and the NBC stuff either never existed or had been completely dismantled by the time Bush decided they were there.

Going out to kill on the basis that someone wants to kill you -- but hasn't tried to -- is pretty [paranoid and pretty unbalanced behavior. If an individual thought that way, he'd be locked up, for good and sufficient reason.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Nov 05 - 07:38 AM

Just fir the record, Old Guy, let me ask you one question. In all seriousness do you really believe that Saddam had plans to attack the United States???

Yes_______

No________

I mean, if deep down inside you, beyond yer partisanship, you really believe this as a core belief that irre4gardless of any evidence, then it is perhaps a waste of time debating the issue with you...

I remember the other photos that Powell showed the folks at the UN and, while sinister and menacing looking from satalites, when we got to examine the sites first hand weren't scarey at all... Remember the mobile labs??? Purdy scarey from the air but all rusted out hulks of metal from the ground...

Hey, up until a couple months ago I owned a double decker bus and I guess from 200 miles out in space it might have looked sinister but up closwe it was right cute...

One man's double bus is another man's percieved WMD...

I think you, as well as a few of yer Fox buds and a few PBS wingnuts, are going to band together and one day be part of a small group of folk, much like the folks who don't think the US went to the moon, who have annual conventions and a monthly newsletter...

BTW, what years did yer two sons attend Massanutten?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 05 - 03:12 PM

From The Atlantic:
The Lesson Of Miers: Excellence Should Be Paramount

The withdrawal of the Harriet Miers nomination shows that excellence does matter and that mediocrity isn't always rewarded.
.....

Nobody should enjoy the humiliation of Harriet Miers, a person of estimable character who has accomplished much and deserves no opprobrium.

But the failure of President Bush's foolish, self-indulgent nomination was a victory for a principle: that we should insist that new justices combine character with extraordinary capabilities to deal with the enormous challenges that they will face. Chief Justice John Roberts more than fit the bill. Harriet Miers fell far short.

---

Foolish? Self-indulgent? The American people would see right through someone who was foolish and self-indulgent; they'd never vote for him. Now, would they? ... Well, would they? ...Well.....would they???


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 05 - 05:22 PM

Reuters reports (1 Nov 05):

By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have reached a stark conclusion about the war on terrorism: the United States is losing.

Despite an early victory over the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the two former Clinton administration officials say President George W. Bush's policies have created a new haven for terrorism in Iraq that escalates the potential for Islamic violence against Europe and the United States.

America's badly damaged image in the Muslim world could take more than a generation to set right. And Bush's mounting political woes at home have undermined the chance for any bold U.S. initiatives to address the grim social realities that feed Islamic radicalism, they say.

"It's been fairly disastrous," said Benjamin, who worked as a director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1999.

"We have had some very important successes getting individual terrorists. But I think the broader story is really quite awful. We have done a lot to fuel the fires, and we have done a lot to encourage people to hate us," he added in an interview.

Benjamin and Simon, a former State Department official who was also at the NSC, are co-authors of a new book titled: "The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right" (Times Books).

Following on from their 2002 book, "The Age of Sacred Terror" (Random House), Benjamin and Simon list what they call U.S. missteps since the September 11, 2001, attacks on America.

The Bush administration presents the war on terrorism as a difficult but largely successful struggle that has seen the gutting of al Qaeda's pre-September 11 leadership and prevented new attacks in the United States over the past four years. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Nov 05 - 06:08 PM

Why would anyone want their sons to attend Massanutten other than possibly a choice given by the Judge.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Nov 05 - 08:22 PM

Well, you do have a point there, GUEST...

Did I want to be shipped off to military scholl??? Well, not really, but, hey, I'm real glad I did it...

Opened up some doors and provided me with some fantastic memories...

Okay, I know this is a Bush thread but, ahhhh, first day I got there two guys come in my room and pin me against the wall and get up in my face screamin' "Hey, we hear you like to fight. You wanta fight?"

"Ahhhh, ain't likin' the odds here, guys" I said...

Fast forward one month... Had both these guys, both officers, eatin' outta my hand and wantin' to tell me all their stories...

Yeah, military school is alot like bein' in the real deal an' you go thru stuff with folks..;.

Like I said, didn't wanta go but glad I did...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 11:58 AM

Bobert:

It was in the 80's

No I don't believe Saddam had any plans of attacking the US, too chickenshit. He liked to bully his neighbors like Iran and Kuwait."

The missles did exist. Several landed in Israel and one landed in Saudi Arabia in Gulf I and one in Kuwait in Gulf II. Saddam got dinged just befor Gulf II by the UN because the missles under manufacture had a longer range that the UN allowed him to have. Too long of a range for self defense.

"Like how many US citizens were involved in the 9/11 attcaks???"

How do you mean involved? Killed? Injured? participated? Were affected by?

I'd probably a million were affected.

Remember when good old peaceable Jimmy Carter attacked Panama to oust Noriega? Was pineapple face planing any attacks on the US? Carter was a Democrat though and gets a pass.

That reminds me. Ever heard of the carter doctrine?

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

Shame on warmongering, lying, greedy oilman Bush for enforcing the policy of a pervious Democrat President. No pass for him.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 12:20 PM

"An attempt by any OUTSIDE FORCE [emphasis mine] to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America. . . ."

Old Guy, maybe you aren't aware of what was going on in the world at the time Carter made that statement. Iraq could hardly be considered as "outside" of the "Persian Gulf region" (you might like to take a look at a good map). Did it ever enter your mind that Carter was refering to the Soviet Union?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 12:24 PM

Old Guy:

I missed something in your last post -- what attempt to control the Persian Gulf was Bush responding to under the Carter Doctrine? I understand the earlier annexarion of Kuwait was clearly a violation; it strikes me as odd that Bush pere did not invoke the doctrine as far as I remember; in fact somehow he let Hussein get theimpression the U.S. would consider it a local probelm and not intercede. Never did understand that -- I think it was Rumsfield, but I oculd be wrong about that, who gave Saddam that impression. Or it could have been that lady ambassador (just the thing to send into a Muslim dictatorship for effective PR, eh?).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 02:49 PM

On Truth, Justice, and the American Way:


Report: CIA has secret al-Qaida prison

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, the Washington Post reported.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents, the paper said Tuesday on its Web site.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism, the Post said. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities - referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents - are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country, it said. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 03:13 PM

The New York Times remarks -- late, but not never -- on the hypocrisy and stealth levied against the American public by early Bushie manipulations:

Remember That Mushroom Cloud?
             E-Mail This
Published: November 2, 2005

The indictment of Lewis Libby on charges of lying to a grand jury about the outing of Valerie Wilson has focused attention on the lengths to which the Bush administration went in 2003 to try to distract the public from this central fact: American soldiers found a lot of things in Iraq, including a well-armed insurgency their bosses never anticipated, but they did not find weapons of mass destruction.

It's clear from the indictment that Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff formed the command bunker for this misdirection campaign. But there is a much larger issue than the question of what administration officials said about Iraq after the invasion - it's what they said about Iraq before the invasion. Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, may have been grandstanding yesterday when he forced the Senate to hold a closed session on the Iraqi intelligence, but at least he gave the issue a much-needed push.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet, to name a few leading figures, built support for the war by telling the world that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling chemical weapons, feverishly developing germ warfare devices and racing to build a nuclear bomb. Some of them, notably Mr. Cheney, the administration's doomsayer in chief, said Iraq had conspired with Al Qaeda and implied that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11.

Last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee did a good bipartisan job of explaining that the intelligence in general was dubious, old and even faked by foreign sources. The panel said the analysts had suffered from groupthink. At the time, the highest-ranking officials in Washington were demanding evidence against Iraq.

But that left this question: If the intelligence was so bad and so moldy, why was it presented to the world as what Mr. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, famously called "a slam-dunk" case?

Were officials fooled by bad intelligence, or knowingly hyping it? Certainly, the administration erased caveats, dissents and doubts from the intelligence reports before showing them to the public. And there was never credible intelligence about a working relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Under a political deal that Democrats should not have approved, the Intelligence Committee promised to address these questions after the 2004 election. But a year later, there is no sign that this promise is being kept, other than unconvincing assurances from Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican who is chairman of the intelligence panel, that people are working on it.

So far, however, there has been only one uncirculated draft report by one committee staff member on the narrow question of why the analysts didn't predict the ferocity of the insurgency. The Republicans have not even agreed to do a final report on the conflict between the intelligence and the administration's public statements.

Mr. Reid wrested a commitment from the Senate to have a bipartisan committee report by Nov. 14 on when the investigation will be done. We hope Mr. Roberts now gives this half of the investigation the same urgency he gave the first half and meets his commitment to examine all aspects of this mess, including how the information was used by the administration. Americans are long overdue for an answer to why they were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 07:11 PM

Involved in the "attack" means exactly that... There were a lot of vitums of the attack but "involved" in the attack is purdy straight forward, Old Guy...

You know exactly what I am askin' here, pal...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 08:47 PM

In his new book on the US in Iraq, New Yorker writer George Packer calls the (Iraq) conflict "the Rashomon of wars" – one whose cause, like the brutal crime at the centre of the Japanese film, remains little understood despite multiple retellings.

"Why did the US invade Iraq?" he wrote. "It still isn't possible to be sure – and this remains the most remarkable thing about the Iraq war." Two and half years after the US launched the war, with more than 2,000 US soldiers killed and the monthly death toll still rising, questions over how and why the US went to war are again roiling Washington.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday used a highly unusual procedural manouvre to force the Republican majority into concluding a long-promised Senate intelligence committee investigation into whether the White House was selective and misleading in its use of intelligence on Iraq to make the public case for going to war.

This follows the indictment last Friday on perjury charges of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the powerful chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, arising out of the investigation into whether White House officials broke laws to try to intimidate a critic of the war. He is due to be arraigned before a federal judge in Washington today.

Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, charged that the indictment "provides a window into what this is really about: the administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq, and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions."

The charge is stunning, because it is sharply at odds with two exhaustive investigations into the lead-up to the war. The 511-page report of the Senate intelligence committee last year, and the 618-page report of a White House-appointed team led by Laurence Silberman and Charles Robb this year, reached nearly identical conclusions: that President George W. Bush was a blameless victim of faulty intelligence. And both concluded that the intelligence was skewed by poor tradecraft and weak analysis – not by political pressure from the administration to manufacture a case for war.

But those conclusions have never seemed wholly persuasive, in part because they conflict with what former officials have said about the decision to go to war. Richard Clarke, the former terrorism tsar, and Paul O'Neill, former Treasury secretary, have both said that Mr Bush was obsessed with Iraq immediately after the September 11 attacks.

According to numerous accounts, the president made the decision to go to war well before US intelligence agencies began to warn seriously in the summer and autumn of 2002 that Iraq might be reconstituting its nuclear weapons programme. Richard Haass, the former State Department director of policy planning, told Mr Packer that in June 2002 he had met Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to express the department's misgivings over going to war. "Save your breath," she is said to have responded. "The president has already made up his mind."

The criticisms over how the US went to war do not come only from those who stand to gain politically. Lawrence Wilkerson, for 16 years the top aide to Colin Powell, former secretary of state, stunned Washington last month when he claimed that every critical foreign policy decision in the administration's first term, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, was made by a small secretive "cabal" headed by Mr Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary. Any dissenting administration voices were ignored. Ms Rice "was simply steamrolled by this cabal".

---

Steamrolled by a cabal -- thus, the nation.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 09:53 PM

My congrates to Harry Reid fir invokin' this little used rule< Rule 21, written into the Constitution by the Founding Fathers to allow a minority party to close the Senate for private debate when necessary...

The Repubs have been sandbaggin' fir 2 and a half friggin' years... They don't want to have to answer the tought questions, like whay the heck the US is in Iraq, where incidently another 3 Americans were killed todasy along with some 20 Iragis...

Yeah, at some point in time the Bush administartion is gonna have to come clean with the American people... Up until now allo they have gotten is either one lie after another or a bunch flag wavin' pablum....

(Pass the Depends, thank you...)

So, though I am still very much a Green, I like to see anyone stand up to the current batch of corporatist crooks....

Right on, Harry...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 08:28 AM

Yes Military school is good for the soul even if you do not enter the military. It teaches you discipline. It gives you a benchmark to gage your own personal freedom by. In other words you don't know how free you are unless you have it taken away for a while.

B No I don't know what you mean by involved.

If you mean aided or perpetrated the attack, I don't think any Americans did they were naturalized immigrants. There could have been some second generation immigrants that helped with the attack that we do not know about (yet)

There are sleeper cells in the US and around the world. Obviously they are concealed so that existing law enforcement methods cannot find them. They are trained to be undetectable. What method do you proposed to find these cells?

I have no problem with the patriot act cause I have nothing to hide.

Now how about that "attack" on Panama to make a regime change?

I was totally wrong on blaming it on Carter. It was during the Bush I administration but I don't recall any protests about it.

I can't imagine that all the anti-war experts here missed my error.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 09:29 AM

Have fun beatin' that dead horse, Old Guy, but I can guarentee ya that yer the only one readin' this thread that don't realize it's been dead fir quite some time now...

(Typical Bush tactic, Bobert... Change the subject or get into an discussion on the meanin' of the word "is"... Hmmmmm, wonder where theylearnt up that little terickery???)

Hey, attackin' Panama weren't nuthin' to to frame on the wall either....

Or Polk's Mexican War... Or. the Spainish Amwerican War.... Or the dumbass Vietnam War... Korea don't look too good on the wall either... And had the United States and it's allies had a more pro-human dforiegn policy after the 1st "War to End All Wars" then therwe wouldn't have been a 2nd "War to End All Wars"...

No, what the United States needs is a Department of Peace and spend money and resources cretaing good will and conflict resolution rather... Be a lot cheaper than what we got now...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 09:03 PM

A friend who is highly placed in our National Park service draws attention to the following which can be found in its entirety here.

It is one of the more brilliant signs of creeping Fascism in a literal, not metaphoric or rhetorical sense.

Today the Senate passed the bill authorizing oil exploration in the National Arctic WIlderness. But a far more insidious degradation of our Park heritage is underwy as well, about which more later. Meanwhile, consider the following article on the requirement for loyalty oaths for GS 13 and above management personnel in the National Park Service to be eligible for promotion, and consider whether or not this erodes their sacred right to free thought:

"For Immediate Release: October 13, 2005
Contact: Chas Offutt [phone]

POLITICAL SCREENING FOR ALL PARK SERVICE MANAGERS — Mid-Level Managers Picked for Fealty to "the President's Management Agenda"

Washington, DC — The National Park Service has started using a political loyalty test for picking all its top civil service positions, according to an agency directive released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under the new order, all mid-level managers and above must also be approved by a Bush administration political appointee.

The October 11, 2005 order issued by NPS Director Fran Mainella requires that the selection criteria for all civil service management slots (Government Service grades or GS-13, 14 and 15) include the "ability to lead employees in achieving the …Secretary's 4Cs and the President's Management Agenda." In addition, candidates must be screened by Park Service headquarters and "the Assistant Secretary [of Interior] for Fish, and Wildlife, and Parks," the number three political appointee in the agency.

The order represents a complete centralization of Park Service promotion and hiring in what has traditionally been a decentralized agency. More strikingly, the order is an unprecedented political intrusion into what are supposed to be non-partisan, merit system personnel decisions.

The President's Management Agenda includes controversial policies and proposals such as aggressive use of outsourcing to replace civil servants, reliance on "faith-based initiatives" and rollbacks of civil service rights. Interior Secretary Gale Norton's "4Cs" is a slogan she uses to express her management approach: "4 Cs: communication, consultation, cooperation, all in the service of conservation."

"It is outrageous that park superintendents must swear political loyalty to the Bush agenda and parrot hokey mottos in order to earn a promotion," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "The merit system is supposed to be about ability, not apple polishing."

The order applies to all hires for park superintendents, assistant superintendents and program managers, such as chief ranger or the head of interpretive or cultural programs. Overall, the policy applies to more than 1,000 mid-level management and supervisory positions in the Park Service.

"Presidents come and go but the civil service is designed to serve whoever occupies the swivel chair in the Oval Office," Ruch added. "It is downright creepy that now every museum curator, supervising scientist and chief ranger must be okayed by a high-level political appointee."

---

Those of you who recall the ancient history of the Magna Carta know that fealty-oaths (except for a brief spell under Joseph McCarthy) went out with King John.

Galloping backwards, King George the Eggplant-Hearted leads his nation backward into ever-expanding past glories...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 09:26 PM

In 1916, largely due to the effort of Gifford Pinchot, the United States established the National Park Service (NPS) and organized it through the passage of the 1916 NPS Organic Act. It's emphasis was completely clear -- that these lands be managed as to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations, and that human activities in those Parks be limited to such actions as would leave them unimpaired.

For some time, the Bush Administration has been readying a major dilution of the 1916 Organic Act and the occasional clarification which have been hitherto issued on it, all of which maintained its standards and intent for the unimpairment of National Park lands and wildlife.

One testimony delivered to Congress by a veteran Parks executive can be found on this page; it is thoughtful and well-reasoned, not inflammatory but completely clear about why the revisions being prepared to dilute the NPS charter are unneeded.

A far more damning and detailed presentation can be found on this page, in the form of a statement to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources on behalf of a large Coalition of NPS executives:

"The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees is over 430 individuals, all former employees of the National Park Service, with more joining us almost daily. Together we bring to this hearing more than 12,000 years of experience. Many of us were senior leaders and many received awards for stewardship of our country's natural and cultural resources. As rangers, executives, park managers, biologists, historians, interpreters, planners and specialists in other disciplines, we devoted our professional lives to maintaining and protecting the National Parks for the benefit of all Americans-those now living and those yet to be born. In our personal lives we come from a broad spectrum of political affiliations and we count among our members, five former Directors or Deputy Directors of the National Park Service, twenty-three former Regional Directors, or Deputy Regional Directors, twenty-seven former Associate or Assistant Directors and one hundred and eight former Park Superintendents or Assistant Superintendents."

Speaking for this highly experienced body before the Senate Committee, Mister Castleberry points out that "The draft of proposed Management Policies of the National Park Service that was released for comment on October 19, like its earlier version—Deputy Assistant Secretary Paul Hoffman's rewrite that became public information in August—is a drastic and dangerous departure from a longstanding national consensus. It is driven neither by law, by any conservation need, or by any failure of practical application. Little has changed since the present Policies became effective only four years ago."

He goes on to ask, "If improvement cannot be demonstrated as the goal, one must conclude that the motivation stems from the personal agendas of a few nearly anonymous appointees in the Department of Interior who know that they could not achieve the same goals by asking the Congress to change the laws.

This is the first time since Assistant Director Tolson started writing administrative policies back in the 1940's that superintendents and their staffs have not been included in any proposed re-writes of such policy documents. Under the new process the vast majority of superintendents and staff members only input into the proposed revisions would be to comment, as members of the general public, after the policies have been developed.

During this past summer, Deputy Assistant Secretary Paul Hoffman labored quietly to create a draft of Management Policy revisions, carefully limiting knowledge of his work to a small number of others and forbidding them to share it broadly.

Since the need for a revised policy did not originate from NPS career employees, nor from the visiting public, a reasonable question emerges, as to its origin. When asked, the political employee, Mr. Hoffman declined to identify anyone who had urged the changes.

After Hoffman's disastrous proposals were exposed in August, public reaction was so powerful that the Department of the Interior quickly disavowed them, calling the draft "devil's advocacy," and "intended to promote discussion."

Aside from noting that the national parks are more in need of the advocacy of an angel than of a devil, one can only wonder how much real discussion might be generated by a draft passed hand to hand among a gagged and silent few."

I excerpt a few specific examples of this corrosive undermining of the National Parks institution by an ill-mannered Bush appointee, and invite you to read the orginal testimony in total. It is a stunning example of creeping Fascism at work against the national interest.

"Present Park Service policies deleted by Hoffman: "Congress, recognizing that the enjoyment by future generations of the national parks can be ensured only if the superb quality of park resources and values is left unimpaired, has provided that when there is a conflict between conserving resources and values and providing for enjoyment of them, conservation is to be predominant."

(This mandate) –"is independent of the separate prohibition on impairment, and so applies all the time, with respect to all park resources and values, even when there is no risk that any parks resources and values may be impaired."

From the 1916 Organic Act of Congress creating the National Park Service: "The – National Park Service – shall promote and regulate the use – of national parks – as provided by law, by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment for the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

A 1978 act of congress further emphasized preservation in the Redwoods Amendment "Congress further reaffirms, declares and directs the promotion and regulation of various areas of the National Park System –shall be consistent with and founded in the purpose established by the first section of the Act of August 25, 1916, to the common benefit of all the people of the United States. The authorization of activities shall be construed and the protection, management, and administration of these area shall be conducted in light of the high public value and integrity of the National Park System and shall not be exercised in derogation of the values and purposes for which these various areas have been established, except as may have been or shall be directly and specifically provided by congress."

The effect of the Hoffman deletion of these two paragraphs deletes the clear mandate of congress in the management of national parks that the primary purpose of managing parks is preservation of the resources.

A specific application of the Hoffman changes that weaken the Park Service mandate to preserve resources includes this change to planning for cultural resources.

Present Park Service management policies direct park planners to "always seek to avoid harm to cultural resources." The Hoffman rewrite directs park planners to "always seek to avoid 'unacceptable' harm to cultural resources."

The effect of this Hoffman rewrite is to direct that there is acceptable harm to cultural resources, in direct conflict with current policies that direct planners to always seek to avoid harm.

A Hoffman deletion allows visitor activities to degrade the experience of other visitors to the park.

Present Park Service management policy deleted by Hoffman: "the Service will not allow visitors to conduct activities that unreasonably interfere with –the atmosphere of peace and tranquility, or the natural soundscape maintained in wilderness and natural, historic or commemorative locations within the park."

The effect of the Hoffman deletion allows uses by some visitors to unreasonably interfere with the experience of the park by other visitors.

The Hoffman rewrite weakens the protection of natural soundscapes in a park:

Present Park Service management policy deleted by Hoffman: "The National Park Service will preserve to the greatest extent possible, the natural soundscapes of parks."

The Hoffman rewrite adds: "The National Park Service will restore degraded soundscapes wherever practicable and will protect natural soundscapes from degradation due to unacceptable noise.""...

For the entire statement see http://www.npsretirees.org/05_1101-Castleberrytestimony.htm.

Regards,


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 09:33 PM

Old Guy:

OG: The missles did exist. Several landed in Israel and one landed in Saudi Arabia in Gulf I and one in Kuwait in Gulf II. Saddam got dinged just befor Gulf II by the UN because the missles under manufacture had a longer range that the UN allowed him to have. Too long of a range for self defense.

While the U.S. maintained in 2002 that Iraq still had SCUDs (the ones used in GW1) hidden, in fact, none were found. The U.N. inspectors, before the war, went to check of one supposed "SCUD" site, and came up with chickens**t. Literally. The building the U.S. intelligence had told them (after stonewalling for months the U.N. inspectors on the "intelligence" despite the requirements of UNSCR 1441 that they make any such "evidence" known) was a SCUD hiding site turned out to be a chicken farm. Other "intelligence" that was checked out by the U.N. inspectors before Dubya started his "war of choice" was similarly wrong, to the point that one inspector referred to it as "garbage, garbage, and more garbage" (albeit using slightly less polite terms).

The disputed missiles (which were not SCUDs) had perhaps a couple flights beyond the 150 km nominal maximum range allowed (and even this was in dispute), but only in test flights, which didn't include an actual payload. No matter; Saddam acquiesced to the demand to destroy them and they were being dismantled by the inspectors before Dubya decided to get U.S. servicemen killed.

BTW, your "Salman Pak" stuff is also debunked. After the war, the inspections teams found nothing to indicate that the facility was used for anything other than what the Iraqis claimed: For counter-hijacking training (and this makes sense; you don't hijack an airliner with an assault from the outside, but that's what you have to do when trying to subdue hijackers who have already taken it over ... so training to hijack doesn't need a real airplane, but training to storm the plane does).

Your quotes of Dems and such also claiming Saddam had weapons are, many of them, old and out-of-date, and most do not claim that Saddam indisputable had WMD, as Dubya's maladministration did. In fact, some of these purported supporting quotes don't even mention WMD at all.

You know, the "Dem quotes" and the "Salman Pak" garbage you're floating here sounds like you're hooked up on an IV to the RW foamer/RNC "spin points". These are the same things I've seen repeatedly put forth by apologists for the maladministration and other RWers, and they've been repeatedly debunked and discredited. That won't stop the RW from trotting them out again and again as if sheer repetition makes something true.

As for people needing to cover their own arses for their former beliefs that there were WMD, you might find some, but I'm not one of them. I paid attention, read the papers and such, and knew that there was nothing before the first shot was fired. As did plenty of others. As I said above, the weapons inspectors had already checked out much of the U.S. "intelligence" and found it to be nonsense. And they were reporting this. The Niger papers were proven to be (bad) forgeries. But the maladministration, rather than said, "now wait a minute, maybe we ought to go take a closer look at our 'intelligence'", rather just blasted away ... and to a very sorry end.

Many of those who did think that Saddam had WMD did so because of the garbage information that the maladministration was feeding them. And don;t go off claiming that they had the same "information" that the maladministration did; that's not true. Pretty much everything they were given to look at was filtered through the maladministration before it ever got to them, and was what the maladministration wanted them to see (which is why we really need an investigation about how the OSP and WHIG, and Cheney's office, cooked the books).

OG: Remember when good old peaceable Jimmy Carter attacked Panama to oust Noriega? Was pineapple face planing any attacks on the US? Carter was a Democrat though and gets a pass.

Ummm, Panama was Bush I's baby..... If you get things like this, so easily found on the Internet (if you are sufficiently senescent that you can't remember without that help), wrong, I can understand why you're falling for the Salman Pak and other RTW garbage you're spewing here.

As far as provable lies from Dubya, how about this one:

Asked about those infamous 16 words in his State of the Union Address about Iraq shopping in Niger for yellowcake uranium, the leader of the free world replied: "The larger point is and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power ..."

You can Google it and find other reports of this. Seriously, Dubya either thinks that Saddam "wouldn't let [the inspectors] in", or he out-and-out lied!   Now no serious person believes that Saddam didn't let the inspectors in; hell, it was in all the newspapers, TV reports, clips of the inspectors (amongst other things) dismantling those disputed MR missiles, etc. So either Dubya's a liar, or so manifestly divorced from any semblance of reality that it's imperative we invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from any position where he can do any more damage.

Here's more Dubya lies.

I suspect, though, Old Guy, that you aren't going to take advantage of this opportunity to edumacate yourself just a little, and will continue listening to Limbaugh and the like and parroting the same old RNC song until the whole damn country falls apart ... and then say "Whattha?!?!?!" in amazement that things blew up without your ever having the slightest clue.

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 09:37 PM

Castleberry's closing remarks deserve quoting:

Former Director Roger Kennedy has accurately identified the Hoffman
>strategy. The August draft threatened to take off a leg. The October
>draft says "no, no, we will only take off a foot," and hopes we will be
>relieved and grateful at the somewhat diminished harm. It was the bitter
>duty of the career National Park Service employees to whom the Department
>of Interior is now attributing this draft to diminish the severity of the
>amputation. They did the best they could, but harm has only been
>diminished or masked, not eliminated. Fortunately, there are over 430
>National Park Service retirees whose jobs are not at risk, and we can say
>what the career employees cannot-that there is NO need for any amputation
>at all, and any amputation is unacceptable.
>
>    Mr. Chairman, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees challenges
>the Department of the Interior to explain why this revision is needed. The
>public certainly did not ask for it-95percent of American park visitors
>rate their visits good to excellent. Perhaps the Department, instead of
>telling us that 100 National Park Service employees worked on the draft
>could tell us what percentage of National Park Service career professionals
>believes the October proposal is actually needed-specifically whether it is
>better or worse than the policies now in effect. We have been there and we
>know the answers-they are not needed and they are not only worse than the
>present policies but if adopted they will place the heritage of all
>Americans in extreme jeopardy.
...

(Ibid).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 09:58 PM

What GUEST, Arne Langsetmo said Old Guy...

That's what I was tryin' to point out to you... If Bush and Rove thoguth it had any shread of credibility, they would have played it in spades....

Problem is, like I said, this story, like all the others that have been fabricated to justify the invasion od Iraq, are false...

There comes a time in most men's lives when they just look at the realities of the situation and say "Hey, screw this hand. I din't like if from the very start." and quit bettin'....

That is about where you are, Old Guy...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 10:47 PM

Arne:

Thanks for a well-arrayed rebuttal.

A little clarity is a thing of grace.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 10:48 PM

Latin America prepares to 'say no to Bush'

· Maradona leads protests at summit in Argentina
· Opponents gather in high profile alternative meeting

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Friday November 4, 2005
The Guardian

George Bush left his problems at home yesterday only to find himself flying into a whole new world of hurt at the Summit of Americas in Argentina, where tens of thousands of protesters, led by the football star and broadcaster Diego Maradona, were due to greet the president in a "say no to Bush" march.
The president can expect an equally unfriendly welcome from some of the leaders and top officials attending the summit in the seaside town of Mar del Plata. Among those he can expect to come face to face with is Hugo Chavez, the outspoken president of Venezuela who has accused the Bush administration of attempting to orchestrate a coup against him and last week said the US was planning to invade his country. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 05 - 11:22 PM

Slate on Bush-Rove:

When Bush was re-elected, everyone hailed Rove's strategy as a masterstroke. But would Rove's protégé have eked out victories in 2000 and 2004 absent special circumstances, lame opponents, and good luck? Less than a year into Bush's second term, the president's approval rating is down around 40 percent. Many things have gone wrong for Bush, but the underlying problem is his relationship to the constituency that elected him. Bush's debt to his big donors and to religious conservatives has boxed him in and pitted him against the national consensus on various issues. His extremism is undermining Rove's realignment.

The problem has become clear with Bush's difficulties in filling Sandra Day O'Connor's slot on the Supreme Court. The Harriet Miers nomination was an attempt to satisfy both the militant conservative base and the eternally moderate American electorate. With the Alito nomination, Bush has acknowledged that splitting this difference is impossible. Faced with a choice, he has chosen, once again, to dance with the ones who brought him. But by appointing a superconservative, Bush risks propelling his increasingly beleaguered administration even further toward the right-hand margin—a place where his party cannot win future national elections.

Bush aims to be the Second Coming of Ronald Reagan. But he has never understood the genius of Reagan's method, which was to placate the religious right without giving in where it mattered. Reagan could proclaim his undying support for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion without doing anything to endanger Roe v. Wade. (He was the one who nominated O'Connor, remember?) In the same way, Bill Clinton managed to keep liberal interest groups onboard without advancing their politically untenable wish list. But whether because he is less adroit or because he truly believes, Bush seems able to appease his base only by surrendering to its wishes. He has caved to conservatives on Terri Schiavo, on stem-cell research, on Social Security privatization, and on "intelligent design." Now, most important, he is caving by at least creating the appearance that he is trying to get enough votes on the Supreme Court to reverse Roe.

Bush's failure at base-pacification is not entirely his fault. The evangelicals, who were pragmatically willing to settle for half a loaf during the Reagan and Bush 41 years, now feel empowered, emboldened, and owed. James Dobson and Pat Robertson don't understand that they would do their cause the most good by keeping their mouths shut and not scaring everyone witless. Conservatives of all kinds are in a militant mood heightened by their success in muscling Bush on Miers. They do not realize how their militancy alienates not just the left, but the swingers in the center whom Republicans need to win.

Rove is actually the second Republican realigner to stumble in this way in recent years. After the 1994 election, Newt Gingrich had his own visions of political sugarplums. Gingrich's unsuccessful revolution was more libertarian and less moralistic. He thought the new Republican majority would coalesce around shrinking government (a theme Bush has soft-pedaled, preferring to undermine government through neglect and incompetence). Gingrich was also, frankly, a little nuts. But he failed because he made the same basic mistake that Rove did. Gingrich thought he'd won a mandate for radical change and enshrined a new governing majority. He forgot about the country's nonideological majority, which likes Medicare, Social Security, national parks, and student loans. Republicans have retained control of Congress since Gingrich's downfall, but only by reversing his austerity program and spending like a bunch of drunks.

---

Elsewhere in the same issue:

"Some "top White House aides," says the WP, have argued the
president won't be able move beyond the leak case so long as
Rove sticks around. "You can not have that [fresh] start as
long as Karl is there," said a "GOP strategist who has
discussed the issue with top White House officials." About
20 paragraphs down, the paper explains that the Rove
"discussions," such as they are, have been "informal" and
involve "people inside and outside the White House." =

=

To continue reading, click here:
http://letters.slate.com/WART035984023E4C033753D1907D30
"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 12:49 AM

Bobert and Amos:

Gosh, shocks, yer welcome. Glad I could offer a few points. Doubt it will do no good tho.

FWIW, I've dealt with the likes of OG on UseNet and the blogs for many years now. Same MOP, same song and dance. Hell, sometimes they even propagate the same typos/errors in the stuff that gets passed around in the RW "echo chambers".....

Here's some stuff on Salman Pak and other stories, for those that care to know the actual facts.... This and more will come out, perhaps in the Plamegate trial(s), perhaps in the Round 2 of the SSIC if the Republican Congress can be shamed (or terrified) enough to actually try and find out exactly HTF things managed to get sooooooo bollixed up.

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 03:18 AM

Bob Herbert:Secrets and Shame
The New York Times

Thursday 03 November 2005

Ultimately the whole truth will come out and historians will have their say, and Americans will look in the mirror and be ashamed.

Abraham Lincoln spoke of the "better angels" of our nature. George W. Bush will have none of that. He's set his sights much, much lower.

The latest story from the Dante-esque depths of this administration was front-page news in The Washington Post yesterday. The reporter, Dana Priest, gave us the best glimpse yet of the extent of the secret network of prisons in which the CIA has been hiding and interrogating terror suspects. The network includes a facility at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe.

"The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism," wrote Ms. Priest. "It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions."

The individuals held in these prisons have been deprived of all rights. They don't even have the basic minimum safeguards of prisoners of war. If they are being tortured or otherwise abused, there is no way for the outside world to know about it. If some mistake has been made and they are, in fact, innocent of wrongdoing - too bad.

As Ms. Priest wrote, "Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long."

This is the border along which democracy bleeds into tyranny.

Some of the prisoners being held by the CIA are no doubt murderous individuals who, given the opportunity, would do tremendous harm. There are others, however, whose links to terrorist activities are dubious at best, and perhaps nonexistent.

The CIA's original plan was to hide and interrogate maybe two or three dozen top leaders of Al Qaeda who were directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks or were believed to pose an imminent threat. It turned out that many more people were corralled by the CIA for one reason or another. Their terror ties and intelligence value were less certain. But they were thrown into the secret prisons, nevertheless.

A number of current and former officials told The Washington Post that "the original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was lowered or ignored."

The secret CIA prisons are just one link in the long chain of abominations that the Bush administration has unrolled in its so-called fight against terrorism. Rendition, the outsourcing of torture to places like Egypt, Jordan and Syria, is another. And then there are the thousands upon thousands of detainees being held at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, in Afghanistan and in Iraq. There is little, if any, legal oversight of these detainees, or effective monitoring of the conditions in which they are being held.

Terrible instances of torture and other forms of abuse of detainees have come to light. The Pentagon has listed the deaths of at least 27 prisoners in American custody as confirmed or suspected criminal homicides.

None of this has given the administration pause. It continues to go out of its way to block a legislative effort by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, to ban the "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of any prisoner in US custody.

I had a conversation yesterday with Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, about the secret CIA prisons. "We're a nation founded on laws and rules that say you treat people humanely," he said, "and among the safeguards is that people in detention should be formally recognized; they should have access, at a minimum, to the Red Cross; and somebody should be accountable for their treatment.

"What we've done is essentially to throw away the rule book and say that there are some people who are beyond the law, beyond scrutiny, and that the people doing the detentions and interrogations are totally unaccountable. It's a secret process that almost inevitably leads to abuse."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:15 AM

"It's hard work being President" (George Bush during the 2004 campaign)

Well, George, it wouldn't be so hard if you quit diggin' in that hole yer in... Ain't rocket surgery...

Yeah, I love the new approach of trying to sell the American people on this "new beginnin" of Bush's administration... Hey, kinda like striking out in baseball and then announcing that you get another strike...

Well, given Bush's history of screwing up one thing after another it doesn't come as any surprise that he expects yet another strike... But the problem with being president, unlike Harkin Energy, is that you can't write yerself a $600,000 check and quit... Kinda like a roller coaster ride... Or in Bush's case, a prison sentence...

And ya know what? It ain't gonna get no easier for the boy 'cause he ain't gonna get another strike...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:34 AM

Todays Post reports on Bush's approval polls:

Bush's Popularity Reaches New Low
58 Percent in Poll Question His Integrity
By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 4, 2005; Page A01

For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.

On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls.

Virtually the only possible bright spot for Bush in the survey was generally favorable, if not quite enthusiastic, early reaction to his latest Supreme Court nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr. Half of Americans say Alito should be confirmed by the Senate, and less than a third view him as too conservative, the poll found.

...

---

I don't usually care much about polls, but yo don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

I guess some folks just wake up slowly, like.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:38 AM

Ah yes, the most fair and truthful Mr. Herbert. He writes as if he knew about the CIA camps for years. Mr. Herbert, once again, your ego is showing.
The amount of time spent om posting information not praising GWB astounds me. Not for the nature of the content but for the quantity. If I were inclined to do this, I would certainly pick a site where the readership is very large. It would appear that the chances of the 'word' being distributed widely here are very scarce and the situation is compounded by the majority of the readers being in a position to have never been eligible to vote in an US election.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:02 AM

Don't kid yourself, A. Many of us use this thread for finding articles and links, even if we're not contributing regularly. It isn't a big place like Slate, but if they want to come read this thread at Mudcat, they're more than welcome. It's a valuable resource, parked in the public view.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:33 AM

That was my point, "itisn't a big place..........."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:36 AM

Thousands stage anti-Bush protest at Summit of the Americas
11.04.2005, 09:36 AM
Excerpt from Forbes

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (AFX) - Thousands of protesters staged an angry demonstration here today against the presence of US President George W. Bush at the 34-nation Summit of the Americas.

Supported by the presence of Nobel Peace Prize holder Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the populist frontrunner in Bolivia's presidential race, Evo Morales, and Argentine footballer Diego Maradona, protestors were kept outside an exclusion zone around the summit venue by riot police.

'Bush, fascist, you are a terrorist!' protestors shouted under rainy skies, as they packed streets around the summit, where the US president is hoping to revive interest in a Free Trade Area of the Americas pact.

Organizers say that up to 40,000 protestors, including anti-globalisation demonstrators, will take to the streets here today to voice their opposition to Bush and the summit.

---

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 03:36 PM

In the light of the current quibble about the significance of satellite pictures of a double-decker bus and a 707 rusting out in the desert, at first I wondered if my following screed was appropriate for a thread on "Popular Views of the Bush Administration." But upon re-reading it, it appears to be right on point. I will submit it for your consideration:

Now some people here on Mudcat seem to think that Jimmy Carter is some kind of pathetic doofus, but I've always rather admired the man, especially when I learned that he and Roselyn were not too high-and-mighty to put on work clothes, pick up hammer and saw, and go to work on Habitat for Humanity building projects. Following his activities since he left the presidency, the only conclusion I can come to is that he is a man of integrity and good will, and puts his sweat where his faith is. Among other things, he was pressed into service to oversee elections in a number of countries to make certain that everything was fair and above-board. It is my opinion that we could use his services right here at home.

This morning on my local NPR affiliate, I heard an interview with Jimmy Carter about his new book, Our Endangered Values : America's Moral Crisis. I have been reading Rev. Jim Wallis's book God's Politics : Why the Right Gets Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, and Carter's book seems to be yet another voice saying much the same things, but from his own unique viewpoint. Carter was right in the thick of it because, being a Southern Baptist, he had direct dealings with the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference. In fact, they tried to influence him while he was president, urging him to give up his "humanist" beliefs. Carter believes in strict separation of church and state, and he also believes in the original non-doctrinal position of the Baptist Church. But when the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference radically altered its position, he resigned.

It's a most interesting interview, and I would recommend it to anyone who a) is still under the illusion that Jimmy Carter is some kind of doofus; or b) would like to get a handle on the beliefs of fundamentalist Christians, which Carter is not, but he knows them as well as anyone. Carter regards himself as a "conservative Christian," which, according to him, is quite different from a fundamentalist.

If you have RealPlayer, you can listen to that interview (with Steve Inskeep) and/or his longer interview on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. Both interviews can be accessed HERE.

I was not aware until recently that one of the beliefs tied to the concept of being "born again" or "accepting Christ as one's Saviour" is the idea that once one is "born again," one has a special relationship with God, and that from that point on, is incapable of sin. The "born again Christian" is guided by God and therefore can do no wrong. Carter regards himself as a "born again Christian," but he does not buy this for a minute!

When I first heard this idea express some time ago, I thought that this was so far-out that I couldn't see how anyone, including a devout Christian, could seriously believe it. But as Carter put it, the fundamentalist view of being "born again" says "I am uniquely related to God and my own opinions are derived from Heaven and they must be, therefore, right. Anyone who disagrees with me is not only wrong, but inferior. If I modify my positions, I am violating my faith, so I don't believe in negotiation, I don't believe in mediation, I don't believe in compromise."

[Note that George W. Bush regards himself as a "born again Christian" and he never admits a mistake.]

It was this view, and the changes the Southern Baptist Leadership Conference made in the doctrines of the religion that Carter ascribed to that prompted him to resign from any affiliation with the SBLC. Among other changes, the SBLC now maintains that:

Women must, henceforth, be subservient to men. Therefore, ordination of women is forbidden.

And, whereas the previous position was that scriptures should be interpreted by the words and actions of Jesus Christ, now "correct" interpretation of the scriptures is to be determined by the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Historically, these views represent a giant step backwards, toward the the religious beliefs extant in, and largely the cause of, the Dark Ages

Among other things, Carter is deeply concerned about the religious take-over of the American government, and the way the current administration (and the body of powerful politico-religious beliefs and organizations wielding influence over it) is affection our foreign policy:   giving preference to the use of military power over diplomacy.

Good interviews. Give them a listen.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 03:50 PM

Dear Jumping Jaysus -- Heinlein was right!! All we need is a crate of Baptist Popes asserting their unwavering righteousness on all issues from abbatoirs to abortions, with a depth of insight that covers the spectrum of intellectual accomplishment from A to A.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsermo
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 04:46 PM

Bob Herbert: "Some of the prisoners being held by the CIA are no doubt murderous individuals who, given the opportunity, would do tremendous harm. There are others, however, whose links to terrorist activities are dubious at best, and perhaps nonexistent."

Given that in the days after 9/11, they put out a list of the hijackers, and several (IIRC) of these named people popped up and said, "No, I'm right here, that wasn't me," not sure that I'd trust the CIA to get things like identities right. That, and their lousy record with the Iraq intelligence and other mistakes, means that leaving them (or worse yet, Cheney's secret cabal) with the last word on who gets locked up is outright criminal neglect.

Herbert again: "It's a secret process that almost inevitably leads to abuse."

It is abuse. Coercion and torture are not moral. People can possibly claim they're "necessary" or "useful" (but even this is a matter of quite some dispute), but that doesn't change the fact that such practises are immoral.

Bobert: " Well, George, it wouldn't be so hard if you quit diggin' in that hole yer in... Ain't rocket surgery..."

As a recovering brain scientist, I resemble that remark.

GUEST,A: "Ah yes, the most fair and truthful Mr. Herbert. He writes as if he knew about the CIA camps for years."

Ummm. nope. I think you're reading into Herbert's words what you want to hear (or you're just plain dishonest). Hell, if you're upset at the amount of stuff posted "not praising GWB", why don't you send him a letter and tell him to stop f***ing things up so badly. "Brownie, you're doing one heck of a job" -- G.Dubya (followed by Brownie still being paid by the maladministration rather than being charged with criminal neglect).

I notice silence from Old Guy....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 07:53 PM

Well, Arne, where were you when we needed you here... That was during the run up to the invasion of Iraq... Seems 'bout half a dozen of us holed up in the Alamo and fought our barins out against the ever steady beat of war-mongers...

Wish you had been here to wrestle with Teribus... No, not thjat feeble Teribus wantabee that been 'round here lately but the real one.... Teribus would wear us out with long homework assignments... I eventually quit doing them when I figgured he was just tryin' to keep us busy so we wouldn't be rantin' against Bush's stupid thirst for war...

Anyway, glad to have you 'round... These Bushites think they have reduced Amos and me into some kind of joke... Yeah, they revel inattackin' us and it has become a little game with them so, hey, at least there's a new target fir them... Sometimes that's all it takes is a new target...

But, hey, we done fought off a lot of 'um that don't come 'round no more 'cause they have been badlyy embaressed... That's good but it's also bad... Tghe remainin' ones are the real "true believers" who are beyonf independant thought or reasonin'... If Bush said tomorrow that the only way to fight the bird flu was to immunize ones own self was havin' sex with a chicken, these folks would be sneakin' into hen houses all accross America...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 07:59 PM

Nearly six in 10 Americans, 58%, said they had doubts about the president's honesty, a 13% rise in 18 months. Only 32% believed Mr Bush was handling ethical issues well, a significantly worse score than Bill Clinton achieved in his last scandal-besmirched year in office. Mr Bush's overall popularity has plunged to 39%, a new low for the Washington Post/ABC survey.
The poll was published after Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first White House aide for 130 years to be indicted in office. He appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to five charges of lying to investigators and to a grand jury in a case involving the 2003 leak of a CIA officer's identity.

At its core, the case concerns the evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction assembled by Mr Libby, at the time the vice-president's chief of staff, and other White House officials to justify the war in Iraq. The president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is still under investigation for his role in the case, which has refocused attention on the WMD debacle.

According to yesterday's poll, 55% of Americans think the president "intentionally misled the American public" in making the case for war, and 60% now believe it was not worth fighting. Some 59% thought Mr Rove should resign...

(From the U.K. Guardian today).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:23 PM

Arne, why the name change? Doesn't connect up with the scientist link and most scientists would not, at first glance, accuse someone of being dishonest. Proof, remember, is a key ingredient in arriving at a conclusion. However, your association with bobert may be a factor in this apparent lack of lucidity.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 08:47 PM

Ignore A, Arne... He/she is hopelessy locked into a life of classic transference and projection... Needs a lotta of couch time,,, abnd meds. Also, does not do well with facts ot reality... Like I said, lots of couch time and meds...

Ahhhhh, interestin' that so many folks when questioned don't think too much of Bush's handlin' of much of anything??? Wonder how this has come about???

Well, arrogance, fir one... I've had Republican friends admit to me that they are gettin' just a little tired of the "smirk"... Hey, I was willin' to give the guy the benefit of the doubt that maybe it was phsiological 'er somethin' but, nah, its a cocky little drunk frat boy smirk that can't really be explained...

Ahhh, di anyone hear him on the news tonight??? Apparently, things
aren't going too well tonight fir him in Argentina 'cause the folks down there know the same things about him that some 68% of Americans either knew or have figgured out... And that does not bode well fir the poor guy... I mean, I was embarasssed by his responses to reported in Argentina... He didn't sound like a Presdient of the world super power... He sounded like drunk frat boy...

That's the problem I have with Bush... He is ***GIVEN*** every opportunity to suceed but he always comes up short... He is hopelessly mired in the drunk frat boy syndrome... Hey, I don't care if he's been sober fir two thousand years, he doesn't act like a sober person... He acts like a friggin' drunk and I know a little about drunks havin' worked a substance abuse cenetr fir many years...

Now I don't say these things to mess with his supporters but to try to get them to see the way other folks, who aren't enamored by Bush, see him... And as we have painfully seen tonight on the news, it isn't just the folks in the US that have these observations...

So to folks like Old Guy and A I'd just like you to think about how yer guy is being seen by folks that ain't you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:19 PM

Arne, to some here, truth is not an objective absolute (a fact, obvious to all, easily verified by anyone who cares to look), it is politically relative. If it does not support the Bush administration and the Right Wing agenda, it cannot be true.

When something is presented here that the Bush apologists find an unwelcome intrusion on their feelings of righteousness, they will take any of several approaches in an attempt to bury the disturbance to their tranquility. Direct denial is usually attempted first. Then quoting anything they can find on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh that can possibly be construed to indicate the contrary. When these sources are debunked (not difficult for a rational person to see the obvious extreme bias, but some cling like grim death), it may go in a couple of directions and probably over time, both. One direction is to attempt to divert the discussion to something else. Bringing up Clinton's dalliance with Monica is a favorite. Or introducing something—anything—else which is completely irrelevant to the point. Another direction (quite popular—this is the Karl Rove method) is to attack the veracity, honesty, sanity, or sexual prowess of the person presenting the unwelcome news. Or to similarly attack the source of the information. This, is the time-honored argumentum ad hominem, debunked well over two millennia ago by Aristotle. This could also be called the "kill the messenger" attempt at refutation, which, of course, in no way invalidates the message. Yet another is to attempt to bury the discussion in vast quantities of cut-and-paste material only vaguely related (if at all), often containing long recitations of statistics, or data from long before the matter under discussion in the hope that it will bog down in irrelevant minutiae. They will even go so far as to attack a person's spelling or typing abilities.

These are a few things to look out for, but it is far from an exhaustive list.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

While you are of course correct, Don, I kinda think Arne is well beyond this.... He or she said she or he has done battle elsewhere in ciber-world so given the realities of that last 5 years I'm sure that Arne is as seasoned a veteran at this as you or me... Maybe more???

Not to split hairs but, hey, nice to have an Arne in the mix.....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:18 AM

Published on Friday, November 4, 2005 by Agence France Presse
White House Pressured Over Allegations of Torture, Secret Prisons

Mounting criticism of US maltreatment of hundreds of "war on terror" detainees, and new evidence that the CIA runs secret prisons around the world, have put the White House on the defensive over an alleged policy of permitting torture. On Thursday the two houses of Congress began discussions to finalize a bill that would ban any torture by US forces. President George W. Bush has threatened to veto it, even as he has denied sanctioning torture. The same day, a former top state department official told a radio program that the office of Vice President Dick Cheney was behind directives which encouraged US forces's torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That followed a Washington Post report a day earlier that the CIA has operated a network of secret prisons in eight countries where about 30 people were being held and interrogated. "Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long," the Post said.
Without conceding the prisons exist, on Wednesday Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, insisted that the government will do what is necessary to fight the war on terrorism.

However, Hadley said, "The president has been very clear we're doing that in a way that is consistent with our values and that is why he's been very clear that the United States will not torture."
But US political leaders and human rights groups say the evidence is mounting that the US has repeatedly violated human rights statutes and the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of prisoners in the war on terror, including more than 500 in the Guantanamo, Cuba US naval prison.

Katherine Newell Bierman, a lawyer for Human Rights Watch, noted that the Post's sources were CIA people themselves, rebelling against torture. "This is not something necessarily that the people in the intelligence community really want to do," she said. "This kind of policy paints the US into a corner. It's only a matter of time before this information comes out." On Thursday Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing detainee abuse directly to Cheney's staff.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led directly to US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wilkerson said. Another sign of trouble for the White House was the rejection earlier this week by UN Human Rights rapporteurs of a Pentagon invitation to observe conditions at Guatanamo. The Pentagon's invitation came in the midst of a three-month-old hunger strike that defense lawyers say has involved as many as 200 detainees in protest over their indefinite detentions. The rapporteurs refused to accept the offer because they would not be permitted to meet prisoners. Alleged US torture policies are under challenge in several suits to force the government to accord basic rights to Guantanamo detainees, most of whom have been held for nearly four years without charges or access to legal representation.

A separate challenge looms in a defense funding amendment authored by Senator John McCain which would ban "cruel, inhuman and degrading" interrogations of detainees by US forces and agents under any conditions. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, proposed the amendment after an army captain testified that US soldiers routinely abused detainees in Iraq in 2003-04, having been told Geneva Conventions did not apply. The Senate, dominated by Bush's own Republican party, passed the bill in October in a 90-9 vote. On Wednesday the House of Representatives began reviewing the amendment.

Rather than embrace the law, however, Bush has threatened to veto it. And at the same time, Cheney has said that the law should exclude the CIA. Doing so, said a human rights lawyer, would create a situation where people seized by one agency could be "rendered" to the CIA where they could disappear along with their rights.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:40 AM

"Needs couch time and meds", Bobert, you apparently have the same powers that Bill Frist exhibited with Terri Schiavo. Diagnosis from afar. I am not real happy with the current administration but I don't have the need to be bitching about something all the time. Life is better than that. Well, at least for some of us.

I mentioned Arnes' so called affilation he offered as the names don't match. An attempt to be someone he is not? I am simply a midwest member of society who tries to go along with the adage "I am what I am". Now, there is something for you to rip on.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 07:43 AM

Brussels to probe claims of secret CIA jails
By Demetri Sevastopulo and Guy Dinmore in Washington and Christopher Condon in Budapest Published: November 3 2005 21:53 | Last updated: November 4 2005 00:01 Financial Times

The European Commission said on Thursday it would look into allegations that Poland and Romania had allowed the US Central Intelligence Agency to run secret detention and interrogation centres on their soil. "We have to find out what is happening," said Frisco Roscam Abbing, a Commission spokesman. The Commission said it had no indication that the allegations were true. Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that Poland, a new European Union member, and Romania, which is scheduled to become an EU member in 2007, were the likely locations for secret prisons that the CIA is allegedly running in Europe. The revelation followed a report in the Washington Post that the CIA had established so-called "black sites" in eight countries, including Afghanistan, Thailand and several east European democracies. Poland and Romania yesterday denied the allegations.


"The Romanian president said there is no detention facility of the CIA [in Romania]," said Claudiu Saftoiu, an adviser to President Traian Basescu on security issues. Asked whether Romania had permitted such a facility to exist in the past, Mr Saftoiu declined to say. "All member states are bound by their relevant international legal obligations, in particular those deriving from the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the Convention against Torture," said Franco Frattini, justice commissioner. "I encourage member states and candidate countries to take the necessary steps to look into this matter where appropriate." The CIA has declined to comment on claims of secret prisons housing high-level al-Qaeda suspects captured in US counter-terrorism operations. On Wednesday, Stephen Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, sidestepped questions about the alleged prisons, saying only that the US acted in ways "consistent with our values".

Deborah Pearlstein, director of the US law and security programme at Human Rights First, said she was not surprised to hear that east European countries might be involved, given the "disturbing reports" of European co-operation with the US over the "rendition", or handing over, of detainees to such countries as Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.   Ms Pearlstein attacked efforts by Dick Cheney, vice-president, to have the CIA exempted from legislation proposed by Senator John McCain that would reaffirm the illegality of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners held by the US. The American Civil Liberties Union recently released details of autopsy and death reports it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It said 21 deaths were listed as homicides. Eight people appeared to have died during or after interrogation by Navy Seals, military intelligence and "OGA" – Other Governmental Agency, which is commonly used to refer to the CIA.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 01:00 PM

Lyons: Libby, lies and the casualties of war         Email this page    Print this page
Posted: November 03, 2005
by: Scott Richard Lyons

And you thought Watergate was bad. Tricky Dick's ignoble legacy should pale in comparison to the trouble that's brewing now in Washington. When Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was indicted by a federal grand jury Oct. 28, we witnessed the birth of the biggest White House scandal in American history.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, appointed by the Republicans, charged Libby with lying to the grand jury, lying to FBI agents and obstructing the federal investigation of the White House's coverup of the lies it told the public to justify the war in Iraq. Top Bush aide Karl Rove remains under investigation for similar charges, and although given a pass for the moment, a future indictment would surprise no one.

Libby and Rove are not low-level hacks of the Lynndie England and Charles Graner variety, but Cheney and President Bush's most trusted right-hand men. So let's dispense with any ''bad apple'' theories that might be peddled as insults to our intelligence. If this plays out the way it started, we're going to smell corruption and rot emanating from the very top of the Washington food chain.

This entire scandal is about lies. Which lies? The ones we suspected all along: Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Remember Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, when he made that frightening, compelling case for war? He knew the American public would never send their children to die for oil or something so vague as a ''pax Americana.'' No, he needed something more dramatic, something visual, something scary ... a mushroom cloud!

So we heard him deliver those now infamous 16 words: ''The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' One left that speech picturing Iraqi missiles aimed right at grandma.

Problem is, the White House had known for a year that the charges were absolutely false. In February 2002, the CIA sent former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate precisely those rumors. Wilson not only concluded that they were baseless, but an actual hoax using forged documents. He said so to the CIA, which passed the information up to the White House. " ...

From http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411857.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 06:08 PM

Bobert: Well, Arne, where were you when we needed you here...

Well, I've been "around" for many years now ... search my name and you'll see. I generally don't look into the Mudcat as often as I'd like if I was gainfully unemployed (not making any insinuations abotu anyone else, of course). I occasionally comment in the non-BS threads that I think I have something I can add ... and occasionally tangle with the RW folks on the BS threads. I think I've have at least one exchaneg with Terebus (the original) in the past.

I've also been meaning to become a member ... but I guess my procrastinating ways are still with me.

Guest,A: Arne, why the name change?

I just got married. ;-) Either that or I'm a klutzy typist. Unlike some folks here, I'm perfectly happy to sign my name to my work both here and on the political websites. Hey, check out my blog if you want some more of my writing. Some neat pictures there too...

Guest,A continues: Doesn't connect up with the scientist link and most scientists would not, at first glance, accuse someone of being dishonest.

You're wrong. For instance, there's many scientists that say that the creationists (and the Discovery Institute folks) are dishonest. Take a gander over to the Panda's Thumb if you want to see some scientists (and interested non-scientists) eviscerate the DI and YEC folks. In my experience, scientists are particularly sensitive to lies; while common in the political arena -- where what is "right" and what is "wrong" is often not as clear or is a matter of opinion, and where the primary aim is not necessarily finding the truth -- in the realm of science, we're supposed to be looking for objective fact whatever that may be, and deliberate deception is a far greater crime. I certainly personally feel that way. I'd note that scientists that are found to have been dishonest in their papers may lose their grants and their jobs as well as their reputation. OTOH, if you do that in politics, you might just get the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Certainly doesn't seem to get you fired, if you've been following the papers....

Guest,A: continues inexplicably: However, your association with bobert may be a factor in this apparent lack of lucidity.

Umm, what is my "association with bobert"? I was unaware of any. Did he wrote me into his will unbeknownst? (IOW, you should show some integrity and take back that insinuation).

Don Firth: These are a few things to look out for, but it is far from an exhaustive list.

Don't sweat it, I'm no newbie to such -- umm, "argumentation".

Guest (presumably, "Guest,A"): I mentioned Arnes' so called affilation he offered as the names don't match. An attempt to be someone he is not?

I won't bother with nitpicking the usage and typos here from someone who seems to have missed my typo. You ought to read the thread a bit more carefully and pay attention; having done so, you might have first seen that I used my correct name in previous posts and you might have twigged to the notion I'm doing no such thing as "attempt[ing] to be someone he is not". As for the "brain scientist" comment of mine (note I added "recovering"; haven't done it in 30 years), I was just funnin' on Bobert's "rocket surgery", not responding to the RW folks here. Too bad you don't seem to appreciate wordplay; it's a handy attribute on the 'Cat..... You might turn your Sar-Cas-O-Meter sensitivity up a notch too. But I yam what I yam. 8^P

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 08:00 PM

Well, gol danged nice fish pic... Is that a salt water fish??? Must me wid them colors....

Ahhh, no offense intended on the "Where were you..." comment... It was made to be complimentary...

Yeah, Teribus certainly had the inte3llect to challenge all of us and I owe a lot to him fir his pushin' us even further, though on occasiuon, his tactics could be qutie irritatin'...

But, overall, he sho nuff was fun wrestlin' with...

The problem with Mudcat is that no-one stepped in to replace him... Yeah, a bunch of wantabee name-caller's but nuthin' too stimulatin'

Heck, I presented a purdy well thought out and well researched question to this GUEST A and all I got was the usual namecallin' and attack response???

Hey, Teribus wouldn't have given up so easilly...

Not that GUEST A 'er Old Guy are bad folks, just kinda lazy...

Where's the real Teribus when we need him???

Last I heard he was gettin' married... See what them womenz can do to a man???

Ahhhh, nevermind that last comment...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Nov 05 - 11:38 PM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1841396,00.html

ALLEGATIONS

Mr Galloway's wife, Dr Amineh Abi-Zayyad, received $150,000 from Oil-for-Food allocations

Mr Galloway's charity, the Mariam Appeal, received $446,000 from Oil-for-Food allocations

A Jordanian middleman and friend of Mr Galloway, Fawaz Zureikat, obtained the money

Tariq Aziz, Iraq's former deputy Prime Minister, testified that Mr Galloway asked for oil allocations

Mr Galloway "knowingly made false or misleading statements under oath" at the Senate committee in May

GEORGE GALLOWAY faces possible criminal charges after a US Senate investigation tracked $150,000 (£85,000) in Iraqi oil money to his wife's bank account in Jordan.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will refer the Respect Party MP for possible prosecution after concluding that he gave "false and misleading" testimony at his appearance before the panel in May.

The sub-committee claimed that, through intermediaries, Mr Galloway and the Mariam Appeal were granted eight allocations of Iraqi crude oil totalling 23 million barrels from 1999 to 2003.

It will also forward the new information to British authorities, saying it raised questions about Mr Galloway's financial disclosure and the payment of illegal kickbacks to Iraq. "We have what we would call the smoking gun," said Senator Norm Coleman, the sub-committee's Republican chairman.

The sub-committee's report, released today, was provoked by Mr Galloway's clash with the senators — which he turned into a book entitled Mr Galloway goes to Washington. In that encounter, the anti-war MP vehemently denied receiving oil allocations from Iraq.

But the report provides bank account details tracking payments from an oil company through a Jordanian middleman to Mr Galloway's nowestranged wife, Amineh Abu- Zayyad, and his Mariam Appeal fund.

"Galloway was anything but straight with the Congress. He was anything but straight with the American people. There was a lot of bombast. There was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing," Senator Coleman said. "We take very seriously the importance of testifying honestly before this committee . . ." he said. "We will forward matters relating to Galloway's false and misleading statements to the proper authorities here and in Great Britain."

A Senate aide said that Mr Galloway would be referred to the Justice Department for investigation of possible perjury, false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding — all "Class A" felonies carrying a sentence of up to five years and a $250,000 fine.

The report says the Jordanian middleman Fawaz Zureikat, a close friend of Mr Galloway and his representative in Baghdad, funnelled $150,000 from Iraqi oil sales to Mr Galloway's wife and at least $446,000 to the Mariam Appeal. On the same day Mr Zureikat also paid $15,666 to Ron McKay, Mr Galloway's spokesman. Mr McKay could not be contacted for comment last night.

The saga dates back to Mr Galloway's Big Ben to Baghdad tour in September 1999 when he took a red double-decker bus to Iraq. An anonymous "oil trader 1" told the Senate investigators that Mr Galloway asked him at the Rashid Hotel, during the tour, how to translate oil allocations into money.

Another individual, known as "oil trader 2", told the investigators that he learnt in summer 2000 that the Iraqi Government had granted an allocation of oil to someone represented by Mr Zureikat. Oil trader 2 said: "At that time I knew that the individual that Zureikat represented was a British official named George Galloway."

He added: "Officials of the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation confirmed to me that Mr Zureikat represented Mr Galloway in the sale of Galloway's allocations of Iraqi crude oil."

He also told investigators: "The fact that Mr Zureikat represented Mr Galloway with respect to oil allocations and other business in Iraq was common knowledge, understood by many oil traders with whom I had regular contact."

The investigators spoke to Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, who told them that Mr Galloway asked him for political funding in allocations in the name of Mr Zureikat. The Senate report shows that Mr Zureikat received $740,000 from Taurus Petroleum on July 27, 2000, as commission for its purchase of 2,645,068 barrels of oil.

The report then reproduces money-transfer documents from Citibank showing that Mr Zureikat sent Mr Galloway's wife $150,000 on August 3, 2000. They conclude that the amount was "largely" Oil-for-Food money because Mr Zureikat's account contained $848,683 at the time, only $38,000 of which did not come from the programme.

Mr Galloway accused Senator Coleman last night of using congressional privilege to attack and smear him.

He said: "I've already comprehensively dealt with these allegations — under oath in the High Court and the US Senate — to the Charity Commission and in innumerable media inquiries."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 12:01 AM

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/carson200406020845.asp

New York Times:

our spy "Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraq Exiles,"

An Unapologetic Apology
The Times is only sorry it wasn't more antiwar.

By Christopher S. Carson

Last week, the New York Times issued an unusual mea culpa about the history of its Iraq coverage. This strange self-flagellation was published in multiple newspapers around the United States, and gained wide coverage in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, America's "paper of record," in the wake of a steady accumulation of evidence of Iraqi WMD stocks and programs, and ties to al Qaeda, was not apologizing for the near-uniform negativity of its assessments of the Bush administration's pre-war intelligence. The Times is sorry it wasn't negative enough.

The "Correction" article, published on May 26, started out with a healthy dose of self-hugging. "We found an enormous amount of journalism that we are proud of," it read. "In most cases, what we reported was an accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge at the time, much of it painstakingly extracted from intelligence agencies..."

KICK THE ANTI-CHALABI COVERAGE UP A NOTCH
But "looking back," the correction stated, "we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge." The Times believes that its "problematic articles" shared a common feature: They relied on those Iraqi "anti-Saddam campaigners" hanging around Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. The Times regrets that it and certain U.S. officials "fell for misinformation" from these "exile sources." The only exile named is Chalabi.

The logical extension of this surmise, then, is that the Times should have run even more anti-Chalabi hit pieces than it has already. But how could it? Almost every anti-Chalabi claim ever spun by the unnamed desk-bound solons in the CIA and State Department, no matter how ill-founded, found an instant national audience in the Times's pages. For example, the headline of Douglas Jehl's article on September 29, 2003, screamed that our spy "Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraq Exiles," especially Ahmad Chalabi. Other Douglas Jehl stories, all pre-dating Chalabi's "fall" in May 2004, read, "Pentagon Pays Iraq Group, Supplier of Incorrect Spy Data," and, "Stung by Exiles' Role, C.I.A. Orders a Shift in Procedures." The Times, on the other hand, had no comment about General Richard Meyers's recent testimony before Congress, in which he baldly stated that Chalabi's INC had "saved American lives" time and again by its accurate intelligence about anti-coalition forces.

SALMAN PAK
The correction article enumerated a few examples of not being liberal enough: In the autumn of 2001, "page 1 articles cited Iraqi defectors who described a secret Iraqi camp where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced." But alas! "These accounts have never independently been verified," and thus presumably should never have even been reported. Implication? The "defectors" were probably lying. The weekend correction piece tried to make the "secret Iraqi camp" even more willowy and insubstantial by not giving it a name — which, of course, was Salman Pak.

I don't accept the Times's premise here. Indeed, as a trial attorney, "verifying" the existence and true purpose of Salman Pak in, say, a court of law would be one of the easier things I could manage. The fact that the Salman Pak terrorist-training school, 25 kilometers south of Baghdad, was first brought to the attention of the world through the INC ought to boost Chalabi's credibility before any reasonable jury. How? Let's look at the evidence.

Interviewed about Salman Pak by the Times and PBS's Frontline in October of 2001, Iraqi defector and army Captain Sabah Khodada had this to say about the purpose:

    Training is majorly on terrorism. They would be trained on assassinations, kidnapping, hijacking of airplanes, hijacking of buses, public buses, hijacking of trains and all other kinds of operations related to terrorism.

Khodada pointed out that there was even a camp-within-the-camp devoted entirely to the training of foreign jihadists. Who were these people? His answer: "They look like they're mostly from the Gulf, sometimes from areas close to Yemen, from their dark skin..."

The airplane-hijacking courses were especially intensive, Khodada recalled. The foreign terrorists would later break into small groups and study the local language of the target nation, such as Hebrew or English. Asked about the 9/11 attacks of the previous month, Khodada was adamant:

    I assure you, this operation was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam. And I'm going to keep assuring the world this is what happened. Osama bin Laden has no such capabilities. Why? Because these kind of attacks must be, and have to be, organized by a capable state, such as Iraq; a state where they can provide high level of training, and they can provide high level of intelligence to do such training.

The camp has a "real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp," Captain Khodada related. This 707 was used to teach terrorists how to take over commercial airliners and subdue and terrorize the pilots and crew with materials already available on the aircraft, such as plastic knives, pencils, and the like.

Saddam's government, of course, denied even that an airplane existed 25 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Aldouri, smiled genially and told Frontline in the fall of 2001: "I am lucky that I know the area, this Salman Pak. This is a very beautiful area with gardens, with trees," Aldouri said. "It is not possible to do such a program there, because there's no place for planes." Who ultimately turned out to be more credible — Captain Khodada, or Ambassador Aldouri?

The New York Times apparently believes that Saddam's man at the U.N., Ambassador Aldouri, must have been telling the truth all along. Khodada and the other defector, although no evidence ever surfaced to discredit them, must have lied — apparently because the prince of darkness, Ahmad Chalabi, brought them out to talk to the press. But if the Times was remiss in its coverage, it was not for reporting on Khodada's story. The bias was for not reporting the corroboration of Khodada's story.

If the CIA had photos of Salman Pak at that time, it chose not to release them to the public in the wake of the Times/Frontline story, perhaps for fear of validating Ahmad Chalabi. A private U.S. satellite-photo company, Space Imaging, then searched its archives and duly found a photo showing the Boeing 707 parked in the Salman Pak compound. There was no airstrip in sight. The private Space Imaging photo, amazingly, exactly matched the personal drawing Captain Khodada had made for the 2001 Times/Frontline story — before the photo was retrieved. Evidently Captain Khodada must have had extraordinary telepathic drawing capabilities.

In reading the "Correction" lamenting the supposedly nonexistent "verification" of Salman Pak, it's obvious that the Times forgot what the UNSCOM inspectors discovered about Salman Pak during the mid-'90s. Then-deputy UNSCOM chief Charles Duelfer, who now heads the Iraq Survey Group searching the country for WMDs, personally visited the terrorism camp around 1995 and saw the Boeing. "He saw the 707, in exactly the place described by the defectors," the liberal-leaning London Observer reported. "The Iraqis, he said, told UNSCOM it was used by 'police' for counter-terrorist training." "Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter'," Duelfer explained. "I'm surprised that people seem to be shocked that there should be terror camps in Iraq. Like, derrrrrr! I mean, what, actually, do you expect?"

Even before Duelfer visited Salman Pak, UNSCOM had a file on it. A U.N. team that toured one of the "campus" buildings in 1994 found a decontamination shower and airlock doors, which were obvious hallmarks of a high-risk environment. Sensing something big was being concealed, the inspectors attempted to excavate a recently dug and refilled trench there, looking for something that had been quickly buried in anticipation of their arrival. The digging met with what inspectors called a "nearly hysterical" Iraqi reaction. Saddam called in compliant Sunni mullahs to declare the barren stretch of sand "sacred" and off limits. UNSCOM backed down. Salman Pak kept its secrets.

If Ahmad Chalabi, Captain Khodada, Space Imaging, Inc., and UNSCOM Deputy Chief Charles Duelfer were presumably all lying or misled about Salman Pak, the Iraq war itself would have exposed this unlikely conspiracy. For example, at the location of the mystery camp, the Marines who conquered this area during the three-week war would find no 707 jetliner parked in the sand. Unfortunately for the Times, they did.

In April 2003, advance elements of the 3rd Marine Battalion shelled the camp, and then overran it. They corroborated the defectors' reports in striking detail. "The rusted shell of an old passenger jet sat out in a field, its tail broken off," the Associated Press embed reported. "The passenger plane's sun-bleached fuselage lay alone in a large, barren field. A fire engine sat at one intersection. Elsewhere, the twisted metal wreck of a double-decker bus stood near three decrepit green and red train cars."

There was a lot of chatter among the captured foreign jihadists in Iraq about Salman Pak. As U.S. Army spokesman Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told reporters that week at his regular press briefing, "The nature of the work being done by some of those people that we captured, their inferences to the type of training that they received, all of these things give us the impression that there was terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak."

To believe that Salman Pak was not a terrorism graduate school for al Qaeda members and affiliates like Abu Musab Zarqawi, you have to imagine that the Boeing 707, the double-decker bus, and the train cars found by the Marines must really have been put there for a bizarre Iraqi remake of the American movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

URANIUM AND ROCKETS SURE LOOK LIKE WMD...
The Times next "criticize[d]" itself not for reporting on a claim about Iraq's large-scale efforts at procuring high-strength aluminum tubes, but for reporting on the challenges to this claim half-way through its lengthy article. Apparently, the Times believes it was supposed to criticize the uranium-enrichment claim at the beginning of the article — before it described the basic claim itself. The key dispute was not the purchasing of the tubes; everyone acknowledged that. The dispute was that the United States asserted that these tubes were for a uranium-enrichment program, and Iraq maintained that these tubes were simply for firing conventional rockets.

Once again, the Times forgets about the U.N. resolutions prohibiting Iraq from ordering or having high-strength tubes at all. Iraq was thumbing its nose at the U.N., and enduring billions of dollars of lost oil revenue per year as a result, so it could buy tubes for small conventional rockets, as now claimed by IAEA head Mohammed al-Baradei? The New York Times apparently now believes this claim, in retrospect, to have been so self-evidently true that the Times should not even have given the Bush administration's conclusions about uranium enrichment the dignity of a discussion.

UNSCOM and the IAEA historically had a more nuanced picture of Iraq's nuclear capabilities, to say the least. When Saddam booted the U.N. inspectors in 1998, the IAEA was able to confidently conclude that although there were as yet

    "no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons," it was the case that "Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of highly enriched uranium through the EMIS process, the production and pilot cascading of single-cylinder sub-critical gas centrifuge machines, and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon (emphasis added).

In other words, it's not as if the idea hadn't occurred to Saddam. But when it became clear that America was using Saddam's tube-procurement as an argument for going to war, the current IAEA head Mohammed al-Baradei definitively switched course and told the world that he believed the tubes were for little rockets.

Finally the Times feels bad that it "never followed up on the veracity" of a certain Iraqi chemical-weapons scientist, who told the U.S. troops in the wake of the invasion last year that Saddam had "destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment" only days before the invasion, that Saddam had transported WMDs to Syria, its fellow Baathist terror regime, and that Saddam had cooperated with al Qaeda.

For once in its mea culpa, the Times got it right, though not for the reason it thinks. The paper surely should have investigated these claims. If it had done so, it might have learned that the chief of Israeli military intelligence, in addition to David Kay of the Iraq Survey Group, CentCom itself, and at least two former Iraqi intelligence officials have now reported evidence of Saddam's late pass-off of the WMDs to Syria. These recent lines of evidence include specific locations of WMD stockpiles within Syria, and, most recently, in the Bekka Valley in Syrian-occupied Lebanon as well.

If Times editors were really interested in unbiased reporting from Iraq, it might have "followed up on the veracity" of dozens of former regime officials who have made startlingly consistent and intransigent claims about the depth of the threat from Iraq, especially concerning Iraq's operational links in logistics, training, finance, and manpower support for Osama bin Laden and his murderers. A few more trips outside of the Green Zone and into Salman Pak for Times reporters would have made a world of difference in the Gray Lady's Iraq coverage.

— Christopher S. Carson is a Milwaukee attorney in private practice.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 12:24 AM

http://www.photodude.com/article/1942/the-capture-of-salman-pak

The Capture of Salman Pak

The Capture of Salman Pak – Ah, Salman Pak. I've brought it up before, as have ... others. Now it's been captured.

"Tanks with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines rolled into Salman Pak, just southeast of Baghdad [...] U.S. military officials said there is a suspected weapons of mass destruction site in the town that dates back to 1991. When Iraq was developing its biological weapons program before the first Gulf War, the main facility was a secret complex at Salman Pak. There is also an airstrip in the town that the Bush administration says Iraq used more recently to offer terrorist training to Islamic militants. Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Marines raided the complex using information from captured foreign fighters from Egypt, Sudan and other nations. 'The nature of the work being done by some of those people we captured, their inferences about the type of training they received, all these things give us the impression that there is terrorist training that was conducted at Salman Pak,' Brooks said Sunday."

"In the middle of a clearing of trees, rows of plastic chairs were set up like an outdoor classroom. There was a training course of climbing ropes and wooden obstacles and a three-story tower with ropes down the side to practice rappelling. At a large intersection, on one corner there was a fire truck, and another corner was a large abandoned passenger plane, bleached by the sun, its tail broken off. The Marines inferred it was used to practice hijacking. There was also a ravaged double-decker passenger bus, speedboats and green train cars. Storehouses were filled with gas masks."

Nope, no foreign terrorists in Iraq, nosirree.

From AFP/Arab News: "Egyptians, Jordanians and Syrians are fighting alongside Iraqi troops against US forces moving on Baghdad, using tactics including suicide bombings which left two Marines dead, US officers said yesterday. One officer with the 1st Marine Division told AFP US troops fought a 10-hour battle with hundreds of such fighters southeast of Baghdad on Friday. 'We were ambushed twice, and there were four suicide car bombings against tanks,' the officer said."

Southeast of Baghdad. In the direction of Salman Pak.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 05:10 PM

Guest (umm, "Guest,A", I'za gessin') [quoting the MI6 captive rag, the Murdoch-owned The London Times]: It will also forward the new information to British authorities, saying it raised questions about Mr Galloway's financial disclosure and the payment of illegal kickbacks to Iraq. "We have what we would call the smoking gun," said Senator Norm Coleman, the sub-committee's Republican chairman.

Galloway has said he'd come over and defend himself on these charges. IC that Coleman is still smarting from the evisceration that Galloway gave him when Coleman thought it would be a good thing for an incompetent senator to try a smackdown on a seasoned MP.... "Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it" is a maxim that Coleman just hasn't figured out yet. If they try to pin this charge on Galloway, we might just find out where this "intelligence" that they dug up on Galloway came from ... it may well have had Chalabi's (or his thugs') hand in it, and we know how reliable Chalabi's tips have been.

Guest continues: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/carson200406020845.asp

Ah, yes, the National Review. From June of 2004. Nice to see you're keeping up with The Times. ;-) Still won't admit there were no WoMD.

There's "Curveball" the drunk, amongst other fine Chalabi sources. And Chalabi's good buddies with the Iranians too, Guest. Must make you feel all woarm and fuzzy inside.

From Guest's defector Khodada: The camp has a "real whole 707 plane, a whole real plane, standing in the middle of the training area in this camp," Captain Khodada related. This 707 was used to teach terrorists how to take over commercial airliners and subdue and terrorize the pilots and crew with materials already available on the aircraft, such as plastic knives, pencils, and the like.

The 9/11 terrorists trained in a gym. You're just as much a bozo as the maladministration if you take single-source claims by defectors with an self-interest in the proceedings over common sense and the evidence on the ground post-bellum. Once again, think "Curveball". And think of all the wonderful "intelligence" we had of nuclear bomb programs, mobile bioweapons labs, biowarfare facilities buried underground, SCUD missiles in chicken coop, and all the other wonderful "evidence" that was proven even before the war to be (as one U.N. inspector said) "garbage, garbage, and more garbage". The "intelligence" was wrong, almost totally and completely, and proven wrong by multiple investigations. And it was mostly stuff coming from Chalabi's INC thugs.

Here's your Christopher Carson, Guest, a complete nutjob: "I assure you, this operation was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam. And I'm going to keep assuring the world this is what happened. Osama bin Laden has no such capabilities."

Guest, that's pretty think ice you're skating out on. ;-)

These recent lines of evidence include specific locations of WMD stockpiles within Syria, and, most recently, in the Bekka Valley in Syrian-occupied Lebanon as well.

Yep, we know where those weapons are. They're in the area around Suran and Damascus and east, west, south and north somewhat.

See here if you are a bit lost on the reference. ;-)

"In the middle of a clearing of trees, rows of plastic chairs were set up like an outdoor classroom. There was a training course of climbing ropes and wooden obstacles and a three-story tower with ropes down the side to practice rappelling. At a large intersection, on one corner there was a fire truck, and another corner was a large abandoned passenger plane, bleached by the sun, its tail broken off.

Guess we're running terrorism schools here in the U.S. as well, eh? Sounds like standard setup for SF and other type training, and rest assured I can find obstacle courses, towers with ropes for practising rappelling, etc. in various places around here (probably have just the ticket down the coast at Camp Pendleton). And there's a neat little shattered passenger airplane fuselage over across the bay at the Oakland airport. Guess it's for the Oakland gang members to train their next hijacking on, eh?

You know, Guest, you ought to hang it up. Even the maladministration, up to its eyeballs in criticism for its horrible intelligence performance, isn't trotting out these stale canards (instead they've switched to Plan B and "nation-building"). If there was any legs to these stories the RW whacks keep circulalting, they'd use them in a heartbeat with the biggest "I TOLD YOU SO" that an already loudmouthed party could muster.

But feel free to ignore reality ... and to cower under your bed. That will sure keep the real terrorists from winning (and speaking of, where's ol' "Dead or Alive" Osama bin Forgotten nowadays?

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 06:21 PM

C. Wallace:I want to play a clip from your statement back in October of 2002 when you voted to authorize the use of force. Here it is.

SCHUMER: It is Hussein's vigorous pursuit of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and his present and future potential support for terrorist acts and organizations that make him a danger to the people of the united states.

C. WALLACE: Senator, you read the intelligence and you came to the same conclusion the president did.

SCHUMER: Yes. The bottom line is I wasn't as sure of it as the president was but I believe in a post-9/11 world, Chris, that the president does need latitude to keep our national security strong. And you know, that is true.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174694,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:23 PM

Oh, yeah! Well, Fox News! Yup! I'm convinced! Yesiree!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:34 PM

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy

Thursday 16 October 2003

"Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie."

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seing and developing weapons of mass destruction."
    Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002. at Johns Hopkins.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/jfk/jfk038.htm

It was a Friday night 30 years ago, July 18, 1969, On that weekend in, Ted Kennedy and 11 other people gathered for a cookout at a rented cottage on Chappaquiddick.

All were Kennedy loyalists: five men employed by or friendly with the senator, and six women, "Boiler Room Girls" who had worked in Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, cut short by his assassination in Los Angeles the year before.

Participants have always said the party was innocent, even though five of the men, including Ted Kennedy, were married and the six women were all single.

All agreed in later testimony that Kennedy and Kopechne left the party shortly before midnight, saying they were tired, to return to Edgartown on the Martha's Vineyard side of a 150-yard-wide channel.

What happened next has remained in dispute, with an unexplained gap of one hour.

Kennedy said he mistakenly turned right onto a gravel road and skidded off the bridge, the car landing upside-down in eight feet of water. After escaping the car, he tried unsuccessfully to rescue Kopechne, then staggered a mile back to the party cottage, where he got his cousin Joseph Gargan and friend Paul Markham to return for a second rescue try.

Failing that, they went to the ferry landing, where, they said, Kennedy "impulsively" jumped into the water and swam across to Edgartown, by his own account "nearly drowning a second time."

Gargan and Markham, a former federal prosecutor in Boston, said they assumed that Kennedy, once at Edgartown, would contact the police, and were stunned the next morning to discover he had not done so.

In fact it was a full nine hours - and after he learned that the submerged car with a body inside had been discovered - that Kennedy reported the accident to police and said he had been the driver.

At this point the Kennedy clout in Massachusetts kicked in. The other partygoers quickly left the island, and Kopechne's body was flown by Kennedy-chartered plane to her hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. No autopsy was performed.

Kennedy attended the funeral, with a neck brace he was never seen wearing again.

After a week's silence, holed up at the family's Hyannis compound with such Kennedy "brain trust" figures as Ted Sorenson, Robert F. McNamara and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., he told Massachusetts voters in a televised speech that he had been distraught and confused, wondered if there was a "curse" on the Kennedy family, and asked them to decide whether he should continue in the Senate.

Despite widespread media criticism - The New York Times said the speech "raises more questions than it answers" and criticized Massachusetts officials for soft-pedaling the inquiry - aides to Kennedy claimed the public overwhelmingly supported his staying in office.

A week after the accident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended jail sentence and a year's probation.

Numerous investigations by authors and news organizations spawned a variety of theories, among them that Ms. Kopechne or Gargan was driving the car. But none of these held up under careful analysis.

In 1975, The Associated Press found numerous points of conflict between the sworn testimony of Kennedy and others at a 1970 inquest at Edgartown and a court hearing in Pennsylvania.

The partygoers, most of whom did not know at the time exactly what had happened, have remained all but silent for three decades. Kennedy himself has addressed the subject on occasion without adding new information or clarifying unanswered questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 07:51 PM

Ahhhh, see there's a big ol' diosconnect between Fox entertainment/mythology/news and reality... Heck, "SDurvivor" has more reality to it than Fox...

Fox is no a source to be believed... Talk about a bunch of conspiracy nuts... They never met one, if it made progressives look bad, that they wouldn't buy... Problem with Fox is they don't own up to their errors, or if they do it is in one sentence aired in the iddle of the night..

And that's why I also have problems with both the New York Times (Think Judy Miller here) and the Washington Post... Yeah, bothe gave the neo-cons daily headline's during the run-up to war but when all the stuff they ahd printed day-afetr-day in the run-up turned out to be false the retractions were well hidden... The Post did their dance-of-the-diein'-duck retarctions and apologies last August and said, "Yeah, we got caught up in a culture thing" (paraphased)... I sent them a letter and asked them if they had a problem with a culture thing what steps they had taken to be sure that it didn't happen again... I'm still awaiting their answer...

Yeah, that culture thing (also called office-speak) is very dangerous in a society that preaxches democracy... Hey, if I'm the leader of a compnay, or country, I want as many ideas as possible to mull over... No, I don't want just one option, 'cuae there is a conflict with the term "option" and "one"... No, I want to hear everything!!! Especially when takin' a country to war...

Bush didn't wanta second opinon and the New York Times and Washington Post didn't either...

...and I haven't heard or seen anything from either the Times or the Post that suggests that have done one danged thing to change anything...

Purdy scarey...

Makes them not all that different than Fox....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:03 PM

By Michael Barone US News & World report
Bush Bashing Fizzles

This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.

This project has been ongoing for more than 30 years. Richard Nixon, by obstructing investigation of the Watergate burglary, unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration. Less than two years after carrying 49 states, he was compelled to resign. The attempt to delegitimize the Reagan administration seemed at the time reasonably successful. Reagan was widely dismissed as a lightweight ideologue, and the rejection of his nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 contributed to the impression that his years in office were, to take the title of a book by a first-rate journalist, "the Reagan detour." As time went on, as the Berlin Wall fell and Bill Clinton proclaimed that the era of big government was over, it became clear that Reagan was a successful transformational president--something the mainstream media grudgingly admitted when he died in 2004 after a decade out of public view.

You think they'd learn. But for the past five years, the same folks have been trying to undermine the presidency of George W. Bush. The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore was denounced as an outrage, and Democrats noted, accurately, that Bush did not win a plurality of the popular vote in 2000. The nation rallied to his support after September 11, but Democrats held up his judicial and other nominations even if they had to violate Senate tradition to do so. Coverage of Bush during the 2004 campaign was heavily negative; for months the mainstream media mostly ignored the swift boat vets' charges against John Kerry and broadcast accusations against Bush based on forged documents eight weeks before the election. News of economic recovery in 2003 and 2004 was pitched far more negatively than it had been when Bill Clinton was president in 1995 and 1996.

Now the unsupported charges that "Bush lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been rekindled via criticism of Karl Rove. A key witness for the Democrats and mainstream media was former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Unfortunately for his advocates, he turned out to be a liar. A year after his famous article appeared in the New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of "twisting" intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa. So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents. The case against Rove--ballyhooed by recent Time and Newsweek cover stories that paid little heed to the discrediting of Wilson--seems likely to end not with a bang but a whimper.

Court intrigue. So, too, with the political left's determination to defeat Bush's first nominee to the Supreme Court. Democrats, with much help from the press, argued successfully in 1987 that Robert Bork was out of the mainstream and in 1991 brought up spectacular charges that cast a pall on Justice Clarence Thomas. They seem almost certain not to have such success against the obviously highly qualified John Roberts. They may try to argue that Roberts is "out of the mainstream." But the vote on Roberts's nomination to the appeals court was 14 to 3 in the judiciary committee. Who is in the mainstream now?

The bombings and attempted bombings in London have brought home to the American public that we face implacable enemies unwilling to be appeased by even the most emollient diplomacy. Yet, mainstream media coverage of Iraq has been mostly negative. But mainstream media no longer have a monopoly; Americans have other sources in talk radio, Fox News, and the blogosphere. Bush's presidency is still regarded as illegitimate by perhaps 20 percent of the electorate. But among the rest, the attempt to delegitimize him seems to be collapsing.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:11 PM

Investigate the CIA
An "outing" was the result of either incompetence or an effort to undermine the White House.

BY VICTORIA TOENSING
Sunday, November 6, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

In a surprise, closed-door debate, Senate Democrats last week demanded an investigation of pre-Iraq War intelligence. Here's an issue for them: Assess the validity of the claim that Valerie Plame's status was "covert," or even properly classified, given the wretched tradecraft by the Central Intelligence Agency throughout the entire episode. It was, after all, the CIA that requested the "leak" investigation, alleging that one of its agents had been outed in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003, column. Yet it was the CIA's bizarre conduct that led inexorably to Ms. Plame's unveiling.

When the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was being negotiated, Senate Select Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater was adamant: If the CIA desired a law making it illegal to expose one of its deep cover employees, then the agency must do a much better job of protecting their cover. That is why a criterion for any prosecution under the act is that the government was taking "affirmative measures" to conceal the protected person's relationship to the intelligence agency. Two decades later, the CIA, either purposely or with gross negligence, made a series of decisions that led to Ms. Plame becoming a household name:

• The CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger on a sensitive mission regarding WMD. He was to determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake, an essential ingredient for unconventional weapons. However, it was Ms. Plame, not Mr. Wilson, who was the WMD expert. Moreover, Mr. Wilson had no intelligence background, was never a senior person in Niger when he was in the State Department, and was opposed to the administration's Iraq policy. The assignment was given, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at Ms. Plame's suggestion.

• Mr. Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement, a mandatory act for the rest of us who either carry out any similar CIA assignment or represent CIA clients.

• When he returned from Niger, Mr. Wilson was not required to write a report, but rather merely to provide an oral briefing. That information was not sent to the White House. If this mission to Niger were so important, wouldn't a competent intelligence agency want a thoughtful written assessment from the "missionary," if for no other reason than to establish a record to refute any subsequent misrepresentation of that assessment? Because it was the vice president who initially inquired about Niger and the yellowcake (although he had nothing to do with Mr. Wilson being sent), it is curious that neither his office nor the president's were privy to the fruits of Mr. Wilson's oral report.

• Although Mr. Wilson did not have to write even one word for the agency that sent him on the mission at taxpayer's expense, over a year later he was permitted to tell all about this sensitive assignment in the New York Times. For the rest of us, writing about such an assignment would mean we'd have to bring our proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board and spend countless hours arguing over every word to be published. Congressional oversight committees should want to know who at the CIA permitted the publication of the article, which, it has been reported, did not jibe with the thrust of Mr. Wilson's oral briefing. For starters, if the piece had been properly vetted at the CIA, someone should have known that the agency never briefed the vice president on the trip, as claimed by Mr. Wilson in his op-ed.

• More important than the inaccuracies is that, if the CIA truly, truly, truly had wanted Ms. Plame's identity to be secret, it never would have permitted her spouse to write the op-ed. Did no one at Langley think that her identity could be compromised if her spouse wrote a piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise? The obvious question a sophisticated journalist such as Mr. Novak asked after "Why did the CIA send Wilson?" was "Who is Wilson?" After being told by a still-unnamed administration source that Mr. Wilson's "wife" suggested him for the assignment, Mr. Novak went to Who's Who, which reveals "Valerie Plame" as Mr. Wilson's spouse.

• CIA incompetence did not end there. When Mr. Novak called the agency to verify Ms. Plame's employment, it not only did so, but failed to go beyond the perfunctory request not to publish. Every experienced Washington journalist knows that when the CIA really does not want something public, there are serious requests from the top, usually the director. Only the press office talked to Mr. Novak.

• Although high-ranking Justice Department officials are prohibited from political activity, the CIA had no problem permitting its deep cover or classified employee from making political contributions under the name "Wilson, Valerie E.," information publicly available at the Federal Elections Commission.

The CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft. It is up to Congress to decide which.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007508

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:12 PM

Dance, dance, dance, GuestA. What's next, Clinton's @enis?

You seem bound and determined to avoid the fact the Dubya's maladministration has been one huge fustercluck from beginning to end, and that the most severe, most significant, and most horrifying has been the squandering of an additional 2000 American lives in the Iraqian quagmire, after blowing it on the intelligence and reading "My Pet Goat" while people jumped to their deaths from a burning building.

Why? I just want to know why you cling so stubbornly to your incompetent "hero". There's no rational reason for it, so see if you can explain what it is that you think the Preznit's done so good at, to make up for the many obvious mistakes, outright blunders, and criminal corruption and cronyism.....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:26 PM

"If there was ever a time in history to impeach
a President of the United States, it would be now."

-Barbara Streisand 

"If there was ever a time in history to impeach a President of the United States, it would be now. In my opinion, it is two years too late … Shouldn't war be an absolute last resort? We went to war because we were misled. And we should be angry because of the 2,000 American soldiers and the 200 armed coalition forces that have died. We should be livid because of the 15,000 American soldiers that have been horribly maimed and wounded. We should be disgusted because of the 30,000 innocent Iraqi civilians that have been killed and the 20,000 that are wounded after administration officials claimed that the US was going to liberate the Iraqi people. When does it stop? It stops with the indictment and impeachment of this corrupt, power-hungry, greedy group of incompetent leaders. How many more have to die before this happens?"
- Barbara Streisand

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:37 PM

Yo GUEST, 8:03 ans 8:11,,,

Hey, di they give you a friggin' keyboard with yer pudder???

Cut-n-pastes are not only lazy but say nuthin' about what ***you*** think... And guess what, a recent Mudcat survey found that 96% of folks here pass right by a cut-n-post, irregardless of whoes side is supported...

So, ahhh, accordin' to the Wes Ginny Slide Rule, nobody will read yer posts...

Hey, come back and tell us what you think... Too much to ask???

Bobert (pushin' 10,000 posts without one cut-n-paste...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 08:44 PM

Susan was found, shot, lying on the bunk in Amos' cabin.

   At around this time, another young woman began causing problems for the Commodore. Susan Meister, a twenty-three-year-old from Colorado, had joined the crew of the Apollo in February 1971, having been introduced to Scientology by friends while she was working in San Francisco. When she arrived on the ship she was a typically eager and optimistic convert and wrote home frequently, urging her family to 'get into' Scientology.

Letters of Susan Meister to her family

    Dear Family,

    I just had a session an auditing session
    I feel great! Great GREAT! and my life is EXPANDING EXPANDING and it's All Hurry Up: Hurry, Hurry SCIENTOLOGY
    Be a friend to yourselves Get into this stuff Now - It's more precious than gold it's the best thing that's _ever_ever_ever_ever_ come along.

    Love, Susan


    She once more urged her mother to read Hubbard's books, and take Scientology courses. Ten days after writing the letter, Susan was dead... According to her father, Susan was "lying on a bunk, wearing the new dress her mother had made for her, her arms crossed with a long barreled revolver on her breast. A bullet hole was in the center of her forehead and blood was running out of the corners of her mouth. I began to wonder how Susan could possibly shoot herself in the center of her forehead with the long barreled revolver. She would have had to hold it with both hands at arms length. There were no powder burns on her forehead, which certainly would have been the case if the gun was against her forehead as it would have to be to shoot herself as the photograph appeared."


Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1978

    In mid-July that year, according to State Department correspondence obtained by The Times, Miss Meister's father traveled from Colorado to the Moroccan port of Safi, 125 miles south of Casablanca, where the Apollo was then moored, to inquire into his daughter's death. Meister is said to have questioned the explanation of the death proffered by the ship's officers, and indicated that he might seek an investigation of the Apollo. In turn -- according to a Nov. 11, 1971, letter from Assistant Secretary of State David M. Abshire to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- the Apollo's port captain threatened in the presence of the American vice consul from Casablanca, William J. Galbraith, that "he had enough material, including compromising photographs of Miss Meister, to smear Mr. Meister first."


Affidavit of Hana Whitfield
8 Mar 1994

    187. Susan was on board about six months. She was "PTS" - her family was upset because the ship's location was confidential and they did not know where she was.
    188. In mid 1971, in my office on A Deck, I heard a strange, sharp sound. It was traced to the aft bridge cabins where the senior Ship's Officers berthed, and specifically to that of Chief Officer Amos Jessup. Susan was found, shot, lying on the bunk in Amos' cabin. I helped Mary Sue Hubbard, who was in charge of the GO, to investigate the death. Mary Sue checked the aft bridge cabin where Susan died. I checked Susan's bunk below decks and her possessions, but found nothing amiss. Mary Sue had already removed Susan's letters, note books and other personal effects. I arranged for someone to send Susan's clothes to her family. We interviewed Amos Jessup, who was visibly upset and shaking on and off. He blamed himself, as Susan wanted a committed relationship and he didn't. Susan was in the cabin alone after he went to work. He didn't see her alive again. He had no idea she was suicidal.
    189. We interviewed a deck hand who was working on A deck port side, aft of the bridge cabin, when the shot occurred. He reported the sound and located Amos. We interviewed Susan's superior, the ship's medical officer and several other people. They all said Susan was emotionally unstable. Mary Sue wrote a report for the Moroccan police.

George Meister showing picture of his dead daughter Susan Meister - Link to www.xenutv.com
"This is a picture of my daughter, and that's all I have."

Susan's father testified about the death of his daughter and subsequent harassment and death threats he received. The transcripts of those City of Clearwater Commission Hearings held in 1982 are available here. Also on the web are the Preliminary and Final Report of the Clearwater Commission. Here's a collection of newspaper articles covering the Hearings.

This is amongs other things what Susan's father had to say:

    My name is George Meister. I'm here, not because I've ever been a member of the Church of Scientology or ever will be, but I'm here in behalf of my daughter, Susan. And I'd like to have the camera get a shot of this picture, possibly. This is a picture of my daughter, and that's all I have. Susan died aboard the ship, Apollo, June 25th, 1971, with a bullet in the middle of her forehead.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 09:55 PM

It is not me, you moron! You come across as such an intellectual but your ability to discern is about the same as Boberts'.

And Bobert, you will not read anything that may contradict your mode of thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:07 PM

Hey, GUEST, 8:44...

What are you tryin' to say here???

Come on... Spit it out...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

Dig deep, dig long, you pissant muckraker; you will find more falsehoods, if such is possible, than even your fevered meat-brain has ever brought out. I spit. Your taste for calumny, distortion and plain ole falsehood will be the last flavor you notice on your way out; my sympathies to your sorry sad-sack little soul.

But, what did you think of Mrs. Streisand's little essay? I rather liked it -- calling for impeachment on the grounds of falsification and malicious distortion. An art with which you clearly sympathize.

Ptui on you, buddy. You desperate efforts are classical extremist phobic reactions.

Come on over here and give me a big wet kiss on the butt, won't you?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 12:05 AM

More signs of creeping fascism: criticize war on religious grounds and get harassed by the IRS:

(From the LA Times):

The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told many congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church's former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted a letter from the IRS.

In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 12:07 AM

The New York Times does not think highly of Bush's performance in Latin America recently:

"President Bush's Walkabout
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Published: November 8, 2005
After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long.

In Argentina, Mr. Bush, who prides himself on his ability to relate to world leaders face to face, could barely summon the energy to chat with the 33 other leaders there, almost all of whom would be considered friendly to the United States under normal circumstances. He and his delegation failed to get even a minimally face-saving outcome at the collapsed trade talks and allowed a loudmouthed opportunist like the president of Venezuela to steal the show.

It's amazing to remember that when Mr. Bush first ran for president, he bragged about his understanding of Latin America, his ability to speak Spanish and his friendship with Mexico. But he also made fun of Al Gore for believing that nation-building was a job for the United States military.

The White House is in an uproar over the future of Karl Rove, the president's political adviser, and spinning off rumors that some top cabinet members may be asked to walk the plank. Mr. Bush could certainly afford to replace some of his top advisers. But the central problem is not Karl Rove or Treasury Secretary John Snow or even Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary. It is President Bush himself.

Second terms may be difficult, but the chief executive still has the power to shape what happens. Ronald Reagan managed to turn his messy second term around and deliver - in great part through his own powers of leadership - a historic series of agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the peaceful dismantling of the Soviet empire. Mr. Bush has never demonstrated the capacity for such a comeback. Nevertheless, every American has a stake in hoping that he can surprise us.

The place to begin is with Dick Cheney, the dark force behind many of the administration's most disastrous policies, like the Iraq invasion and the stubborn resistance to energy conservation. Right now, the vice president is devoting himself to beating back Congressional legislation that would prohibit the torture of prisoners. This is truly a remarkable set of priorities: his former chief aide was indicted, Mr. Cheney's back is against the wall, and he's declared war on the Geneva Conventions.

Mr. Bush cannot fire Mr. Cheney, but he could do what other presidents have done to vice presidents: keep him too busy attending funerals and acting as the chairman of studies to do more harm."...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:05 AM

1499 is the new 1500.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 06:56 AM

Amos, it is not a requirement to preface any reprints from the New York Times with "does not think highly of...." when anything regarding GWB appears there. Is it not insulting the intelligence of the average viewer here?
Givens are givens.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:20 AM

1501 and Bush's policies *still* suck!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:33 AM

You are quite right, Guest. It is not a requirement. It is optional.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:12 PM

Guest,A quotes RW flack Michael Barone: "This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration."

How's 35% sound to you? Guess it's a bit better that the 19% approval rating that "Big Time" Cheney currently enjoys. As some wags have pointed out, more people believe in UFOs than think that ol' "GO F*** Yourself" is doing a good job. Sounds so much like whistling past the graveyard, Guest,A ... so what's that tune you're humming, eh?

I'll ignore more of Barone's hysterical ranting and lies, and just point out this gem: [Barone] "So despite the continuing credulousness of much of the press, it appears inconceivable at this point that Karl Rove will be charged with violating the law prohibiting disclosure of the names of undercover agents." You see, according to maven of all that is proper and right, Micheal Barone, it just fine and dandy to out an undercover CIA agent (who was working to prevent another horrific attack by tracking down actual threats of nuclear proliferation), as long as you can claim (falsely) that that person's husband was lying when they said bad things about the maladministration, things that have since proven to be horribly true. Yep, because Wilson allegedly lied, his wife is fair game, and Rove's slash-and-burn political tactics are just well and fine.... Republican moral relativism fer ya, I say. So, Guest,A, do you agree with Barone here? C'mon, fess up.

Bobert sez: Cut-n-pastes are not only lazy but say nuthin' about what ***you*** think..

I second that, Guest,A. Cut-n-paste is the resort of the truly lazy and intellectually uncurious. The Internet is a vast place, and I can find "proof" that the Raeliasn really did take those cultists up on Comet Hale-Bopp. But if you really need to inundate us with crud you found under RW rocks, just link the URL, and give us s few short words you think relevant. Then, try and tell us, in your own words, what you're thinking. Might help to establish the fact that at least you are thinking....

BTW, Victoria Toenzig is a bought-and-paid-for "spinmeister" for the Republican party. I really don't gave a c*** about what she thinks or says (and the two are not the same).

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:32 PM

GUEST 07 Nov 05 - 08:44 PM, congratulations! You have just managed to add several orders of magnitude to the concept of "cowardly sleaze-ball."

Since you have nothing else, you use veiled accusations and innuendoes to attack the person who started and maintains this thread. Unable to come up with anything that can refute the messages he posts, you think you can solve your problems by killing the messenger. This give a pretty good example of the ethical level of many of the more outspoken supporters of the Bush administration, and also the ethical level on which the Bush administration itself to operates. And they talk about "moral values! It's enough to make any person with a sense of decency up-chuck!!

Well, it ain't gonna work! It's been used too often and it's become downright predictable. Obviously, you are a disciple of Karl Rove. People like you are disgusting!

Crawl back under your rock with the others of your species.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Dr. Evil
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 03:58 PM

[quoting a certain Ralph Hilton on an off topic subject]
I would add that one of the people whom I talked to who was present at the time said that he conversed with Susan's father many years later and did his best to explain what occurred to him. I personally respect him as a man of integrity and believe him.
[end quote]

... and that's all I have to say about this.

Dr Evil <- Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland der schreibt

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 04:22 PM

Bush's war role at issue

Supreme Court to review scope of president's powers

By CHARLES LANE

The Washington Post


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to rule on the legality of the Bush administration's military tribunals for accused terrorists.

The case sets up what could be one of the most significant rulings on presidential war powers since the end of World War II.

President Bush has claimed broad power to conduct the war against al-Qaida and said questions about the detention of suspected terrorists, their interrogation, trial and punishment are matters for him to decide as commander in chief.

But the court's announcement that it would hear the case of Osama bin Laden's former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, shows that the justices feel the judicial branch also has a role to play. The court has focused on whether Bush has the power to set up the commissions and whether detainees facing military trials can go to court in the United States to secure the protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions.

The justices have chosen to intervene at a sensitive time for the Bush administration. The Senate is mounting its first sustained challenge to the administration's claim that it alone can determine what interrogation methods are proper for terror detainees. The United States has come under fire after disclosures that the CIA has interrogated suspects at secret "black sites" in Eastern Europe.

All of that will be in the background as the justices consider a case that will turn on their view of whether the other branches of government can and should permit the executive branch to make all the rules in the battle against al-Qaida.

(Kansas City press, this date)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 05:11 PM

Thanks for the air cover, stranger. Der Tod may have once been Meister in far Germany, but of late the pendulum seems to be swinging elsewhere. And you too, Bill, and good Bobert.

I am always open to PMs.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Nov 05 - 08:59 PM

Well, gol danged, folks...

After Harry Reid forced Senate rules and closed the Senate last week to try to push forward the investigation into just how the Bush folks used faulty intellegence to get the US into QuagIraq, it looks like its back to business as usual...

Now the Repubs, with Chairman of the Senate Intellegence Comittee, Pat Roberts (R-Kan) want to further protect the American people from the truth by using a "single source" out for Bush and/or any of his flunkies...

Here's the way the Repubs want it:

Senator Jay Rockefeller to Condi Rice: "Mrs Rice, even though there were several intellegence papers that disproved your claim that Saddam had purchased aluminun tubes on September 8, 2002, you made the statement 'high-quality aliminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs'... Were you aware that these tubes could also be used, as was later found out to be true, for anti-aircraft rockets... Where did you get your information, Ms. Rice???"

Condi Rice: "I recieved it fromAh-med Chalabi."

Sen. Rockefeller: "But, Ms. Rice. Mr. Chalabi hadn't been in Iraq for the last 20 years so..."

Senator Roberts (interupting Sen. Rockefeller): "Whoa, Jay... Ms. Rice said she recieved the infomation from Mr Chalabi and according to the rules, she doesn't have to answer any more questions regarding the aluuminum tubes."

Senator Rokefeller: "Yes, Pat, but there were several cridible sources within out own intellegence circles who were sayin..."

Senator Roberts: "Rules are rules, Jay."

Now some of you may think this sounds very silly and, well, it is very silly... And stupid... Like why, if we are trying to get to the bottom of how one power hungry madman, with a bunch of power hungry yes-men can willie-friggin-nilly take our country to war and then isn't it reasonable to be able to ask real questions and get real answers???

This is nothin' more of the same bullsh*t cover-up that these crooks have continued since stealin' the 2000 election and guess what... Hey, they may think they own America buut their days are numbered...

Ya' all see what is happein' in France??? Get my drift???

Bad enough to be lied to but these crooks is rippin' off the avearge American workin' man or woman, to boot...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 03:14 PM

Bush's Minor Role in Election Outcomes

"Thinking back one year to the president's re-election triumph and his broad reading of his mandate, it's hard to believe he could be this small a factor for candidates and causes he favors. "

NPR.org, November 9, 2005 · At the risk of having to turn in my pundit's badge and gun, let me say what must be said: this week's off-year election results were not about George W. Bush.

This statement is, of course, anathema in the world of media politics -- a world in which everything must begin and end with the president. The most inevitable question in any broadcast interview is always the same: "What does this mean for the president?"

In this case the answer to that question ought to be pretty simple. But most of us in Washington find it all but impossible to admit that a round of voting anywhere was not about the president or the vice president or any of their staff. After all, that would mean it wasn't all about Washington.

This week's voting was, in fact, all about the individual races and ballot questions in the several states. And while the Bush administration has official (or at least discernible) positions bearing on many of these contests, those positions bore remarkably little weight.

Voters in Virginia and New Jersey had many motivating factors specific to their states and candidates, not the least of which were the personalities of the candidates themselves. Voters may also have been rejecting some classic examples of ham-fisted negative ads. In Virginia, Democratic nominee Tim Kaine was cast as soft on Hitler because he says his religious beliefs are opposed to capital punishment. In New Jersey, Democratic nominee Jon Corzine had to contend with nasty quotations from his divorced wife.

In Virginia, the man behind the results was not Bush but current governor Mark Warner, a term-limited Democrat whose style and success in office clearly carried Kaine -- especially in the crucial Northern Virginia suburbs.

In New Jersey, now a solid Democratic venue, the heavy financial advantage of Democrat Jon Corzine, an incumbent senator worth hundreds of millions of dollars, outweighed the troubled legacy of his party in the statehouse.

And if these two marquee races had little to do with Mr. Bush, the president was completely invisible in California, where voters rejected four ballot measures Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had begged them to pass.

Perhaps the most direct slap the president got was in St. Paul, Minn., where a Democratic mayor who broke with his party to back Bush in 2004 was turned out of office in a landslide. In the rest of the big-city mayoral contests, the president was about as important as he is to urban fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 06:43 PM

John Kerry's current letter:

"We can't depend on George W. Bush finally seeing the light. And we surely can't rely on Dick Cheney finally telling the truth. We can't even count on Karl Rove seeing big Democratic victories in the 2005 elections as a sign that Americans want a clear strategy in Iraq, not just more slash and burn Republican staged events that aim to mislead.

We've got to count on intense grassroots pressure forcing Republicans in the House and Senate to force this White House to face reality.

That pressure ratcheted up yesterday when Republican candidates who aligned themselves with Bush fell to defeat in Virginia and New Jersey. Bush's last-minute personal campaigning in Virginia sealed the Republican candidate's defeat.

The bottom line: It's becoming harder and harder for the Republican Party to defend Bush's failures.

And no Bush failure is doing more damage than the President's stubborn clinging to self defeating "stay as long as it takes" rhetoric in Iraq.

That's why, in just a few days' time, nearly 200,000 people have signed on to support our demand that the President present a clear and concrete plan for Iraq. We're starting with a call for the withdrawal of 20,000 American troops over the holidays, linked to the successful completion of December elections in Iraq -- sending a signal to Iraqis that Iraq belongs to them. And we're pressing the Bush Administration to get it right with a new strategy that will bring the vast majority of our combat troops home by the end of 2006."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,David Cresswell
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:25 PM

Any administration that is named after the female pubic region can't be all bad!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 07:25 PM

Yeah, I hope they do stay the course 'cause it's gonna take 'um right into the iceberg... And down they will go.... Down, down, down...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:19 PM

Bush is humiliated as Republicans suffer losses in local elections
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 10 November 2005
President George Bush, already suffering his lowest approval ratings, was dealt another stinging blow when voters in a crucial state ignored his last-minute campaigning on behalf of the Republican candidate.

As well as sending a warning sign to Republicans across the country, the outcome of the governor's race in Virginia has focused fresh attention on the Democrat Tim Kaine, already being tipped as a candidate for the presidency in 2008.

In the battle for the White House this time last year, President Bush secured Virginia by a 10-point margin. Twelve months later, Mr Bush made an 11th-hour intervention on behalf of the Republican candidate, Jerry Kilgore, only to see Mr Kaine win by 52 points to 46. Two per cent of the electors voted for an independent candidate.

"This has been a long and difficult campaign. We've done it. We've done it," Mr Kaine told his ebullient supporters in the state capital, Richmond, on Tuesday evening.

"Tonight, the people of Virginia have sent a message - that they like the path that we chose and they want to keep the state moving forward."

In a similar battle in New Jersey a Democrat, Jon Corzine, won a nasty and hard-fought contest for the state's governorship, securing the contest by a surprising nine-point margin. While New Jersey has traditionally been a Democratic state, Virginia has not.

With the congressional elections still a year away, the orthodox opinion is that the local elections held in so-called "off" years have little value as harbingers to the future. But this year - certainly in the case of Virginia - Mr Bush gave the contest a broader context by placing himself into the equation.

"It's certainly a bloody nose for Mr Bush," said Stephen Hess, a former speechwriter for President John F Kennedy and a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. "He did not have to campaign at the very last minute for Kilgore. It's as if he feels this is more significant."

Mr Bush and his administration were already on the back foot after months of low ratings as a result of the continuing chaos and violence in Iraq, rising petrol prices and the fallout over the indictment of the Vice-President's chief of staff, Lewis Libby.

An opinion poll published on Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre put Mr Bush's rating at just 36 points - the lowest of his presidency.

The realisation that Mr Bush's personal input was not enough to turn around the situation in Virginia will be of considerable concern to Republican candidates who are already concerned about going to the polls next year carrying the baggage of the prolonged war in Iraq.

A House representative, Rahm Emmanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said: "Our voters, going into the mid-term elections are mobilised and energised. Theirs are despondent."

The result in Virginia has also drawn fresh attention to the political future of the outgoing Democratic Governor, Mark Warner. Mr Hess said that Mr Warner was able to use his personal popularity and appeal to ensure a victory for Mr Kaine, his lieutenant-governor. In effect, Mr Warner's coat-tails were longer than Mr Bush's.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 08:33 PM

Well, since movin' back to Virginny I have been reacquaited with the unescapable fact that Virgina is one danged "red" state but...

...hey, Kaine, who was not the strongest campaigner, beat Repub Jerry Kilgore by some 5 points!!!! And this just one night after Bush stoppin' by Richmond in Air Force One fir some last minute campaignin'....

Bush has not only become America and his own worse enemy but that of Repubs everywhere thinkin' out their '06 election strategies...

Move over Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover... New dof gonna be sharin' the bench with ya' all...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 10:02 PM

Don't disregard the fact that both states went Dem 4 years ago and the following election saw an increase in Repub control in Washington. Sorry to bother you with the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 10:24 PM

The truth, GUEST A, was that a Mark Warner comes around not often in Virginia... Might of fact, like never... Did you grow up in Virginia??? No??? I did, and you can take it to the bank that Mark Warner won in a state that has become increasingly Republican since Wilder and Robb with a message that was both pro-business and pro-education... Seems you get one or another but not both but he delivered on both....

There is no reason to believe that Kaine can follow in Warner's footsteps... He did not articulate any plan that connected the dots... Yet he won???

This was Jerry Kilgore's race to looze and he did his part with the negative ads and havin' Bush come to Richmond the night before the election....

Those two things cost him the election...

Yeah, if you don't think Ginny is all that red, come on down, 'er up an' see fir yerseff and guess what??? Bush's boy went down.... Sho nuff went down....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 10:24 PM

Author Melissa Pehle Responds to Barbara Streisand's Request for the Impeachment of President Bush

Should Anyone Be Held Responsible For the Actions of Another?
If Barbara Streisand has her way you could.

    She is proclaiming that President Bush should be impeached not for anything he did, but rather for the actions of someone who is in his administration. Not even someone who works directly under or with him, but someone who works with the Vice President.

    Let's put that in layman's terms. How would that play out in the every day life of an American citizen? That means that if you are a supervisor at any level you should lose your job if any employee under you, whether you hired them or not, committed a wrongful act. In other words, the district manager of Burger King should lose his job because a second shift cashier stole money from the register. How's that for wrongful termination?

    The poor guy didn't even hire the cashier, probably didn't even know them and yet he should suffer for their acts. Does that sound right to you? It doesn't to me.

    Personally I don't think that anyone should be held accountable for the actions of another unless they directly cause the actions to take place. You know, if that district manager stood there and told that cashier to take the money out of the register or they were fired. Then, the district manager should go, but only then.

    After all, in this day and age how can you truly know what someone else is going to do? Even someone in your own family, let alone a friend or simply an employee.

    After all, do you know the minds of everyone around you? Probably not. I know I've thought I knew people only to find out I didn't when they did something that seemed totally out of character from who I believed them to be.

    Have any of you worked with someone who was fired for stealing and were totally surprised by that as you'd thought they were totally trustworthy. Or how about a trusted friend who stole from your home, or abused your child? It's not like you would have opened your home to them if you thought they would do a thing like that, would you?

    So, how can she ask us to hold our President responsible for the actions of someone not even directly connected to him when we can't be any more sure of people than we are? Should you be held responsible for someone molesting your child because they were a friend or a babysitter you hired to care for them? By her theology, if someone you hire molests your child you are the one responsible for it. Or if an employee of yours kills someone should you be at fault as well?

    For that matter if people should be held responsible for the actions of others where was she during Whitewater? After all, the Clintons were involved in that from 1978 on and people working with them broke the law and went to prison. So, why wasn't she spouting off that they should be punished for the actions of their colleagues and friends? At least in this case they were directly connected. And, even through all of the varied stories Hillary came up with at the time, she admitted that much.

    So, what makes the Clintons above the law and no one else? Personally I don't think anything does, or at least it shouldn't. They are adults, and should be held responsible for their actions just like any other American. Maybe more so as they are supposed to be representatives of the American people to the world.

    Hillary even impeded the investigation by hiding documents from the investigators for two years and lying about it. Didn't Martha Stewart just go to prison for that?

    So, why didn't Barbara Streisand stand up and yell for President Clinton to be impeached and fight against Hillary holding public office? I'll tell you.

    She didn't because she is a Democrat. Not to say that is a bad thing. Every one is entitled to their own politic beliefs. However, when you slam one person for their actions, or those of the people around them, you ought to be careful. Like my mother always used to say 'Be careful what you ask for.' And, like my dad used to say 'When you point your finger at someone else there's always three pointing back at you.'

    The guilty dog always barks first. Bark on Barbara.

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw307292.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

Scientology joins the anti-war campaign

In Portland, Oregon a coalition of "mainstream religious organizations" has joined the protest against war with Iraq. And that coalition "also includes such fringe religious organizations as the Church of Scientology," reports The Portland Tribune.

Why is Scientology suddenly so interested in preventing a US war with Iraq?

This looks like a cynical effort by the controversial church to network contacts and curry favor amongst mainstream religious leaders.

Scientology, which only a few years ago acheived religious tax-exempt status and has a history of bad press, is always looking for credibility and some way to burnish its image.

Interestingly, the controversial church plays both sides of the political spectrum. Scientology had close ties to the former Clinton White House ,but now seems friendly with the Bush family and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Does this all sound a bit two-faced?

Never mind, politics Scientology style is apparently a buffet best served cold, devoid of cumbersome commitments based upon a single set of consistent and sincerely held ideals.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20082

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 10:52 PM

Wilson�s House of Lies        
By DiscoverTheNetworks.org
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 8, 2005


�The trip I went on was based upon a transcription of these documents that were later shown to be forgeries.�

The only problem with Wilson�s supposition is that the forged documents would not be in the hands of the intelligence community until seven months after he had been sent to Niger, a fact which directly contradicts his public assertions....

Select Committee report provided some answers. Not surprisingly, their findings indicated that Wilson had flat-out lied to reporters and interviewers, as his wife was shown to have played an instrumental role in procuring the assignment for her husband.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20082

With the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney�s Chief of Staff, Lewis �Scooter� Libby, Ambassador Joseph Wilson has been returned to his favorite station in life: the limelight.
Wilson has been a staple on numerous television programs while also finding time for an appearance at the National Press Club, during which he pilloried President Bush for creating �a crisis in governance.� The media have been overjoyed to have their favorite Bush administration foil back on television on a consistent basis. Almost all interviews of Wilson conducted since Libby�s indictment have been characterized by a palpable tenor of praise for, and deference to, Wilson. One example of this was a November 2nd �interview� by Keith Olbermann, whose soft, non-confrontational questions were typified by the following:

�Turning to the campaign against you and your wife that certainly began in 2003, there seems to be, I guess, a broad sense that that campaign ended at some point. And yet you can turn on Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or any other reactionary parrot, and you hear these same talking points about you�.Would you just address those three points?�

And so on. In their rush to express their adoration for Wilson, however, the media have again failed the American public on a matter of the utmost importance. With their help, a politically motivated, pathological liar has been elevated to the status of persecuted American hero, his rhetoric taken at face value no matter how deranged it becomes.

Were the media to expend even a fraction of the investigative energy displayed during its pursuit of Mr. Libby in confirming the stories of Mr. Wilson, they would discover that their idol is hardly worthy of admiration. In reality, Wilson is a man who has repeatedly and blatantly parroted falsehoods -- on television and in print -- in order to further the ideology of the far left. His recollections and opinions have been exposed as gross misrepresentations, yet his reputation among the media and a significant portion of the population remains sterling. This misperception of Wilson is unacceptable, especially coming at a time when an increasing number of Americans have apparently begun to sympathize with the former ambassador�s criticism of American foreign policy � criticism which, in its essence, is unabashedly defeatist.

�Former Hippie, Surf Bum and Ski Bum�

Joseph Wilson was born in 1949 in California, into an upper-middle class lifestyle. His parents, freelance photo-journalists, regularly moved their son across Europe throughout his childhood, writing quaint society pieces for state-side newspapers. Following college at UC-Santa Barbara, Wilson lived the life of full-time surf/ski bum and part-time carpenter. Seeking some direction in life, he joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1976, which led to a 22-year career in public service, including embassy jobs in Niger, South Africa, and the Congo. He achieved some notoriety in 1990, when, as Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad, he met with Saddam Hussein on the eve of the Gulf War.

In 1997, while working for NATO, Wilson met his future wife, Valerie Plame, during a reception for the Turkish ambassador in Washington. On their third or fourth date, during a �heavy make-out session,� Plame revealed to Wilson that she was, in fact, a covert operative for the CIA. The new couple then returned to work in Washington, where Wilson advised on African affairs for the National Security Council (NSC) in the Clinton administration. There, Wilson was criticized by some on the NSC staff for being too deferential to African and European complaints about American policy. At that point, admittedly, Wilson�s own career as a government bureaucrat was on a �down-ward� spiral, leading to his retirement in 1998. It would not be long, however, before Wilson�s relevancy would be rescued with the help of the CIA and the ever-mysterious Ms. Plame.


Into Africa

Wilson�s account of his infamous 2002 mission to Niger reads as if torn from the pages of the spy novels of John LeCarre, replete with exotic locales, hushed discussions between government officials, and intriguing clues. However, the story shares another trait with the novels of LeCarre: it is overwhelmingly fiction, tinged intermittently with snippets of fact.

The saga of Joe Wilson and the CIA begins in late February 2002, when he was sent to Niger by the Agency in order to confirm intelligence reports which suggested that the Iraqi government was actively trying to purchase uranium from Niger�s numerous uranium concerns. Landing in the capital city of Niamey, Wilson first conferred with the U.S. ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, who told him that she had personally �debunked� the Iraqi reports from her air-conditioned perch in the U.S. embassy. Wilson then got down to work:

�I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.�

How Wilson was able to ascertain these facts through simple interviews is unknown. After all, he was essentially asking Nigerien officials to reveal their own involvement in corruption involving uranium shipments to Iraq to an admitted agent of the United States government, while offering them nothing more than tea in return for admissions of their personal perfidy.

Strangely, even though Wilson was carrying out what was, in effect, a confidential mission for the CIA, he was not even required to sign a confidentiality agreement, an odd oversight for an agency usually obsessed with operational security. This preoccupation with security was especially prescient in the context of the Iraq-Niger connection, an area of interest that was protected by the highest levels of official secrecy available within the intelligence community. Perhaps, as has been suggested, some in the Agency hoped Wilson would act exactly how he eventually did: divulging his knowledge in such a biased and outrageous fashion that it would seriously damage the President, a goal that many CIA officials were obviously working towards in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

An additional mystery surrounding Wilson�s mission was the impetus behind it. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Wilson identified an infamous set of forged documents -- provided to the British and the CIA by a dubious �stringer� -- as the sole basis for his trip:

�The trip I went on was based upon a transcription of these documents that were later shown to be forgeries.�

The only problem with Wilson�s supposition is that the forged documents would not be in the hands of the intelligence community until seven months after he had been sent to Niger, a fact which directly contradicts his public assertions. When interviewed on the matter by staffers of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2004, Wilson admitted to being the source of a front-page June 12, 2003 Washington Post story, written by Walter Pincus, in which Wilson -- referred to as a �retired American diplomat� -- stated that he knew the documents were false because �the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.� Senate investigators then reminded Wilson that it was simply impossible for him to have seen the documents, considering he had never been allowed access to them. Wilson later admitted he may have �misspoken,� but continues (as of this writing in early November 2005) to repeat the allegation in the press.

Since Wilson�s charge that he had in fact seen the documents directly contradicted the sworn statement of several CIA officers, Senate investigators saw fit to dig deeper into his claims. Even after additional questioning, CIA officers in the Directorate of Operations (DO) were adamant: they had not provided Wilson with any of the documents he claimed to have read and dismissed as irregular. Asked again about the documents, Wilson could only suggest that Agency �sources� -- which he was unable to identify -- had given him his information.

One would expect that, given his purported findings -- or lack thereof -- Wilson would have left the CIA officials who he briefed upon his return with the impression that the Niger-Iraq story was categorically false. However, Wilson�s brief -- which he never saw fit to write down -- actually confirmed the Niger-Iraq connection in the eyes of the CIA officers who heard it. As Senate investigators would later report, the CIA deemed Wilson�s information meaningless, except for the confirmation that he provided that Iraqi officials had indeed visited Niger in 1999, and that a former Nigerien Prime Minister had told Wilson that he felt the Iraqis were interested in buying uranium. None of these pertinent facts were included in Wilson�s eventual public statements concerning his trip, a rather telling omission.

Ms. Plame
Robert Novak�s July 2003 identification of Ms. Plame as an employee of the CIA immediately raised the question: had she played a role in procuring the assignment for her husband? Wilson and his allies were effusive in refuting the very idea that Plame had anything to do with sending him to Africa. In his book, he writes �Valerie had nothing to do with the matter,� while deeming speculation on the subject as �bullsh*t.� Spokesmen at the CIA concurred, responding to press inquiries by stating, �she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment.� Still, the mystery lingered, especially since even a cursory reading of Wilson�s resume reveals that he possesses no background whatsoever in weapons of mass destruction. Why then did the Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD) of the CIA�s Directorate of Operations see fit to send him to Niger in the first place?

Finally, a full year after the controversy first erupted, the Senate Select Committee report provided some answers. Not surprisingly, their findings indicated that Wilson had flat-out lied to reporters and interviewers, as his wife was shown to have played an instrumental role in procuring the assignment for her husband. According to the committee report, Plame initiated the process by authoring a memo addressed to the Deputy Director of the CPD on February 12, 2002, in which she alluded to her husband�s �good relations� with government officials. In order to further stoke the CIA�s interest in utilizing her husband, Plame then facilitated a meeting between Wilson and a senior CIA officer.

Plame�s integral involvement in Wilson�s selection evidently troubled some in the CPD, who doubted that his trip would be in any way beneficial, with one officer noting �it appears that the results from this source will be suspect at best, and not believable under most scenarios.� Others voiced concern over the fact that nepotism had played such a clear role in selecting Wilson for the assignment, disappointment expressed in the Senate report, which stated, �it was unfortunate, considering the significant resources available to the CIA,� that Wilson �was the only option available.�



Ms. Plame�s role in the Niger investigation is further called into question by comments she allegedly made to her husband when first approaching him with the assignment. She told Wilson in early February that there was a �crazy report� that connected Iraq to the Niger�s uranium mine. This sort of prefacing of intelligence by a high-ranking analyst, similar to the disbelief voiced by U.S. Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick, represents direct violation of the basic analytical skill-set, which is designed to overcome personal biases. Obviously, from the very beginning, Ms. Plame was personally and adamantly against the idea that the story itself was valid. What better way to engineer the vindication of her opinion than having her husband sent to investigate the matter?



The War Against the White House



With all of the details concerning his trip still classified and the definitive objections of the Butler Report and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence months in the future, a gap in public knowledge formed that allowed the story of the Niger investigation to be defined solely from Wilson�s standpoint. As the United States began to accelerate its plans for war, Wilson used this vacuum to begin his own conflict with the White House, using a pliant press as his weapon. Perhaps no more pliant journalist existed than liberal New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof, who was happy to use Wilson�s leaks as the basis for his May 6, 2003 column, which quoted an unnamed source as telling him �In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the CIA and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.� Wilson later justified the leak by claiming he had been stirred by the 16-word reference to the Niger intelligence that had been included in President Bush�s State of the Union Address, compelling him to fulfill his �civic duty� by passing the information to Kristof.



Wilson�s subversion campaign continued in the pages of The New Republic, which on June 19 published a piece quoting �a former ambassador� -- Wilson -- as suggesting that the Bush administration �knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie.� As would be borne out in later investigations, Wilson�s comments to Kristof and The New Republic were blatant falsehood. However, by this point, for whatever reason, Wilson had decided to use his small amount of knowledge regarding the Niger-uranium case to slander the White House, a campaign that apparently stirred Karl Rove and Scooter Libby to action in an attempt to discern who exactly was spreading disinformation in the media.



Perhaps unhappy with his inability to harm the administration through leaked invective, Wilson finally put a name to his allegations, writing a solemn op-ed for the New York Times on July 7, 2003. Entitled �What I Didn�t Find in Africa,� Wilson in this piece made it clear that, after an exhaustive search, he had found no evidence of Iraqi attempts to procure uranium in Niger, stating additionally, �I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.� Notably, Wilson has always refused to explain how -- given his minute role in determining the extent of the Iraqi threat -- he could justify such far-reaching statements on issues with which he was never involved.



Wilson�s campaign against the Bush administration hit the ideological stratosphere once the identity of his wife was revealed in Novak�s column. The former ambassador quickly put himself in the role of the victim, seizing the opportunity to denounce the administration�s �attacks� on him and his wife, while observing a massive and broad conspiracy behind the revelation of her identity. At the head of this plot, charged Wilson, was Karl Rove, who he hoped to see �frog-marched� out of the White House in chains.



Having become a celebrity in the world of Bush hatred, Wilson then interjected himself into the 2004 Presidential campaign. He was embraced by the foreign policy team of Senator John Kerry, which invited Wilson to sit on its advisory committee. Wilson also joined the senator from Massachusetts on the campaign trail, gracing audiences with statements such as �I don't care who you vote for, but get out there and caucus. Don't leave it to the neoconservatives and evangelical Christians.� Had Kerry indeed defeated President Bush, it is more than likely that Wilson would have had a role in shaping American foreign policy. It would have been quite a promotion for Joseph Wilson, who only two years before had been a retired and forgotten diplomat.



Wilson�s fall from credibility was no less rapid than his ascent to political stardom. In July 2004, the British government released a report on the accuracy of pre-war intelligence. Chaired by Lord Butler, a widely respected former government minister, the committee�s report was largely critical of British and American intelligence concerning Iraq�s supposed WMD arsenals. On the Niger episode, however, the Butler committee stated categorically:



�The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit [a reference to the 1999 visit of Iraqi officials that even Wilson had reported] was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.�



This fact came as a mortal blow to Wilson�s false narrative of an administration which relied solely on the �forged documents� to authorize a CIA investigation into Niger�s uranium mines. In fact, the Butler report stated that British intelligence had been interested in the Niger uranium trade years before the documents were even available. The report also confirmed that the CIA, by 2002, had come to believe the British claim that Saddam Hussein had indeed been interested in procuring uranium from Niger, meaning that the Agency had either judged Wilson�s doubts as inconsequential or incorrect. Ironically, the committee confirmed that Iraq had been attempting to buy such materials as late as 2002, the same time period in which Wilson had busied himself sipping mint tea with corrupt Nigerien kleptocrats.



Concerning the �16 words� controversy which had engulfed the White House to the glee of Mr. Wilson, the Senate committee report -- issued within days of the Butler report -- found that President Bush had been fully justified in including the intelligence in his speech. With regard to Director George Tenet�s apology that such information was featured in such a momentus address, the report deemed it misguided, instead criticizing the CIA for not following up on the initial charge sufficiently. Given the fact that the Agency could only bring itself to send Wilson, hardly a seasoned investigator, the report�s negative appraisal of the Agency�s actions seems particularly well-founded.



Fellow Travelers



Wilson�s nonsensical and abrasive hysteria concerning the actions of the Bush administration instantly won him friends among the militant left, who embraced Wilson as a champion. These relationships might strike some as strange since, according to the jacket of his own book, Wilson is a self-ascribed �centrist.� Judged solely by the company he keeps, however, Wilson is far from the avowed moderate which he insistently claims to be.



As part of his half-hearted effort to justify his credentials as a centrist, Wilson claims in his book to having won an award for truth-telling. He neglected to mention that the honor came from the hard-left journal The Nation, which bestowed upon Wilson the �Award for Truth-Telling� during a gala dinner in October 2003.



Soon after being honored by The Nation, Wilson began to delve into the conspiracy mania that has defined the anti-war left. In October 2003, he added a messianic quality to his rhetoric, suggesting that �neo-conservatives and religious conservatives have hijacked this administration and I consider myself on a personal mission to destroy both.� His heroic task was made more difficult, he admitted, because the American media had been �totally co-opted by the administration,� due to the �aggressive intimidation by the administration and the right wing.�   



As the language of the anti-war movement became more caustic, so too did Wilson�s cant. He took to calling the Bush administration �a radical regime, not a Republican administration,� while also decrying them as �fascists,� and �the most oppressive crowd I have ever seen.� With a nod towards his extremist allies, Wilson even theorized that the Bush administration came to power through underhanded methods, �While I am not an expert in elections, I can see how people might believe the last two elections were stolen.�



His opposition to the Iraq war also became more rancorous, once calling the war �a disaster, clearly carried out under false pretences.� He expressed sympathy with Iraqis forced to live under �occupation,� stating �Iraq is a country that remembers its history, dating back millennia. [The Iraqis] will outlive this occupation.� Concerning America�s role in the region, he lamented that he was �ashamed� to see that his country had turned into �just another imperial power who has unleashed the dogs of war.�



With his new extreme talking points in hand, Wilson soon became a fixture of the leftist media circuit, giving inflammatory interviews to fringe outlets such as AlterNet, whose contributors are known to author and publish such tracts as Anti-Capitalism: A Field Guide to the Global Justice Movement. He is also a favorite at MoveOn.org gatherings, where he has delivered some of his more delusional harangues. In addition, Wilson cooperated with faux documentarian Robert Greenwald in his masterpiece of misinformation �Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War.� Wilson�s flirtation with the anti-war movement soon brought him into contact with a fixture in the world of leftist media manipulation, David Fenton of Fenton Communications, who famously concocted the �Camp Casey� strategy in partnership with Cindy Sheehan during the summer of 2005. In 2004, Fenton created the �Iraq Policy Information Program,� a speaker�s bureau that coordinated leftwing attacks on the Iraq War in the media. Its most celebrated advocate: Joe Wilson.      



Perhaps the most infamous example of Wilson�s fraternity with the far left came in June 2005, when he participated in the infamous Downing Street Memo conference held in a Capitol Hill basement and chaired by vehement Bush critic Congressman John Conyers. Fellow speakers included Cindy Sheehan and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who explained the motivation of the Iraq war through acronym, much to the delight of those gathered �O for Oil, I for Israel, and L for leveraging our land bases.� Wilson, in agreement or inured to such lunacy, remained silent and seated, nonplussed.



�A Living Hell�



In a recent Los Angeles Times article entitled �Our 27 Months of Hell,� Wilson makes the audacious charge that �senior administration officials used the power of the White House to make our lives a living hell.� These claims of persecution were then reiterated in the October 30th edition of 60 Minutes -- featuring Wilson -- which deemed the former ambassador a patriot who had been relegated to a tortured existence through the shadowy -- if never enumerated -- machinations of the Bush administration. During his interview with Ed Bradley, Wilson went so far as to claim his wife�s life had been threatened, stating �there have been specific threats.�            



Given the torment and threats to which Wilson had now apparently fallen victim, one would expect him and his wife to have returned to the quiet life of private citizens, wary of the attention garnered by their minor celebrity. Wilson himself was fond of suggesting to the media that his wife was devoted to secrecy, telling Tim Russert on Meet the Press that �she would rather chop off her right arm than say anything to the press and she will not allow herself to be photographed.� The media dutifully played along, with the New York Times profiling Ms. Plame as a woman who �has guarded her privacy� and �shunned publicity.�



In actuality, Wilson has assiduously promoted the image of both his spouse and himself, as an integral part of the public relations war he has waged against the White House since going public with his spurious allegations. Once busy assuring the American audience of their dislike of the limelight, the Wilsons quickly reversed their position, cooperating with all sorts of media outlets while indulging in the many benefits society routinely affords A-list celebrities.



The Wilson�s� celebrity existence began with a story that appeared in the January 2004 edition of Vanity Fair, written by Vicky Ward. The article, a predictably sympathetic piece, was made famous by the fact that it featured a photograph of the theretofore invisible Ms. Plame, albeit wrapped in fashionable headdress. The impeccably staged photo shoot -- taken just days after Wilson had told Mr. Russert that his wife would not allow herself to be photographed -- offered the public its first glimpse of the covert agent of whom so much had been said. Wilson, trying to avoid the fact that the photo was staged, called it �a spur of the moment� event, even though the photo�s caption credited a stylist for �hair, makeup, and grooming.� An ebullient Wilson later told Wolf Blitzer �I think someday, it, too, will be in the International Spy Museum.� Given Wilson�s odd fixation on the fact that the administration had �outed� his wife, it seemed inexplicable that he would further develop her public persona while simultaneously warning of the horrendous damage her loss of cover had wrought.



Months later, Wilson seemed to express some regret about the photo, noting that she had been covered up in Vanity Fair �in the interest of personal security.� However, Wilson�s heartfelt concern for his wife�s safety seemed to wane by June 2005, when the two were photographed -- again in Vanity Fair -- together at a party thrown by the magazine during the Tribeca Film Festival. The scarf, by this time, had come off. The party -- which featured festival organizer Robert DeNiro -- served as a convenient launching point for Wilson�s Hollywood aspirations, as he admitted to often discussing with his wife �who would play her in the movie� that he envisioned being made about his experiences.



Following the publication of his memoir entitled, ironically, The Politics of Truth, Wilson and his wife instantly became the toast of the capitol, appearing at various high-profile functions, their every move reported in the Washington Post, which detailed Ms. Plame�s features and Wilson�s eagerness to introduce her to all comers. While living his life in hell, Wilson nevertheless had time to attend swanky cocktail parties thrown by D.C. society heavyweights such as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and NBC News correspondent Campbell Brown.



Even though the couple was apparently receiving provocative death threats, the Wilsons had no problem cooperating in soft profile pieces for The New York Times, Time Magazine, and The Washington Post which revealed, among other things, the neighborhood where they currently live, the names of their neighbors, and other nearby landmarks. For a couple fearing for their life, they seemed completely nonchalant about their own security, as even casual readers of major newspapers could discern their general location.



Wilson�s �27 months of hell� also proved to be quite profitable, as his autobiography reaped a heady seven-figure sum; he also earned thousands of dollars on the speaking circuit and through media appearances.   



Conclusion



Wilson�s method of discourse has become emblematic of the leftist modus operandi when it comes to opposing the Iraq War: repeat lies frequently and simply enough that they become a regular part of the public discourse. Playing the victim card effectively, Wilson has additionally been able to accrue a certain amount of public sympathy due to his false narrative, including a White House cover-up and smear campaign that -- according to Independent Council Patrick Fitzgerald -- simply never occurred.

In this endeavor, Wilson has been aided by a cooperative media which continues to sing his praises even as his story collapses under the weight of even cursory analysis.

The mainstream media has simply forfeited its objectivity and ignored the contradictions inherent in Wilson�s story, instead relying on the hopelessly compromised but nevertheless provocative tale woven by the former ambassador. Their devotion to him stems not only from their shared animus towards the Bush administration, but also from their refusal to admit that their faith in Wilson -- so eloquently expressed in the high-profile articles of Nicholas Kristof and Walter Pincus -- was completely misplaced.

Due to the media�s inability to admit to their own inaccuracies, it is doubtful they will ever seriously question the myriad fallacies regularly espoused by Wilson. Thus, the former ambassador-turned-disgraced critic of the Bush administration will undoubtedly continue to parrot his lies, secure in the knowledge that his niche of irrational Bush-haters will celebrate the story of him and his wife, regardless of its dubious validity.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 05 - 11:20 PM

I gotta say Guest, that the combination of these authorless screeds full of high-flown assertions with no anchoring to fact, no references except to some wild-eyed RW yellow journal, with lousy punctuation, posted by someone who is too afraid of communicating to sign their own name... well, I gotta say what it adds up to me is...well...blithering. You seem to be foaming at the mouth about stuff which is completely unrelated to this thread, and I can't for the life of me understand why you keep coming back here.

Maybe it's the company. I could understand that.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 07:50 AM

Wilson lied, kids died!

Another high-profile John Kerry supporter was outed as a nutcase this week: Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Walter Mitty of conspiracy theorists. Wilson is the ne'er-do-well WASP embraced by the Democrats last year for calling Bush a liar. Wilson claimed to be shocked, appalled, alarmed when President Bush said during his 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wilson was shocked because, in 2002, he had been sent on an unpaid make-work job to Niger to "investigate" whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger. Wilson's method of investigating consisted of asking African potentates questions like: Did you commit a horrible crime, which, if so, would ruin your country's relationship with the United States? I have no independent means of corroborating this, so be honest!

On the basis of the answers he got, Wilson concluded that Saddam had not sought uranium ore from Niger. Since "Africa" means "Niger" and "British intelligence" means "Joseph Wilson," Wilson realized in horror that Bush's statement referred to Wilson's very own report! Out of love for his country and an insatiable desire to have someone notice his worthless existence, Wilson wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling Bush a liar.

The whole story was already nutty enough to be believed by every columnist at The New York Times. But then journalist Robert Novak revealed that Clown Wilson had been sent as an unpaid intern to Niger by his wife, a chair-warmer at the CIA who apparently wanted to get him out of the house. This in turn provoked our own Walter Mitty to accuse Karl Rove of outing his wife as an undercover "spy" in retaliation for his attacks on the Bush administration. (And P. Diddy told me Britney Spears is out to get me! I'm a spy too!)

In response to Wilson's crazy behavior, he was made an adviser to the Kerry campaign. He was also fawned over by Vanity Fair magazine, embraced by Democratic senators like Jon Corzine of New Jersey, hailed as a patriot in The New York Times, awarded The Nation magazine's "Award for Truth-Telling" and given a lucrative book contract.

According to The Washington Post, Wilson began wiling away his once-empty days discussing "who would play (his wife) in the movie" and fantasizing about how his obituary would read. His favorites were: "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Bush I administration political appointee who did the most damage to the Bush II administration ..." and "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the husband of the spy the White House outed ..."

I'm not sure we were waiting for any more evidence on whether Wilson was an idiot, but this week we found out he's a liar, too. The Senate report on the CIA's intelligence gathering concluded that, contrary to Wilson's statements about his own report, his findings had bolstered rather than undermined the case that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger.

Most amusingly, despite Wilson's insistence that he had been tapped for the Niger trip based on his nonexistent expertise and zero credentials, the Senate committee produced his wife's memo recommending her husband for the (unpaid) job. This followed Wilson's assertions that his wife "definitely had not proposed that I make the trip" and his astonishment that anyone could imagine his wife was "somehow involved in this," saying that "just defies logic."

When presented with the memo from his wife recommending him for the job, Wilson said only that his wife was not the one who made the decision to send him to Niger. This cleared up the matter for anyone who had been under the impression Wilson was married to George Tenet.

As an aside, I note that the main point of the Senate report was to slam the agency for its Mickey Mouse intelligence gathering on weapons of mass destruction. Guess what Wilson's wife does at the CIA? That's right! She gathers intelligence on weapons of mass destruction! No wonder she claims to be "undercover." Her fantasist husband calls the incompetent CIA paper-pusher "Jane Bond." (I'm an astronaut!)

The implicit deal the government has always had with worthless, rich WASPs is they get trivial, make-work jobs with the Foreign Service so they can go around calling themselves "diplomats"; but the trade-off is, they're not supposed to make fools of themselves or commit treason. It's not that high a hurdle. Unlike the Ivy League WASPs of yesteryear, at least worthless WASPs from the lower-ranked schools like Wilson have, thus far, managed to avoid treason. Merely being an ass shouldn't cause many problems for the country except that: One political party embraced the ass.

Wilson is an "unpaid foreign affairs adviser" to the Kerry campaign. (In yet another testament to the wisdom of the market, all Wilson's "jobs" seem to be unpaid.) Indeed, Wilson's website, denouncing the perfidy of the Bush administration, was created and paid for by "John Kerry for President." (Why haven't any crack investigative journalists noticed that?)

This may explain why Kerry was boasting about foreign leaders supporting him earlier this year: He was trying to distract voters from the fact that his strongest base of support in the United States consists of lonely fantasists hoping to make some new friend.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/anncoulter/2004/07/15/12359.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 09:51 AM

Ever get the feeling that a huge cloud of foul-smelling polecat effluvium has just been sent in your direction? An awful lot of hatred going down in these raves. Are they "popular" views or just rabid ones? (I understand the two are not mutually exclusive).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 10:04 AM

"An awful lot of hatred going down in these raves"

I see Amos as main purveyor of hatred in this thread.

Look at his personal comments about Bush.

He is dripping with venom because Bush won and Kerry lost.

He is pissed because someone else is playing in his little sandbox.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 10:07 AM

Thanks for the diagnosis, fearful One. You are mistaken about almost all of your premises. I think GWB is quite likeable as a private individual in a purely social situation. I'd hire him in a minute, for example, to tend bar for a party. I just believe he has risen above his level of competency by several orders of magnitude.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:04 PM

Guest,A: Don't disregard the fact that both states went Dem 4 years ago and the following election saw an increase in Repub control in Washington. Sorry to bother you with the truth.

"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth.

There's a few more 2X4s of reality here and here and here and here. In fact, just a long, long string of bad news for the Dubya maladministration and the Republican Rich People's Party.

Guest,A quotes (cut-n-paste) Melissa Pehle: She [Barbara Streisand] is proclaiming that President Bush should be impeached not for anything he did, but rather for the actions of someone who is in his administration. Not even someone who works directly under or with him, but someone who works with the Vice President.

Not true. For one, Libby was "Assistant to the President" as well as Cheney's COS. And Dubya knew about the leaks and that Libby and Rove were involved in the leaks, and despite his promise to do so, didn't do anything to reprimand them, much less fire them, for their actions.

Furthermore, Streisand and many others think that Dubya should be impeached not for Libby's (and Rove's) sleazy actions, but rather for his prosecution of an unjust and immoral war based on clearly false premises and based on Dubya and his maladministration's lies about the war. Sure, some of the goofups may have been incompetence, neglect, or other such 'excuses' for f***ing the pooch completely, but even if so, they were criminal incompetence and criminal neglect, and resulted in the lives of thousands being lost. And then, you RW types set the bar pretty damn low for impeachment, didn't you?

Melissa Pehle continutes blathering on: Let's put that in layman's terms. How would that play out in the every day life of an American citizen? That means that if you are a supervisor at any level you should lose your job if any employee under you, whether you hired them or not, committed a wrongful act.

In Japan, the bosses have been known to commit sepuku when the company f***s up. But even here, there's the principle of respondeat superior. You are responsible for what your company does (particularly when they do it on your bidding, as is probably the case here). But I guess this excuse-making by Melissa (repeated by Guest,A) is the Republican interpretation du jour of "taking responsibility".... Pathetic.

Pehle once again: Have any of you worked with someone who was fired for stealing and were totally surprised by that as you'd thought they were totally trustworthy. Or how about a trusted friend who stole from your home, or abused your child? It's not like you would have opened your home to them if you thought they would do a thing like that, would you?

Ummm, Guest,A: Dubya isn't firing miscreants, he's giving them Presidential Medals of Freedom!!! "You're doing a heck of a job" Brownie is still drawing a salary from FEMA ... care to explain why we're giving him more money rathe rthan demanding that he pay us back the salary we already gave him for work he didn't do?

Oh and, Guest,A, nice to see you dragging the rotting corpse of the Whitewater 'investigation' in here. What's next, Clinton's p&n!$?

And Guest,A: TownHall and WorldNetDaily are RW screech machines, funnels for the RNC "spin". You really need to move a few shelves down from the Fiction&Fantasy section down to the Current Events and Non-fiction shelves. You might learn a few things before it all comes crashing down on you and you get pushed to the brink of suicide by the enormity of it all. See, e.g., some of my links above, and take your head out of the sand....

Just a word to the wise, oh Mr. "Guest,A".

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:29 PM

Meanwhile, all the old farmers, most who voted fir Bush, out here in the Luray valley are a grumblin' big time over the Republican/Bush perscription drug program that was supposed to help out senior citizens...


Yeah, Yesterday I had to go over to Woodstock to pick up a tractor an' so I called up ol' Clifford Breeden, age 70 and *former* Bush supporter and all he did was grumble... Seems that this program is costin seniors more money than the old one??? Well then where are these billions and billions of tax payer's money going??? Well, that's what everyone 'round herer is askin' and then answerin': insurance companies and drug companies, that's where!!!

Yeah, Bush and his cronies really pulled one over on the workin; man yet again with this heist from average working class taxpayers ***AND*** the elderly...

And the old folks are seamed real good now that they are finding that rather than the cost of their perscriptions going down, they are going up... Clifford's are going from $15 a month under the old system to $64 a month under the new one...

Just talked to my mom in Florida tonight and I'm hearin' the same story from here...

Like what gives here???

I been tellin you all that Bush and his crooks is a bunch of liars and theives and noe the very folks who cast bvotes fir him last year are startin' to figgure it out....

REPEAL the MEDICARE PERSCRIPTION PROGRAM!!! It's nuthin' but robbery from the middle class and our old folks...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 06:32 PM

Man, this guy just keeps on hitting bull's eyes! Thank you, Arne!! Pow!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 08:34 PM

.....but he doesn't have a clue as to he is aiming at, Amos.
This is my first post since last night at 10:02.

Although I must admit that direction here is mainly one way. The more I have read of this thread, the term "poor loser" becomes very profound. I am somewhat sorry for your plight and maybe you can do better in the future. That doesn't mean necessarily to win but to possibly observe a smidgen of truth and fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 09:36 PM

The only "poor loser" on this thread is you, GUEST A... Don't think so??? Fasten yer seat belt and watch over the next 3 years more and more corruption disclosed and a complete demise of the Republican Party... The melt down has begun and it you wanta stand up and defend Bush, yer gonna get vaporozed in the process...

Americans have seen thru yer boy's bullsh*t just as folks hwere have seen thru yers...

You will not defned one danged policy of the Bush administartion... I gave you the pick of weapons... You picked the policy and when I presented you with FACTS, pal, you ran like "pigs from a gun"...

All you know is attack... Hey, that's fine... If it were me and you one-on-one in an alley in real life yer philosphy on self defense would have you laid out hurt real bad... NO brag, just fact... More to defending one's position than attackin'... At some point in time yer gonna have to counter...

You are unwillin' here to counter...

Like I said, you and me in the alley and if that's all you have yer gonna get hurt..

... but you can hide in yer anominity here...

Fine...

Big friggin' couragous deal... Put yerself in fir a merit badge....

Cluck, cluck, cluck...

Chicken GUEST A...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 10:07 PM

The problem is the same for Democrats and others who contend that this war was dishonestly sold to the American public by the Bush Administration, with the help of a submissive press that was afraid to ask the tough questions. They used the same sources available to Miller. What's more, the intelligence agencies of allied countries all agreed that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a threat because of its possession and development of WMD. So the perceived intelligence failure was not unique to the Bush Administration.

Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has written a powerful column for the Washington Post that laid out the problem the Times now faces when it attempts to single out Miller for special scrutiny. The fact is that it wasn't just Judith Miller at the Times who reported that the Iraqi threat was real.

Just a couple examples from Kagan of Times articles from the late 1990's make the point: "Philip Shenon reported official concerns that Iraq would be 'capable within months—and possibly just weeks or days—of threatening its neighbors with an arsenal of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons.' He reported that Iraq was thought to be 'still hiding tons of nerve gas' and was 'seeking to obtain uranium from a rogue nation or terrorist groups to complete as many as four nuclear warheads.' Tim Weiner and Steven Erlanger reported that Hussein was closer than ever 'to what he wants most: keeping a secret cache of biological and chemical weapons.'"

And Times editorials were equally clear when they warned the Clinton administration of the dangers of negotiating with Iraq. They cautioned against letting "diplomacy drift into dangerous delay. Even a few more weeks free of inspections might allow Mr. Hussein to revive construction of a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon." They wrote that it was "hard to negotiate with a tyrant who has no intention of honoring his commitments and who sees nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as his country's salvation."

Why The Times Turned On Judith Miller
by Roger Aronoff
Nov 9, 2005

But following Miller's release from jail, Times columnist Frank Rich went after the Bush Administration and, by extension, Miller. He said the White House "put out a lot of propaganda about WMD, they cherry picked evidence, they ignored signs, sometimes from other government agencies that disputed the evidence for going to war, and they sold it very very well to the public and Congress, often thru the press. And there were very few journalistic institutions that challenged it before we discovered the cupboard was bare."

By the press, he clearly meant to include his own paper, the Times, and Miller.

But since Miller was not alone, even at the Times, in writing such stories, what explains this selective vehemence? The conclusion has to be that Miller is taking a hit because one of her sources has now turned out to be a high-ranking member of the Bush Administration. Official sources are fine when they are being used to undermine the Bush Administration. But when they support the Bush Administration or come from within that administration, that's something else entirely. Clearly, Miller is being denounced because she dared to talk to Lewis Libby and other Bush officials not only about WMD but about the CIA leak case. This was just too much for the extreme liberals at the Times to take.

The irony, of course, is that Miller didn't write a story about what Libby told her about the Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame affair. But it doesn't matter. What matters, for Frank Rich and his ilk, is that Miller was too close to "Scooter" and that deserves ostracism and even banishment from the paper. The result will be that the Times, already a very liberal paper, will move even further to the left. Bush officials would be well-advised to take this fact into account.

http://www.postchronicle.com/commentary/article_2121179.shtml

Ima justa grinda my organ anda my monkey Amos jumpa upa an downa and yells Skree Skree, Stopa picka ona me.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Nov 05 - 10:47 PM

Your cut and paste seems remarkably devoid of rationality; more like one of those RW Screecher Machines.

I believe that Miller got her inside story by sleeping with Scooter, and the Times decided that was one step too far. But I don't know that , it is just speculation.

When foaming at the mouth with untrammeled inaccuracy, old Guy, it helps if you pause to say "This is just my opinion, of course."

It makes you sound a little bit human.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 08:40 AM

Ok Amos the famous reformed Scientologist, go ahead and piss on these people's candles in your usual charming, acid laced style:

10 Nov 2005

Kurds Campaign Thanks U.S. for Liberation

A group representing Kurdistan thanks America for liberating that nation from Saddam Hussein's dictatorship of terrorism.

"The Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan just want to say thank you for helping us win our freedom. Thank you for democracy. Thank you America.

The print and broadcast advertisements are sponsored by the Kurdistan Development Corporation, an organization created by the government of Kurdistan to encourage international investment.

The ad campaign began Monday in the United States with ads in The Wall Street Journal and on Fox News Channel. Ads begin airing Nov. 14 airing in Europe.

The group describes Kurdistan as a place "where peace and prosperity have reigned since liberation from Saddam Hussein.
Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, Chairman of the Kurdistan Development Corporation and Kurdistan's High Representative to the UK, says the commercials are necessary to counter the American media's largely negative coverage of Iraq.

"We feel the mainstream media, she tells Newsmax, "is focusing on the negative stories coming out of Iraq and very rarely highlighting the good news.

"We're not saying that the media doesn't tell the truth. They do tell the truth. There is violence. There is an insurgency. But it's not the whole truth, or the whole picture.

"The truth is that while there is violence, she continues, "there are big strides being taken towards democracy in Iraq, particularly in Kurdistan. There are vast sections of Iraq, and again particularly Kurdistan, where the region is safe, stable, and people are getting on with their lives, doing business, trying to build a future.

Indeed, not a single coalition soldier has died in Kurdistan since March 2003.

Rahman worries, however, about suggestions that the United States should pull out of Iraq.

"If people are saying that America should withdraw their troops now, that would be a catastrophe, not only for the people of Iraq but also for the Middle East and the wider intentional community and the United States, she says.

The current peace and prosperity is a welcome change from conditions under Saddam Hussein, who targeted the Kurds throughout his rule.

Among other atrocities, Hussein ordered the use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds, a majority of which were women and children.

Following the Gulf War in 1991, the United States and the United Kingdom established "no-fly zones in northern Iraq to prevent continued bombing of Kurdistan by Saddam. Kurds ran a semi-autonomous government under the protection of the "no-fly zones.

Kurdistan President H.E. Masoud Barzani thanked President Bush for his dedication to Iraqi freedom in an Oct. 25 visit to the White House.
"It was a brave decision that you have made, Barzani told the president, "you have liberated a people from a dictatorial regime that has hurt a lot of people.

Rahman goes further, calling President Bush a "hero.

"The people of Kurdistan and the government of Kurdistan, she gushes, "admire President Bush's courage in fighting Saddam Hussein despite some of the doubts of America's international partners.

Rahman says there is no question that the decision to liberate Iraq was just.

"Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, she notes, "a dictator who committed genocide against the people of Kurdistan ... To get rid of someone like that, there should be no question.

In addition to the advertisments, the group maintains a Web site, www.theotheriraq.com, expressing its gratitude to the U.S. and the value of Kurdistan to the world community.

http://web.krg.org/articles/article_detail.asp?LangNr=12&RubricNr=&ArticleNr=7385&LNNr=28&RNNr=70

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 09:37 AM

I cannot argue that bringing Saddam Hussein down is a good result.

Even strychnine gets good results once in a while.

What is at issue is the mess in which that result sits, and how it came about.

In other news: (NYT):

"A poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research group, found that 43 percent of Americans believe that the American and British governments lied about Iraq's weapons to justify the invasion, up from 31 percent early last year.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted last week found that 40 percent of Americans believe Mr. Bush is honest and trustworthy, down from 53 percent 18 months ago and 70 percent three years ago."

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 02:12 PM

Americans have seen thru yer boy's bullsh*t just as folks hwere have seen thru yers..

Yeah, the latest polls, here and here (this last one from Faux Snooze even), continue to document the death spiral of the Dubya maladministration. Dubya's losing ground weekly in every measure of his preznitsy, security, defence, economy, honesty, approval, and on down the line.

Old Guy: The problem is the same for Democrats and others who contend that this war was dishonestly sold to the American public by the Bush Administration, with the help of a submissive press that was afraid to ask the tough questions.

Why?

Old Guy: They used the same sources available to Miller.

You mean our "agent from Iran" Chalabi??? Nope, not me. I've posted above a link to where I stated before the war that Chalabi and his thugs were con-men or worse. And I was not alone in that; even Clinton's administration cut him off for corruption and untrustworthiness (the Dubya maladministration reversed this).

Yes, there were some Dems that reacted to the misinformation and slanted "intelligence" (since proved to be "garbage, garbage, and more garbage") fed to them. Yes, they were too trusting of the maladministration ... or gullible ... or politically spineless. But that's really no problem for any one of them that, like Edwards the other day, steps up and admits the mistake and takes responsibility for their acts. But that is something you won't ever see Dubya do, and it's something the Republicans won't do ... until they start seeing the writing on the wall, and decide that they're going down faster than the Titanic unless they jump ship. I'd note that it was a similar tectonic shift, when Republicans put their finger up in the wind, that spelled doom for Nixon's stonewall and led to his disgrace....

Old Guy: What's more, the intelligence agencies of allied countries all agreed that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a threat because of its possession and development of WMD.

Not sure I agree with your claim here. In fact I doubt it. Because the U.N. Security Council was 8-5 against Dubya's "Operation Iraqi Liberation" in the leadup to the war (and after the inspectors had reported dismal findings). But even if they were, this is the fallacy of "argument from [claimed] authority", which hardly changes the actual facts. And when people like me, reading papers and surfing the net, could get it right (as well as Congressmen like Kucinich and other brave Democrats), you have to ask why we should find any comfort in lots of people gettiung things wrong. If they were wrong, we ought to fire their a$$es as well, but that hardly makes Dubya any the less stoopid (or dishonest).

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 05:20 PM

Amos:

"What is at issue is the mess in which that result sits, and how it came about."

I think it is due to miscalcualtions of the aftermath of the war combined with countries such as Iran, Syria and France working against us as well as Al qaeda's determination to prevent us from suceeding.

A good bit of the miscalulations are because of a lying crook named Chalabi. The US congress believed Chalabi and now they feel embarassed so they try to blame it on Bush.

Nobody likes the killing going on in Iraq and they want a scapegoat to make themselves feel better.

Pulling out is not a solution. It is surrender and defeat. It seems to me that the anti Bush faction wants America to loose.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 07:22 PM

It seems to me that the anti Bush faction wants America to loose.

What I (allegedly) want is of no importance here. The plain fact is that the U.S. is going to "lose" (in the sense that what comes out, even in best case scenarios, is hardly going to be to our liking). And this was apparent to some (including even folks in the U.S. State Department) prior to the war. Nothing to be done now but to control the damage. Iraq will be (as it wasn't before) an Islamic Republic, with or without our consent and support: a definite down-turn. There will be civil strife, guerrilla activity, and a power struggle for decades on end: certainly no improvement, and in some ways perhaps a fair bit for the worse (if you don't believe me, just read up a bit on Afghanistan in the 20th century). Islamic radicalism will be fueled and assisted by the U.S. actions, regardless of the Iraqi outcome. Those really are the facts, and no reasonably rational person nowadays will deny this, even as the Dubya sycophants try to paper it over with hollow cries of "They have a constitution, they have a CONSTITUTION!" as if that makes things the least bit different....

Sad but true. It's a f***-up of colossal proportions. And even sadder for those who gave their lives and for their families.

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 07:30 PM

On August 17th of this Year the Wsahington Post in an article priinted below the line but obn the front page confessed to ghaving been lred into a culture of office-speak... I sent them a letter askin' them what they had done to correct such a culture... I'm still awaiting their answer...

Jusy Miller and the New Yorks Time printed it's confession last month purdy much sayin' the same thing...

Now, Old Guy, do you have a clue who Scott Ritter is??? No probably not... He is a former weapons inspector and knows a thing 'er two about Irag... Scott was blackballed from the media in the run up to war... Scott was criss-crossin America in the run up to war tellin' anyone who would listen that the "so-called" intellegence was dead wrong... Joe Wilson said it was dead wrong... Even George Tenant made a couple feeble attempts to tell Bush not to say stuff that was going to dead wrong... The Tenant story has since been sanitized anf revised fir public consumption but a little Googlin' around and you'll find between Septemeber prior to the invasion up until the invasion there werre articles in the Wsahington Post which sunstantiate this... The aluminum tubes were debunked prior to the invasion only to used agin by Bush after the debunkin'... The inspectors were makin' progress in Iraq when Bush orderd them out of the soon-to-be-bombin'-site...

I mean, that we are even having this revisionist discusssion in itself rediculous!!!! Hey, we all went thru this and unless one had one's head completely up Fox-TV's ass then it shouldn't be too hard tyo say, "ahhhh, yeah, I remember that, too"...

I can't believe that Bush thinks he can rewrite this??? Hey, he screwed up and ain't no rewrite ot editin' gonna save him or his followers...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 07:52 PM

From a correspondent:

From: Severo Ornstein
Date: November 9, 2005 1:01:31 PM EST
To: Recipient List Suppressed: ;
Subject: Proposed Amendment

My list is generally for information and provocative thought. I
rarely propose action items, but this seems important.

Senator Graham of South Carolina is planning to introduce an
amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would strip the
federal courts of jurisdiction and prohibit them from even hearing
arguments against indefinite detention not only from Guantánamo
detainees, but from anyone who has the misfortune of finding
themselves at any U.S.-run facility anywhere, even within the United
States.

If you wish to take action to oppose this proposed amendment visit
campaign_KEY=1500>http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/ccr/campaign.jsp?
campaign_KEY=1500

That's the website of the Center for Constitutional Rights - an
organization for which we have very high regard.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 08:04 PM

DeLay Team Weighed Misdemeanor Plea to Save GOP Post
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; Page A01

Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events.

The lawyers' principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay's leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding such posts. DeLay was forced to step down as leader on Sept. 28 after the first of two grand jury indictments.


The last-minute negotiations between the lawyers and Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle were arranged after DeLay made what Earle considered a seriously damaging admission about his fundraising activities during an Aug. 17 meeting with the prosecutor in Austin.

At that session, DeLay acknowledged that in 2002 he was informed about and expressed his support for transfers of $190,000 in mostly corporate funds from his Texas political action committee to an arm of the Republican National Committee in Washington and then back to Texas, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named.

Those transfers are at the heart of the prosecutor's investigation of the alleged use of corporate funds in the 2002 Texas elections, in violation of state law. In the prosecutor's view, DeLay's admission put him in the middle of a conspiracy not only to violate that law but also to launder money. ...

(Washington Post)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 10:00 PM

Scott Ritter was giving urgent warning in Senate testimony about the threat of WMDs in Iraq until he got hired with skimmed off oil for food money. Then he did a treasonous 180.

Shortly after that he was revealed that he got caught in a phone sex with an under age girl sting in New York and he dropped out of the leftist headlines. Actually he got caught twice. Now he works for Al Jazeera.

See Amos you only select the data (propaganda) that suits your demented agenda and ignore the rest. Burned out brains and a Kryptonite skull. I'll bet even you could get a job at good old Al Jazeera.

And, Oh Yes, he has a book to sell. Go, snap it up and add it to your propaganda collection.

PART ONE: http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/980903sr.htm

Statement of SCOTT RITTER September 3, 1998 at UNITED STATES SENATE

"Iraq, today is not disarmed, and remains an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace. Those Americans who think that this is important and that something should be done about it have to be deeply disappointed in our leadership."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter

    I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program.

In the PBS interview, Ritter also complained the Clinton Administration was not being confrontational enough:

    You had this (aggressive) statement on the one hand, but on the other hand, this administration's saying, wait a minute, we can't go forward with aggressive inspections because they will lead to a confrontation with Iraq, but let's understand the confrontation is because Iraq will not comply with the law passed by the Security Council. So we weren't allowed to do our job out of fear of a confrontation in which the United States would not be able to muster the required support of the Security Council to respond effectively or to respond in a manner which they had said they would respond in Resolution 1154.

PART TWO:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_06/iraqjun.asp

in 2000, Ritter wrote an article for Arms Control Today, in which he stated his belief that Iraq was qualitatively disarmed, meaning that Iraq had no militarily significant stocks of prohibited weapons.

June 2000 The Case for Iraq's Qualitative Disarmament Scott Ritter

Efforts to resume weapons inspections in Iraq have long been at an impasse.It has been 18 months since inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) were withdrawn from Iraq and six months since the Security Council created a successor organization to assume UNSCOM's mantle. Resolution 1284 established the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in December 1999 and tasked it with verifying Iraq's elimination of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers.

He made a documentary, In Shifting Sands ,on the effects of the sanctions on Iraq.
Ritter�s documentary was financed in part by Detroit businessman Shakir al Khafaji. Al-Khafaji, who gave Ritter $400,000 to produce his film, admitted that Saddam's regime awarded him oil vouchers worth more than one million dollars under the scandal-ridden Oil-for-Food programme run by the UN.

In the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Ritter spoke to numerous audiences, proclaiming the extreme unlikelihood that Saddam Hussein had any functioning weapons of mass destruction.

PART THREE: He always speaks the truth and knows what is going on:

February 19, 2005

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia�s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005.
http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2295/2/

PART FOUR:

January 19, 2003

Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector who says President Bush should be impeached for his Iraq policy, was secretly arrested and prosecuted in New York a year and a half ago after allegedly being caught in an Internet sex sting, say law enforcement sources in published reports.

The Schenectady Daily Gazette and New York Daily News report Ritter was arrested in June 2001 for allegedly having an online sexual discussion with someone he thought was an underage girl. It turns out that "girl" was really an undercover police investigator, according to the Daily News whose sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ritter lives in the Albany suburb of Delmar, and was reportedly arrested by police in Colonie, N.Y.

The case was apparently kept so secret, the head local prosecutor did not even know it existed.

The Daily Gazette reports Albany District Attorney Paul Clyne fired veteran Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Preiser last week when he finally learned of the matter.

"I was shocked and angered to learn that the case had been disposed of by one of my assistant district attorneys without consulting me," Clyne told the paper. "Any arguably sensitive case should be brought to my attention."

Sources told the Gazette that Ritter's attorney and a town court judge agreed to adjourn the matter in contemplation of a dismissal.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30570

http://www.nydailynews.com/01-19-2003/news/story/52750p-49424c.html

Part Four:

Ritter's attorney confirms arrest
TV station claims tape shows ex-U.N. inspector caught in sex sting
January 20, 2003

An attorney for Scott Ritter confirmed that the outspoken former U.N. weapons inspector, who says President Bush should be impeached for his Iraq policy, was arrested a year and a half ago.

Scott Ritter mug shot (courtesy WNYT-TV)

Norah Murphy said Ritter was arrested in the upstate New York town of Colonie in June 2001, but she would not respond to allegations that he was charged with soliciting an underage girl on the Internet. Ritter lives in the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Delmar.

The Schenectady Daily Gazette and New York Daily News report Ritter allegedly had an online sexual discussion with someone he thought was an underage girl. The "girl," however, turned out to be an undercover police investigator, according to the Daily News, whose sources spoke on condition of anonymity.

WTEN-TV, the ABC affiliate in Albany, is reporting that Ritter contacted the "teen-age girl" twice within a three-month period in 2001, and that he underwent court-ordered sex-offender counseling from a psychologist in New York's capital.

Sources tell the Albany Times-Union that Ritter actually had two run-ins with police. The first occurred in April 2001, as the former Marine reportedly drove to a Colonie business to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old girl. He was reportedly questioned by officers, and released without a charge.

Two months later, the source told the paper, Ritter was caught in the same kind of online sex sting after he tried to lure a 16-year-old girl to an area Burger King restaurant.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30587

Part Five:

Now the only place he can find a job is at Al Jazzera.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ADCA48CC-9307-466B-BA18-82724CAA7484.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 10:16 PM

People in the employment of the US governemnt say what they are 'sposed to say when they say them... Some folks break away from them entanglements and decide to start tellin' the truth...

I find it real interstin', Old Guy, that one of yer right winged sites has a neat little cut 'n paste to attack Ritter now that what he had to say in the lead up to the invasion turns out to be true...

Even down to sexual encounters... Tsk, tsk... You really should read yer Bushite webbies before clickin' "Post"...

How come you don't wnat a talk about Scott yerself Old Guy??? Seems like if there'a anything that is critical of Bush yer corporate spnsored teram has some attack, attack cut 'n paste conviently fir you to clicjk on to prevent you (old guy) from havin' to either listen to others arguments or have to make any of yer own...

No disrespect intended but corporate sponsored attack cut 'n pastes don't do much fir me...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 10:48 PM

Arne Langsetmo:

Why do you say " What I (allegedly) want is of no importance here"

I want to hear some direction from this collection of complaining gloom and doomers here. Buck up. Where are we going from here?

Y' know it's a mean old world and we in the US are better off that anywhere else. What the hell do we have to complain about that isn't 100% better than anywhere else?

Gas? what does it cost in europe?

FEMA? what happens in Aisia when a typhoon hits and 10,000 die?

Why the hell are people risking their lives in the desert or braving shark infested waters to get into the US.

The only people I see wanting to leave are deserters and draft dodgers escaping the law to Canada.

If there is a utopia somewhere, go there and leave the rest of us in peace. Otherwise accept life the way it is and try to get some enjoyment out of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Nov 05 - 11:48 PM

So what does anything fir you Bobert?

If you don't like my cut and pastes, Ignore them.

Are Amos's cut and pastes satisfactory?

What's yer point? All I see is universal negativity to your comments.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 12:11 AM

Amos, just fir thr record, doesn't do cut 'n pastes, Old Guy. He posts real stories and real op-eds that appear in the corner newspapers... Big difference between that, since he has to go out into th real world or reportin' and find his material rather than go to some right wingnut web site thast has all this corportist bought crap all prepared so, one click 'n yer off on a smoke break!!!!

Purdy disgustin'.... All my stuff is orignial... Well, yeah, I read the Post cover to cover and read as lot of other stuff and even watch the corporate news on TV an' then afetr takin' all it in, come out with what I* have gleaned to be the truth...

I don't go to Move on 'er nuthuin".... All ya' gotta do is read the Post and the Sunday NY times an you can get the big piccure...

Firget blogs....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 10:13 AM

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, in a page-one WP fact-check, note that the Administration's defense--that Congress saw the same intelligence as the White House prior to the war and that independent commissions have determined the intelligence to have been represented accurately--is not quite true.
sterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument
By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005; Page A01

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."

But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."

Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was more precise, but he still implied that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying that those who suggest the administration "manipulated the intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments."

In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."

But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.

The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary.

Even within the Bush administration, not everybody consistently viewed Iraq as what Hadley called "an enormous threat." In a news conference in February 2001 in Egypt, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said of the economic sanctions against Hussein's Iraq: "Frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."

Bush, in his speech Friday, said that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."

The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.

The resolution voiced support for diplomatic efforts to enforce "all relevant Security Council resolutions," and for using the armed forces to enforce the resolutions and defend "against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." ..."

Excerpted from The W.P.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Arne Langsetmo
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 11:04 AM

Old Guy: Why do you say "What I (allegedly) want is of no importance here"

Because I didn't bring it up, and because it is presumptuous of you to claim to speak for what I am thinking. Because it is the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. And lastly, and most importantly, because of the reasons that I detailed in the post from which you culled this snippet from, and of which you seem to have ignored the rest.

Is that clear?

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 01:58 AM

Bobert:

If you would check out some of my cut n pastes you would see news papers and sites such as PBS.org. There are very few blogs and even the blogs point to real sites.

I made my statement about Ritter and then proceded to back it up. I verify that my opinion is correct this way and learn a lot in the process. Have you tried to find out anything about him yourself? Seems to me his head got a little to large and he thought he was running the show. Google for alpha dog and Ritter. Then he made "Documentary" with Iraqi money going into his pocket and he changed his mind about Iraq's WMDS being a threat. Now AL jazzera? Please don't mke me laugh by suggesting he is honest. He is a traitor.

Now what makes printed media any better than news sources on the net? You can't put it in the bird cage but you can't fill up the landfill with it either.

I generally start with a Google News search and branch out from there. If I hear something on the radio I try to find it on the net. Ever heard of Jayson Blair? His crap was printed and sold too.

Now Amos's stuff which he frequently cuts and pastes comes from primo sources like Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Her only claim to fame apparently is a PHD. My wife has one of them but she ain't my chief advisor.

It seems like every fact I can find is found to be disproved by you with no backup.

Now which of us seems more knowledgeable? You don't even make an effort to push the right keys when you post.

You major position seems to be "The sky is falling"

My position is "It ain't falling for a while yet so let's figure out a solution"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:14 AM

Slate provides an insightful and concise summary of the Bush administrations double standard ruthlessness with respect to fundamental human codes of conduct.

An excerpt:

"And just when Congress appeared to be on the verge of doing something about it, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the principal co-sponsors of the McCain Amendment, convinced the Senate to undercut the amendment by making it unenforceable—at least for the hundreds of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On Thursday night, the Senate approved Graham's proposal, which would selectively suspend the writ of habeas corpus for foreign nationals held at Guantanamo, denying them any access to a court for violations of constitutional or international law—even if they are being subjected to precisely the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that the McCain Amendment prohibits. Graham's amendment is predicated on the same double standard as the Bush administration's interpretation of the Torture Convention—namely, that it is somehow permissible to do to foreign nationals what would be patently unacceptable if done to citizens.

This double standard is deeply flawed. Legal protections for fundamental rights of those we have locked up should not vary depending on the passport they hold. And this flaw raises a serious question not only about administration policy in the war on terror, but also about American constitutional doctrine.

The administration's justification for treating foreign nationals held abroad in the war on terror differently from those held here first surfaced with respect to the prisoners held at Guantanamo. When lawyers challenged the legality of those detentions, the administration responded that the Constitution does not extend to foreign nationals outside our borders, and that therefore the Guantanamo detainees have no constitutional rights. That issue is now being litigated in the courts—although not for long, if Graham's amendment becomes law.

Then, during Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearings, the administration disclosed that, in its view, not only does the Constitution not apply to foreigners held abroad, but a key part of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment doesn't either. That treaty, signed by virtually every country in the world, and signed and ratified by the United States in 1994, absolutely prohibits such conduct, without exception, even in a state of war. "

One brave Senator -- John McCain -- sponsoring law requiring the United States to live up to its intenrational treaty commitments in regard to torture, summed the biggest single blind spot of the Bush administration up in a single phrase:

It's not about who they are. It's about who we are.

This is the big item that the Administration doesn't get....who we really are, or should be. I think it's the real button they don't want to know about, because they can't face it.

See the whole piece at Slate.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Nov 05 - 10:19 AM

No, Old Guy, "YOU" didn't back it up.... Some blog, which is funded by some pro-Bush corportaion, prolly backed it up...

That's my point... You aren't doing the research so you don't know how much of that stuff is true or not... You prolly didn't even read most or any of them supposed sources...

That's what I mean...

These cut-n-pastes are very well funded just fir the puropose of twisting information to make anyone look either good or bad... In this case, seein' as Ritter was definately on the hawk's radar screen, they went oput to do a hatchet job on him, even so much as bringin' in things about his personal relationships...

No, I doubt very much that you actually had a hand in this supposed research...

That's my complaint... There are a lot blogs being funded by corporation to diss anyone who doesn't agree with Bush and so, yeah, it's real easy to just click on one as yer defense...

Problem is that you are really defending your position... Yer lettin' some corpoartion that has a definate agenda defend yer position...

Amos doesn't do that... He offers real articles and op-eds so that you can read thru them and get a variety of opinions... If you bothered to read them that is, which is in your case, is doubtfull...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 08:12 AM

From Newsday this morning:

After four years of growing international criticism of the Bush administration's treatment of war-on-terror suspects and dozens of lawsuits from prisoners who claim they are being held with no basis, it took the Senate barely an hour of debate late last week to reverse a year-old Supreme Court decision and strip the courts of the power to hear their cases.

If it survives a floor fight this week, legal experts and human rights advocates warned, the unexpected 49-42 vote could leave the roughly 500 military prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without hope of legal relief, mark one of the rare occasions in U.S. history that the centuries-old writ of habeas corpus has been suspended, and damage the U.S. image abroad.


"It's been a bulwark of Western jurisprudence for a thousand years," said John Hutson, the dean of Franklin Pierce Law School in New Hampshire and a former judge advocate general for the U.S. Navy. "This is not an insignificant event."

---

Suspending Habeas Corpus is a sure step toward fascism. Right now of course, it's just "them" so what diff, man. But in the arrogance typical of the Bush Gang, they are stepping onto a very slippery slope in disregard of their own history and the moral code that has been evolved over centuries.

Welcome to the Middle Ages, boys and girls. Guess what!! Evil King George is going on a CRUSADE!! Won't that be exciting???


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Nov 05 - 01:43 PM

Heard on my marvelous Tom Swift electric radio this morning:   

"With Congressional elections coming up next year, many Republican senators and Congressional representatives are not feeling very comfortable about continuing to support the programs and policies of an increasingly unpopular president."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 07:19 AM

Ok Bobert, I find something not anti-bush and it is automaticaly deemed "corporate" or a blog by you and therefore propaganda.

You go to a site such as Topplebush.com and deem the information there to be the truth. As long as it is anti bush, it is the truth. Are sites and ads supported by people like George Soros considered "corporate"? "On Black Wednesday (September 16, 1992), Soros became instantly famous when he sold short more than $10bn worth of pounds, profiting from the Bank of England's stubborn reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency. Finally, the Bank of England was forced to withdraw the currency out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and to devalue the Pound Sterling, and Soros earned an estimated US$ 1.1 billion in the process. He was dubbed "the man who broke the Bank of England.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros

Are rich liberal elitists angels and corporations evil?

Dems try to discredit any republican they can. When a republican does the same thing it is deemed evil, unfair character assasination.

If you dig deep enough you can find shit if you want it. It you look hard enought you can find something to bitch about and feel miserable about.

I see gas is down to $1.84 on I 81 in Roanoke Va. How did the evil oil companys allow that to happen? Does Bush know about it?

What does gas cost in europe? "One big difference in Britain is that gas prices don�t appear to have changed as drastically over the past year. The national average for July was now 88 pence a liter, or $6.02 a gallon" http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8994313/

George Bush must have connections with the oil companys there too and has been more sucessfull at allowing them to gouge consumers.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 10:09 AM

The International Herald Tribune offers an analysis of the torque currently surrounding the "Did-Didn't" contorversy around Bush's distortion of intell in order to create an artificial casus belli.

In this analysis the authors point out an interesting fact concerning the standard response in defense against accusations of distortion:

"... News Analysis: Prewar intelligence a thorn in Bush's side
By Richard W. Stevenson and Douglas Jehl The New York Times

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2005

.. the Bush administration is furiously parrying a new round of accusations that it exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein in leading the United States to war, the imagery is startling.

There on Monday was Ahmad Chalabi, who as a leader of Iraqi exiles before the war funneled what proved to be inaccurate information about Saddam's weapons programs to the United States, being whisked into meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the most influential of the hawks in the administration when it came to Iraq.

...The White House is building two main lines of defense. It is asserting that many Democrats saw the same threat from Iraq as the administration did. And it is pointing to two government studies that it says found no evidence that prewar intelligence, while admittedly flawed, had been twisted by political pressure.

The first is giving the White House some political protection, though not enough to deter Democratic attacks. The second addresses only part of the issue, because neither study directly addressed the broader question: whether the administration presented that intelligence to Congress, the nation and the world in a way that overstated what it said about the threat posed by Saddam's weapons programs and any links to terrorism....

"...At a news conference Monday on Capitol Hill, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic party leader, ran through a list of topics the administration had cited to show Iraq was a threat, including Saddam's efforts to acquire nuclear material and aluminum tubes that could be used in a nuclear program and terrorist training camps in Iraq. "All of these things simply were not true," he said. "The administration knew that, but they did not share that with me or anyone else in Congress that I know of.

The White House's aggressive effort to defend itself has taken on all the trappings of a campaign. In an indication of the coordination between the White House and Republican leaders in Congress, Senator Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican and the majority leader, planned to distribute to Senate Republicans on Tuesday a list of statements made by Democrats raising the alarm about the threat from Iraq.

The situation makes the new effort by Democrats to turn the focus on the use of intelligence into a political minefield. Among the issues the Democrats are seeking to explore is whether public statements by Bush and others about Iraq exaggerated the threat it posed, even beyond what was described in the flawed intelligence presented to them

To date, the major official inquiries - by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004, and the Robb-Silberman commission in March 2005 - have addressed only prewar intelligence itself. Neither found evidence that any pressure by the Bush administration had contributed to the failures by the CIA and others in assessing the threat posed by Iraq

On the question of whether there were close, collaborative ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the reviews found Cheney and others had encouraged analysts to rethink their skepticism, but they found no evidence that the repeated questioning from the administration had altered the conclusions reached by the agencies

But neither panel compared public statements by Bush and his aides with the intelligence available at the time, or reviewed internal White House documents, including a draft of a speech to the UN Security Council that was later delivered by Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, for further evidence of how intelligence had been used.

---

Does it strike you as somewhat illogical to claim in defense of such a charge a findings that did not actually examine the questyion being asked? It does me. How could any panel exonerate Bush by "not finding evidence that he exagerrated or distorted intelligence" when not actually comparing what he said with the intell?

Doh!! How stupid.

SSDD.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 01:59 PM

The impeccable--if bloodthirsty and insensitive -- logic of farming out services once belonging to the Armed Forces to contractors instead is revealed in the following excerpt from the Mercury news of San Jose, CA. Contracting many duties to companies like L3 and Halliburton means large profits to the industrial/military complex, friends of the Bushies. And of course. with contractors, there is a great benefit in not having to train them as soldiers or provide them with arms or ammunition. This means the budget for the war looks smaller despite the high salaries these poeple need to take the risks they do.

Unfortunately this increases the exposure of civilians--both Iraq- and American -- to attacks in which, with no means of self defense, they are easily wounded or killed.

A

---

"WASHINGTON - As the nation focused last week on the 2,000th U.S. soldier who died in Iraq, Gloria Dagit of Jefferson, Iowa, got a box filled with the belongings of her son, Keven, who was killed when his convoy of trucks was ambushed in northern Iraq.


Keven Dagit's death Sept. 20 - along with two other truckers - didn't register on the tally of Iraq deaths broadcast daily. That's because they were civilians working for U.S. defense contractors.


As the violence of the protracted war continues and some 75,000 civilian employees struggle to rebuild the war-torn nation and support the military, contractor casualties mount. Their deaths have more than tripled in the past 13 months.


As of Monday, 428 civilian contractors had been killed in Iraq and another 3,963 were injured, according to Department of Labor insurance-claims statistics obtained by Knight Ridder.


Those statistics, which experts said were the most comprehensive listing available on the toll of the war, are far from complete: Two of the biggest contractors in Iraq said their casualties were higher than the figures the Labor Department had for them.


The dead and injured come from many walks of life, drawn by money and patriotism. Some are American citizens. Most are not. They are truckers, police officers and translators. They're counted only if they were paid by companies hired by the Pentagon. Their deaths and injuries were compensated by insurance policies required by federal law.


The Labor Department lists 156 dead for an L-3 Communications subsidiary in Virginia. The company, which provides translators who work with the military, puts the death toll at 167, of whom 15 were Americans. The Labor Department's accounting reports that Halliburton, the largest contractor in Iraq, has had 30 employees killed in Iraq and 2,471 injured. A Halliburton spokeswoman, Melissa Norcross, said Tuesday that the company had lost a total of 77 workers in Iraq, Afghanistan and its base in Kuwait. One worker is unaccounted for. Halliburton couldn't give a breakdown by country.


The government's listing shows the contractors' casualty rate is increasing. In the first 21 months of the war, 11 contractors were killed and 74 injured each month on average. This year, the monthly average death toll is nearly 20 and the average monthly number of injured is 243.


"You've got a greater number of contractors on the ground carrying out a greater number of roles putting them in danger," said Peter W. Singer, a contracting expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research center. "And issue No. 3, you've got a much more dangerous environment."


Keven Dagit, a truck driver for Halliburton, knew it. The day before he was killed he told his mother, "Now, it's really getting dangerous," she recalled.


He left two daughters, ages 9 and 11.


"I want more people to realize that these guys are out there defenseless," Gloria Dagit said. "It was an ambush. ... They are not allowed to carry weapons."

"

(...)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 03:54 PM

The Los Angeles Times presents various views from its readers concerning the recent "rebuttal" by the Bush administration on charges of lying in order to have a war:

"Here's what you say about President Bush:


We asked readers on Saturday what you had to say in response to President George W. Bush and his administration as they come under fire from war-policy opponents. Here are excerpts from your comments.

It's about time President Bush answered the distortions that his political opponents have been making. Bush made a decision to go to war based on the information presented to him and to others in government. Looking at that intelligence with the assumption that it was correct - as well as looking at Saddam's history and his violations of several U.N. resolutions - and living in a post 9-11 world, I can see how the decision to go to war could have been made. A person can honestly disagree with Bush's decision to go to war, but to say he lied to do so just doesn't hold up to the facts.

- John Mlynar


The Bush administration has successfully taken America over in a new millennium and transported Americans back in time. Using every bait-and-switch tactic available, Bush and the ideology of his administration are a shell game with long-term consequences for our children's future. We as a country do not have to go on ruining the earth with oil. The alternatives are available, just not in this country.

- Keith Richard Radford Jr.


President Bush has suffered a great deal of damage inflicted upon him by the radical fanatics of the left, especially the Democratic ideologues such as Sens. Kennedy, Schumer, Durbin, Reid and Kerry, as well as Rep. Pelosi and others in the House of Representatives. Their daily outbursts of distortion, omission and outright lies regarding the Iraq war are only giving aid and comfort to the terrorists we are fighting.

- Tony Pasano


We Americans are enjoying the most freedom and best living conditions in human history. We should not ignore the people, especially the women and children, suffering under cruel dictatorship in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. They need help. As for the democratic movement going on in all the countries, I think we are doing the right thing. President Bush will be known as one of the best presidential fighters for freedom - after Lincoln and Reagan.

- Charles King


The Bush administration is under fire because the people in it have consistently tried to avoid any investigation into any misdealing, no matter how much the American people cry out for it. They avoided the 9-11 Commission until they were embarrassed into having it. They avoided investigation into the faulty intelligence that led to the war in Iraq. They avoided investigations into the Downing Street memos. They are doing the same for the failings in New Orleans, and they are trying to make the outing of Valerie Plame seem like it's no big deal. I think the American people are smarter than that.

- Ross Miller


When supposed friends lie to your face not just once or twice or three times, you get rid of them. They ultimately have nothing to offer the relationship and are just manipulating you for personal gain. What is one good thing this born-again neo-con has done to improve your or my lives? If you said zero, you'd be right.

- Erik Eskelin

It is a sad day when a country's leader shows such fear that truth might be found. We often read that countries suppress dissent and equate dissent with treason. Those countries were once called such things as Axis of Evil and were always somewhere else. Now we have our own collection of nine pro-torture senators and an administration demanding that we stop asking questions. Our country is changing - into what?

- David Robbins

I think it was high time that the president spoke out in defense of his administration and I also wish that he would throw the gauntlet down to Senators Kennedy and Kerry to produce evidence that he or his administration lied or slanted the intelligence then available to Congress in order to precipitate the invasion of Iraq. Every day we are seeing more evidence of the fact that these radical Islamists are diabolical in their quest to wipe out freedom wherever it exists and we and the free world must band together to prevent them from reaching their goal.

- Bruce DeHaas

Every time negative comments are heard about the Bush administration's handling of various issues, either the subject is changed or the old familiar rant about unpatriotic citizens begins anew. Perhaps if President Bush began to recognize his responsibility in these areas, fewer negative comments would be heard. Am I the only one who's noticed that Vice President Cheney disappears off the radar whenever disaster strikes - where was he, for example, during the devastating hurricanes? And that our president goes into total denial when one of his inner circle is accused of questionable behavior? The current majority in Washington needs to demand the same high standards of conduct for itself that it has always demanded of the opposition. This would be true regardless of who's in office at any given time.

- Ellie Doud

Since lying to go to war is an impeachable offense - meaning it is unconstitutional - we demand that impeachment proceedings begin immediately. And also, the immediate resignations of Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld. Get the actors and musicians off the front page and start reporting the important news like real journalists.

- Bob and Joyce Yovannone

I say that our president made a huge mistake when he sent our troops to Iraq. The only reason he sent our troops to war was to get the oil from that country and to show his father no one can say no to them. He and his father do not care about anyone except themselves and their family. Just think how many of personal family members Bush and his administration have in Iraq - none. They think they can play God with other people's lives. Just how much more are we supposed to accept from the devil and his father? I personally think, if he cared about our country, he would resign and bring our troops home. They are dying for his stupidity. How many more need to die before this country does something to save itself?

- Jolie James

---

Out of the first eleven comments taken from the top down presumably in the order they were received, 8 condemn and 3 defend Bush's policies.

Thus, a mandate...not.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 07:21 PM

AP Photo DCSW101

By LIZ SIDOTI

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The GOP-controlled Senate rejected a Democratic call Tuesday for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq but urged President Bush to outline his plan for ``the successful completion of the mission'' in a bill reflecting a growing bipartisan unease with his Iraq policies.

The overall measure, adopted 98-0, shows a willingness to defy the president in several ways despite a threatened veto. It would restrict the techniques used to interrogate terror detainees, ban their inhuman treatment and call for the administration to provide lawmakers with quarterly reports on the status of operations in Iraq.

The bill was not without victories for the president, including support for the military tribunals Bush wants to use to try detainees at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet even that was tempered, with language letting the inmates appeal to a federal court their designation as enemy combatants and their sentences.

The Senate's votes on Iraq showed a willingness even by Republicans to question the White House on a war that's growing increasingly unpopular with Americans.

Polls show Bush's popularity has tumbled in part because of public frustration over Iraq, a war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 American troops.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the outcome was ``a vote of no confidence on the president's policies in Iraq.'' Republicans ``acknowledged that there need to be changes made,'' he said. ...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 08:02 PM

First of all, Old Guy, I just come up from Boone, N.C. today on I-81 and the gas was 2.09....

Now as fir other blogs???? I don't go to any of them... What you get from me is gleaned strictly from the Washington Post, The New York Times and the TV news...

Nuthin' more!!!

Allnatural, here... If I happen to see things the same way as some anti-Bush blogs see things then, hey, means we're both payin' attention....

But I swaer on my daddy's grave that these are my sources and I don't need nobody to tell me what to think or how to defend the postions I take... And I take that very seriously....

So how's about you, Old Guy, bringin' the same integrity and thought processes to the discusssion... Hey, it's okay to Google somethin' now an' then fir documentation but don't live with someone elses blog as ***yer*** danged defense...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 05 - 11:40 PM

Jimmy Carter writes:

"This isn't the real America

By Jimmy Carter, JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States. His
newest book is "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis," published this
month by Simon & Schuster.

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical
government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all
previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social
justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful
information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and
local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the
restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing
global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological
weapons and the international system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our
security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive
war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an
unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with
other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit
direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to
exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that
our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally
constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the
threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with
us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear
comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national
crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic
men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of
our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been
made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.
..."


From The LA Times Op Ed


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:24 AM

Decoding Mr. Bush's Denials
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Published: November 15, 2005
To avoid having to account for his administration's misleading statements before the war with Iraq, President Bush has tried denial, saying he did not skew the intelligence. He's tried to share the blame, claiming that Congress had the same intelligence he had, as well as President Bill Clinton. He's tried to pass the buck and blame the C.I.A. Lately, he's gone on the attack, accusing Democrats in Congress of aiding the terrorists.

Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.

It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true.

•

Mr. Bush says everyone had the same intelligence he had - Mr. Clinton and his advisers, foreign governments, and members of Congress - and that all of them reached the same conclusions. The only part that is true is that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.

Foreign intelligence services did not have full access to American intelligence. But some had dissenting opinions that were ignored or not shown to top American officials. Congress had nothing close to the president's access to intelligence. The National Intelligence Estimate presented to Congress a few days before the vote on war was sanitized to remove dissent and make conjecture seem like fact.

It's hard to imagine what Mr. Bush means when he says everyone reached the same conclusion. There was indeed a widespread belief that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. But Mr. Clinton looked at the data and concluded that inspections and pressure were working - a view we now know was accurate. France, Russia and Germany said war was not justified. Even Britain admitted later that there had been no new evidence about Iraq, just new politics.

The administration had little company in saying that Iraq was actively trying to build a nuclear weapon. The evidence for this claim was a dubious report about an attempt in 1999 to buy uranium from Niger, later shown to be false, and the infamous aluminum tubes story. That was dismissed at the time by analysts with real expertise.

The Bush administration was also alone in making the absurd claim that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda and somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was based on two false tales. One was the supposed trip to Prague by Mohamed Atta, a report that was disputed before the war and came from an unreliable drunk. The other was that Iraq trained Qaeda members in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Before the war, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that this was a deliberate fabrication by an informer.

Mr. Bush has said in recent days that the first phase of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation on Iraq found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence. That is true only in the very narrow way the Republicans on the committee insisted on defining pressure: as direct pressure from senior officials to change intelligence. Instead, the Bush administration made what it wanted to hear crystal clear and kept sending reports back to be redone until it got those answers.

Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, said in 2003 that there was "significant pressure on the intelligence community to find evidence that supported a connection" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The C.I.A. ombudsman told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the administration's "hammering" on Iraq intelligence was harder than he had seen in his 32 years at the agency.

Mr. Bush and other administration officials say they faithfully reported what they had read. But Vice President Dick Cheney presented the Prague meeting as a fact when even the most supportive analysts considered it highly dubious. The administration has still not acknowledged that tales of Iraq coaching Al Qaeda on chemical warfare were considered false, even at the time they were circulated.

Mr. Cheney was not alone. Remember Condoleezza Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" comment? And Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, when the rich and powerful met in Davos, Switzerland, and he said, "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?" Mr. Powell ought to have known the report on "special equipment"' - the aluminum tubes - was false. And the uranium story was four years old.

•

The president and his top advisers may very well have sincerely believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But they did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections. We need to know how that happened and why.

Mr. Bush said last Friday that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.

---

From the New York Times Editorial page, 11-16-2005

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 12:35 PM

A generation which ignores history
has no past -- and no future.
                           - Robert A. Heinlein

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 02:26 PM

From The Australian:

Republicans want exit strategy
Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent
November 17, 2005
GEORGE W. Bush's Republican allies in Congress are starting to engineer some distance from the US President over the conduct of the Iraq war.

Republican leaders in the Senate yesterday called on the President to prepare an exit strategy for about 160,000 US troops in Iraq.

With Mr Bush touring Asia and suffering worsening polls from already record low levels, Republicans want Mr Bush to better explain his strategy for victory in Iraq.

Republicans are growing increasingly anxious about the turn of public opinion against the war ahead of mid-term congressional elections next year.

Mr Bush's own party is demanding that 2006 be a year of "significant transition" in which Iraqi forces take the lead in securing their own country.









While the Republican move in the Senate came amid a Democrat push to adopt a specific timetable for withdrawal, yesterday's vote in the Senate still represents the legislative branch's most aggressive intervention yet into the conduct of the war since the invasion began in March 2003.

Adding to the pain for Mr Bush was the fact that the vote was held while he was abroad, something Congress usually tries to avoid. The proposal by Bill Frist, the Republican Senate leader, and John Warner, the veteran Virginian Republican and chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee, was passed by 79 votes to 19.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 08:42 PM

Two interesting ripples:

1. Slate magazine offers background history on the Bush Administration's infatuation with torture methods, and its precedents in the CIA.

2. Doug Thompson reveals his unsettling discovery that he is officially listed as an Enemy of the State...a person of interest to the Feds who without being notified has had every aspect of his personal life invaded and investigated and recorded by an unfriendly government.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:32 PM

Those who don't know history
tend to repeat it...

Voltaire

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

From Slate:

We Still Don't Have a Plan
What has everybody been doing for three years?
By Fred Kaplan
Updated Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005, at 4:51 PM ET

It is becoming increasingly clear that President George W. Bush and his top advisers lack not only a strategy for fighting the war in Iraq but—more disturbing—any idea of how to devise one.

The latest, most jaw-dropping evidence comes from a front-page article by Greg Jaffe in the Nov. 15 Wall Street Journal. Jaffe tells the story of David (last name withheld for obvious reasons), a 37-year-old U.S. Army foreign-affairs officer stationed undercover in northwestern Iraq. David wears civilian clothes, packs only a pistol, and is so fluent in Arabic that the locals think he's one of them. As a result, he's been able to trace how jihadist fighters have moved into Iraq across the Syrian border—what routes they use, what markings they follow—and he's passed on the information to American military commanders. He's also advised these commanders and other officials on how to deal with their Iraqi counterparts, he's fired incompetent interpreters who'd been hired by officials who didn't know the language, and he's staved off at least one big conflict with Turkey.

You read the first few paragraphs surprised and pleased that the Army has such officers. The chief of staff to Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez is quoted as saying, "We ought to have one of these guys assigned to every commander in Iraq."


Then Jaffe drops the bombshell: The military is pulling David out of Iraq later this month, along with seven other officers who form his unit. The U.S. Embassy and military headquarters in Baghdad have apparently decided that they are duplicating the work of others.

Jaffe's sources—on-the-ground officers and commanders, speaking on the record—sternly disagree. (Clearly, they let Jaffe talk with David as a way of rallying opposition to the move.) Col. John D'Agostino, who oversees the unit, is quoted as saying, "When David leaves, the U.S. Embassy's regional office in Mosul won't have a single Arabic speaker or Middle Eastern expert on its staff."

This—all of this—is simply staggering. What has the military brass been doing the last three years—what has the diplomatic corps been doing the last three decades—to leave the United States in such a lurch that the regional office in Mosul, one of the most critical and turbulent cities in northern Iraq, has nobody versed in Arabic or even in Middle Eastern studies? (The office, Jaffe writes, is staffed with Asia and South America specialists.)

The Pentagon has issued high-level reports calling for more training in foreign languages and cultures. Officials acknowledge a particularly acute need in Iraq. Yet here's David and his seven culturally astute colleagues doing invaluable, irreplaceable work on the battlefield, at the negotiating tables, in the embassy briefing rooms—and Baghdad headquarters is yanking them out of the country.

Whatever President Bush plans to do with Iraq next year—pull troops out, put more troops in, or just muddle through—this move is scandalously mindless. ...

---

The issue of mindless refusal to develop or use reliable HumInt was raised in the first three days after 9-11 in these threads, and it appears the same mindlessness obtains in the Administrations ability to grasp the simplest principles of how to deal with groups of people who are people instead of being ciphers. Note up thread that they are very cavalier about gathering intel that they can steal from others -- banks, libraries and employers -- on their own citizenry. Something doesn't add up here...eh?

What do you think the REAL purposes behind these apparent "errors" in judgement might be, if you assumed for a moment that they were deliberate and that Bush was acting "competently" -- just following some very obscure agenda?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 05:37 AM

The secret meetings with Cheney over energy plans is not so secret anymore. A document revealing that Mobil Exxon BP Conoco Shell and other oil company executives met with Cheney. When there was an investigation the Republican chairman stopped midway when starting to swear them in and proceeded to forgo the oath. This way the oil company men could not be accused of pergury if they denied they met with Cheney.
They have denied the meeting.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 08:32 AM

Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection
>Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing
>of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. Earlier this year, Congress
>had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on
>pregnant women and children, but the EPA's newly proposed rule actually
>creates gaping loopholes for the chemical industry. The rule allows for
>government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in
>chemical experiments in the following situations: 1) Children who "cannot be
>reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or
>orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or
>guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals
>for the sake of research.
>2) Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have
>been neglected or abused.
>3) Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable. You
>can learn more and take action here:
>
>
Details on this page.

The Administration has constantly operated against the interests of National Parks, scientific research, and children. Too busy starting wars, I suppose.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Nov 05 - 09:43 AM

While this is only indirectly about the Administration per se, I found today's SFGate essay on Bill O'Reilly worth a grin, and offer a small part of its spicy invective:

"And he is one who now suggests that because San Francisco dared to ban aggressive military recruiting in our high schools so disadvantaged 18-year-olds won't be unwittingly sucked into the brutish military vortex so they can be shipped off to Iraq to die for appalling and indefensible reasons, al Qaeda should blow up Coit Tower.

What do you do with that? You laugh. Sure, file a formal complaint with the Fox network. Sure, demand that Billy be fired, which is a bit like demanding Ronald McDonald be canned from the McDonald's corporation for poisoning our children. Yes, you have to do it, even if such complaints come from someone like San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, not exactly the poster child for tact and grace when it comes to political maneuvering.

But of course, it won't make one bit of difference. BOR is still Fox's cash cow. He draws big ratings, even here in the Bay Area. And even if O'Reilly's cultural relevance is tanking right along with the bad ship BushCo, he's still getting PR for miles out of the childish comment. Hell, you're reading a column about it right now, which means all those extremist right-wing inbreeding sites get to squeal "San Francisco in Uproar Over O'Reilly Comments," and grunt and revel in our displeasure. Ah well. It matters not.


Here's the takeaway, the only thing you need to know: Bill O'Reilly is a walking, snorting cautionary tale. For those of us who occasionally tread similar terrain of barbed political commentary (tempered, I hope, with satire and hope and sex and humor and fire hoses of divine juice), he is the Grand Pariah, the threshold, the Place You Do Not Want To Go as an intellectually curious human soul. He is the guy you can always look to, no matter how bad it gets, and say, Wow, at least I'm not him.

In a way, we should be grateful for O'Reilly and Robertson and Limbaugh and Coulter and their slime-slinging ilk. They live in those black and nasty psycho-emotional places, so we don't have to. They show us how ugly we can be, how poisonous and ill, so we may recoil and say, Whoa, you know what? I think I need to be more gentle and less judgmental and kinder to those I love. BOR works an inverse effect on anyone with a vibrant and active soul -- he makes us better by sucking all the grossness into himself and blowing it out via a TV channel no one of any spiritual acumen really respects anyway."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:52 AM

A top opposition congressman has dramatically raised tensions over U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq policy by calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. John Murtha, one of the most senior Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives, said on 17 November that "the U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring [the troops] home." The Bush administration has immediately counterattacked by calling Murtha's statement "baffling."


Washington, D.C., 18 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. Representative John Murtha is usually regarded as a hawk -- someone who supports the military in most of what it does.

So when he made this statement at a Washington press conference on 17 November, he got immediate attention.

"It is time for a change in direction," Murtha said. "Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people, or the Persian Gulf region."

Murtha -- who is a retired Marine colonel and a decorated Vietnam veteran -- said he wants U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as they can be withdrawn safely. He estimated that should take about six months.

The Bush administration was clearly stung by the attack by the powerful congressman, who is the senior Democrat on the House of Representative's subcommittee that oversees defense spending

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 10:39 AM

The Wall Street Journal reports:


PRESIDENT BUSH'S job approval rating sank to another low in November, with 34% of Americans saying he is doing an "excellent" or "pretty good job," while 65% rank his performance as "only fair" or "poor," according to the latest Harris Interactive poll. Vice President Cheney got a mere 30% positive rating in the latest telephone poll of 1,011 adults, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld saw a 34% positive rating. Representatives in Congress fared even worse: 27% of those polled now rate Republicans favorably and only a quarter give Democrats positive marks.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 11:14 AM

The WSJ, I am glad to report, also covers the fact that some folks in the Senate are developing enough spine NOT to just rubber stamp the atrocious so-called "Patriot" act, the one which allows some Patriots to invade the privacy and undermine the civil rights of others at great expense to companies:

"WASHINGTON -- Opposition mounted on and off Capitol Hill to extending investigative provisions in the USA Patriot Act, as House and Senate negotiators worked to shore up an agreement to renew the antiterrorism law.

Sens. Larry Craig (R., Idaho), John Sununu (R., N.H.), Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) and Ken Salazar (D., Colo.) said they will fight reauthorization of the entire measure unless it incorporates changes to prevent excessive government intrusion in personal matters.

The Bush administration has been pushing Congress to reauthorize and strengthen the act as a vital counterterrorism tool.

The six senators join an unlikely alliance of opponents to the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union and criminal-defense lawyers on one side of the political spectrum, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S.'s two largest business groups, on the other.

Business is concerned by the growing use, and with it costs, of demands on companies by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for personal records of customers, suppliers and employees.

The six senators wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday saying that it was essential that a new Patriot Act "continues to provide law enforcement with the tools to investigate possible terrorist activity while making reasonable changes to the original law to protect innocent people from unnecessary and intrusive government surveillance."

"If further changes are not made, we will work to stop this bill from becoming law," they said.

Their protest came just hours after Republicans had said a tentative agreement had been reached. But that deal appeared to be in doubt when Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) canceled a news conference on the measure.

Republican staffers said a compromise on differing House and Senate versions had been reached that addressed business and privacy-advocate concerns, curbing some extended powers for law enforcement. The terms reached by negotiators include some new restrictions on government powers, including greater public reporting and oversight of how often the government is demanding records and using various investigative tools.

On close inspection of the deal, privacy advocates and business groups concluded that important provisions that existed in the Senate version of the bill to prevent civil-rights abuses in terror investigations had been gutted. In particular, they felt there wasn't sufficient judicial oversight of National Security Letters, a form of subpoena used to demand phone records and other business records without the approval of a judge. While the proposed law does allow recipients to appeal the letters, it makes it relatively easy for the government to defeat a challenge by claiming that demand for records is a matter of national security.

Moreover, businesses that receive NSLs, as they are called, face new criminal penalties if they tell their customers about them. Under the proposed law, customers may in fact never get notice that their records were requested and obtained by federal agents. Businesses that receive these orders aren't advised that they have a right to consult an attorney and challenge the demand.

Business opposition to the new Patriot Act is in part driven by the costs associated with complying with tens of thousands of NSLs every year."

---

It strikes me as pathetic that business will oppose such fascistic measures only because of the financial costs. Strategically, being willing to lie to your customers about their interests is very poor anti-productive behavior for a business, now being forced on them byt the security weenies. If I thought a business had pulled such a stunt on me my custom would be gone in a New York minute and I woudl do everything I could to prevent other business for them by those I know.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:03 PM

In an interview posted on the CNN news site John Kerry demonstrates again that he is more analytical, more intelligent, and more ethical than the lout he lost to in '04.

He provides concise and straightforward answers to a lot of hard questions, does it with intelligence and a respect for facts, and says what he thinks. And makes it clear that he does think, unlike ole homeboy from Connecticut Texas.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 03:26 PM

Here's a link for you: Sierra Club RAW Archives

================================
SIERRA CLUB RAW
Uncooked Truth, Beyond Belief
================================

Issue #139, November 17, 2005
Cheney of Fools
Eric Antebi, RAW Contributor

Last week the U.S. Senate tried to show common
cause with the American people by dragging oil
executives up to Capitol Hill and grilling them
about record profits and possible price gouging.
In the case of Joe Pickup versus Big Oil, the
Senators wanted to position themselves on the
side of ol' Joe, hoping, of course, that no one
would notice the billions of dollars in tax
breaks and subsidies they gave to oil companies
only a few months ago.

In his column last week about how the Senate
"rolled out the red carpet" for the Oil execs,
Washington Post writer Dana Milbank wrote "The
executives were even less forthcoming when
questions turned hostile. Sen. Frank Lautenberg
asked whether any of the companies had
participated in Vice President Cheney's energy
task force, and all five answered in the
negative. Fortunately, they were not under oath."

Oh how right he was. A week later, Milbank
himself obtained a White House document
confirming the companies met with the Task Force.
Milbank and co-writer Justin Blum pointed out in
the article that Commerce Committee Chairman Ted
Stevens (R-AK) refused to make the oil magnets
testify under oath, a decision that was strongly
protested at the time by Senate Democrats.

Now you may be wondering, "What's the big deal?
Shouldn't oil companies have some input in our
energy policy?" Yes, they should. Now, so
should everyone else. But the real questions
that all Americans should be asking is this:
Given that no one is shocked that oil companies
would meet with Cheney's Task Force, why would
Cheney go all the way to the Supreme Court to
prevent the public from learning about it? Why
did the oil executives look into the cameras and
lie about their participation in the Task Force?
What exactly are these people trying to hide?

If the Senate had any guts, it would put Vice
President Cheney and the Oil Executives on the
stand and under oath. Justice Scalia could do
the honors.

Dana Milbank, "Oil and Grilling Don't Mix,"
Washington Post, Nov. 10, 2005. http://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,gkhj,o7l,cwbz,6rb0,c7it,3ojx

Dana Milbank and Justin Blum, "Document Says Oil
Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force," Washington Post,
Nov. 16, 2005. http://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,gkhj,o7l,43d4,k906,c7it,3ojx

To subscribe to RAW visit: http://info.sierraclub.org/ct.html?rtr=on&s=arz,gkhj,o7l,9nft,ng5,c7it,3ojx

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 05:09 PM

Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, on Thursday revealed he would continue to investigate the matter with a new grand jury, a move believed to be linked to evidence given by the veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward earlier this week.

Mr Fitzgerald's decision to call a new grand jury, seen by legal experts as an important development, will keep an uncomfortable spotlight focused on the White House already dealing with mounting popular discontent with the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush's handling of pre-war intelligence.

---

This is a positive development in spite of the added complexity, IMHO. It keeps a bright light shining on the weasel den.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 08:03 PM

Yeah, Amos, with Woodward's confessions this week, Rove just ihgt get Libby off the hook a little... Of course that's gonna mean havin' to displace Libby as the "Bigger Snitch" but, hey, would be nice to see fatso go...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 09:16 PM

The sorry reflections on "fin-de-siecle" journalism in Washington, from the LA Times:

November 19, 2005        
latimes.com : National News

Tim Rutten:

Woodward joins a decadent dance

Whatever impact the scandal surrounding the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity ultimately has on the Bush administration, it continues to spread through the Washington press corps like a toxic plume.

As it does, it discredits not only individual reporters and damages their news organizations but also an entire style of reporting that has come to dominate the way Americans are informed — or misinformed — concerning their government's conduct.

This week's casualty was the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, who, as it turns out, has concealed for 17 months the fact that a Bush administration official he still refuses to name to his readers leaked Plame's identity to him before the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby — now under indictment for perjury — named the then-covert agent to New York Times reporter Judy Miller and others.

Woodward's disclosure was motivated not by a sudden pang of conscience, as it turns out, but by the sudden necessity of testifying under oath before a federal grand jury. Along the way, he incidentally revealed not only that he had concealed this information from his editors and readers for fear of subpoena, but also that he had in the interim gone on several television shows to trash the special prosecutor investigating the affair. Moreover, it now emerges, the reporting that went into his last best-selling book, "Plan of Attack," involved the submission of written questions in advance to Vice President Dick Cheney, a fact he never bothered to share with the book's readers.

There is something singularly appropriate about the fact that the Plame affair should involve Woodward, whose skillful and courageous use of the ur-voice among confidential sources virtually created a whole genre of Washington reporting. It's a journalistic strategy style dependent on the cultivation of access to well-placed officials greased by promises of "confidentiality." It's a way of doing journalism that still serves its practitioners' career interests, but less and less often their readers or viewers because it's a game the powerful and well-connected have learned to play to their own advantage.

Whatever its self-righteous pretensions, it's a style of journalism whose signature sound is less the blowing of whistles than it is the spinning of tops.

That's why the Washington press corps, whose ranks include so many alleged commentators that you can't spit without hitting one, steadfastly refuses to put the Plame affair and its participants in the context that explains the event. That context is the Bush administration's unprecedented — and largely successful — effort to bend Washington-based news coverage to its ends. The Washington press corps doesn't want to talk about this because it basically puts some of its most admired members in a line of venal patsies. But consider:

Who can forget the administration's payment of nearly a quarter of a million dollars in federal money to the hapless pseudo-columnist and television and radio commentator Armstrong Williams, to promote the president's "no child left behind" initiative?

Then there was the distribution to local television stations across the country of federally financed, pre-packaged video reports designed to support the administration's educational and energy policy initiatives. The videos were tricked up to look like regular news feeds and apparently ran on numerous small stations whose viewers never were informed that they were watching government propaganda.

This week, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's inspector general reported that PBS' former chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, appears to have violated federal law by trying to force a political slant onto the network's programming. The inspector's report alluded to e-mails between Tomlinson and a White House official. On Thursday, Bloomberg.com reported that "Presidential advisor Karl Rove" and Tomlinson "discussed creating a 'conservative talk show and adding it to the public television lineup.' " According to Kenneth Konz, PBS' inspector general, Tomlinson and Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, also corresponded about "shaking up the agency" and "adding Republican staff."

Placed in this context, Woodward, Miller, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and NBC's Tim Russert are less tragic figures in a grand journalistic drama than they are sad — but willing — bit players in somebody else's rather sorry little charade.

This is hardly the first administration intent on managing the press for its own convenience and advantage. Abraham Lincoln had no more compunction about shutting down Copperhead newspapers than he did about suspending habeas corpus. During World War I, Woodrow Wilson's Justice Department was ruthless in its treatment of our then-vast and vigorous foreign-language press and publishing houses.

The preternaturally charming Franklin Roosevelt found it easy to play the White House press corps like a violin, since most of its members — unlike their papers' proprietors — were favorably disposed toward the New Deal. Roosevelt, moreover, consciously used the new mass medium of radio to speak around the country's generally hostile editorial pages and directly to the people.

John Kennedy, who genuinely liked reporters and was fascinated by journalism, made famous and effective use of his warm friendships with White House correspondents, including Benjamin C. Bradlee, who would go on to be Woodward's editor. Richard Nixon — for whom charm was not an option — plotted to use the IRS against reporters, editors and cartoonists who irritated him. (An ill-advised digression into burglary short-circuited the plan.) Bill Clinton, who always thought he could sweet talk the chrome off a trailer hitch, was fond of making personal calls to reporters' homes. (This writer was the recipient of a couple of those, and found them — like cheap champagne — a mildly heady, if ultimately unconvincing, experience.)

Two things have distinguished this Bush administration's efforts at press manipulation from those that have gone before.

One is their sweep and consistency. There has been bribery — as in the egregious case of the wretched Williams. There has been deception — as in the planting of phony news videos. There have been alleged violations of federal laws and regulations — as in Tomlinson's and Rove's efforts to subvert public television. There has been stealth — as in the whispering campaign to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

And, of course, there has been good old-fashioned bullying, as in the president's and vice-president's assertions that raising questions about their push to war or the torture of U.S. captives is somehow "reprehensible" and unpatriotic. It's a melancholy comment on the state of the American press that it takes a former director of Central Intelligence, Adm. Stansfield Turner, to identify Dick Cheney for what he has become — "vice president for torture" — and that he had to do it in a foreign forum, on Britain's ITV news, as he did Thursday.

The other reason all this has more or less succeeded and gone all but unremarked upon is that the administration has adroitly availed itself of the cultural complicity that prevails in a fin de siècle Washington press corps living out the decadence of an increasingly discredited reporting style. As the Valerie Plame scandal and its spreading taint have made all too clear, the trade in confidentiality and access that has made stars of reporters like Bob Woodward and Judy Miller now is utterly bankrupt. (...)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 10:33 PM

The current on-line edition of Slate discusses Dick Cheney's methods:

Cheney's Rules of Evidence
How the vice president argues by deception.

By John Dickerson
Posted Friday, Nov. 18, 2005, at 6:12 PM ET


By talking about "irresponsible comments," Cheney makes it seem that critics are welcoming insurgent bombs or inviting Saddam Hussein for dinner. But how outlandish, in fact, are these "irresponsible" claims by those who voted to authorize force? The most incendiary quote the administration and GOP committees can offer comes from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid: "[T]he administration engaged in a pattern of manipulation of the facts … as it made its case for attacking, for invading Iraq." Reid's charge is debatable, but it's hardly the combustible, irresponsible speech Cheney suggests it is. Cheney is setting the bar for irresponsibility so low that any questions about prewar intelligence can be dismissed.

Cheney: "These are elected officials who had access to the intelligence, and were free to draw their own conclusions."

Cheney talks only about a narrow question: Did the administration fudge evidence it gave to Congress in advance of the vote to authorize the use of force? That's the most solid ground he can stand on, but even it's still shaky. Cheney does not repeat Bush's claim that members of Congress had access to the same intelligence, because they didn't. But he plays up their unprecedented access to the National Intelligence Estimate before they cast their vote—though Cheney knows that some important caveats were left out of that report. Congress had access to intelligence before bombs started dropping, but the administration decided, in the end, how much and what kind of intelligence that was.

And what the vice president doesn't talk about is all the other ways he, the president, and other members of the war council manipulated evidence in hundreds of speeches and interviews leading up to the war. Cheney, for example, insisted there might be a link between Iraq and the attacks on 9/11 after the administration's official position was that there was no such link. He presented the direst view of Iraq's nuclear program without discussing dissent within the administration about those claims. This was not intelligence data, but these claims were critical to shaping public opinion and putting pressure on Congress to vote for war. He could make a case about why the administration had to be aggressive, but he doesn't. (snip)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 09:25 PM

Murtha's Moment: Not Soon Forgotten

In Depth

Nov. 18, 2005
Long-time War Hawk, Murtha Is An Angry Dove
Nov. 19, 2005
Bush, on Asia Trip, Rebuffs U.S. War Critics

"Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course."
Rep. John Murtha, Thursday

NPR.org, November 19, 2005 · No fewer than five American flags flanked the podium when Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha strode into a Capitol briefing room to announce his dramatic reversal on the war in Iraq. Once a solid vote in favor of the invasion, Murtha now says the troops should come home "at the earliest practicable date."

Murtha, 73, is not one of the Capitol's many dandies; he is a large, leathery, no-nonsense kind of guy who makes his own grammatical rules. He won two Purple Hearts as a combat Marine in the Korean and Vietnam wars, after which he tacked on 23 more years in the Marine Reserve. In Congress since 1973, he has been a staunch supporter of the Pentagon, voting to back the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and for the current Iraq conflict in 2002 (unlike most Democrats, in both cases). Since 1989, he has been either chairman or the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

So for this legendary advocate of the military to express such a position was breathtaking.

Murtha's aides handed out copies of his written speech beforehand. There were also copies of the resolution he would introduce calling for redeployment of U.S. forces, and a thick packet including correspondence between Murtha and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the war. Supplied with these things, reporters knew the substance of what was coming -- though we could not have known its timbre.

The congressman began by reading his written statement, the very first two sentences of which were typically direct:

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

But Murtha did not stick to the script. Reading his own words seemed to make him angrier and angrier, and as he started talking about the troubles young soldiers are having returning from the war -- what Murtha called "battle fatigue" -- and the rising cost of their health care, he began to choke up. It is rare to see a member of Congress cry, and especially one as rough-hewn as Murtha. As his words got softer and he labored to speak, reporters leaned forward in their chairs, watching with attention.

He described watching a father, also a retired Marine, stroking the hand of a son who came back from Iraq in a coma. Murtha told of working inside the Pentagon to have a Purple Heart awarded to a young soldier whose body had been torn apart by an American bomb.

Perhaps most poignant of all was Murtha's story of visiting a soldier at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. He told of touching the wounded man's hand, accidentally causing wracking spasms of pain up the young man's wounded arm. You could feel the grief Murtha was still carried at having caused this one victim more pain.

Murtha has previously been critical of the U.S. approach to the war. In 2004, he said the Pentagon had to commit more troops and money if it wanted to win in Iraq. At the time, he caught considerable flak from the House Republican leadership. Tom DeLay of Texas, then the Majority Leader, said Murtha was essentially declaring "surrender in the war on terrorism."

But that was a dust-up beside the firestorm Murtha ignited this week. No sooner had he left his midday news conference than 14 Republicans were on hand to tell reporters that proposing immediate withdrawal was outrageous and out of the question. Some members of Congress took to the floor to denounce him, while others asked what it meant when a lifelong hawk was ready to advocate such a policy.

For its part, the White House pronounced itself "baffled" that a man of Murtha's record would turn against the war, comparing his new views to those of controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.

The next day, House Republicans said they would bring "Murtha's resolution" to an immediate vote on the House floor. But what they offered up for a vote instead was a one-line resolution penned by Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter that Murtha himself, as well as the rest of the Democrats, immediately disavowed. It read: "It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."

This last maneuver sent the House spinning into a high-volume and vituperative debate on the eve of the Thanksgiving recess. Ugly as it was, it was a fitting end to a ragged week, in which tensions over the war, the budget and the management of the GOP majority often reduced the normally disciplined House to an unruly caricature of itself....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Nov 05 - 09:42 PM

BTW, Murha is going to be on Meet the Press, er whatever the show is tomorrow with Tim Russert...

Oughtta be of interest...

Let me say this... BUsh is a friggin' idiot... Here he is in with these extremely low poll numbers and what does this dummy do??? He goes after hsi base yerta again...

Yeah, keep it up, Goeoge and you'll run off even the most partisan of the partisan...

At some point in time you'd think he'd do somethin' unifyin'
byut all he knows is how to divide...

He make Lincoln look like a boy scout and look what it got Lincoln... Had the South won, guess what... We wouldn't be readin' about how Lincoln was so great... He wasn't great... He pushed the South into a war thye country definately didn't need...

And now we have Lincoln II 'cept this one ain't hald as smart as the first Lincoln...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 08:50 AM

The LA Times scoops the nation in revealing the source of much of the Bush Administrations red-hot intell on WMD, back when so many poeple were saying "They must know something we don't know". Turns out it was a goofball named "Curveball" and the Germans told the U.S. all about how unstable he was, and how rotten his data was. The US guys thought it was fine intell, jes' fine. Maybe because it suited their most unworthy purposes?

Hmmmmmmmmmm......maybe we shouldn't call it "intelligence".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 09:14 AM

I think I underemphasized the story in the L.A. TImes about Curveball. THis is a classic revelation of complete stupidity, cupidity, and mismanagement of intelligence.

But more germane to this thread is that when the truth about this whacko started to come out, the Administration came down hard on those in the CIA who tried to clarify the intell and set the record straight.

The war machine was fueled by something other than intelligence, no question.

Full story here.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 09:34 AM

Another major piece of slimy covert legislation from the self-styled Good Guys (read slimeballs) of the current Gummint:

DENVER, Nov. 19 - Private companies and individuals would be able to buy large tracts of federal land, from sagebrush basins to high-peak hiking trails around the West, under the terms of the spending bill passed Friday by a two-vote margin in the House of Representatives.

THE FINE PRINT
The Spending Bill
On the surface, the bill reads like the mundane nip and tuck of federal mining law its authors say it is. But lawyers who have parsed its language say the real beneficiaries could be real estate developers, whose business has become a more potent economic engine in the West than mining.

Under the existing law, a mining claim is the vehicle that allows for the extraction of so-called hard-rock metals like gold or silver.

Under the House bill passed Friday, for the first time in the history of the 133-year-old mining law individuals or companies can file and expand claims even if the land at the heart of a claim has already been stripped of its minerals or could never support a profitable mine. The measure would also lift an 11-year moratorium on the passing of claims into full ownership.

The provisions have struck fear through the West, from the resort areas of the Rockies like Aspen and Vail here in Colorado, to Park City in Utah, which are all laced with old mining claims. Critics say it could open the door for developers to use the claims to assemble large land parcels for projects like houses, hotels, ski resorts, spas or retirement communities.

And some experts on public land use say it is possible that energy companies could use the provision to buy land in the energy-rich fields of Wyoming and Montana on the pretext of mining, but then drill for oil and gas.

"They are called mining claims, but you can locate them where there are no minerals," said John D. Leshy, who was the Interior Department's senior lawyer during the Clinton administration. Mr. Leshy said the legislation "doesn't have much to do with mining at all."

"It has to do with real-estate transfer for economic development," he said.

(From the New York Times).

---

"Lessee -- Federal lands go to private ownership. There goes the neighborhood. . . "

"Oh, never MIND -- there's MONEY in it, dammit!"

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 01:23 PM

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Bush is "making nice"...which is intersting, but given his history for destructive actions makes me a tad nervous:

"After fiercely defending his Iraq policy across Asia, President Bush abruptly toned down his attack on war critics Sunday and said there was nothing unpatriotic about opposing his strategy.

"People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were "reprehensible."

The president also praised Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., as "a fine man" and a strong supporter of the military despite the congressman's call for troop withdrawal as soon as possible.

Bush brought up the growing Iraq debate when he met reporters after inconclusive talks with President Hu Jintao about friction in U.S.-China relations. Bush ran into stiff resistance from the Chinese to his call for expanding religious freedom and human rights."...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Nov 05 - 07:30 PM

If he's makin' nice, Amos, is because Karl Rove told him that his little Veteran's Day assault on 65% of Americans had dropped his pole nummers another 5%...

And, make no bones about it, that is exaxctly what the scrw-up did... Fir the sake of the handfull of rednecks and anti-abortionist who love it when Bushie pumps out his chest and "proclaims, proclaims, proclaims", BUsh attacked 65 tp 70% of the country...

Hey, don't matter if ya' use old math, new math, er any math in the middle, that was just plain dumb!!!

You can kiss off the last 3 years of this administartion... These guys have no interest in anything but appealing to their adoring right winged fan club...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 09:19 AM

The TImes describes an interesting dynamic between three Republican Senators and Dick "Dick" Cheney.

"WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 - On a July evening in the Capitol, Vice President Dick Cheney summoned three Republican senators to his ornate office just off the Senate chamber. The Republicans - John W. Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - were making trouble for the Bush administration, and Mr. Cheney let them know it.

The three were pushing for regulations on the treatment of American military prisoners, including a contentious ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The vice president wanted the provision pulled from a huge military spending bill. The senators would not budge.

"We agreed to disagree," Mr. Graham said in an interview last week.

That private session was an early hint of a Republican feud that spilled into the open last week, as Senate Republicans openly challenged President Bush on American military policy in Iraq and the war on terrorism. In the center of the fray, pushing Congress to reassert itself, were those same three Republicans.

---

The roly-poly guy with the vicious sneer and the talent for altering history while accusing others of doing so apparently didn't like the idea of imposing a standarsd of decency even on miltary operations.

Who ARE these people?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 05 - 10:36 PM

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Michael Scanlon, a former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay and a onetime partner of high-powered Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge Monday.

As part of the deal with the Justice Department, Scanlon agreed to testify against Abramoff in a probe that also has implicated at least one member of Congress, two government sources have told CNN.

Scanlon was charged Friday with one count of conspiracy as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation of his and Abramoff's lobbying activities.

Scanlon, a 35-year-old public relations executive, agreed to pay $19.7 million in restitution for kickbacks he admitted receiving as part of the conspiracy to defraud his and Abramoff's clients.

"He's obviously regretful for the circumstances that bring him here, but he's trying to do what he thinks is right," his attorney, Plato Cacheris, told reporters after the hearing in federal district court.

Scanlon was freed on an unsecured $5 million bond pending sentencing. His only comment was: "You guys will be seeing me around."

As part of the plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Scanlon admitted plotting to cheat clients and corruptly influence federal officials.

...from CNN

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 10:57 PM

The Nation summarizes the anti-war position:

verything that needs to be known is now known: The reasons the Bush Administration gave for the American war in Iraq were all falsehoods or deceptions, and every day the US occupation continues deepens the very problems it was supposed to solve. Therefore there can no longer be any doubt: The war--an unprovoked, unnecessary and unlawful invasion that has turned into a colonial-style occupation--is a moral and political catastrophe. As such it is a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation.

The war has also become the single greatest threat to our national security. Its human and economic costs are spiraling out of control, with no end in sight. It has driven America's reputation in the world to a historic low point. In the meantime, real threats suffer terrible neglect. These include more terrorist attacks, jeopardized oil supplies, rising tension with China, the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and even natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. All are pushed aside as this Administration pours the country's blood, treasure and political energy into a futile war. In short, ending the Iraq War is the most pressing issue facing America today. Until it is ended, a constructive national security policy cannot be forged.

Americans are well on their way to a full appreciation of the dimensions of this debacle. In an October CBS news poll, 59 percent of citizens surveyed and 73 percent of Democrats now want an end to US military involvement in Iraq. But this growing majority has made its judgment with virtually no help from our nation's leaders. Most shameful has been the Democratic Party's failure to oppose the war. Indeed, support for it has been bipartisan: A Republican President and Congress made the policy, and almost all of the leading Democrats--most of the honorable exceptions are members of the House of Representatives--supported it from the outset and continue to do so. To their credit, would-be presidential candidate Senator Russell Feingold and former Senator Gary Hart have recently made strong antiwar statements. More recently two other presidential contenders, Senator John Kerry and former Senator John Edwards, have begun to call for a shift in policy, though still in vague and reticent terms. More typical, however, are the other presidential hopefuls, Senators Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Evan Bayh, who continue to huddle for cover in "the center." They offer little alternative to Bush's refrain "We must stay the course!" Nor do the party's Congressional leaders and its head, Howard Dean, once a leader of antiwar sentiment. Can such politicians, who cannot even follow a majority--in the Democratic Party, a large majority--really be considered leaders?



...

---

The balance of the editorial is here and worth a read.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 11:18 PM

I'm so sick of "agree to disagree" I could puke...

What a stupid thing to say but that is whey our tax dollars are being spent for... Yup, a bunch of PR folks to shove crap down out throats...

Hey, the US is vilolation of the Geneva accords in troturing folks... But Cheney, who loves to see other folks tortutred because his daddy caught him masterbating at an early age and for which he has held 50 years of anger, is taking it out on folks who should, based on internation law, be treated humanly... But no, Chickenhawk Cheney, has to want them tortured?!?!?!?!...

But when it come up that the US is conflict with international law we get this "agree to disagree" from this jerk????

I'm sick of the dodge myself... Either we a country with laws and principles or we ain't... Ain't no agree to disagree about it!!!!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 11:39 AM

The Times looks askance at the Administration's actions on the case of Padilla:

"ASHINGTON, Nov. 23 - The Bush administration decided to charge Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of Al Qaeda who had been subjected to harsh questioning, current and former government officials said Wednesday.

Indictment Portrays Padilla as Minor Figure in a Plot
The two senior members were the main sources linking Mr. Padilla to a plot to bomb targets in the United States, the officials said.

The Qaeda members were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Abu Zubaydah, a top recruiter, who gave their accounts to American questioners in 2002 and 2003. The two continue to be held in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency, whose internal reviews have raised questions about their treatment and credibility, the officials said.

One review, completed in spring 2004 by the C.I.A. inspector general, found that Mr. Mohammed had been subjected to excessive use of a technique involving near drowning in the first months after his capture, American intelligence officials said.

Another review, completed in April 2003 by American intelligence agencies shortly after Mr. Mohammed's capture, assessed the quality of his information from initial questioning as "Precious Truths, Surrounded by a Bodyguard of Lies."

Accusations about plots to set off a "dirty bomb" and use natural gas lines to bomb American apartment buildings had featured prominently in past administration statements about Mr. Padilla, an American who had been held in military custody for more than three years after his arrest in May 2002.

But they were not mentioned in his criminal indictment on lesser charges of support to terrorism that were made public on Tuesday. The decision not to charge him criminally in connection with the more far-ranging bomb plots was prompted by the conclusion that Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Zubaydah could almost certainly not be used as witnesses, because that could expose classified information and could open up charges from defense lawyers that their earlier statements were a result of torture, officials said.

Without that testimony, officials said, it would be nearly impossible for the United States to prove the charges. Moreover, part of the bombing accusations hinged on incriminating statements that officials say Mr. Padilla made after he was in military custody - and had been denied access to a lawyer."...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 01:27 PM

From a dear Irish friend:

"George Bush has started an ill-timed and disastrous war under false pretenses by lying to the American people and to the Congress; he has run a budget surplus into a severe deficit; he has consistently and unconscionably favored the wealthy and corporations over the rights and needs of the population; he has destroyed trust and confidence in, and goodwill toward, the United States around the globe; he has ignored global warming to the world's detriment; he has wantonly broken our treaty obligations; he has attempted to create a theocracy in the United States; he has appointed incompetent cronies to positions of vital national
importance....

Now, as the awarded "best sign in the DC peace march" suggested:

"Would someone please give him a blowjob so we can impeach him?"

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 09:37 PM

Amos, you are now assigned to the position of Presidential Blower.

Now git'er done boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 10:55 PM

Only if you promise to help impeach the SOB, Old Fart.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Nov 05 - 06:26 PM

Heck, If I knew it would get rid of these guys, I'd sho nuff volunteer a couple folks here in Mudville for the honors since they got their head so far up Bush and Cheney's asses it would be a short commute...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 02:21 AM

Amos:

Let's have a list of these "incompetent cronies" and their relationship to Bush. Also ilustrate their incompetence.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 04:41 AM

Published on Friday, November 25, 2005 by the Capital Times, Madison, WI The Cost of Bush Will Be Huge, Lasting
by Dave Zweifel

These haven't been a good couple of months for President Bush.

His approval ratings have plummeted so far that even staunch members of his own party are admitting they disagree with him on several key issues and some are now openly challenging some of his policies. As I predicted after the 2004 elections, we're going to have trouble in a couple of years finding people who will admit to having voted for him, just as nobody would fess up to having voted for "Tricky Dick" Nixon's re-election in 1972.

But Bush's personal political problems are nothing compared to the problems that now face our country, problems brought on by a reckless administration that seems to have little regard for the country's future. In a word, it's scandalous. A front page of USA Today last week showed it all in graphic detail. If we continue on the same track we are today, our annual $319 billion deficit will be more than $4 trillion in 2050, when our grandkids are nearing retirement.

"We face a demographic tsunami," insists David Walker, the U.S. comptroller general. He compares the United States to Rome before the fall of the empire. The country faces deficits in its budget, its balance of payments, its savings and its leadership, he told USA Today. And he's far from alone. Both conservative and liberal economic experts are starting to sound the alarm. We can't keep spending on everything from an incredibly expensive war to a Medicare drug program that mainly benefits insurance companies and cut taxes by hundreds of billions at the same time.

As Sen. Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, wrote in the Chicago Tribune last week:

"For too long, the philosophy in Washington has been that you can spend without consequence or sacrifice. That we can fight a war in Iraq and a war on terror, protect our homeland, provide our citizens with Medicare and Social Security and maintain our domestic priorities, all while cutting taxes for the wealthy and funding every local project there is." It's not a sustainable future for America, he added.

Now we have Alan Greenspan lumping the country's record trade deficit on top of all our other problems. There's going to come a time - perhaps earlier than we realize - that foreign lenders are going to stop funding that deficit we keep growing.

As Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget told USA Today, "I want to see a presidential election where the candidates are talking about what taxes they'll raise and what spending they'll cut." What's for sure is that we simply cannot keep on the path we've been following the past five years.

Copyright 2005 The Capital Times

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 04:44 AM

Carving up Our Economic Pie by Holly Sklar

Pie season is here. Pumpkin, apple, cherry, whatever you like. We can use edible pie charts -- and some chocolate -- to see how our national economic pie is being carved up more unfairly.

Let's look first at income distribution.

Take two pies -- one for 1979, the other for 2003 (using the latest IRS data).

Divide the 1979 pie into 10 equal slices. If the slices were eaten according to the distribution of income in 1979:

-- The richest 1 percent of taxpayers would get one slice.

-- The rest of the top 20 percent would get four slices.

-- The other 80 percent of taxpayers would split five slices.

Now, divide the 2003 pie into 10 slices.

-- The richest 1 percent would get nearly two slices.

-- The rest of the top 20 percent would get a little over four slices.

-- The other 80 percent would split four slices.

In 1979, the top 20 percent of taxpayers had about as much income as the other 80 percent combined. In 2003, the top 20 percent had 60 percent of the income, leaving just 40 percent for the rest. The richest 1 percent nearly doubled their share.

Let's look more closely at the upward shift in income.

In 1979, the bottom 40 percent of taxpayers had about 15 percent more combined income than the richest 1 percent. In 2003, the richest 1 percent had twice the income share of the bottom 40 percent.

The richest 1 percent share of reported income jumped from 9.6 percent in 1979 to 17.5 percent in 2003. The bottom 40 percent share fell from 11.3 percent to 8.8 percent.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston puts the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else in stark perspective. He examined the income reported on tax returns of the top 0.01 percent -- about 14,000 households with at least $5.5 million in income.

From 1950 to 1970, for every additional dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162.

From 1990 to 2002, for every additional dollar earned in the bottom 90 percent, those at the top brought in an extra $18,000.

If you are feeling financially down this holiday season, there's a good reason. Average workers have been earning less after inflation, not more. Average hourly earnings dropped 5 percent, adjusting for inflation, between 1979 and 2004 -- while domestic corporate profits rose 63 percent.

The share of national income going to wages and salaries is at the lowest level since 1929 -- the year that kicked off the Great Depression. The share going to after-tax corporate profits, which heavily benefit wealthy Americans through increased dividends and capital gains, is at the highest level since 1929.

Income gaps in the workplace have become increasingly outrageous, as seen in the growing gap between worker pay and CEO pay. We can demonstrate it with a pile of chocolate.

Give 1 piece of chocolate to your worker stand-in and 44 pieces to your CEO stand-in. That was the 1980 ratio of average full-time worker pay to average pay among CEOs in Business Week's survey of major corporations.

For the equivalent 2004 ratio, give 1 piece of chocolate to the worker and 362 to the CEO.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, federal policy is contributing "to a further widening of income disparities between the most affluent households and other Americans." Households with incomes over $1 million will receive an average tax cut of $103,000 this year -- an increase of 5.4 percent in their after-tax income.

The congressional majority is done crying crocodile tears over Katrina and the shameful inequality it exposed.

They're working overtime to stiff the have-nots with more budget cuts so they can keep stuffing the pockets of the haves with more tax cuts. The budget knife is dropping on Medicaid, education, child care, food assistance and more-- even public health, despite loud warnings we are unprepared for bird flu and other threats.

Tell your senators and members of Congress what you think about their priorities, and make your voice count when you vote next November.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
Published on Friday, November 25, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 07:54 PM

Yeah, Freda... Make no bones about it, no matter what screwed up policy of Bush's (which means all of them) when you strip them down the rich get richer and the average workin' stiff gets poorer...

Oh, but HARK!!!! The filthy rich are perfectly willing to *lend* thier wealth, at high interets rates, back to the folks they just robbed so that the victims can have a few Christmas presenst under the tree fir their kids, even if it will mean runnin' the plasric up even higher...

You see, that is the crux of the American economy right now... Stealin' and lending back... Stealing and lending back... Problem is that the reality is that the working class stiff will never be able to retire... Remember just a few years ago and folks were so happy that these 401's were going to mean a comfy retirement??? Don't hwear that no more...

Boss Hog don't like retirement 'cept for him and his friends...

This is their way of tryin' to kill off the New Deal...

No one retires!!!!

('Cept us, of course... hehe)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 11:13 PM

I don't see any list of the Bush cronies. Bush haters like to hurl accusations but they can't back their accusations up with factual data, just something that someone with a bias against Bush said.

I think that is known as bullshitting.

What was Clinton's approval rating in 1993?

The answer is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton#Public_approval

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Nov 05 - 11:34 PM

Like who cares about Clinton's approval ratings from almost a decade and a half ago, Old Guy??? Do you??? And if so, why???

Like what does ancient history have to do with what is going on today???

When are you and yer Bushite buds gonna figgure out that that yer guy has been at the controls long 'nuff now to quit draggin' ancient history into yer arguments...

What, is Bush gonna have to live to be 100 years old before you folks are willin' to say, "Hey, he did this or that"????

I'm serious, Old Guy...

Hey I din't like Clintonm much more thah yer guy but, hey, when you bring Clinton into yer defense of Bush's policies it just makes you sound like real dumb... No offense, mind you...

Why can't you just stand on policy and issues???

Nevermind, I think I know why...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 07:29 PM

Isnt the title of this thread Oxymoronic ?? I cant think of ANYThing popular about the Bush Admin !

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Nov 05 - 07:35 PM

Anbd 1600 !!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 28 Nov 05 - 03:57 AM

Well held Terence!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Nov 05 - 07:26 PM

Old Guy asks "Let's have a list of these "incompetent cronies" and their relationship to Bush. Also ilustrate their incompetence."

Okay, Old Guy, since you asked, here's a little material for you to browse. The URLs to the sources are all listed, but there are so many of them that I haven't the time to convert them all to links for your convenience. If you have any doubts about the information, check the source out for yourself. So—pop open a bottle of Geritol, kick back, and have a fun read.

Don Firth

FEMA Cronyism Led to Failure
Michael Brown, who resigned September 12, 2005, as FEMA's director, "has become a symbol of cronyism," Paul Krugman (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular) in the New York Times.

Brown "didn't know the difference between a tropical depression and an anxiety attack when President Bush charged him with life-and-death decisions," Maureen Dowd wrote (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular) in the Times. "W. trusted Brownie simply because he was a friend of a friend," Dowd said (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular). "He was a college buddy of Joe Allbaugh, who worked as W.'s chief of staff when he was Texas governor and as his 2000 presidential campaign manager." When FEMA was "reorganized under Homeland Security, stripping it of authority," Allbaugh left the agency to become a lobbyist for companies like Halliburton, leaving behind "an eviscerated FEMA" with "his friend Brown in charge," Dowd said (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular).

Spencer S. Hsu wrote (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html) in the September 9, 2005, Washington Post that "Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative." "Meanwhile," Hsu reported (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html), "veterans such as U.S. hurricane specialist Eric Tolbert and World Trade Center disaster managers Laurence W. Zensinger and Bruce P. Baughman -- who led FEMA's offices of response, recovery and preparedness, respectively -- have left since 2003, taking jobs as consultants or state emergency managers, according to current and former officials."
"Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina," Spencer S. Hsu wrote (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html) September 9, 2005.

FEMA's "Bungled Response" to Hurricane Katrina
FEMA's response to one of the greatest natural disasters in American history was serious hampered by its failure to prepare, in spite of the recent "Hurricane Pam" simulation, and relief spending experience in pre-Election Florida 2004.
"The breakdown in management and communications was so execrable that the president learned about the 25,000 desperate, trapped people at the New Orleans convention center not from [FEMA director Michael Brown] ..., who didn't know himself, but from a wire story carried into the Oval Office by an aide on Thursday, 24 hours after the victims had been pleading and crying for help on every channel," Maureen Dowd wrote (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular) September 10, 2005.
The "lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina revealed to everyone that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which earned universal praise during the Clinton years, is a shell of its former self," Paul Krugman wrote (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular) September 12, 2005.

FAA incompetence failed to avert the 9/11 event
As the veil of secrecy lifts, as many new questions are revealed as new answers. [1] (http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/1016) Did the FAA experience the same kind of cronyism incompetence prior September 11, 2001 as did FEMA prior to Hurricane Katrina? Perhaps not; but the process was well underway, as evidenced by the dismissal of the final report of the Hart-Rudman Task Force on Homeland Security, the assignment of Enron to Cheney Energy Task Force, and the appointment of Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor.

Nominees to the Department of Justice
"Given this administration's pattern of nominating ideologically extreme candidates for the judiciary and making politically aggressive nominations decisions such as re-nominating candidates previously disapproved," in his May 12, 2005, statement (http://www.senate.gov/comm/judiciary/general/member_statement.cfm?id=1500&wit_id=2629) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Vermont Senator Patrick J. Leahy expressed concerns regarding Bush nominees Alice S. Fisher (as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division), Rachel Brand (as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy), and Regina B. Schofield (as Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP)).

Senator Arlen Specter "said in the interview on Friday [August 12, 2005,] that he had concerns about the depth of criminal prosecution experience at the top of the Justice Department after the departure" of Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, who left in August 2005 to be Lockheed Martin's new general counsel and who had been "a veteran prosecutor in Manhattan," Eric Lichtblau wrote (http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/nyt-8-16-05c.html) in the August 15, 2005, New York Times.

"Judiciary Committee members said that for the first time in memory, none of the most senior officials at the Justice Department" -- Alberto R. Gonzales, Timothy E. Flanigan, Robert D. McCallum, Jr., or Alice S. Fisher -- "would have experience as a criminal prosecutor."

Cronyism and Mass Exodus from Government Departments
Paul Krugman asked (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular) September 12, 2005, "How many FEMA's are there?"

•        Environmental Protection Agency: "has seen a major exodus of experienced officials over the past few years. In particular, senior officials have left in protest over what they say is the Bush administration's unwillingness to enforce environmental law." According to Hugh Kaufman, "a senior policy analyst in the agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, ... 'The budget has been cut ... and inept political hacks have been put in key positions.'"

•        Food and Drug Administration: "Serious questions have been raised about the agency's coziness with drug companies, and the agency's top official in charge of women's health issues resigned over the delay in approving Plan B, the morning-after pill, accusing the agency's head of overruling the professional staff on political grounds."

•        Corporation for Public Broadcasting: "Republican chairman hired a consultant to identify liberal bias in its programs. The consultant apparently considered any criticism of the administration a sign of liberalism, even if it came from conservatives."

•        Department of the Treasury: "has fallen from grace"; Treasury Secretary John Snow, "was obviously picked for his loyalty rather than his qualifications ... Less obvious to the public is the hollowing out of the department's expertise. Many experienced staff members have left since 2000, and a number of key positions are either empty or filled only on an acting basis."

•        Department of Homeland Security: "FEMA was neglected, some people say, because it was folded into a large agency that was focused on terrorist threats, not natural disasters." and "In 2004 Reuters reported a 'steady exodus' of counterterrorism officials, who believed that the war in Iraq had taken precedence over the real terrorist threat."

"Grand Incompetence Party"
"No one -- no one -- can name a single front on which today's Republicans have shown even the simplest competence. They don't know how to manage an economy. They sure don't know how to balance a budget. They have no idea how to create jobs (though they do have a pretty strong sense of how to make them disappear). Their domestic-security measures have consisted of the usual emphasis on show over substance, first stealing a Democratic idea (the Department of Homeland Security) and then underfunding the result in some crucial respects -- a mistake for which I pray we never pay a price," Michael Tomasky wrote (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/08/tomasky-m-08-27.html) in The American Prospect, August 27, 2003.

"They don't understand the Bill of Rights, and their shills in the media obviously don't understand the relationship between the First Amendment and trademark law, as Blah-Blah O'Reilly's laughable lawsuit against the Al Franken shows. They've done nothing to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink, and have, if anything, done damage to those resources. They've done nothing for the minorities Mr. Compassionate Conservative was supposedly courting in 2000, his speeches to the NAACP and the like transcribed by a tremulous media," Tomasky said.

"And now, it turns out, they don't know how to do the one thing they've spent 50 years convincing Americans that they and only they know how to do: fight a war."
"And, of course," Tomasky wrote, "there are wealthy interests who keep the party alive financially and who must be rewarded on all possible fronts. This, actually, is the one service Republicans do perform competently. They make damn sure of that."

Documents

•        "The Right-Wing Affiliations of Bush Administration Officials," (http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=6252) "Right-Wing Watch"/People for the American Way.
•        "The Politicalization of Inspectors General" (http://reform.democrats.house.gov/Documents/20050111164847-37108.pdf) prepared for Representative Henry A. Waxman. United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform - Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division, October 21, 2004; revised January 7, 2005.
•        Findings: "Politicization of Inspectors General," (http://reform.democrats.house.gov/story.asp?id=726) Committee on Government Reform - Minority Office, October 21, 2004.
•        Statement by Senator Patrick J. Leahy (http://www.senate.gov/comm/judiciary/general/member_statement.cfm?id=1500&wit_id=2629), U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, May 12, 2005.
•        DOJ Nominees and Appointments as of September 23, 2005 (http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/ls/dojappts.html), including links to official press release announcements, Department of Justice website.

Articles & Commentary

2002
•        Ceci Connolly, "Hill Group Faults HHS for Ideology," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A61430-2002Oct21¬Found=true) Washington Post, October 22, 2002.
•        "Some House Democrats Question Department's Recent Decisions Regarding Advisory Panels, Public Health Information," (http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?hint=3&DR_ID=14177) Kaiser Network, October 22, 2002.
•        "GAO To Review Operations Under HHS Inspector General in Response to Senators' Request," (http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?hint=3&DR_ID=14201) Kaiser Network, October 23, 2002.

2003
•        "Bush's talent for cronyism: foxes guarding the henhouse," (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushco/cronyism.htm) Project for the Old American Century, undated.
•        "Janet Rehnquist Resigns," (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/04/politics/main542782.shtml) Associated Press (CBS News), March 4, 2003.
•        "Rehnquist's daughter, under investigation, leaves job," (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=15&num=1884&printer=1) Associated Press (Capitol Hill Blue), March 5, 2003.
•        Michael Tomasky, "Ineptitude Redefined. Stereotype holds that the GOP is the party of sober competence. But the opposite is true," (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/08/tomasky-m-08-27.html) The American Prospect, August 27, 2003.
•        Linda Berg, "Inside the Bush Administration: Cronyism Despite the Human Cost," (http://now.org/nnt/winter-2004/administration.html) NOW.org, Winter 2003/2004.

2004
•        Andrew Zajac, "Insiders Shape Postwar Iraq," (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2004/0620planners.htm) Chicago Tribune (Global Policy), June 20, 2004.
•        David J. Sirota and Judd Legum, "These Dogs Don't Hunt," (http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8076) The American Prospect, July 9, 2004: "A Pentagon inspector's defense of Halliburton is a textbook example of the cronyism of Bush's so-called watchdogs."
•        Jon Elliston, "A Disaster Waiting to Happen. As FEMA weathers Bush administration policy changes, some insiders fear that concerns over terrorism are trumping protection from hurricanes and other natural hazards," (http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story.html) Best of New Orleans, August 28, 2005. Lengthy article includes list of FEMA cuts.
•        "The Final Countdown: Corporate Cronyism," (http://www.525reasons.com/archives/000922.html#000922) 525 Reasons, October 23, 2004.
•        "Big Bush Fundraisers Get Admin Positions," (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139051,00.html) Associated Press (Fox News), November 19, 2004: "One-third of President Bush's top 2000 fund-raisers or their spouses were appointed to positions in his first administration, from ambassadorships in Europe to seats on policy-setting boards." (emphasis added)
•        Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, "Official Who Criticized Homeland Security Is Out of a Job. Inspector General Had Reported Mismanagement, Security Flaws," (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=316582&page=1) ABC News, December 9, 2004.

2005
•        Megan Scully, "Pentagon IG: Defense official could face criminal charges," (http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0605/060705cdpm1.htm) Congress Daily (GovExec.com), June 7, 2005.
•        "George Bush's Wise Guys: Noe, Abramoff, Reed, and the Wyly Brothers," (http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/06/ale05085.html) BuzzFlash, June 14, 2005.
•        Eric Holdeman, "Disasters Keep Coming but FEMA Phased Out," (http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090105J.shtml) Washington Post (Truthout), August 31, 2005: "Agency responsible for preparedness absorbed into homeland security."
•        "US: Pentagon's Chief Watchdog Joins Company that Owns Blackwater," (http://www.corpwatch.org/print_article.php?id=12592) Reuters (CorpWatch), September 1, 2005: "Joseph Schmitz, the Pentagon's chief internal watchdog since March 2002, has quit to join a defense contractor involved in private security services."
•        "Chertoff Learned of Levee Failure 36 Hours After Mayor Nagin?" (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/04/chertoff-learned-of-levee-failure-36-hours-after-mayor-nagin/) Think Progress, September 4, 2005.
•        Judd, "Top FEMA Deputies Make Brown Look Qualified," (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/06/fema-deputies/) Think Progress, September 6, 2005.
•        Kenneth R. Bazinet, "FEMA packed with W's pals. Campaign pros get top jobs," (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/344004p-293718c.html) New York Daily News, September 7, 2005.
•        "Exposed by Katrina, FEMA's flaws were years in making. Political appointments, loss of focus crippled disaster relief agency," (http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050908/edit08.art.htm) USA Today, September 7, 2005.
•        "Two Bush 2000 Florida recount aides were rewarded with top FEMA posts," (http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002346.html) Attytood, September 7, 2005.
•        "Pelosi: Bush: 'Oblivious, in denial, dangerous'," (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/07.html#a4839) Crooks and Liars, September 7, 2005: "At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had 'absolutely no credentials.' ... She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown..." WMP and QT links on page.
•        Lara Jakes Jordan, "FEMA chief relieved of Katrina duties," (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/09/fema_chief_relieved_of_katrina_duties/) Associated Press (Boston Globe), September 9, 2005.
•        Spencer S. Hsu, "Leaders Lacking Disaster Experience. 'Brain Drain' At Agency Cited," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html) Washington Post, September 9, 2005.
•        Frank Bass and Dirk Lammers, "Congress to Investigate Sept. 11 Loan Program," (http://sbc.senate.gov/democrat/record.cfm?id=245514) Associated Press (U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepeneurship), September 9, 2005.
•        Maureen Dowd, "Neigh to Cronies," (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/opinion/10dowd.html?incamp=article_popular) New York Times, September 10, 2005.
•        David E. Sanger, "FEMA Chief Was Recalled After High-Level Meeting," (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/national/nationalspecial/11fema.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1126609618-sVW+kTiekmdaI8sADLML5w) New York Times, September 11, 2005.
•        Paul Krugman, "All the President's Friends," (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html?incamp=article_popular) New York Times, September 12, 2005.
•        Roger Simon, "A heck of a job," (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050912/12simon.htm) US News.com, September 12, 2005.
•        Frank Bass and Dirk Lammers, "Feds Praise Their Sept. 11 Relief Loan Program but Omit Critical Audit," (http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB5IN0SKDE.html) Associated Press (Tampa Bay Online), September 13, 2005.
•        RJ Eskow, "Is the SBA the Next Scandal?" (http://nightlight.typepad.com/nightlight/2005/09/is_the_sba_the_.html) Night Light, September 13, 2005.
•        Ellen Goodman, "While we're at it, let's look at FDA incompetence, too," (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3359118) Houston Chronicle, September 18, 2005.
•        Marc Kaufman, "FDA Rethinks Women's Chief. Toigo Is Acting Head; Agency Denies Naming Veterinary Official," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901576.html?nav=hcmodule) Washington Post, September 20, 2005.
•        Dan Eggan and Spencer S. Hsu, "Immigration Nominee's Credentials Questioned," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901930.html) Washington Post, September 20, 2005.
•        "The Soul of Cronyism," (http://petty-larseny.blogspot.com/2005/09/soul-of-cronyism.html) Petty Larseny Blog, September 20, 2005. re Julie L. Myers
•        Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay, "CIA director faces questions from employees," (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12716487.htm) Knight Ridder Newspapers, September 22, 2005.
•        Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty, and Mike Allen, "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1109345,00.html) Time, September 25, 2005: "A TIME inquiry finds that at top positions in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience."
•        Robert Scheer, "Corrupt Connections. Widening Abramoff scandal exposes GOP cronyism," (http://www.robertscheer.com/) robertscheer.com, September 27, 2005.
•        Christopher Brauchli, "When Cronyism Substitutes for Competence," (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1001-04.htm) Common Dreams, October 1, 2005.
•        Billmon, "A Crony on the Court," (http://billmon.org/archives/002217.html) Whiskey Bar, October 3, 2005. re Harriet E. Miers
•        Opinion: "Inexpert Selection," (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/opinion/11tue4.html) New York Times, October 11, 2005. re Ellen Sauerbrey
•        Steve Clemons, "Stephen Friedman Named to Chair President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board," (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001038.html) The Washington Note, October 27, 2005. re Stephen Friedman
•        Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey, "In the Company of Friends. Bush may be besieged by charges of cronyism, but they don't seem to have affected his picks for a panel assessing intelligence matters," (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9900921/site/newsweek/?rf=nwnewslette) Newsweek, November 2, 2005.
•        Steve Soto, "Four Years After 9/11, Bush's Cronyism Extends To National Intelligence As Well," (http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005923.php) The Left Coaster, November 3, 2005.
•        Stewart Simonson and Donald Powell, "Bush cronies continue to hurt country. Will the public's health and pocketbooks be 'Brownied'?" (http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=92) Media Transparency, November 10, 2005.
That's it for now, but if you'd like more, I'm sure I can find it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Wanderer
Date: 28 Nov 05 - 11:40 PM

The Patriot Act has undermined the civil liberties of ordinary citizens more viciously than any other single act.

Some remarks about it:

http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/senateletter_111705.pdf

"We write to express our deep concern about the draft Patriot Act
reauthorization conference report made available to us early this
afternoon. As you know, the Senate version of the bill, passed by
unanimous consent in July, was itself a compromise that resulted from
intense negotiations by Senators from all sides of the partisan and
ideological divides. Unfortunately, the conference committee draft
retreats significantly from the bipartisan consensus we reached in the
Senate. It does not accomplish what we and many of our colleaguesin the
Senatebelieveis necessary-- a reauthorization bill that continues to
provide law enforcement with the tools to investigate possible terrorist
activity while making reasonable changes to the original law to protect
innocent people from unnecessary and intrusive government surveillance...

For the past several years, our bipartisan coalition has been working
together to highlight and fix the civil liberties problems posed by the Patriot Act. We introduced the SAFE Act to address those problems, while still maintaining important law enforcement powers needed to combat terrorism. We cannot support a conference report that would eliminate the modest protections for civil liberties that were agreed to unanimously in the Senate.

The conference report, in its current form, is unacceptable. We hope
that you, as members of the conference committee, will consider making
the changes set forth above. If further changes are not made, we will
work to stop this bill from becoming law. Thank you for your consideration. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Nov 05 - 03:03 PM

Here, just for my good buddy Amos. Enjoy!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 12:34 PM

OY! TOO real!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 05 - 02:23 PM

Congressman Weldon may not be long for this world so send a sympathy card to him before he is assasinated by Cheney and his crew.

.......................

Good news for Jerry Falwell. A major battle is won on Capitol Hill...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20051129-120703-5977r.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 05 - 01:19 PM

I have always admired the gritty determination of those who believe that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were obvious and necessary actions tot hose willing to confront the evil of Al Qeda and Hussein. I appreciate the determination to face things squarely.

But I feel as well that if we are determined to confront evil without flinching, we must include our own harms in the world, and not limit ourselves to those hartms, real or omagined, which have been done to us by others. That way lies insanity, not responsibility.

This site offers some unflinching views of what we are paying for the notional advances in civilization being brought about by the wars initiated by Mister Bush and his administration.

I don't think much else need be said.

There are those who feel Bush should be impeached for crimes committed while in office.

This is a decision each citizen must make in the provacy of his own conscience.

A.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 05 - 02:08 PM

From a blog linked in the "Presented by GWB" thread:

ush has lost the battle for the hearts and minds of America.

He is a loser now.
A loser tomorrow.
And even a bigger loser when the historians shred him to bits.

For a majority of Americans he is starting to sound and look and act like a far bigger wimp than his father ever was. He has been dismissed to the back of the class to carve his initials in a desk.

As far as Barbara Bush goes...
I'm sure most Americans feel exactly like I do:

Why did they put that shrew on the cover of our one dollar bills?

Disgusting.

I'll take four quarters please...
Oh no...nevermind.
Dimes. Dimes. Dimes.

Posted by: koreyel at December 1, 2005 05:59 PM
"The sources said Mr. Bush has privately blamed Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. They said the president has told his senior aides that the vice president and defense secretary provided misleading assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capabilities of the regime of Saddam Hussein.


As a result, the sources said, Mr. Cheney has been ousted from his role as the administration's point man in the area of national security. They said presidential staffers have kept Mr. Cheney out of the loop on discussions on policy as the White House has struggled with the political and intelligence fallout from the war in Iraq."

More at the link:

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Cheney2.htm

They're all running but they've got no where to hide.

It IS Tribunal Time In The United States of America.

Peace,
UL

Posted by: understandinglife at December 1, 2005 06:10 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 05 - 09:28 AM

Bush administration failed in its most sacred duty

MICHAEL O'CONNOR; Gig Harbor
Published: December 4th, 2005 02:30 AM

(News Tribune, WA)

It is truly frustrating for our military to go into a conflict and bravely fight and die when the American people lose their enthusiasm for the war.
When our leaders do not do their homework and commit us to wars using scare tactics based on faulty intelligence, it is not surprising that the American people would lose patience – especially when it becomes apparent that a direct threat to America was never there.

In an authoritarian state, it is much easier for leaders to quell anti-war dissent. In a democracy, the military, dedicated to preserving our freedoms and way of life, must live with the frustration of seeing the people's representatives question a war's cost in lives and resources.

In not adequately weighing the intelligence that ran contrary to their preconceived notions, the Bush administration leaders failed in what is perhaps their most sacred duty – making sure they are sending our citizen soldiers into a just war. They should be held accountable.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 05 - 10:07 AM

What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (and do you care, Mr Blair?)
Tens of thousands of people marched in 33 countries yesterday to express concern for the environment. But will their leaders respond? Geoffrey Lean and David Randall report

Published: 04 December 2005


More than 100,000 people took to the streets in more than 30 countries yesterday, in the first world-wide demonstration to press for action to combat global warming.

The marches - timed to put pressure on the most important international climate-change negotiations since the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol eight years ago - took place against a background of a blizzard of new research showing that the heating of the planet is seriously affecting the world sooner than the scientists predicted (see panel below).

The protests were directed primarily at President George Bush, who has been assiduously trying to sabotage the protocol and has ruled out even talking about setting targets for reducing the pollution that causes global warming, once the current targets expire.

(Excerpted from the Independent Online, UK)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 05 - 09:22 PM

Pope fears Bush is antichrist, journalist contends - Church - journalist Wayne Madsden - Brief Article
Catholic New Times, May 18, 2003


Save a personal copy of this article and quickly find it again with Furl.net. It's free! Save it.
WASHINGTON DC -- According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, "George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ."

Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, who often writes for Counterpunch, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament.

Before he became pope, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla said, "We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel."

The pope worked tirelessly to convince leaders of nations on the UN Security Council to oppose Bush's war resolution on Iraq. Vatican sources claim they had not seen the pope more animated and determined since he fell ill to Parkinson's Disease. In the end, the pope did convince the leaders of Mexico, Chile, Cameroon and Guinea to oppose the U.S. resolution.

---

Hmmmmmmmmmmm..... The Pope, huh? Wow....hmmmmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 05 - 10:42 PM

From the Borowitz Report:

..BUSH CALLS 'PLAN FOR VICTORY' SLOGAN A SUCCESS

Vows to Create Additional Slogans to Defeat Insurgents

One day after making a speech on Iraq at the United States Naval Academy in front of a giant placard reading "Plan For Victory," President George W. Bush pronounced the "Plan For Victory" slogan an unqualified success.

"Much time, thought and effort went into creating the 'Plan For Victory' slogan," Mr. Bush said today at a White House press conference. "I think we can all agree that the hard work that went into that slogan has really paid off."

The president said that not only were the words "Plan For Victory" catchy and memorable, but the choice of yellow letters against a blue background was perfect: "The yellow against the blue really made the letters stand out in a victory-like way."

Mr. Bush told reporters that he believed that "time and patience" were the ultimate keys to success in Iraq, adding, "It took time and patience for us to come up with a really effective slogan like 'Plan For Victory.'"

But even as he praised his administration's latest slogan, Mr. Bush said he would not rest on his laurels, vowing to create additional slogans to defeat the insurgents in Iraq.

"The insurgents may have many weapons at their disposal, but they are not as good as we are at coming up with slogans," Mr. Bush said. "So far the only one they've come up with is 'Jihad' – not catchy at all, if you ask me."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 05 - 01:09 PM

Below is a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on Congressional appropriations.   
The War in Iraq Costs
$224,329,894,588

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 05 - 03:57 PM

From a John Kerry mailer:

"Today, two men and half the Republican Party's troubles are appearing side by side in Texas.

Vice President Dick Cheney is traveling all the way to the Lone Star state to help bail out Tom DeLay by appearing at the embattled Republican leader's fundraiser.

I guess you could say DeLay is Dick Cheney's kind of Republican: abusive, arrogant, and out of control.

It would be almost laughable were it not for the dangerous ideas they believe in, the outrageous conduct they condone, and the power they wield.

2006 is about taking that power out of their hands. So, today, Keeping America's Promise, the political action committee I helped found is asking you to take two critical actions.

As Cheney raises money to help Tom DeLay's campaign, help rush contributions to Nick Lampson, the tough, committed Democrat who is running to unseat DeLay. And consider helping Jill Derby in Nevada and Chris Carney in Pennsylvania - two other candidates in closely fought districts where DeLay money helped Republicans win in 2004."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 05 - 11:50 PM

---

ACLU Condemns Hidden Provision that Would Impede Freedom of Speech,
Patriot Act Reauthorization Bill Would Empower Secret Service as Censors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, December 12, 2005

Contact: Shin Inouye
[phone]        

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today denounced a
provision contained within legislation created to reauthorize the
Patriot Act that would make major changes to the criminal statutes
administered by the Secret Service and could seriously damage the free
speech rights of all Americans. The controversial provision has not had
any Congressional review or hearings.

The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the
ACLU Washington Legislative Office:

"If this provision is adopted, our precious First Amendment would be
significantly curtailed. The Secret Service already has broad authority
to stifle dissent at events where high-ranking public officials appear.
This little-noticed provision, contained in legislation meant to
reauthorize the Patriot Act, would give the Secret Service effective
power to enact 'exclusion zones' even without the attendance of the
president or other Secret Service protectee.

"Imagine, in the future, a pro-choice president is set to speak at a
conference, which the Secret Service declares as an 'event of national
significance.' If the bill passes, the Secret Service could shut down
areas throughout the conference and arrest any pro-life protester who
violates the zone for a felony. This could happen even at times when
the president is not speaking.

"Congress has not had ample time to consider this attack on the First
Amendment. While there remains much to do on the Patriot Act powers
themselves, lawmakers must reject this assault on the right to dissent."

To read the ACLU's letter to the Senate on this provision, go to:

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 05 - 12:44 PM

MONTREAL - Former US President Bill Clinton told UN climate talks in Canada on Friday that the Bush administration was "flat wrong" to reject the Kyoto accord and said cutting greenhouse gases was good for business and the planet.


In an impassioned speech to hundreds of delegates and nongovernmental groups, Clinton rejected a major tenet of the Bush administration's argument for pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol emissions pact in 2001.
Clinton, whose administration negotiated Kyoto in 1997 but never submitted it to a skeptical Senate for ratification, said the belief that Kyoto would hurt the economies of developed nations was "flat wrong."

"We know from every passing year we get more and more objective data that if we had a serious, disciplined effort to apply on a large scale existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies that we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen, not weaken, our economies," he said.

Under Kyoto, some 40 industrialized nations agreed to cut emissions in 2008-12 by over 5 percent from 1990 levels, but Bush says mandatory cuts on emissions from fossil fuels would hamper growth and job creation.

Clinton said a serious commitment to a clean energy future was the solution and this would lead to jobs growth, just like the tech boom of the 1990s fueled an employment boom.

"We can create jobs out of wind energy, solar energy, out of biofuels, out of hybrid engines," he said.

Stricter efficiency standards for building and appliances would also boost jobs.

"In America, there's no telling how many jobs we could create if we just made the decision that in the rebuilding of New Orleans it would become America's first green city," he said.

Talks in Montreal are trying to take the Kyoto Protocol forward after its first phase ends in 2012 but the discussions have dragged in part because of US objections to any binding commitments on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Many delegations say efforts to curb global warming will be futile unless the United States, responsible for about a quarter of the world's greenhouse emissions, fully participates.

Clinton's speech drew applause and cheers from the audience.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Dec 05 - 10:05 PM

Cheney's a dick and Bush is, too...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: freda underhill
Date: 17 Dec 05 - 06:47 AM

Bush least popular US president: survey
December 17, 2005 - 7:29AM

President George W Bush ranks as the least popular and most bellicose of the last 10 US presidents, according to a new survey. Only nine per cent of the 662 people polled picked Bush as their favourite among the last 10 presidents. John F Kennedy topped that part of the survey with 26 per cent, closely followed by Bill Clinton (25 per cent) and Ronald Reagan (23 per cent). Bush was also viewed as the most warlike president (43 per cent), the worst for the economy (42 per cent) and the least effective (33 per cent). But he was rated most highly in response to a question on who would do the right thing even if it were unpopular.

The survey was conducted by the Chicago-based National Qualitative Centres, a marketing research company, as part of research for a forthcoming book on popular preferences, one of its authors, Ken Berwitz, said.

© 2005 AAP

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 05 - 12:31 PM

Chicago Tribune:

By Maura Reynolds and Greg Miller
Tribune Newspapers
Published December 16, 2005, 9:34 PM CST

WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress demanded Friday that President Bush and his administration explain his decision to permit the country's most secretive intelligence agency to spy on American citizens in the United States after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks without first obtaining warrants.

Democrats and some Republicans denounced the administration's action, describing it as another example of Bush's use of the threat of terrorism to assume new legal and intelligence powers and limit civil liberties.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would call congressional hearings. Warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens is "wrong, and it can't be condoned at all," he said.

In 2002, according to former officials familiar with the policy, Bush signed an executive order granting new surveillance powers to the National Security Agency, which is responsible for international eavesdropping and whose very existence was long denied by the government.

The president said Friday he could not talk about the matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 01:34 PM

om the Christian Science Monitor:
WASHINGTON –
   
Tuesday, 12/20/05

From a standoff over the Patriot Act to pushback from Capitol Hill on the treatment of detainees, secret prisons abroad, and government eavesdropping at home, tensions between the Bush White House and the Republican-controlled Congress have never been more exposed.
Much of the rift is over the exercise of executive power. Some lawmakers oppose the president on the values involved in harsh interrogation of terror suspects. Others are riled that they were left out of the intelligence loop.

Even Republicans who favor renewing the Patriot Act were blindsided by news Friday, later confirmed, that President Bush had authorized secret eavesdropping on international communications from people in the US with ties to terrorists.

"It's inexcusable ... clearly and categorically wrong," says Sen. Arlen Specter (R) of Pennsylvania, who was not among the congressional leaders Mr. Bush says had been briefed on the program. Senator Specter promises that the Judiciary Committee he chairs will hold hearings on domestic spying by the National Security Agency in the new year.

"We'll look at what they did, whose conversations they listened to, what they did with the material, and what purported justification there was for it," he adds.

At press time, the White House and Senate GOP leaders were still short of the votes to renew provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire on Dec. 31.

On Friday, four Republicans and all but two Democrats opposed a move to end a filibuster and vote on reauthorizing the 2001 law. Instead, they are urging a three-month extension to reopen negotiations to boost protections for civil liberties.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 08:32 PM

Now the boy has been caught red-handed breaking the law, it's time to get on the "Impeachment Bandwagon"...

Iraq was bad enough but he left enough loopholes in case things went bad but violating federal law bacause he says we are at war is rediculuos... First of all, leaglly, we aren't at war and evn if we were where in the Consitution does it say that a president can "violate" federal law during war time????

Heck, with that reasoning, Bush could suspend the 1965 Voting Rights Act if he wanted to???

Lets get real here...

Time to seriously talk impeachment...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 05 - 08:49 PM

This is specifically against the law. Bush says political appointees in the Justice Department outlined the legal authority to get around the restrictions in our laws and the Constitution, but those legal memos are classified.

There is a a formal Freedom of Information Act request to see these documents. We need to know if the president broke the law, and where this administration thinks the line of its authority is.

You can sign on to the Freedom of Information Act request here:

http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/domesticspying/fdcysf

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Dec 05 - 11:26 AM

The New York Times, December 20, 2005, opines on Bush's proclivity for misleading and rhetorical illogic (what some folks used to call lying, bush-wah, pettifoggery, bull, snow-jobbing, etc.):

The Fog of False Choices
            
Published: December 20, 2005
After five years, we're used to President Bush throwing up false choices to defend his policies. Americans were told, after all, that there was a choice between invading Iraq and risking a terrorist nuclear attack. So it was not a surprise that Mr. Bush's Oval Office speech Sunday night and his news conference yesterday were thick with Orwellian constructions: the policy debate on Iraq is between those who support Mr. Bush and those who want to pull out right now, today; fighting terrorists in Iraq means we're not fighting them here.

But none of these phony choices were as absurd as the one Mr. Bush posed to justify his secret program of spying on Americans: save lives or follow the law.

Mr. Bush said he thwarted terrorist plots by allowing the National Security Agency to monitor Americans' international communications without a warrant. We don't know if that is true because the administration reverts to top-secret mode when pressed for details. But we can reach a conclusion about Mr. Bush's assertion that obeying a 27-year-old law prevents swift and decisive action in a high-tech era. It's a myth.

The 1978 law that regulates spying on Americans (remember Richard Nixon's enemies lists?) does require a warrant to conduct that sort of surveillance. It also created a special court that is capable of responding within hours to warrant requests. If that is not fast enough, the attorney general may authorize wiretaps and then seek a warrant within 72 hours.

Mr. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales offered a whole bag of logical pretzels yesterday to justify flouting this law. Most bizarre was the assertion that Congress authorized the surveillance of American citizens when it approved the use of "all necessary and appropriate force" by the United States military to punish those responsible for the 9/11 attacks or who aided or harbored the terrorists. This came as a surprise to lawmakers, who thought they were voting for the invasion of Afghanistan and the capture of Osama bin Laden.

This administration has a long record of expanding presidential powers in dangerous ways; the indefinite detention of "unlawful enemy combatants" comes to mind. So assurances that surveillance targets are carefully selected with reasonable cause don't comfort. In a democracy ruled by laws, investigators identify suspects and prosecutors obtain warrants for searches by showing reasonable cause to a judge, who decides if legal tests were met.

Chillingly, this is not the only time we've heard of this administration using terrorism as an excuse to spy on Americans. NBC News recently discovered a Pentagon database of 1,500 "suspicious incidents" that included a Quaker meeting to plan an antiwar rally. And Eric Lichtblau writes in today's Times that F.B.I. counterterrorism squads have conducted numerous surveillance operations since Sept. 11, 2001, on groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Greenpeace and the Catholic Workers group.

Mr. Bush says Congress gave him the power to spy on Americans. Fine, then Congress can just take it back.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 09:00 AM

Insider Speaks Out

Col Lawrence Wilkerson, aide to Colin Powell in the early Bush regime, describes the atmospher in the power center, in todays New York Times:

"...Nearly two years later, Mr. Wilkerson, a 60-year-old retired United States Army colonel, has finally completed his journey from insider to apostate. Alone among those who surrounded Mr. Powell in the first term, he is speaking out critically, assailing the president as amateurish, especially compared to the first President Bush, and describing the administration as secretive, inept and courting disaster at home and abroad. Nor has he spared his former boss, whom he says was overly preoccupied with "damage control" for policies set by others.

"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made," Mr. Wilkerson said in a well-publicized speech at the New America Foundation in October. "And you've got a president who is not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either," he added in the speech.

Mr. Wilkerson has also attacked the Bush administration for allegedly condoning torture and setting lax policies on treatment of detainees that led, he charges, to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the black eye they gave to the United States Army.

SINCE starting to speak out a few months ago, Mr. Wilkerson has become something of a Washington celebrity. He has given interviews and speeches, appeared on television, written op-ed articles and taken telephone calls from journalists and senators.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 09:12 AM

Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker this month, says:

..."Current and former military and intelligenc officials have told me that the President remain convinced that it is his personal mission to brin democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious t political pressure, even from fello Republicans. They also say that he disparage any information that conflicts with his view o how the war is proceeding

Bush's closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush's first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President's religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that "God put me here" to deal with the war on terror. The President's belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that "he's the man," the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: "I said to the President, 'We're not winning the war.' And he asked, 'Are we losing?' I said, 'Not yet.' " The President, he said, "appeared displeased" with that answer.

"I tried to tell him," the former senior official said. "And he couldn't hear it."
There are grave concerns within the military about the capability of the U.S. Army to sustain two or three more years of combat in Iraq. Michael O'Hanlon, a specialist on military issues at the Brookings Institution, told me, "The people in the institutional Army feel they don't have the luxury of deciding troop levels, or even participating in the debate. They're planning on staying the course until 2009. I can't believe the Army thinks that it will happen, because there's no sustained drive to increase the size of the regular Army." O'Hanlon noted that "if the President decides to stay the present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency levels."

Many of the military's most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don't want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has "so terrified the generals that they know they won't go public," a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there.

The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that "things were fucked up." But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,A
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 09:14 AM

Have not been here for a long time.

Apostate, "a disloyal person" according to Webster. Can he be trusted now just because you like what he is saying?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 10:49 AM

I think he saw what he says he saw; if you read the original article you will find he has been out of synch with the power-play politicos at the center of Bush's web for a number of years.

As for apostasy, I think Bush qualifies on a much higher order.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Dec 05 - 07:47 PM

>Pravda, of all people, contemplates the moral quagmire of the Bush Adminitration:


Victims of the darkness: Government surveillance and intimidation
12/26/2005 13:42

The Bush Administration has consistently harassed citizens who
exercise their First Amendment freedoms and voice concerns about
government policies

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances there is a twilight where everything remains seemingly
unchanged, and it is in such a twilight that we must be aware of the
change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims
of the darkness." Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Not since the notorious McCarthy era of the 1950s, when American
freedoms faced extinction, has there been such an attack against the
Bill of Rights. The recent media focus on President Bush's
authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on ordinary Americans
has brought this issue to the forefront. On secret orders from
President Bush, the NSA has been monitoring the international phone
calls and emails of Americans without warrants.

Moreover, the Bush Administration has consistently harassed citizens
who exercise their First Amendment freedoms and voice concerns about
government policies. The main weapon used in this war is
intimidation, specifically through governmental surveillance and
government agents.

Indeed, the American government has a near paranoia about dissenting
citizens. "The Administration and campaign of George W. Bush," writes
former Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.), "is squelching any possible hint
of disagreement or protest at every political rally or gathering."
For example, in March of this year, three citizens were removed from
President Bush's town hall meeting in Aurora, Colo., because the car
they arrived in featured the bumper sticker, "No More Blood for Oil."

This past summer, FBI agents went to Windsor, Conn., with a document
marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the
tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George
Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one - ever - what
it said. The letter, which was on FBI stationery, directed Christian
to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and
access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library
branch some distance away.

Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut
libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for
privacy. But the vendors of the software Christian operates said
their databases can reveal the websites that visitors browse, the e-
mail accounts they open and the books they borrow. Christian refused
to hand over the records, and his employer, Library Connection, Inc.,
filed suit for the right to protest the FBI demand in public.

This case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice
of domestic surveillance under some of the heinous provisions of the
USA Patriot Act. National security letters, such as the one issued to
George Christian, were created in the 1970s for espionage and
terrorism investigations.

They were originally intended as narrow exceptions in consumer
privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer
records of suspected foreign agents. However, the Patriot Act and
Bush Administration guidelines for its use have transformed those
letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U. S. residents and
visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

"The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a
year," writes Barton Gellman in The Washington Post, "a hundredfold
increase over historic norms. The letters - one of which can be used
to sweep up the records of many people - are extending the bureau's
reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and
financial lives of ordinary Americans." Indeed, according to a
previously classified document released recently, the FBI has
conducted clandestine surveillance on some U. S. residents for as
long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight.

Thus, the government does not limit its attacks to actual terrorists.
Ordinary American citizens are the focus as well. Take the case of
Selena Jarvis, a social studies teacher at Currituck County High
School in North Carolina. She assigned her senior civics and
economics class to use photographs to illustrate their freedoms as
found in the Bill of Rights. One student photographed a picture of
George W. Bush next to his own hand in a thumbs-down position as a
way to express his freedom to dissent.

However, while developing the student's photographs, a Wal-Mart photo
department employee, in obvious need of some education on the Bill of
Rights, called the police. They then contacted the Secret Service.
But rather than dismissing the case, the Secret Service decided to
investigate the matter. The agents interrogated the student and
questioned Jarvis. While questioning Jarvis, an agent asked her if
she thought the photo was suspicious. Dumbfounded, Jarvis responded,
"No, it was a Bill of Rights project!" Jarvis was startled at the
claim that the student was a terrorist and called the whole thing
"ridiculous."

Why would the Secret Service, which is not run by incompetent
individuals, take the time to investigate a high school student and
his class project? It is safe to assume that the Secret Service knew
the student was not a terrorist and wanted to make an example of him
for others who might be bold enough to use their right to dissent.
After the ordeal, Selena Jarvis commented, "I blame Wal-Mart more
than anybody. I was really disgusted with them. But everyone was
using poor judgment, from Wal-Mart up to the Secret Service."

Unfortunately, this is not the only "ridiculous" case of individuals
tattling on their neighbors. For example, Barry Reingold was
questioned by the FBI after he criticized the war in Afghanistan in
the locker room of his local health club. In another case, Derek
Kjar's neighbors reported his bumper sticker of George Bush wearing a
crown with the heading "King George - off with his head." As a
result, Kjar was interrogated by the Secret Service. In both
instances, close contacts of the two men reported them to the
authorities.

And as if things weren't bad enough, the military is now spying on
us. A secret database obtained by NBC News recently reveals that the
Department of Defense and the Pentagon have also increased
intelligence collection on American citizens inside the country. This
includes monitoring peaceful anti-war groups and protests and
involves video taping, monitoring the Internet and collecting the
name of anyone critical of the government.

There is even a toll-free number for anyone interested to report on
fellow Americans to the military. And the spying even includes
religious groups such as those attending the Quaker Meeting House in
Lake Worth, Florida. "On a domestic level, this is unprecedented,"
says NBC News analyst William Arkin. "I think it is the beginning of
enormous problems and enormous mischief for the military."

Since 9/11, it has been consistently drummed into our heads by the
government, with all its alerts and multi-colored alarms, that
terrorists are everywhere and even your next door neighbor could be
one. As a result, the government's promotion of fear and paranoia has
moved us closer to an Orwellian state where citizens inform on one
another. The result is that the citizens often do the job of the
police and no longer use good judgment before reporting their
neighbors. In the process, such informing citizens are doing away
with their own freedoms.

These tactics are not new to the world. The Nazi and Soviet secret
police of former regimes were infamous for such tactics. The police
controlled the people through fear, and the subsequent result was a
totalitarian state. They turned their respective population into a
society of informers.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning author and
former Soviet dissident, once spoke of how fear destroys the will of
the people. He noted how the Russian people would kneel inside the
doors of their apartments, pressing their ears to listen when the KGB
came at midnight to arrest a neighbor who had spoken out against the
government. Solzhenitsyn said that if all the people would have come
out and driven off the secret police, sheer public opinion would have
demoralized the effort to subdue a free people. But fear and paranoia
kept the people at bay.

We should not be afraid of government agents, whether employed by the
FBI, the military or local authorities. Their salaries are paid
through our tax dollars. Supposedly, they are our servants. Truly
free societies do not function that way. Our fear of government
servants is a clear indication of ominous things to come. If citizens
are too frightened to use their freedoms, then those freedoms will
become extinct. And the darkness will be complete.

---

The irony of the once raucous voice of the Soviet bloc becoming a chastiser of American neglect of basic freedoms is awful, indeed. Lo, how the mighty are fallen.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Dec 05 - 08:06 PM

Beyond the Imperial Presidency
    By Steve Chapman
    The Chicago Tribune

    Sunday 25 December 2005 (Excerpt...)


    President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the
federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should
not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but
doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions.

    He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but
he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in
the man at the helm of government.

    His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential
prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's
secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong,
robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands
it."

    But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula:
What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that
weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is
unfair to emperors.

    Even people who should be on Bush's side are getting queasy. David
Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, says in his efforts to
enlarge executive authority, Bush "has gone too far."

    He's not the only one who feels that way. Consider the case of Jose
Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested in 2002 on suspicion of plotting to set off
a "dirty bomb." For three years, the administration said he posed such a
grave threat that it had the right to detain him without trial as an enemy
combatant. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit
agreed.

    But then, rather than risk a review of its policy by the Supreme Court,
the administration abandoned its hard-won victory and indicted Padilla on
comparatively minor criminal charges. When it asked the 4th Circuit Court
for permission to transfer him from military custody to jail, though, the
once-cooperative court flatly refused.

    In a decision last week, the judges expressed amazement that the
administration suddenly would decide Padilla could be treated like a common
purse snatcher-a reversal that, they said, comes "at substantial cost to the
government's credibility." The court's meaning was plain: Either you were
lying to us then, or you are lying to us now.

    If that's not enough to embarrass the president, the opinion was written
by conservative darling J. Michael Luttig-who just a couple of months ago
was on Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. For Luttig to question
Bush's use of executive power is like Bill O'Reilly announcing that there's
too much Christ in Christmas.

    This is hardly the only example of the president demanding powers he
doesn't need. When American-born Saudi Yasser Hamdi was captured in
Afghanistan, the administration also detained him as an enemy combatant
rather than entrust him to the criminal justice system.

    But when the Supreme Court said he was entitled to a hearing where he
could present evidence on his behalf, the administration decided that was
way too much trouble. It freed him and put him on a plane back to Saudi
Arabia, where he may plot jihad to his heart's content. Try to follow this
logic: Hamdi was too dangerous to put on trial but not too dangerous to
release.

    The disclosure that the president authorized secret and probably illegal
monitoring of communications between people in the United States and people
overseas again raises the question: Why?

    The government easily could have gotten search warrants to conduct
electronic surveillance of anyone with the slightest possible connection to
terrorists. The court that handles such requests hardly ever refuses. But
Bush bridles at the notion that the president should ever have to ask
permission of anyone.

    He claims he can ignore the law because Congress granted permission when
it authorized him to use force against Al Qaeda. But we know that can't be
true. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales says the administration didn't ask for a
revision of the law to give the president explicit power to order such
wiretaps because Congress-a Republican Congress, mind you-wouldn't have
agreed. So the administration decided: Who needs Congress?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:40 PM

Secret court modified wiretap requests
Intervention may have led Bush to bypass panel

By STEWART M. POWELL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON BUREAU


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/253334_nsaspying24.html?source=mypi

Saturday, December 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Government records show that the administration was
encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal
surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and
order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the
court's approval.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the
26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap
requests from the Bush administration than from the four
previous presidential administrations combined.

The court's repeated intervention in Bush administration wiretap
requests may explain why the president decided to bypass the court nearly
four years ago to launch secret National Security Agency
spying on hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans and foreigners
inside the United States, according to James Bamford, an acknowledged
authority on the supersecret NSA, which intercepts telephone calls,
e-mails, faxes and Internet communications.
.....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:51 PM

Amos does his mental masturbation once again and thrills to his accomplishments.

Is Bobert going to put his 2 cents in?

I would be upset if Bush was not wiretaping anyone suspected of communicating with terrorists.

Would Amos be even more upset if he was dying of radiation sickness from a dirty bomb?

That could not happen because like one of his heros. Michael Moore said "There is no terrorist threat"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 29 Dec 05 - 12:25 AM

And there is Old Guy, as usual with not one thing to say. I hope the Republicans are paying you well for the job you try to do--troll and waste time. And waste more time. And more . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 05 - 08:34 PM

The NY Times for 12/29 excoriates the ambience of occlusion that has been intentionally developed around the Government by the White House:

The Mounting Powers of Secrecy
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Published: December 29, 2005
The open government law that guaranteed greater freedom of information to the public will soon be 40 years old and desperately in need of legislative overhaul, thanks to the Bush administration. The White House's sweeping enlargement of agency powers has already nearly doubled the rate of newly classified documents to 15 million a year. At the same time, the administration has choked back the annual volume of documents declassified for public access, from 200 million in 1998 to 44 million lately.

At the heart of this thickening veil are direct presidential orders and former Attorney General John Ashcroft's blanket assurance of legal defense to any agency erring on the side of secrecy in sealing off documents. This reversed the Clinton administration's "presumption of disclosure" when it came to public requests. The 9/11 commission has already pointed out that this general retreat from the intent of the law hardly discourages terrorists; in fact, it was the government's internal failure to share information that contributed to that tragedy.

Innocuous White House press pool reports are now subject to classification, while historians complain of yearlong delays before academic requests are even acknowledged, never mind fulfilled. Environmentalists can't see routine dam and river drainage maps in the name of homeland security. Attempts by firearm agents to keep data on illegal gun traffic from those filing public lawsuits have now been ruled improper twice by the courts.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 11:40 AM

Police-State Powers Are Our Biggest Threat


By Martin Garbus, writing in the New York Observer


What has happened in this country?

The Pentagon has a secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Services Act (FISA). The courtroom is in a windowless room on the top floor of the Department of Justice. There are seven rotating judges. The court meets in secret, with no published opinions or public records. No one, except the FISA judge involved and the Department of Justice, knows what is done. No one, except the government and the FISA judge, knows at whom the warrants are aimed. There is no review by anyone. Over 12,000 search warrants permitting eavesdropping, surveillance and break-ins have been sought by the government. Only once has the FISA court denied a warrant.

The FISA court has issued more warrants than the more than 1,000 district judges in the federal system.

The Pentagon has already expanded its domestic-surveillance activity beyond any previous time in history. It breaks into homes, wiretaps and eavesdrops at will, and builds secret dossiers on citizens while arguing that there can be no judicial review of its activities. President George W. Bush argues that there can be no judicial review of any decision he makes when he decides whether an alien or an American citizen is or is not an enemy combatant. Congress supports this; so does the judiciary...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 12:42 PM

And there is Peace, as usual with not one thing to say. I hope the Terrorists are paying you well for the job you try to do--troll and waste time. And waste more time. And more.

Peace: you are one of those people who, given enough rope, will hang themselves every time. Here's some more rope.

My message is that Amos is driven to post to his own thread as a monument to himself. Definaltely not normal though he claims to be perfectlly normal.

Another message is that all of the stuff he cuts and pasts is drivel. It is gleaned from avery Anti Bush source he can find. Then he proclaims it is the truth.

The truth is that Amos is an anarchist trying to influence others to be anarchists.

The problem is when you ask an anarchist what should be done, they have no idea of what is right, they only know what is wrong. Hence they don't know right from wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 01:26 PM

Gee, Old Guy, I am so glad you straightened me out here.

If I was posting for my own glory, I assure you I would find something more interesting to post about.

I do not support anarchy, and I think you must be kind of cross-eyed to reach that conclusion.

I do support, however, an inviolable Constitutional republic that seeks to find and disseminate better ideas, rather than to acquire power through coercion and invasion by military force. You seem to find nothing wrong with the slaughter of citizens and the destruction of cities based on a false assessment of a situation. I find it criminal. ALong with a number of other offenses which have been documented in this thread and elsewhere.

That makes me an anarchist about as much as it makes you a punk-rocker with purple and green hair, something I would dearly like to see! :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 05:13 PM

From The Guardian, relayed by a correspondent:


Comment
Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

Iraq has shown the hubris of a geostrategy that welds the
philosophy of the Leviathan to military and technological power

Richard Drayton
Wednesday December 28, 2005
The Guardian

The tragic irony of the 21st century is that just as faith in
technology collapsed on the world's stock markets in 2000, it came
to power in the White House and Pentagon. For the Project for a New
American Century's ambition of "full-spectrum dominance" - in which
its country could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major-
theatre wars" - was a monster borne up by the high tide of techno
euphoria of the 1990s.

Ex-hippies talked of a wired age of Aquarius. The fall of the
Berlin wall and the rise of the internet, we were told, had ushered
in Adam Smith's dream of overflowing abundance, expanding liberty
and perpetual peace. Fukuyama speculated that history was over,
leaving us just to hoard and spend. Technology meant a new paradigm
of constant growth without inflation or recession.

But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The
theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that
technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the
world. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters advised on "future warfare"
at the Army War College - prophesying in 1997 a coming "age of
constant conflict". Thomas Barnett at the Naval War College
assisted Vice-Admiral Cebrowski in developing "network-centric
warfare". General John Jumper of the air force predicted a planet
easily mastered from air and space. American forces would win
everywhere because they enjoyed what was unashamedly called the
"God's-eye" view of satellites and GPS: the "global information
grid". This hegemony would be welcomed as the cutting edge of human
progress. Or at worst, the military geeks candidly explained, US
power would simply terrify others into submitting to the stars and
stripes.
....

Dr Richard Drayton, a senior lecturer in history at Cambridge
University, is the author of Nature's Government, a study of
science, technology and imperialism

Full story at:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1674184,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 08:22 PM

The following is excerpted from an editorial at Barron's, usually a big-business and Republican mouthpiece. Unfortinately the editorial itself is by subscription only.


"[...] Surely the "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law. "



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 08:42 PM

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Positive predictions for the year ahead in Iraq

BAGHDAD: Experts predict the formation of a new Iraqi government, following a year of political reforms, will help stabilize the country, revive its stagnant economy and pave the way for contentious measures such as privatization.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=21143

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 08:59 PM

Hmmmm, Knight Ritter jusy published a report from Kurdish Iraq where Kurds, wearing the Iraqi uniform, said they were ready to kill the non-Kurd Arabs within their own batallians, take Kurkik and Mosol and set up an independent Kurdish state...

They are just waiting for an opening... Like the US pulling out...

I have long predicted that when the US leaves the "hot" civil war will begin... I predicted this even before Old Gay came 'round here and before Bush ordered the invasion...

Now, looks very much like Iraq is a civil-war-waiting-to-happen...

Yet, the Bushites will stick their heads in the sand and say it ain't so????

It is very much so and it will be very uch so if the US stays in Iraq for another 10 years and ends up loosing another 20,000 Americans in the process...

Just like Nam... 20,000 more dioed after Nixon unleashed his "secret plan" which was so secret that even today no-one knows what it was...

Sound familiar???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 09:07 PM

aljazeera.net

Iraq economy looks positive in 2006

Wednesday 28 December 2005, 10:37 Makka Time, 7:37 GMT

Experts predict that the formation of a new Iraqi government, following a year of political reforms, will help stabilize the country, revive its stagnant economy and pave the way for contentious measures such as privatization.

Thomas Delare, counselor for economic affairs at the US embassy in Baghdad, said: "Ordinary Iraqis, domestic entrepreneurs and foreign investors have all been waiting for stability, predictability and greater security,".

The 15 December general election "doesn't guarantee any of those things, but it offers the promise that now we can put it in place.", he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Dec 05 - 09:24 PM

Propaganda...Not news...

Go talk with the Kurds, Wood-man and get the real story...

Like maybe you'd like to enligyten folks here about how poor elctricity is now compared to the bad-old-days...

Or even petro price now compared to the bad-old-days... Do you realize that folks in Iraq are waiting for a day to fill up their cars??? That's like up to 24 hours sleepiong in their cars to get gas???

Yet, you wnata to try to propogate propganda that makes Iraq this little utopia now that it has been so-called "liberated"... Seems that is nothin' more that a PR mirage...

You think you are getting the real inforamtion??? Stick yer woddy-butt on an airplane and go see fir yerself... If you'd get yer 2X4 head outta Fox fir a coupler of days you might find there's lots of folks who are not reporting the utopia that youseem to see in Iraq but quite the opposite...

Iraq is a mess and the bad news is that it going to get worse... Invading a tribally divided nation is stupid....

Yeah, go on and argue and argue but when the day is over, even yer dumbass woodyself will know it...

...but, hey, great handle and it perfectly describes you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 05 - 12:13 PM

Down on the Ranch, President Wages War on the Underbrush
Bush Conscripts Aides in Tireless Pursuit of Clearing Ground
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; Page A03

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground.

If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch -- or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.



President Bush, shown clearing cedar at his Crawford, Tex., ranch in 2002, has not lost his enthusiasm for the task during recent trips to what aides call the Western White House. (By Eric Draper -- White House)
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Politics Trivia
The House passed legislation last week to name two buildings at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta after the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and what other person?

Mother Teresa
The Dalai Lama
Ronald Reagan
Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush.

This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw's buzz.

For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession ...

---

Nice to know he has something to do with Nature, even if it involves a chainsaw. Anyone notice how much calmer it's been since he went on vacation?

In other news, oil futures prices jumped higher. So did gasoline, natural gas and heating oil contracts. And consumers can expect more of the same in 2006.

From Iraq, the news is not good:

Long lines formed at gas stations in Baghdad on Friday as word spread that Iraq's largest oil refinery had shut down in the face of threats against truck drivers.
Ahmed Khalaf, 33, said he left his home at dawn and was still in line at noon.
"After the rise in gas prices, now we have a gas shortage," he said. "I don't think I will have the opportunity to return to work today because of this long line."
At least 17 people were killed in violence around the capital, including nine people sitting along the Tigris River who died in a drive-by shooting.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers Friday. A bomb killed one soldier when it struck his vehicle in Baghdad on Friday. The second soldier was shot and killed in the western city of Fallujah.
Their deaths brought the number of U.S. military members killed so far in 2005 to 841, five fewer than the 846 troops killed in 2004. In 2003, 485 U.S. military personnel were killed.
In Beiji, some 155 miles north of Baghdad and near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, the deteriorating security situation led authorities to shut down Iraq's largest oil refinery Dec. 18, former Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum said.
As word of the shutdown spread through the country, abut 1,000 vehicles waited at one of Baghdad's biggest gas stations, known as the Jindi al-Majhoul, or Unknown Soldier station.
Ali Moussa, a 51-year-old tanker truck driver, said he and his colleagues were working in a dangerous situation. "We demand that the government provide security and protection," he said.

The oil crisis has already cost one job, that of Mr. al-Uloum, the oil minister, who was given a 30-day vacation Wednesday and replaced with Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi. Mr. al-Uloum had opposed a recent decision to raise prices by ninefold.
Meanwhile, violence continued unabated.

In the most serious incident, nine people were killed in a drive-by shooting – possibly because they were drinking alcohol in public, police said.

In separate attacks in Baghdad, a suicide car bomber blew himself up next to a police patrol, killing three Iraqi civilians, and a mortar landed in a market, killing another three civilians.

Two Iraqi Army captains were gunned down in the town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, as they drove home.

---

Extremism -- whether of greed over oil   or religous delusions -- is the ugliest human face.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 12:13 AM

From blogger:

"Let's review:

A worldwide network of secret torture prisons
Multiple secret programs to spy on lawful political dissidents
Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of civilians killed
A war based on blatant lies
The restriction of free speech protests to designated zones
An system of government propaganda and lies planted in newspapers around the world and in the United States
A general attack on liberty in the name of The Homeland
A President who declares that he is exempt from the law

Stand back and take a look. Can you not see what's going on?

What will it take for you to stand up and so no to this outrage?

What makes it okay? Is it that they haven't taken your SUV? Is it that they haven't come after you yet?

If you continue to do nothing now, will you tell your grandchildren that they have to understand that nobody knew what was going on?

You know what's going on."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 12:45 AM

Here is a link to the report by U.S. Rep John Conyers whose short title is Constitution in Crisis.

It's full title is: Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War.

An excerpt from the Executive Summary of this report:

"President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled
Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq;
misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for
such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and
other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of
their Administration.
There is a prima facie case that these actions by the President, Vice-President
and other members of the Bush Administration violated a number of federal laws,
including (1) Committing a Fraud against the United States; (2) Making False
Statements to Congress; (3) The War Powers Resolution; (4) Misuse of Government
Funds; (5) federal laws and international treaties prohibiting torture and cruel,
inhuman, and degrading treatment; (6) federal laws concerning retaliating against
witnesses and other individuals; and (7) federal laws and regulations concerning
leaking and other misuse of intelligence.

While these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable misconduct,
because the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have blocked
the ability of Members to obtain information directly from the Administration
concerning these matters, more investigatory authority is needed before
recommendations can be made regarding specific Articles of Impeachment. As a
result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with subpoena
authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration with regard to the
Iraq war detailed in this Report and report to the Committee on the Judiciary on
possible impeachable offenses.

In addition, we believe the failure of the President, Vice President and others
in the Bush Administration to respond to myriad requests for information concerning
these charges, or to otherwise account for explain a number of specific misstatements
they have made in the run up to War and other actions warrants, at minimum, the
introduction and Congress= approval of Resolutions of Censure against Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. Further, we recommend that Ranking Member Conyers and others
consider referring the potential violations of federal criminal law detailed in this
Report to the Department of Justice for investigation; Congress should pass legislation
to limit government secrecy, enhance oversight of the Executive Branch, request
notification and justification of presidential pardons of Administration officials, ban
abusive treatment of detainees, ban the use of chemical weapons, and ban the
practice of paying foreign media outlets to publish news stories prepared by or for the
Pentagon; and the House should amend its Rules to permit Ranking Members of
Committees to schedule official Committee hearings and call witnesses to investigate
Executive Branch misconduct.

The Report rejects the frequent contention by the Bush Administration that
their pre-war conduct has been reviewed and they have been exonerated. No entity
has ever considered whether the Administration misled Americans about the decision
to go to war. The Senate Intelligence Committee has not yet conducted a review of
pre-war intelligence distortion and manipulation, while the Silberman-Robb report
specifically cautioned that intelligence manipulation Awas not part of our inquiry.@
There has also not been any independent inquiry concerning torture and other legal
violations in Iraq; nor has there been an independent review of the pattern of coverups
and political retribution by the Bush Administration against its critics, other than
the very narrow and still ongoing inquiry of Special Counsel Fitzgerald.

While the scope of this Report is largely limited to Iraq, it also holds lessons for
our Nation at a time of entrenched one-party rule and abuse of power in Washington.
If the present Administration is willing to misstate the facts in order to achieve its
political objectives in Iraq, and Congress is unwilling to confront or challenge their
hegemony, many of our cherished democratic principles are in jeopardy. This is true
not only with respect to the Iraq War, but also in regard to other areas of foreign
policy, privacy and civil liberties, and matters of economic and social justice. Indeed
as this Report is being finalized, we have just learned of another potential significant
abuse of executive power by the President, ordering the National Security Agency to
engage in domestic spying and wiretapping without obtaining court approval in
possible violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

It is tragic that our Nation has invaded another sovereign nation because Athe
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,@ as stated in the Downing
Street Minutes. It is equally tragic that the Bush Administration and the Republican
Congress have been unwilling to examine these facts or take action to prevent this
scenario from occurring again. Since they appear unwilling to act, it is incumbent on
individual Members of Congress as well as the American public to act to protect our
constitutional form of government. ..."

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 12:56 AM

links to the Investigative Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Jack
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 02:09 AM

Long-Awaited Beer With Bush Really Awkward, Voter Reports

November 16, 2005 | Issue 41•46

WARREN, PA—Although respondents to a Pew poll taken prior to the 2004 presidential election characterized Bush as "the candidate they'd most like to sit down and have a beer with," Chris Reinard lived the hypothetical scenario Sunday afternoon, and characterized it as "really uncomfortable and awkward."
Enlarge ImageLong-Awaited Beer With Bush Really Awkward, Voter Reports

Chris Reinard and President Bush try to think of something to talk about.

Reinard, a father of four who supported Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections, said sharing a beer with the president at the Switchyard Tap gave him "an uneasy feeling."

"I thought he'd be great," Reinard said. "But when I actually met him, I felt real put off."

The president arrived at the bar via motorcade close to 3 p.m. After a sweep by Secret Service agents, Reinard was asked, for security reasons, to move from his favorite stool. Shortly after he had reseated himself, Reinard said he "was pleased" to welcome the president to the Switchyard.

"Boy, it sure is a good day for a cool one," Bush reportedly told the assembled patrons, who were watching the Dolphins­Patriots game.

"When he first walked in, everything seemed fine," bartender Bob Kern said. "He told everyone 'Hi' like he was one of the regulars, then sat next to Chris."

Reinard ordered two Budweisers, but Bush interrupted him, saying he'd prefer an O'Doul's non-alcoholic beer.

"I completely forgot he stopped drinking," Reinard said.

Following the initial gaffe, Bush attempted to smooth things over, asking Reinard to call him "George." Reinard complied, but later said "it felt a little unnatural."

"I guess I was supposed to tell him to call me Chris," Reinard said. "I didn't like him calling me 'Mr. Reinard' the whole time, but I didn't know if it was okay to interrupt him to say 'Call me Chris.' And then also, it felt weird to just say it out of nowhere. Like, 'Call me Chris.'"

Bush asked Reinard if he had any hobbies, and Reinard told the president that he enjoys spending weekends with his children on local lakes in his small aluminum boat.

"Mr. Bush, I mean George, seemed to like that, and I felt that we finally made a connection," Reinard said. "But then he started telling me about this one time he was on a yacht with some Arab prince and they spent four hours landing a sailfish."

"It was a good story, but I just like catching a few bass with my kids is all," Reinard added. "I know he didn't mean to make me feel bad, but still."

Reinard told the president that he has lived most of his life in the Warren area, except for several years he spent in nearby Jamestown, where he attended community college for a year. Bush told Reinard he was born in New Haven, CT, and grew up in Texas before attending Yale University as an undergraduate and earning his MBA from Harvard, all while maintaining membership in many exclusive clubs.

"I asked George how much it costs to be in those social clubs, but he said he didn't remember," Reinard said. "I think he just didn't want to say the amount. He'd change the subject on me a lot, say he did a lot of partying back then, but that was all behind him now, since he found the Lord, or whatever."

Bush asked Reinard what he did for a living, and Reinard said he runs a small carpentry business.

"He asked me how it was going, what with the economy bouncing back. I said that if things didn't pick up soon, I was going to have to close up shop and work for my uncle in Youngstown," Reinard said. "George was quiet for a while after that. Then he told me about when his second oil company was going under. He suggested using my connections to get some outside investment capital."

"I don't have any connections," Reinard added.

When the conversation reached a dead end, Reinard and Bush were silent once again, their eyes tracking the game.

"We were sitting there watching the game, and some cheerleaders were up there waving their pompoms," Reinard said. "Then George mentioned that he used to be a cheerleader at Yale. I didn't know what to say to that one, so I just drank the rest of my beer real fast."

After nearly a minute of silence, Bush drained the remainder of his O'Doul's and wished Reinard goodbye, saying that he'd stay longer if he could, but had "some business to tend to."

"He shook my hand and smiled, said he had to run," Reinard said. "Something about a conference or a summit. It seemed like he was actually relieved to go."

Reinard and Kern both estimated Bush's stay at the bar as no longer than 15 minutes. This included Kern's attempt to pay for Bush's beer. Bush only smiled and waved at Kern, and a member of his Secret Service escort pulled a $10 bill from his coat pocket and tossed it on the bar.

Reinard likened the encounter with Bush to "being cornered at a company Christmas party by your boss."

"It was like, do you act and drink like normal, or are you on your best behavior?" Reinard said. "Are you up-front with the guy or do you choose your words carefully? What does he want out of you, anyway? Or does he just want to connect with somebody, because it's lonely at the top? You just don't know for sure."

"Overall, it was okay, I suppose," Reinard said. " One thing's for sure, though—I still wouldn't want to have a beer with that stuck-up Kerry."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 11:03 PM

November 11, 2005--

A Veterans' Day Message to America's Military Personnel:

'Though Durbin and Kennedy, Conyers and Dean

may denigrate missions you serve with their screams,

'though Nancy Peloci, Kucinich and Byrd

describe as a "quagmire" the mission you serve,

'though Hollywood HalfWits like Robbins and Moore

contend that your mission is wrong to the core,

'though missions your serve are maligned and defamed

by Soros, Move-On and by Not-In-Our-Name,

remember that all but a few do proclaim

how proudly (except for Amos) we thank you for deeds in our name.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 11:33 PM

The Source of the Trouble
Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller's series of exclusives about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq courtesy of the now-notorious Ahmad Chalabi helped the New York Times keep up with the competition and the Bush administration bolster the case for war. How the very same talents that caused her to get the story also caused her to get it wrong.

By Franklin Foer

Judith Miller discusses post-Saddam Iraq on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.

For critics of the Iraq war, the downfall of Ahmad Chalabi occasioned a hearty, unapologetic outpouring of Schadenfreude a loud cheer for a well-deserved knee to the administration s gut. In fact, it was possible to detect a bit of this spirit on the front page of the New York Times. On May 21, the editors arrayed contrasting images of the banker turned freedom fighter turned putative Iranian spy. Here he is smirking behind Laura Bush in the House of Representatives gallery as the president delivers his State of the Union address. There he is looking bleary and sweaty, after Iraqi police stormed his home and office in the middle of the night. An analysis by David Sanger went so far as to name names of individuals who had associated themselves with the discredited leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The list, he wrote, included many of the men who came to dominate the top ranks of the Bush administration . . . Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul D. Wolfowitz, Douglas J. Feith, Richard L. Armitage, Elliott Abrams and Zalmay M. Khalilzad, among others.

The phrase among others is a highly evocative one. Because that list of credulous Chalabi allies could include the New York Times own reporter, Judith Miller. During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein s ambition and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by Chalabi and his allies almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.


For the past year, the Times has done much to correct that coverage, publishing a series of stories calling Chalabi s credibility into question. But never once in the course of its coverage or in any public comments from its editors did the Times acknowledge Chalabi s central role in some of its biggest scoops, scoops that not only garnered attention but that the administration specifically cited to buttress its case for war.

The longer the Times remained silent on Chalabi s importance to Judith Miller s reporting, the louder critics howled. In February, in the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing held up Miller as evidence of the press s submissiveness in covering the war. For more than a year, Slate s Jack Shafer has demanded the paper come clean.

But finally, with Chalabi s fall from grace so complete the Pentagon has cut off his funding, troops smashed his portrait in raids of the INC office the Times refusal to concede its own complicity became untenable. Last week, on page A10, the paper published a note on its coverage, drafted by executive editor Bill Keller himself. The paper singled out pieces that relied on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors, and exiles bent on regime change.    The note named Ahmad Chalabi as a central player in this group.

This time, however, the omission of Judith Miller s name was conspicuous. Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated.

It was precisely her unpleasant aggressiveness that helped force the story the marriage of WMD and global jihadists closer to the top of the agenda.

The editor s note was correct: The Judy Miller problem is complicated. That is, the very qualities that endeared Miller to her editors at the New York Times her ambition, her aggressiveness, her cultivation of sources by any means necessary, her hunger to be first were the same ones that allowed her to get the WMD story so wrong.

Miller is a star, a diva. She wrote big stories, won big prizes. Long before her WMD articles ran, Miller had become a newsroom legend and for reasons that had little to do with the stories that appeared beneath her byline. With her seemingly bottomless ambition a pair of big feet that would stomp on colleagues in her way and even crunch a few bystanders she cut a larger-than-life figure that lent itself to Paul Bunyan esque retellings. Most of these stories aren t kind. Of course, nobody said journalism was a country club. And her personality was immaterial while she was succeeding, winning a Pulitzer, warning the world about terrorism, bio-weapons, and Iraq s war machine. But now, who she is, and why she prospered, makes for a revealing cautionary tale about the culture of American journalism.

On a summer afternoon in the early eighties, Judy Miller invited her exercise-averse boyfriend Richard Burt, then the Times defense reporter, to watch her swim laps in the Washington Hilton pool. Afterward, lounging in the sun, Miller veered into one of her favorite lines of conversation: Does chemical or nuclear warfare inflict the most damage? Burt, who would go on to become an assistant secretary of State in the Reagan administration, has a serious cast of mind. But even he was taken aback by Miller s dark thoughts. I remember being struck that there are not many people sitting around on a beautiful day thinking about weapons of mass destruction, he says.

Miller s dramatic way of looking at the world may have something to do with her family s show-business background. During the forties and fifties, her father, Bill Miller, ran the Riviera nightclub in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Famed for its retractable roof, the Riviera staged shows by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Tito Puente. When the state highway commission ordered the Riviera condemned in 1953, Miller made his way to Vegas, proving his impresario bona fides by reviving the careers of Elvis Presley and Marlene Dietrich.

Judy Miller arrived in the Times Washington bureau in 1977, as part of a new breed of hungry young hires, prodded in part by the sting of losing the Watergate story to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post. She was unlike the other guys there. That s why they brought her to the paper, says Steven Rattner, another old boyfriend, who eventually left his Times gig to become an investment banker.

Installed amid colleagues they were almost all men who d spent decades working their way up the paper s food chain, Miller stood out immediately for her sharp elbows. While the culture of the paper assiduously practices omert what happens in the newsroom stays in the newsroom Miller is cause for reporters to break the code of silence. An unusual number of her co-workers have gone out of their way to separate themselves and their paper from Miller. Few are brave enough to attach their names to the stories, but they all sound a similar refrain. She s a shit to the people she works with, says one. When I see her coming, my instinct is to go the other way, says another. They recite her foibles and peccadilloes, from getting temporarily banned by the Times D.C. car service for her rudeness to throwing a fit over rearranged items on her desk. Defenders are few and far between. And even the staunchest ones often concede her faults. Bill Keller told me in an e-mail, She has sharp elbows. She is possessive of her sources, and passionate about her stories, and a little obsessive. If you interview people who have worked with Sy Hersh, I ll bet you ll find some of the same complaints.
More

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 06 - 11:36 PM

Woody:

Thanks. When you study these deeds up close you will find that however courageous and loyal to their command chain, these men are not performing deeds I think I should be thankful for.

I am thankful for the small handful of officers in Iraq who are teaching more than shooting, organizing for production, and making things better there. I am thankful for those who defend the citizens from their own extremists, wishing our government would do as much for us.

But the slaughter of innocents and the destruction of families, the maiming of citizens and children, which you so bravely ignore, is something I will never give thanks for no matter who does it. If you ever get your head out of your dream world, you will find this sort of violence is no blessing, and is not a gift, but the sad end of a long warped political chain of failure.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 02 Jan 06 - 12:04 PM

The Word on "Turd Blossom" - The Redolent Gaseous Effluvia of the "Boy Genius"
By Dr. Gerry Lower
Jul 20, 2005, 21:57

Do an innocent Google search for the term "Turd Blossom" and you will be treated to 61,500 results, literally page after page, with not a thing about "turd blossoms." No, its all about Karl Rove. The implications of this outcome are not good when America's favorite search engine can't come up with word definitions because it can't get around all the references to Karl Rove.

That term, "Turd Blossom," of course, is not some liberal putdown, but the "affectionate" nickname coined by George W. Bush in referring to his left brain and chief political strategist, his Karl. Helen Thomas traced the origins of the term to "several years ago when he [Rove] started getting accolades from political writers as the mastermind behind Bush ... the president is known to have bristled."

According to Thomas, Bush "once told a journalist that he did not like his aides getting 'star treatment.' So, he started calling Rove 'Turd Blossom.'" Thomas suggested that the term "refers to the so-called cowpie splat made by bovine waste when it hits the ground"

Those who lack honest and intelligent comprehension typically make their sales through glad-handing, with one hand over your shoulder and the other hand down in your pants, Bush's signature approach. Adding insult to injury, Bush tops that off by being jokingly self-deprecating. He doesn't mean it at all, of course. After all, he is the "war president." But, as a result, when being upstaged or criticized, Bush has no problems with deprecating others. It runs in the family.

The Bush administration's relationships with the English language and with empirical reality, however, are not only mindless but legendarily so. Cheney announces that the Iraq insurgency is in its "last throes." Rove rewrites history by announcing that "liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." It makes one's head spin, but then that is what "spin" is designed to do, so that the people stick with the party line. It is the Rovian basis for government of, by and for the people.

In other words, one can never be sure just what the Bush administration means because it so seldom knows what it is talking about, because its outreach is so full of conjecture and concoction. As a direct result, the Bush administration seldom knows what it is doing (Eugene Robinson, Syntax, Disassembled, Washington Post, July 12, 2005) (2). Theses people are, after all, not experienced diplomats and learned statesmen, but more a conspiracy of businessmen trying to make a sale.

Bloggers and columnists alike have attempted to more precisely define Bush's oxymoronic term for Rove. One suggested that "the use of Mr. Rove's nickname is probably due to his [Rove's] ability to make something very unappetizing (cow patties) into something attractive (a flower)" (Dick Brandlon, Lotus Media, July 13, 2005) (3). Julian Borger, with the Guardian, suggested that a turd blossom is "a Texanism for a flower that blooms from cattle excrement"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 06 - 03:08 PM

From Today's Papers (Slate):

The Bush administration's decision not to seek new funds in its congressional budget request next month signals the winding down of the rebuilding effort in Iraq, says the WP. Less than 20 percent remains of an $18.4 billion rebuilding effort. Half was spent on the insurgency, the criminal justice system, and the trial of Saddam Hussein. Billions that were initially supposed to go to rebuilding Iraq's decrepit infrastructure went to new security forces and maximum-security prisons and detention centers. Bringing reliable electrical, water, sewage, and sanitation services to Iraq will require tens of billions yet, but, as one brigadier general put it, "The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq."

---

Yet another failure to deliver . Going in, the PR was all about reconstruction, billions to restore the infrastructure. Turns out half the dough was spent on prisons and war-fighting. I am a little perplexed where the money that was earmarked for military operations went -- kind of like a shell game where you lose sight of the pea, huh?

Who wants to bet whether or not the amount of ACTUAL rebuilding equals the amount of destruction compared to pre-invasion status? Hmmm? I dummo -- just raising a question, here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 10:20 PM

A concerned Mexican American citizen writes to the San Diego Union-Tribune:
        
      
Letters to the editor

January 3, 2006

U.S. in no position to advise Mexico


Regarding "Poor relations / Five goals for Mexico in the new year" (Editorial, Dec. 26):

You've got to be joking. Saying that Mexico should not meddle in another country's affairs is totally without credibility from a country that invades countries to gain land (the invasion of Mexico in 1846) and has a long history of pariah politics for its own self-righteous reasons.

The United States invades a country to settle the score on Sept. 11, 2001; Iraq wasn't involved. No, wait, it's to find weapons of mass destruction; none found. No, hold it, it's to fight terror; there's more terror now than ever. No, here's the latest reason: to promote democracy; President Bush and his administration are far, far from democracy. No, it's to – who knows what Bush and his corrupt administration will make up next?

The credibility of the Union-Tribune is less than zero when it does everything possible (in two languages) to discredit and slam Mexico every chance it gets. Once the United States stops exporting the demand for drugs (80 percent of the world's illegal drugs consumed by Americans), ruining the environment (35 percent of world environmental damage is caused by the United States and U.S. companies), stops helping to create terror (Bush policies have created more terror cells than ever), stops taking from the world (the United States consumes 30 percent of the world's natural resources) and continues to meddle in the world with a total disregard for human rights and so much more, then and only then can the United States or the Union-Tribune even consider giving advice to other countries.

For now, impeach Bush and let's honor world treaties, starting with treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo....

ENRIQUE MORONES
San Diego

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 01:48 PM

The Onion


December 28, 2005 | Issue 41•52

Elected President Of Iraq

BAGHDAD—In a vast outpouring of gratitude to the man they call "Our Great Savior From The West," the people of Iraq flooded the polls during yesterday's first free elections, voting overwhelmingly for President George W. Bush as their first democratically elected leader.

Bush, who spent nearly half a trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money on his campaign, received a concession call from Abu Musaiya at 11:30 EST last night.

After the Bush landslide was announced on Al-Jazeera, ecstatic crowds chanted in the streets throughout the recently liberated nation: "Hail George Bush, the president of Iraq!"

"May Allah bless him and his children to the seventh generation!" shouted free Iraqi citizen Abdullah al-Hallasid, firing his gun into the air repeatedly and injuring seven U.S. soldiers. "At last, we are free!"

Bush, who surged in the polls after all of the other candidates were killed by either coalition forces or insurgents in the final week leading up to the election, characterized his victory as the dawn of democracy in the Middle East, and proof that the system works.


See image of Georgie in his new uniform on this page: Bush Elected President Of Iraq.

The above information has not been evaluated for any correspondence with the real world.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 08:36 PM

Hey, Amos, not only has BUsh pulled the plug on funds to fix the stuff that he broke in ordering the invasion of Iraq but it looks as if he's telling the Afgani's to "pack sand" as well...

Rebuild v. Tax Cuts for the Rich...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 10:43 AM

Bruce Reed, writing for Slate, remarks:

"President Bush has the rest of his life to apologize for what he has done so far. He would be better off devoting the three precious remaining years of his presidency to what historians of tomorrow and Americans of today might both applaud: better policies and better results.

One historian tells Sanger that the Bush White House has its eyes on the Truman legacy, perhaps because Truman and Nixon are the only two presidents ever to surpass Bush in unpopularity. But the great thing about history is that it all comes out in the wash. Anybody can spin the press corps, but not even Karl Rove can spin the historians. In the long run, everything leaks."

---

Reed's article, Plea Bargain with America is an interesting analysis of the current Republican power-wedgie.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:22 AM

The Washington Post offers a report indicating that legal claims for Presidential authority for all the high-tech eavesdropping are probably bogus, weak at best. If they are found legally to be erroneous and not a legal defense, then those actions are criminal and impeachable.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 11:48 AM

The TImes for today (a Sunday) has a fascinating, well-reasoned study by Noah Feldman on the growth of "presidentialism", the expansion of dominance of the Executive, and what to do about it.

The article is here and merits a careful read.

Bush's administration, as Feldman points out, has pushed executive power far beyond any limits within which it previously operated. But the trend has been on-going since the Luisiana Purchase, and has fundamentally altered the nature of the American Constitution.

Feldman is insightful and coherent in his sense of the historical pattern, and offers some good suggestions about remediation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 12:15 PM

This is an example of how Amos tries to pass of bullshit as the truth and Bobert can't tell the difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 01:48 PM

The Onion

December 28, 2005 | Issue 41•52

Elected President Of Iraq

BAGHDAD—In a vast outpouring of gratitude to the man they call "Our Great Savior From The West," the people of Iraq flooded the polls during yesterday's first free elections, voting overwhelmingly for President George W. Bush as their first democratically elected leader.

Bush, who spent nearly half a trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money on his campaign, received a concession call from Abu Musaiya at 11:30 EST last night.

After the Bush landslide was announced on Al-Jazeera, ecstatic crowds chanted in the streets throughout the recently liberated nation: "Hail George Bush, the president of Iraq!"

"May Allah bless him and his children to the seventh generation!" shouted free Iraqi citizen Abdullah al-Hallasid, firing his gun into the air repeatedly and injuring seven U.S. soldiers. "At last, we are free!"

Bush, who surged in the polls after all of the other candidates were killed by either coalition forces or insurgents in the final week leading up to the election, characterized his victory as the dawn of democracy in the Middle East, and proof that the system works.

The above information has not been evaluated for any correspondence with the real world.

A
------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 08:36 PM

Hey, Amos, not only has BUsh pulled the plug on funds to fix the stuff that he broke in ordering the invasion of Iraq but it looks as if he's telling the Afgani's to "pack sand" as well...

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Rebuild v. Tax Cuts for the Rich..."The Onion® is a satirical
The Onion® uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."

"this Publication is tasteless and destructive of our shared values" Al Gore

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 02:31 PM

A study reported in the TImes today reveals that Army and Marine Corps bureaucracy and possibly a lack of demand from above has contributed to many of the service deaths in Iraq through inadequate individual armoring, totally aside from the HumVee armor catastrophe which Rumsfeld so gallantly dodged (in late '04, if memory serves).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:46 PM

Well, Old Guy, in the last week Bush has told both Iraq and Afganistan to "pack sand" when it comes to any more dought in rebuilding their infastructues... Both artickles appeared on the front pages of the Washington Post... Google washingtonpost,com fir details....

Hmmmmmm??? Seesm that's becoming the Bush standard answer for anyone wanting anything outta the money that Bush collects from the working class thru taxes, ahhh, with the exception of rich people and anyone who paid enought into Bush's election campaign (think major drug companies and defense contractors here)...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 01:34 AM

Now Amos is posting things from Blogs because he is running out of Satire to post.

If Bobert knew what he was talking about I would respond.

AINA, CA - Jan 6, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Jack Reed, finishing up a two-day visit to Iraq on Thursday, said the raging debate in America over withdrawing troops hadn't dampened morale among the soldiers he met.

"I frankly did not pick up any of that," Reed, D-R.I., said during a conference call from Iraq with reporters on one of the deadliest days in Iraq since the war began. "All I got were soldiers who were committed to their mission."

The senator met with members of the Rhode Island National Guard as well as other troops and officials. He said he hopes some of the longest serving forces can get a break.

"That stress eventually takes a toll," Reed said.

Reed is a member of the Armed Services Committee and a former Army Ranger who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has emerged as a leading Senate critic of President Bush's handling of the war. But unlike some of his Democratic colleagues, Reed has not urged an immediate pullout of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The senator said he was about a mile or two from a suicide car bombing in Baghdad on Thursday that killed three Iraqi soldiers. He said he only learned of the blast after it happened.

"We were not in the danger area," he said.

The bombing was among a rash of insurgent attacks across Iraq Thursday that killed more than 130 people.

"It reminds you it's a very dangerous place," the senator said.

Reed also heard the crackle of small arms fire while he was in the city.

The future of Iraq now hinges on the success of its new government, Reed said. The U.S. needs to provide more civil reconstruction aid to help Iraq's new leaders provide basic needs for its citizens, he said.

"The struggle in Iraq is about the future or Iraq in the hands of Iraqis," said Reed. "This is a critical moment."

Reed was making his sixth trip to Iraq. He is expected to visit with troops and officials in Afghanistan on Friday.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 03:10 PM

AUSTIN, Texas -- The state's highest criminal court on Monday denied Rep. Tom DeLay's request that the money laundering charges against him be dismissed or sent back to a lower court for an immediate trial.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied the requests with no written order two days after he announced he was stepping down as House majority leader. DeLay had been forced to temporarily relinquish the Republican leadership post after he was indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges in September.

(Jan 9, 2005)

---

Old Guy,

Thrash, kick, yowl and slander.

1. I have enjoyed the Onion's satire for several years. As I pointed out to you elsewhere I have no problem recognizing the difference between reality and satire; sometimes I wonder if you share the same abililty. I expect those who read these threads to have aminimal literacy about such well-known websites as THe Onion, but if it is a new wonder to you, that does not give you the right to make even more scurrilous remarks about my character and intelligence -- remarks even YOU do not believe in fact...

2.   I asked you once why you were so bitter as to levy these personal ad hominem and slanderous attacks on me, and your only reply was that if I were normal, I would know. That is a bit juvenile, but in any case I am not "normal". I am better looking than average. So enlighten me.

3. You repeatedly, as yourself and under other underhanded guises make snide remarks about Dianetics and Scientolgy. I don't mind what you think of these subjects, but I think I made it clear to you that these organizations are not part of my world-view, despite my earlier association with them over 25 years back. Your latching onto this linkage and altering it as though it were some secret in my misty past is erroneous, and does not do you credit (never mind me!). I would be as justified in accusing you having a kindergartner's mentality because I tracked down the fact that you were once known to habituate a kindergarten as a card-carrying member. Slander is easy. Honesty and real thought are much harder. Give them a try.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 10:33 PM

From Sunday's WP:

"Bring 'em on."

-- President Bush on Iraqi insurgents, summer 2003

Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
The Boring Made Dull
Austoon Daily
Running Scared

Full List of Blogs (40 links) »

Most Blogged About Articles
On washingtonpost.com | On the web


The insurgency is "in its last throes."

-- Vice President Cheney,

summer 2005

" . . . there are only two options before our country: victory or defeat."

-- President Bush, Christmas 2005

The administration's rhetorical devolution speaks for itself. Yet, with some luck and with a more open decision-making process in the White House, greater political courage on the part of Democratic leaders and even some encouragement from authentic Iraqi leaders, the U.S. war in Iraq could (and should) come to an end within a year.

"Victory or defeat" is, in fact, a false strategic choice. In using this formulation, the president would have the American people believe that their only options are either "hang in and win" or "quit and lose." But the real, practical choice is this: "persist but not win" or "desist but not lose."

Victory, as defined by the administration and its supporters -- i.e., a stable and secular democracy in a unified Iraqi state, with the insurgency crushed by the American military assisted by a disciplined, U.S.-trained Iraqi national army -- is unlikely. The U.S. force required to achieve it would have to be significantly larger than the present one, and the Iraqi support for a U.S.-led counterinsurgency would have to be more motivated. The current U.S. forces (soon to be reduced) are not large enough to crush the anti-American insurgency or stop the sectarian Sunni-Shiite strife. Both problems continue to percolate under an inconclusive but increasingly hated foreign occupation.

Moreover, neither the Shiites nor the Kurds are likely to subordinate their specific interests to a unified Iraq with a genuine, single national army. As the haggling over the new government has already shown, the two dominant forces in Iraq -- the religious Shiite alliance and the separatist Kurds -- share a common interest in preventing a restoration of Sunni domination, with each determined to retain a separate military capacity for asserting its own specific interests, largely at the cost of the Sunnis. A truly national army in that context is a delusion. Continuing doggedly to seek "a victory" in that fashion dooms America to rising costs in blood and money, not to mention the intensifying Muslim hostility and massive erosion of America's international legitimacy, credibility and moral reputation.

The administration's definition of "defeat" is similarly misleading. Official and unofficial spokesmen often speak in terms that recall the apocalyptic predictions made earlier regarding the consequences of American failure to win in Vietnam: dominoes falling, the region exploding and U.S. power discredited. An added touch is the notion that the Iraqi insurgents will then navigate the Atlantic and wage terrorism on the American homeland.
...

---

The bogus arm-waving is kind of similar, innit?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 11:19 PM

By the way, Old Guy, these excerpts are not from Blogs but from the on-line edition of the Washington, D.C., Post which also has links to surveys about blogging going on, which is why you see those phrases. I'da thought that might have been clear from context, but in any case, they're from the WP proper, not a blog.

But the IMPORTANT news is this, which I haven't verified, forwarded from a discussion list:


Link to article

or
http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance%2C+go+to+jail/
2010-1028_3-6022491.html?part=rss&tag=6022491&subj=news

"Create an e-annoyance, go to jail
Published: January 9, 2006, 4:00 AM PST

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a
prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail
messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog
as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small
favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet,
is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of
Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and
two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv
Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
"What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else." "


-------------------------------------------------------------------

I am perfectly capable of learning from my mistakes. I will surely
learn a great deal today.

"A democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding on what to have for
lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the results of the
decision." - Benjamin Franklin

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 11:38 PM

The New Red, White and Blue

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Op-Ed Columnist
NY Times, January 6, 2006
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/opinion/06friedman.html

As we enter 2006, we find ourselves in trouble, at home and abroad.
We are in trouble because we are led by defeatists - wimps, actually.
What's so disturbing about President Bush and Dick Cheney is that
they talk tough about the necessity of invading Iraq, torturing
terror suspects and engaging in domestic spying - all to defend our
way of life and promote democracy around the globe.
But when it comes to what is actually the most important issue in
U.S. foreign and domestic policy today - making ourselves energy
efficient and independent, and environmentally green - they
ridicule it as something only liberals, tree-huggers and sissies
believe is possible or necessary.
... Sticking with oil, and basically saying that a country that can
double the speed of microchips every 18 months is somehow incapable
of innovating its way to energy independence - that is for sissies,
defeatists and people who are ready to see American values eroded
at home and abroad.
Living green is not just a "personal virtue," as Mr. Cheney says.
It's a national security imperative.
The biggest threat to America and its values today is not
communism, authoritarianism or Islamism. It's petrolism. Petrolism
is my term for the corrupting, antidemocratic governing practices -
in oil states from Russia to Nigeria and Iran ...
...
... ...
...
Enough of this Bush-Cheney nonsense that conservation, energy
efficiency and environmentalism are some hobby we can't afford. I
can't think of anything more cowardly or un-American. Real
patriots, real advocates of spreading democracy around the world,
live green.
Green is the new red, white and blue.

---

:>)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 09:50 AM

Jan. 10, 2006 — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called the Bush administration "incompetent" when it came to protecting the troops in combat and called the lack of adequate body armor for soldiers and Marines "unforgivable."

So far in Iraq, more than 2,100 American troops have been killed. Critics like Clinton, D-N.Y., say that many of these deaths are the result of inadequate body armor. A secret Pentagon study of 93 Marines who were killed in Iraq found that 74 died after they were hit by a bullet or shrapnel in the torso or shoulders — areas unprotected by the armor most are issued. ...


From ABC News, January 10, 2006

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 09:58 AM

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp?pg=2

Saddam's Terror Training Camps
What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal--and why they should all be made public.
by Stephen F. Hayes
01/16/2006, Volume 011, Issue 17

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.

intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.

The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years.

Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals assigned to the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."

Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq."We had boxloads of Iraqi Intelligence records--their names, their jobs, all sorts of detailed information," says the former military intelligence officer. "In an insurgency, wouldn't that have been helpful?"

How many of those unexploited documents might help us better understand the role of Iraq in supporting transregional terrorists? How many of those documents might provide important intelligence on the very people--Baathists, former regime officials, Saddam Fedayeen, foreign fighters trained in Iraq--that U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq today? Is what we don't know literally killing us?

ON NOVEMBER 17, 2005, Michigan representative Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Hoekstra is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He provided Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.

For several weeks, Hoekstra was promised a response. He finally got one on December 28, 2005, in a meeting with General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence. Hayden handed Hoekstra a letter from Negroponte that promised a response after January 1, 2006. Hoekstra took the letter, read it, and scribbled his terse response. "John--Unacceptable." Hoekstra told Hayden that he would expect to hear something before the end of the year. He didn't.

"I can tell you that I'm reaching the point of extreme frustration," said Hoekstra, in a phone interview last Thursday. His exasperated tone made

the claim unnecessary. "It's just an indication that rather than having a nimble, quick intelligence community that can respond quickly, it's still a lumbering bureaucracy that can't give the chairman of the intelligence committee answers relatively quickly. Forget quickly, they can't even give me answers slowly."

On January 6, however, Hoekstra finally heard from Negroponte. The director of national intelligence told Hoekstra that he is committed to expediting the exploitation and release of the Iraqi documents. According to Hoekstra, Negroponte said: "I'm giving this as much attention as anything else on my plate to make this work."

Other members of Congress--including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Senators Rick Santorum and Pat Roberts--also demanded more information from the Bush administration on the status of the vast document collection. Santorum and Hoekstra have raised the issue personally with President Bush. This external pressure triggered an internal debate at the highest levels of the administration. Following several weeks of debate, a consensus has emerged: The vast majority of the 2 million captured documents should be released publicly as soon as possible.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information. According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents. "He has a sense that public vetting of this information is likely to be as good an astringent as any other process we could develop," says Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.

The main worry, says DiRita, is that the mainstream press might cherry-pick documents and mischaracterize their meaning. "There is always the concern that people would be chasing a lot of information good or bad, and when the Times or the Post splashes a headline about some sensational-sounding document that would seem to 'prove' that sanctions were working, or that Saddam was just a misunderstood patriot, or some other nonsense, we'd spend a lot of time chasing around after it."

This is a view many officials attributed to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone. (Cambone, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed.) For months, Cambone has argued internally against expediting the release of the documents. "Cambone is the problem," says one former Bush administration official who wants the documents released. "He has blocked this every step of the way." In what is perhaps a sign of a changing dynamic within the administration, Cambone is now saying that he, like his boss, favors a broad document release.

Although Hoekstra, too, has been pushing hard for the quick release of all of the documents, he is currently focusing his efforts simply on obtaining the 40 documents he asked for in November. "There comes a time when the talking has to stop and I get the documents. I requested these documents six weeks ago and I have not seen a single piece of paper yet."

Is Hoekstra being unreasonable? I asked Michael Tanji, the former DOCEX official with the Defense Intelligence Agency, how long such a search might take. His answer: Not long. "The retrieval of a HARMONY document is a trivial thing assuming one has a serial number or enough keyword terms to narrow down a search [Hoekstra did]. If given the task when they walked in the door, one person should be able to retrieve 40 documents before lunch."

Tanji should know. He left DIA last year as the chief of the media exploitation division in the office of document exploitation. Before that, he started and managed a digital forensics and intelligence fusion program that used the data obtained from DOCEX operations. He began his career as an Army signals intelligence [SIGINT] analyst. In all, Tanji has worked for 18 years in intelligence and dealt with various aspects of the media exploitation problem for about four years.

We discussed the successes and failures of the DOCEX program, the relative lack of public attention to the project, and what steps might be taken to expedite the exploitation of the documents in the event the push to release all of the documents loses momentum.

       TWS: In what areas is the project succeeding? In what areas is the project failing?

       Tanji: The level of effort applied to the DOCEX problems in Iraq and Afghanistan to date is a testament to the will and work ethic of people in the intelligence community. They've managed to find a number of golden nuggets amongst a vast field of rock in what I would consider a respectable amount of time through sheer brute force. The flip side is that it is a brute-force effort. For a number of reasons--primarily time and resources--there has not been much opportunity to step back, think about a smarter way to solve the problem, and then apply various solutions. Inasmuch as we've won in Iraq and Saddam and his cronies are in the dock, now would be a good time to put some fresh minds on the problem of how you turn DOCEX into a meaningful and effective information-age intelligence tool.

       TWS: Why haven't we heard more about this project? Aren't most of the Iraqi documents unclassified?

       Tanji: Until a flood of captured material came rushing in after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom [in October 2001], DOCEX was a backwater: unglamorous, not terribly career enhancing, and from what I had heard always one step away from being mothballed.

       The classification of documents obtained for exploitation varies based on the nature of the way they were obtained and by whom. There are some agencies that tend to classify everything regardless of how it was acquired. I could not give you a ratio of unclassified to classified documents.

       In my opinion the silence associated with exploitation work is rooted in the nature of the work. In addition to being tedious and time-consuming, it is usually done after the shooting is over. We place a higher value on intelligence information that comes to us before a conflict begins. Confirmation that we were right (or proof that we were wrong) after the fact is usually considered history. That some of this information may be dated doesn't mean it isn't still valuable.

       TWS: The project seems overwhelmed at the moment, with a mere 50,000 documents translated completely out of a total of 2 million. What steps, in your view, should be taken to expedite the process?

       Tanji: I couldn't say what the total take of documents or other forms of media is, though numbers in the millions are probably not far off.

       In a sense the exploitation process is what it is; you have to put eyes on paper (or a computer screen) to see what might be worth further translation or deeper analysis. It is a time-consuming process that has no adequate mechanical solution. Machine translation software is getting better, but it cannot best a qualified human linguist, of which we have very few.

       Tackling the computer media problem is a lot simpler in that computer language (binary) is universal, so searching for key words, phrases, and the names of significant personalities is fairly simple. Built to deal with large-scale data sets, a forensic computer system can rapidly separate wheat from chaff. The current drawback is that the computer forensics field is dominated by a law-enforcement mindset, which means the approach to the digital media problem is still very linear. As most of this material has come to us without any context ("hard drives found in Iraq" was a common label attached to captured media) that approach means our great-grandchildren will still be dealing with this problem.

       Dealing with the material as the large and nebulous data set that it is and applying a contextual appliqué after exploitation--in essence, recreating the Iraqi networks as they were before Operation Iraqi Freedom began--would allow us to get at the most significant data rapidly for technical analysis, and allow for a political analysis to follow in short order. If I were looking for both a quick and powerful fix I'd get various Department of Energy labs involved; they're used to dealing with large data sets and have done great work in the data mining and rendering fields.

       TWS: To read some of the reporting on Iraq, one might come away with the impression that Saddam Hussein was something of a benign (if not exactly benevolent) dictator who had no weapons of mass destruction and no connections to terrorism. Does the material you've seen support this conventional wisdom?

       Tanji: I am subject to a nondisclosure agreement, so I would rather not get into details. I will say that the intelligence community has scraped the surface of much of what has been captured in Iraq and in my view a great deal more deep digging is required. Critics of the war often complain about the lack of "proof"--a term that I had never heard used in the intelligence lexicon until we ousted Saddam--for going to war. There is really only one way to obtain "proof" and that is to carry out a thorough and detailed examination of what we've captured.

       TWS: I've spoken with several officials who have seen unclassified materials indicating the former Iraqi regime provided significant support--including funding and training--to transregional terrorists, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, Algeria's GSPC, and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Did you see any of this?

       Tanji: My obligations under a nondisclosure agreement prevent me from getting into this kind of detail.

Other officials familiar with the captured documents were less cautious. "As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists," says one intelligence official.

Speaking of Ansar al Islam, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that operated in northern Iraq, the former high-ranking military intelligence officer says: "There is no question about the fact that AI had reach into Baghdad. There was an intelligence connection between that group and the regime, a financial connection between that group and the regime, and there was an equipment connection. It may have been the case that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] support for AI was meant to operate against the [anti-Saddam] Kurds. But there is no question IIS was supporting AI."

The official continued: "[Saddam] used these groups because he was interested in extending his influence and extending the influence of Iraq. There are definite and absolute ties to terrorism. The evidence is there, especially at the network level. How high up in the government was it sanctioned? I can't tell you. I don't know whether it was run by Qusay [Hussein] or [Izzat Ibrahim] al-Duri or someone else. I'm just not sure. But to say Iraq wasn't involved in terrorism is flat wrong."

STILL, some insist on saying it. Since early November, Senator Carl Levin has been spotted around Washington waving a brief excerpt from a February 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of Iraq. The relevant passage reads: "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."

Levin treats these two sentences as definitive proof that Bush administration officials knew that Saddam's regime was unlikely to work with Islamic fundamentalists and ignored the intelligence community's assessment to that effect. Levin apparently finds the passage so damning that he specifically requested that it be declassified.

I thought of Levin's two sentences last Wednesday and Thursday as I sat in a Dallas courtroom listening to testimony in the deportation hearing of Ahmed Mohamed Barodi, a 42-year-old Syrian-born man who's been living in Texas for the last 15 years. I thought of Levin's sentences, for example, when Barodi proudly proclaimed his membership in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and again when Barodi, dressed in loose-fitting blue prison garb, told Judge J. Anthony Rogers about the 21 days he spent in February 1982 training with other members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at a camp in Iraq.

The account he gave in the courtroom was slightly less alarming than the description of the camp he had provided in 1989, on his written application for political asylum in the United States. In that document, Barodi described the instruction he received in Iraq as "guerrilla warfare training." And in an interview in February 2005 with Detective Scott Carr and special agent Sam Montana, both from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, Barodi said that the Iraqi regime provided training in the use of firearms, rocket-propelled grenades, and document forgery.

Barodi comes from Hama, the town that was leveled in 1982 by the armed forces of secular Syrian dictator Hafez Assad because it was home to radical Islamic terrorists who had agitated against his regime. The massacre took tens of thousands of lives, but some of the extremists got away.

Many of the most radical Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Hama were welcomed next door--and trained--in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Spanish investigators believe that Ghasoub Ghalyoun, the man they have accused of conducting surveillance for the 9/11 attacks, who also has roots in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, was trained in an Iraqi terrorist camp in the early 1980s. Ghalyoun mentions this Iraqi training in a 2001 letter to the head of Syrian intelligence, in which he seeks reentry to Syria despite his long affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Reaching out to Islamic radicals was, in fact, one of the first moves Saddam Hussein made upon taking power in 1979. That he did not do it for ideological reasons is unimportant. As Barodi noted at last week's hearing, "He used us and we used him."

Throughout the 1980s, including the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam cast himself as a holy warrior in his public rhetoric to counter the claims from Iran that he was an infidel. This posturing continued during and after the first Gulf war in 1990-91. Saddam famously ordered "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) added to the Iraqi flag. Internally, he launched "The Faith Campaign," which according to leading Saddam Hussein scholar Amatzia Baram included the imposition of sharia (Islamic law). According to Baram, "The Iraqi president initiated laws forbidding the public consumption of alcohol and introduced enhanced compulsory study of the Koran at all educational levels, including Baath Party branches."

Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law who defected to Jordan in 1995, explained these changes in an interview with Rolf Ekeus, then head of the U.N. weapons inspection program. "The government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country," he said, adding, "Every party member has to pass a religious exam. They even stopped party meetings for prayers."

And throughout the decade, the Iraqi regime sponsored "Popular Islamic Conferences" at the al Rashid Hotel that drew the most radical Islamists from throughout the region to Baghdad. Newsweek's Christopher Dickey, who covered one of those meetings in 1993, would later write: "Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia converged on Baghdad to show their solidarity with Iraq in the face of American aggression." One speaker praised "the mujahed Saddam Hussein, who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers." Another speaker said, "Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state." Dickey continued:

    Every time I hear diplomats and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare that Saddam Hussein is a "secular Baathist ideologue" who has nothing do with Islamists or with terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I wonder what they're talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam's version of it.

In the face of such evidence, Carl Levin and other critics of the Iraq war trumpet deeply flawed four-year-old DIA analyses. Shouldn't the senator instead use his influence to push for the release of Iraqi documents that will help establish what, exactly, the Iraqi regime was doing in the years before the U.S. invasion?

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:37 AM

Woody:

See Mudcat FAQs on how to make blue clickies and guidelines on pasting stuff.   

I am still dubious about the Slman Pak claims, just as I was the last time they were brought up here, by Old Guy IIRC. I could be wrong, though. It happened a coupla times.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:44 AM

Zawahiri tells Bush to admit Iraq defeat

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/detail.asp?ID=74964&GRP=D

"There they are today... pleading to get out of Iraq and begging for negotiations with the mujahedeen,"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 11:29 AM

Zawahiri, talking like that, is very likely to wake a sleeping giant and find himself in smithereens because he puffed himself up prematurely.

The United States has not yet declared war on Al Qeda, or really mobilized in a flat-out national effort. So far it's been a clique operation, with a half-assed "war on terror" managed by indifferent skills in many ways.

But if he goes too far, and invokes the national spirit of war with his posturing, and the gloves come off the way they did when the whole country rolled out a war effort in WW I and WW II, he is likely to end up wishing he had been more discreet, methinks.

I hope he comes to his senses before that happens.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Bligh
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 08:39 PM

From http://impeachblanco.org/

Impeach Kathleen Blanco
                 
This is a sad time for all of us who live in Louisiana. While I'm personally thankful for the efforts of thousands of people from across America who have helped us in our state's greatest time of need, I'm enraged by the lack of responsibility displayed over the last few weeks by many of the officials we elected.

Kathleen Blanco, the Governor of Louisiana is completely responsible for our state's lack of preparedness and for mishandling the rescue and relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Governor Blanco's incompetence and disregard for the citizens of Louisiana before the hurricane struck and her inexplicable actions in the days afterward can only be considered dereliction of duty. Louisiana needs a new Governor, and I hope you'll join me in demanding a Recall Election.

Specifically Governor Kathleen Blanco:

   1. Failed to execute the state's emergency plan to safeguard the citizens of Southern Louisiana by not ordering a mandatory evacuation of the affected parishes before Hurricane Katrina hit.
   2. Purposefully withheld food, water and hygiene items from the tens of thousands of victims stranded at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center in an effort to get them to leave the area.
   3. Delayed sending the Louisiana National Guard to maintain order in the city of New Orleans for four days, allowing snipers to hamper rescue efforts and permitting looters to ransack homes and businesses.
   4. Chose to spend the days after Hurricane Katrina engaged in partisan bickering and finger pointing rather than giving FEMA and the U.S. military the authority they needed to take over the rescue effort, relieve suffering, and save lives.

        
Kathleen Blanco on CNN

Governor Blanco is indecisive, more concerned with politics than duty, and has demonstrated a serious lack of judgment that clearly shows she is the wrong person to be the chief executive of Louisiana. I believe Governor Blanco should be removed from office immediately and replaced by a competent individual with the ability to take responsibility and make the decisions necessary to lead our state. Louisiana state law provides a remedy, and that remedy begins with a Petition to Recall.

Governor Blanco, you can point the finger at whoever you want. You can shift the blame, obfuscate the truth, and deny culpability in as many press conferences as you like. Until the day you stand before the citizens of Louisiana, admit your mistakes, and accept responsibility for your poor choices, I will not rest. Your actions cost lives, and you will be held accountable.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:09 PM

Salman Pak revisited

Amos:

There is a boatload of documents coming to light soon about Saddam training 2000 terrorists per year in 3 different camps in Iraq.

I thought I would tip you off so you can have a lightning fast rebuttal all ready to go.

I don't know why they are hanging onto it. Maybe they are holding it forelease just before the 2006 elections to show how stupid the anti-war candiates are or maybe they don't want the terrorists that they have identified by class photos, to know that they have been identified.

Yup. They took photos of the graduating classes with the instructors. Think they had a year book too?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:42 PM

Yeah, impeach Blanko... I'm all fir that... But be sure to get the real culprit first and we all know who that is... Yeah, the guy who was too busy vacationaing to be bothered with "My job is to protect the American people"...

You Bushites need to Google up "Brownshirts" 'cause you all fit the description to the T...

And long c&P's don't change the fact that Donnie Rumsfeld took a bunch of gifts to Saddam **after** he had gassed the Kurds...

Like what's that about???

In yer own words, please, that is if any of you have enough IQ points to actaully compose a rebuttal...

Biggest bunch of loser cryabbies that I've ever run into this current crop of couargous GUESTS are!!! Sho nuff brave... Give 'um all a big old bravery metal...

Bunch of chickensh'ts far as I can see... Can't compose their own arguemnts but drag in long C&P's that most of the time don't have nuthin' to do with the subject at hand...

Yeah, when it come to the current crop of GUEST's it's mental midget time... Might of fact, when you crybabies see MMT know that I'm talking about you... If yer snart 'nuff to remember that.... Might wanta write it down... Oh, I forgot, you only have learned C&P.... Hmmmmmm? Yer stuck...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 11:18 PM

Well it's a funny world. Here I have been saying that since the invasion of Iraq, it appeared to me to be an unruly, unwarrned and extreme thing to do, and NOW I find out they are just about to release a bunch of new documents that justify it all completely!! I swan!!

I stand by to be humbled, Old Guy; but before that occurs, let me ask a last question, if I may. I don't know much about declaring wars, but how come all that intell wasn't made known to the Congress at the time when we did not declare war on Al Queda?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 12:19 AM

I guess the time we did not declare war on Al-Quaeda goes back to 1776

Could you rephrase that?

All the new documents that you are already trying to characterize as phony,about 2 million of them, papers, floppys/ hard drives, CDs, tapes, Etc were captured during the liberation and in Afghanistan.

Now they are in Quatar with people anylizing them. The "DOCEX" project.

So far they have only processed 50,000 of them and they have amassed this new information. Apparently the people doing the analysis are pissed that none of it has been released to the public and are leaking it to the press to speed things up.

You could Google it up easy if you would take words like liar and idiot out of the search box. go to google news and search on salman pak new 2 million "DOCEX" project

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 04:36 AM

YEah, OG, I saw that information. I must say, you're getting much sharper lately. Good on ya.

I was simply commenting that one would not be wise to use what comes out of DOCEX as an explanation for a decision made three years before it wa known, in any case; but I look forward with interest to hearing what comes out of DOCEX.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 04:06 PM

It was suspected three years before and denied by peace mongers so you think it should be ignored but when forged documnets are floated they should be believed.

Good thinking. Keep your French firing squad manual handy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 05:00 PM

I think you may have missed my point, sir. The documents "floated" in the Rather case were forged in form but were apparently, according to witnesses involved, accurate as to content.

My point about the emerging documents is not that they should be discredited or ignored, if they are genuine and accurate, but that trying to use them retroactively to justify an invasion that occurred before they were known about when their information was not known would be meretricious and illogical. Because, you see, if Bush knew about any of them, and they supported his decisions to wage war, he surely woudl have used them in defense considering all the uproar that was raised against his invasion of Iraq and since.

I am curious that you use the word "peace monger" as a parallel construction to the term war-monger, which is often used as a term of censure.

Is it your belief that those who wage peace, or promote peace, are somehow doing a disservice? Is peace in some way a condition you think is bad for the nation?   In other words, what do you have against peace-mongering that you would use this peculiar turn of phrase to refer to it?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 05:57 PM

If you think peace monger is good you should be happy. I think it is the opposite of a war monger.

Peace mongers belligerontly and sometimes violently try to force others to stop believing in what they believe in and join them in their crusade. They accuse war mongers of doing exactly what they are doing.

Now you are questioning forthcoming evidence even before you see it. That is not prejudice is it? Pre judging things before you even know what it is, is smart right? It might prove you wrong and above all you need to be right or your whole purpose for living goes up in smoke.

Now you are building up a case to say that even it the documents are real they not have any importance where as before you were saying that even if the documents were not real they still have importance.

Good for you Amos, you can have it both ways because as a liberal you can make your own rules for everybody to go by and rule number one is no body that opposes me can make their own rules. Sort of like a perpetual motion machine, perfect in every way.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 06:03 PM

Old Guy:

I didn't say we should question the evidence. I said we should not use it to explain things that happened before it was known. You may not have noticed it but in this universe, time is pretty much one-directional. It would be a serious distortion of truth to try and move events around in past time in order to make them look more rational than they were.

In other news:

Martin Wolf: The failure to calculate the costs of war
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/48ad9c0a-820f-11da-aea0-0000779e2340.html

"    Before the Iraq war began, Lawrence Lindsey, then president George
W. Bush's economic adviser, suggested that the costs might reach
$200bn. The White House promptly fired him. Mr Lindsey was indeed
wrong. But his error lay in grossly underestimating the costs. The
administration's estimates of a cost of some $50-$60bn were a fantasy,
as were Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and much else.



So far the government has spent $251bn in hard cash. But the costs
continue. If the US begins to withdraw troops this year, but maintains
a diminishing presence for the next five years, the additional cost
will be at least $200bn, under what Profs Bilmes and Stiglitz call
their "conservative" option. Under their "moderate" one, the cost
reaches $271bn, because troops remain until 2015.



With these costs taken into account, the total macroeconomic costs may
add up to $750bn and total costs to $1,850bn.



It is possible to argue that the benefits for Iraq, the Middle East
and the world will outweigh all these costs. But that depends on the
emergence, in Iraq, of a stable and peaceful democratic order. That
has not yet been achieved.

Even those who supported the war must draw two lessons. First, the
exercise of military power is far more expensive than many fondly
hoped. Second, such policy decisions require a halfway decent analysis
of the costs and possible consequences. The administration's failure
to do so was a blunder that will harm the US and the world for years
to come."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 12:13 AM

Maybe history is of no use to you.

When was the last time or even the first time somebody correctly estimated the cost of a war? Was your estimate high or low or are you a Monday Morning quarterback?

Assuming someone some time missed the estimate were they hounded out of office for such a horrific blunder?

Liberals fail to put things into perspective. If their Mickey D's Big Mac is dried out they have a hissy fit regardless of how many others had the same thing happen to them or if they have had the same thing happen 75 times before or if 90% of the people in the world would give their left nut for a dried out Big Mac.

What ever happens right now is the worst thing in the world regardless and heaven help anybody who trys to put it in context with reality.

Well be prepared for a life of being unsatisfied regardless of how loud you wail about it and how many people you criticize.

You just don't like Bush because he won. Admit it and get over it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 07:58 AM

Your guesses about what I like and why are off base, by a mile, but thanks for making them.

I imagine from your handle that you might have been involved in an earlier war in some way, OG. Is that right?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 08:19 AM

Elizabeth Holtzman, writing for The Nation, says:

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

By ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN, The Nation
[from the January 30, 2006 issue]

Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so.

I can still remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach during those proceedings, when it became clear that the President had so systematically abused the powers of the presidency and so threatened the rule of law that he had to be removed from office. As a Democrat who opposed many of President Nixon's policies, I still found voting for his impeachment to be one of the most sobering and unpleasant tasks I ever had to undertake. None of the members of the committee took pleasure in voting for impeachment; after all, Democrat or Republican, Nixon was still our President.

At the time, I hoped that our committee's work would send a strong signal to future Presidents that they had to obey the rule of law. I was wrong.

Like many others, I have been deeply troubled by Bush's breathtaking scorn for our international treaty obligations under the United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions. I have also been disturbed by the torture scandals and the violations of US criminal laws at the highest levels of our government they may entail, something I have written about in these pages [see Holtzman, "Torture and Accountability," July 18/25, 2005]. These concerns have been compounded by growing evidence that the President deliberately misled the country into the war in Iraq. But it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)--and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws--that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate.

As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law--and repeatedly violates the law--thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office. A high crime or misdemeanor is an archaic term that means a serious abuse of power, whether or not it is also a crime, that endangers our constitutional system of government.

The framers of our Constitution feared executive power run amok and provided the remedy of impeachment to protect against it. While impeachment is a last resort, and must never be lightly undertaken (a principle ignored during the proceedings against President Bill Clinton), neither can Congress shirk its responsibility to use that tool to safeguard our democracy. No President can be permitted to commit high crimes and misdemeanors with impunity.

But impeachment and removal from office will not happen unless the American people are convinced of its necessity after a full and fair inquiry into the facts and law is conducted. That inquiry must commence now....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 09:38 AM

Your assumption is way off base but what is your reason for liking George Bush so much?

Your pro-Kerry anti-Bush year and a half rant is an obvious smoke screen.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:28 AM

I like Bush for the same reason I like Emmett Kelly, or perhaps Monty Python. A good dose of bizarre unreality reminds me of what is real and what is important in life, such as:

human life
respect for individuals
the rights of free association, free speech, and freedom from invasion of privacy
An opportunity to build a great nation which contributes to a great species on a great planet
an opportunity to work out a human destiny perhaps a bit higher than the lizard-brain dramatizations which have governed our kind in so many of its ridiculous tooth-and-claw chapters.

...among others. He highlights these values by contrast, just as a clown does, or a Punch and Judy puppet, something of which he also reminds me.

So you have not known war in this lifetime? Does it strike you as uncomfortable to defend so energetically, if not coherently, something so large in human experience, so overwhelming, and so violent, of which you have no personal contact? It would me. I have seen humans violently lost, but not by acts of war, myself. But I have known peace, and have known relatively sane political times, as well as those times of political lunacy which seem to be wafting us along just now.

Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,G
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:02 AM

Have not been in here for ages and find that nothing has changed. The sources of many posts can be construed as biased either to the left or just plain anti GWB. That is okay, it is a free country and that enables all to write columns, editorials, etc. without a committent to veracity.

By the way, how were you able to obtain a copy of the Elizabeth Holtzman upcoming column for 'The Nation'? Almost 3 weeks in advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 07:22 PM

Click on the link provided where it says "The Nation", and Voila!

Enjoy the article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 08:20 PM

So what's not to like?

Face it, he controlls you. Your anger gives him strength.

If GWB went away you would fall apart.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 08:41 PM

Your assertion is merely risible, mov Vieux. I would no more fall apart then the Sphinx would fall apart if you were to vanish.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,old guy
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:16 PM

sic semper anarchos

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:10 PM

Well, Old Guy, I guess it's time to twell you a little bout Amos... Perhaps a little past time but he is the California "Walkin' Jukebox"


Now, I realize that this is a folk music web-joint so, even if you don't know nuthin' about music (which don't matter to me much here) there's oemthing that you have to understand about folks who can play any somg that has ever been wriiten and that is, well, you just can't go pigeon holin' 'umto what ever pigeon hole thst is convient to you...

Amos is a very talented and complex person who thinks on muti-levels....

I mean no disrespect to you, O-Guy, but it's you that is here in the tis folk music joint attacking a muscian and complex thinker that prolly can play you under the table...

Now, and firgive me if you you have indeed put in the time to be a rwal player, but there's a spiritaul payoff that come from playin' lots and lots of music... There's is this point where things become increasingly clear aas to values and what is important... Every ggod musican knows of what I speak... Amos, though he'd prolly say "Awwww, shucks" knows of what I speak...

This alone does not give Amos's arguments an automatic B+ but it sho nuff has to be factored into any assesments of his thoughts...

(But Bobert. Are you saying that a musicans view points are more valid than a non musican?)

Well, yeah, kinda am.... Muscians are patient... They have to be or they quit... Patience, in figuring out life, is a virtue... Impatience is just winning arguemnts at any cost... Don't much matter if yer on the wrong side... Just win the danged thing...

Muscians??? Different midset... Hey, we've all made all the deasl and sacrifices so we are able to lok at stuff differently...

Please excuse my little tangent here, O-Guy, but you don't come accross as someone who spent hours with the art... I eman no disrespect only making an observation...

Amos has put in those hours. I have put in those hours and ther's something in the process that aloows folks to empty the "ordinary li9fe" and see thi gs differnetly...

The Bush folks are totally dependent of folks who know the ordinary life and folks like Amos and me, they have written off...

You prolly don't have a clue what I am talking about but Amos and I know... Ain't no, haha-we-know-the-secret-handshake thing here but next tiem you think that Amos is someone whoes thoughts should be quicky dispensed of, think again....


Like I said, you prolly don't have a clue what I have just said...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 01:26 AM

I under stand what you are trying to say Bobert but the thread says non music.

I don't have a thing against music except rap and that heavy acid stuff. I mostly like bluegrass but not the whiney stuff. I like classical, big band, rock, pop, new age, folk, irish, hell I even listen to middle east music on Link TV. I found a cool Syrian song once called Odawoola or something like that that rocked.

I don't have a thing against musicians. I like musicians. My wife plays the piano, my grand son has a banjo, guitar, keyboard, drums, trumpet and excels on the clarinet. My Bro in law plays bluegrass and I go to his house some times. I have some Amish friends up in new york and both families play bluegrass.

One finger on my left hand has the end mashed and It is too blunt to make chords. I even tried a bass guitar cause the strings are so far apart but the strings hurt. I am on the lookout for a tenor sax and one day I am going to snag one and give it a go.

There aint nothing wrong with playing music and the more people playing it the better the world will be.

However, entertainment folks think they have superior intelligence when it comes to the way things should be vs the way they are and they try to use their musical or, more often, their acting status to promote "a better world" They try to persuade other folks that are pretty well satisfied to revolt against the system. They use their popularity like a tool.

People gather here and spout their enlightened views on things and get sustenance from each other. They think no body will oppose them here. they feel safe, cloistered and protected. They get out of touch with way the other 90 % thinks.

When somebody stumbles in a sees nuggets of truth like George Bush is worse that Adolph Hitler, their hackles stand up a little and they say well it is time somebody told these people that they are not the chosen ones, the keepers of the truth and they proceed to enlighten the enlightened ones.

Well it's like stirring up a nest of meany bees and they start swarmin all over you a stingin you with real mean words like asshole, idiot, fuck you, dumb ass. Words that are nasty and mean spirited at the same time they are accusing "them" of being mean.

Then you give them some facts to try to prove to them that they don't necessarily know everything and they immediately find a superficial reasons why your facts are invalid. Then you say where are your facts? and they proceed to tell you people's opinion or their own opinion and say that it is fact. You point out to them how they try to use sarcasm and name calling and distortion of their opponents names to try prove their unprovable position on something.

Do the same to them and they finally start looking for some real facts but only the ones they cherry pick. You get them nailed down to a simple question that they can't answer with out contradicting themselves and they shift to something else. You hear astounding new philosophical theories like "Stats are for losers"

After a certain amount of countering their non facts with your real facts they get backed into a corner and get reeeaaal mean and tell you to get out of our town, you don't belong here

Amos is probably an OK guy but for whatever the reason he is way off in his thinking processes. He may be too smart. I see he has a trail a mile wide about all the weird crap in his past and I don't think he is qualified to be telling other people what is normal or abnormal. Suppose he ran for public office? How would his record compare to his arch enemy?

I saw his anti-Bush pro-Kerry thread and when I saw Kerry on TV badmouthing anything that looked like progress in Iraq, I started an anti-Kerry thread. Well purty soon Amos was attacking and telling me how stupid I was so I did the same on his thread. even after Bush won and Kerry lost he kept it up like some poor demented soul. Like those Japanese soldiers they found over in the Phillipines (I got branded a racist for celling them Japs) 60 years after the war ended. I guess he thinks if he gets the thread long enough no body will wait while it loads and nobody will oppose his perfect logic.

Hey Amos buddy, have a few pina coladas or a pull on the jug and stare at the fish tank for a while. The world aint gonna cave in any time soon and you don't have to keep propping it up.

Now you people can rant and rave and do all the name calling you want as is your right but you won't change anything unless you get involved in public service and then maybe you can change things.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:41 AM

Well, Old Guy, I am sorry to have put you through the wringer a few times. I think, and Ihope you can see, that when I have done so, it has been in response to logical or communication problems in your assertions, mostly. Go look through our various heated exchanges and see if that isn't so. Like asserting I didn't know the Onion article was a parody, or asserting I was posting blogs when in fact I was posting articles from the Post. Or all that underhanded crap about Dianetics. All the ad hominem categorizations and secre-identity posts you've created to vent your spleen about my viewpoint...

I think you will find that on the few occasions when you have set forward plain facts, I have been quite polite about it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 09:44 AM

"Suppose he ran for public office" Now THAT would be interesting!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 02:38 PM

Amos:

I think you are still carrying baggage from the Scientology era, like battle fatigue or flashbacks. You are most definately educated, possibly too educated to see practicality or non practicality in every day things.

I have yet to see you put things into perspective. You allways exhibit the extremes only.

Not seeing a whole lot that needs to be changed I feel no need to run for office.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 04:36 PM

Dear Old Guy:

Well, it seems you are going to drum up some sort of judgement or opinion no matter what I say.

THere was actually one lesson I learned during the period I studied Scientology, which I have retained: don't draw conclusions from illogical data, or your conclusions will be flawed. That includes, largely, data written by less than discriminating media hacks, bias-punters, quill-for-hires and so on.

But in order to apply such a rule you have to develop a sense for when data is complete, consistent, normalized in sequence, reasonable in its assessment of importances and un-importances, and sensible about the true sources of things.

But I didn't need to learn all that while in Scientology, I could have learned it from an ordinary study of logic, or just living life with my eyes open.

It just made the process a little faster to see it up close.

Aside from that your opinions about me are pretty far off the mark, speaking as the owner of said identity, and I leave them to you with pleasure. If you ever want to correct them, I'd be happy to help, but that doesn't seem likely.

As for Bush, one of the reasons why I continuously find new articles protesting his nuttiness is that he is always on the go inventing new nutty things to be criticized for. It's not that I hate him personally. It is his abuse of authority that I take extreme exception to, and that same is abuse is what motivates me to speak out.

If he were replaced with a more rational person, with a higher sense of ethics and communication I would gladly turn my attention to plenty of other things.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:48 PM

An interesting contrast between the views of Bush and Spielberg from The Globalist (Susan Braden )


Spielberg Vs. Bush: Movies and Assassinations        


Who would have thought that the creator of E.T. and Jurassic Park would eventually focus his cinematic lens on high matters of state in a very contemporary context? Sounds improbable? Not to any viewers of Steven Spielberg's new movie "Munich." Susan Braden explains that the movie presents a moral delema similar to one the United States faces today.


Juxtaposing U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to permit the CIA to hunt and kill designated individuals anywhere in the world against Steven Spielberg's new film, "Munich," raises interesting questions about the value of targeted assassinations.

The issue is not simply whether assassinations are an effective tool in stopping terrorism. At issue is whether assassinations support or undermine the larger U.S. political agenda.

While President Bush evidently believes they are critical to stopping terrorism, Spielberg's film suggests the contrary.

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush issued a secret decree that determined that killing an al Qaeda operative was an act of self-defense and, therefore, not an assassination — which would be illegal.

In the same finding, he thereby authorized the creation of CIA hit units. In May 2005, one of these units was credited with killing al Qaeda operative Haitham Yemeni in Pakistan. Subsequently, in December 2005, another unit reportedly killed Hamza Rabia, a top al Qaeda operative, and four others. ...

---

I remember back when we concurred that sending the CIA out on assassinations was below our ethical minimum of bestiality; Mister Bush obviously has a different minimum.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:07 PM

Amos:

Bein' an expert and all on presidents and wars I thought you might know the answer to this:

What US President sent US armed forces to fight a secret war that went on for nine years and eventually the US withdrew in defeat and left the insurgents we were supporting to twist in the wind?

Hints:

It cost US tax payers $2 million per day.

Two tons of bombs per resident were dropped, equal to 75 Hiroshima bombs.

1/8 of the Americans in the war were killed.

He said "Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass. For my part, I shall withhold from neither the Congress nor the people any fact or report, past, present, or future, which is necessary for an informed judgment of our conduct and hazards. I shall neither shift the burden of executive decisions to the Congress, nor avoid responsibility for the outcome of those decisions."

It was kept secret from Congress.

When you find out who it was, tell us how his actions and Bush's actions compare.

A little perspective never hurt anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Condi
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 11:28 PM

Whaaat?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 12:49 AM

The quote is from JFK's SOU address.

What was the "secret war" that was witheld from the Congress?

And are you asserting that such an act in the past parallels and justifies Bush's today?

I had an ancestor who went forth under the leadership of a King, who used religion as a pretext to try and break open some trade channels that went through the Middle East. In the course of his duty my ancestor slew men and women by the sword, pillaged and stole, and spilled innocent blood all the way from Macedonia to Mecca.

So tell me, wise Old Guy....would I then be justified in taking up my sword and slaying people in order to establish some sort of trade channel? Or would I be choosing a barbaric relic for a precedent?

In short, WTF does JFK's conduct have to do with this? Do you think it somehow exonerates your much beloved Leader for crimes against humanity?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,G
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 08:39 AM

Snuck in again and saw where bobert is coming to the shoring up of Amos. Geez! Like Amos needs that from you. Amos does well on his own and your trying to"help" is a distraction to others. Do you remember telling me that I was in deep doodoo when you saw Martin G. agreeing with me and misconstrued that as support. Well, your attempting to back Amos is like tosing a concrete block to a man drowning in a pond.

Now, in keeping with the title of this thread, "Popular views of the Bush Administration", I shall add this one;

I am glad GWB is in the Whitehouse at the present time as compared to the ranting and raving antics of Gore, Kerry and Dean.
Am I happy about about everything? Well, has anyone else been that way in the last 30 years?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 08:59 PM

Like who don't have firm perspective of yer agenda, G-GUEST...

It's steal as much from the working class as you can while yer guy has power... Nothin' more... Nuthin less...

It aint about Amos, or Affirmative Action, or Abortion but a redisribution of wealth to the wealthy..

And, hey, congrates to you and yer team... Yer doing one heck of a good job pillaging...

Fir now...

Watch yer back, however, when kids like my son-in-laws who all live in the "Southern Strategy" states, figure out yer ball game 'cause you won't get them back... Obviously, you don't understand southern culture...

When they figure out yer game, you won't get them back...Believe me... I grew up in the South...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:10 PM

Bein' an expert and all on presidents and wars I thought you might know the answer to this:

What US President sent US armed forces to fight a secret war that went on for nine years and eventually the US withdrew in defeat and left the insurgents we were supporting to twist in the wind?

Hints:

It cost US tax payers $2 million per day.

Two tons of bombs per resident were dropped, equal to 75 Hiroshima bombs.

1/8 of the Americans in the war were killed.

He said "Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass. For my part, I shall withhold from neither the Congress nor the people any fact or report, past, present, or future, which is necessary for an informed judgment of our conduct and hazards. I shall neither shift the burden of executive decisions to the Congress, nor avoid responsibility for the outcome of those decisions."

It was kept secret from Congress.

When you find out who it was, tell us how his actions and Bush's actions compare.

A little perspective never hurt anybody.





None of the above is true, BTW. Love to irritate you guys.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:30 PM

I don't know who posted the above but here is my post again.
I saw a program about this war on the History channel. I researched it and came up with these facts which I beleive are true and far exceed anything GWB has done and Congress was not even aware that it was going on so they could not disapprove it.
The reason I put it in a question format is so that anti-old guyers here would have to actually search for come facts to find the answer instead of giving and quoting opinions. If this person was held to the same scrutiny and critisim that GWB is held to, he should have been burned at the stake instead of mere impeachment.

Amos:

Bein' an expert and all on presidents and wars I thought you might know the answer to this:

What US President sent US armed forces to fight a secret war that went on for nine years and eventually the US withdrew in defeat and left the insurgents we were supporting to twist in the wind?

Hints:

It cost US tax payers $2 million per day.

Two tons of bombs per resident were dropped, equal to 75 Hiroshima bombs.

1/8 of the Americans in the war were killed.

He said "Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass. For my part, I shall withhold from neither the Congress nor the people any fact or report, past, present, or future, which is necessary for an informed judgment of our conduct and hazards. I shall neither shift the burden of executive decisions to the Congress, nor avoid responsibility for the outcome of those decisions."

It was kept secret from Congress.

When you find out who it was, tell us how his actions and Bush's actions compare.

A little perspective never hurt anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:40 PM

What US President sent US armed forces to fight a secret war that went on for nine years and eventually the US withdrew in defeat and left the insurgents we were supporting to twist in the wind?

Hints:

It cost US tax payers $2 million per day.

Two tons of bombs per resident were dropped, equal to 75 Hiroshima bombs.

1/8 of the Americans in the war were killed.

He said "Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass. For my part, I shall withhold from neither the Congress nor the people any fact or report, past, present, or future, which is necessary for an informed judgment of our conduct and hazards. I shall neither shift the burden of executive decisions to the Congress, nor avoid responsibility for the outcome of those decisions."

It was kept secret from Congress.

When you find out who it was, tell us how his actions and Bush's actions compare.

A little perspective never hurt anybody.





None of the above is true, BTW. Love to irritate you guys.


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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:30 PM

I don't know who posted the above but here is my post again.
I saw a program about this war on the History channel. I researched it and came up with these facts which I beleive are true and far exceed anything GWB has done and Congress was not even aware that it was going on so they could not disapprove it.
The reason I put it in a question format is so that anti-old guyers here would have to actually search for come facts to find the answer instead of giving and quoting opinions. If this person was held to the same scrutiny and critisim that GWB is held to, he should have been burned at the stake instead of mere impeachment.

Amos:

Bein' an expert and all on presidents and wars I thought you might know the answer to this:

What US President sent US armed forces to fight a secret war that went on for nine years and eventually the US withdrew in defeat and left the insurgents we were supporting to twist in the wind?

Hints:

It cost US tax payers $2 million per day.

Two tons of bombs per resident were dropped, equal to 75 Hiroshima bombs.

1/8 of the Americans in the war were killed.

He said "Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass. For my part, I shall withhold from neither the Congress nor the people any fact or report, past, present, or future, which is necessary for an informed judgment of our conduct and hazards. I shall neither shift the burden of executive decisions to the Congress, nor avoid responsibility for the outcome of those decisions."

It was kept secret from Congress.

When you find out who it was, tell us how his actions and Bush's actions compare.

A little perspective never hurt anybody.






None of the above is true.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 10:15 PM

I am a childish irritating asshole with nothing to contribute so I just play games.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:49 AM

You drinking alone again, sir?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 01:48 PM

Amos has been hoisted by his own petard.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:01 PM

The 'secret war' took place on the watches of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 02:12 PM

I suppose your complexity and incomprehensibility is a function of some brain disease, but whatever the cause, you have my sympathy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 07:41 PM

From The Voice of America news feed:

Republican Senator Criticizes Bush Administration Over Iraq
By Mike O'Sullivan
Los Angeles
12 January 2006
O'Sullivan report - Download 447k


One vocal critic of the Bush administration is a member of the president's own party. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska says he worries about the United States getting bogged down in Iraq, and about what he sees as an unhealthy concentration of power in the presidency. The outspoken senator shared his views at a town hall meeting in Los Angeles.

Senator Hagel says he sometimes gets e-mails calling him a traitor. "One of the comments that I received lately was a very straightforward piece of advice, that is, 'Senator, shut your mouth. Do what the president tells you to do. That's why we elected you.'"

The senator reminded his listeners that the U.S. government has three equal partners, the legislature and the judiciary, in addition to the president and his administration.

The blunt words, he adds, are not what he hears from his fellow senators, but he admits that some Republican colleagues think he is out of line in his public statements. He repeated some of his criticisms in a meeting sponsored by the group Town Hall Los Angeles, held in the newly opened National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. He says progress in Iraq is up to the Iraqis.

"The United States represents the most significant stabilizing factor in Iraq and has for the last three years, but at the same time, we are probably the most destabilizing factor in Iraq. And that has to be sorted out, and that will be sorted out," he said. "And it goes back, it seems to me, to the Iraqi people, and will reside within the Iraqi government's decisions as to where they want to go."

Last month, Iraqis voted for members of their 275-member national assembly, which will select a president and two deputy presidents, who in turn will appoint a prime minister to run the government.

The debates over Iraq and U.S. presidential powers in the war on terrorism have highlighted tensions between the president and some members of Congress, most often Democrats. But on some issues, the critics also include Republicans. Senator Hagel sees this administration, like some before it, as asserting greater powers in its relations with Congress than the constitution grants it.

The most recent dispute concerns news leaks that the president authorized wiretapping of telephone calls between suspected terrorists and U.S. citizens without court approval. The White House says the president has the authority to authorize the wiretaps, and that they are necessary to protect American lives. Critics say the president does not have that power, and Mr. Hagel says he wants a hearing on the issue.

Recent opinion polls show some 58 percent of Americans are unhappy with the president's handling of Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 07:49 PM

Amos, you will never be a spin doctor of any note. When you say that "58 percent of Americans are unhappy with the president's handling of Iraq" you demonstrate a poor understanding of realpolitik. From the Bush camp, that should be read as "42% support the President's handling of Iraq and those other assholes just didn't respond properly because they don't really understand the situation."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 08:15 PM

Amos:

I don't need any sympathy just a straight answer from an expert like you. I guess you are an expert the way you tell everbody that they are stupid if they don't think like you.

After a year and a half how many people have you convinced of anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:23 PM

Sorry, I don't do spin real well; but let me add that the quote is not mine, but VOA's.

Old Guy, you miss again.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:32 PM

Just answer the question asshole. God you are stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 10:34 PM

Molly Ivins writes:

"Article Last Updated: 01/13/2006 07:24:41 AM

The irony that is the Bush administration

BOY, you really can't take your eyes off this bunch for a minute, can you? If they're not screwing up one thing, then they're screwing up another — busy little beavers.
And then there are the administrative nightmares they have created all by themselves: The new Medicare prescription-drug benefit is such a disaster area, four states took it over in less than a week just to make sure poor people received their drugs.

Some of the media are starting to get the drill. Give us something like the West Virginia coal mine disaster, and instead of standing around emoting like Geraldo Rivera, a few reporters have enough sense to ask the obvious question: What is this mine's safety record?

And when it turns out to be abysmal, a few more reporters have enough sense to ask: Who's in charge of doing something after a mine gets 205 safety violations in one year? Where's the Mine Safety and Health Administration? Who runs it? What's their background — are they professionals or mining industry stooges? Who's the Michael "Heckuvajob" Brown in this outfit? Why are so many jobs at MSHA just left completely unfilled? How much has MSHA's budget been cut since 2001 to pay for tax cuts for the rich?

The great irony is that this was supposed to be the CEO administration. Bush was supposed to put people in charge of government who had track records in private industry, who did in fact know how to run a railroad.

For just sheer incompetence, this administration sets new records daily. All those years the right wing sat around yammering about government incompetence, and it took this administration to make it true.

But while the media are busy sort of figuring out what government needs to do — homeland security, anyone? — other agencies are slipping quietly out of control, with almost no attention paid. In the case of the Internal Revenue Service, the problem appears to be more malice than incompetence.

Right-wing conspiracy theorists used to enjoy frightening themselves with the possibility the IRS would somehow become politicized and be used as a tool by some nasty socialist like Jimmy Carter to go after their ill-gotten gains stashed illegally offshore. Always seemed like a good plan to me.

Unfortunately, the only people who ever tried to politicize the IRS were on the right — first Richard Nixon and now George W. Bush.

Hundreds of thousands of poor Americans have had their tax refunds frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, according to the IRS' taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson. Testifying before Congress this week, Olson said the average



        
Advertisement



income of these taxpayers is $13,000. Olson and her staff sampled the suspected returns and found that, at most, one in five was questionable.
The poor citizens are seeking refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit, a Reagan program to help the working poor. The total possible tax fraud amount involved in these returns is $9 billion — compared with the $100 billion problem with fraud by small business people who deal in cash.

That's the kind of shrewd administration we've come to expect from the Bushies. Olson points out it is not only unfair, but also a waste of time. Meanwhile, mind-boggling sums in taxes are being evaded by those at the other end of the income scale.

David Cay Johnston, The New York Times' tax expert and author of "Perfectly Legal," reports the IRS is now involved in an effort to cover up these very kinds of incompetence that Olson demonstrated.

"Records showing how thoroughly the IRS audits big corporations and the rich, and how much it discounts the additional taxes assessed after audits, are being withheld from the public despite a 1976 court order requiring their disclosure," Johnston writes. In an episode reminiscent of the "Three Stooges," the IRS simply announced there was no court order."

---

Yep, Bush's wisdom is making this country a better place, no doubt about it.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 15 Jan 06 - 11:33 PM

Amos is so dumb he can't answer questions but he can sure spew bullshit.

He don't have a clue, never had a clue and never will have a clue.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:21 AM

I'm sorry, AR, but I don't do quizzes from flamers. I have never pretended to be an expert on Presidents -- that little piece of methane was generated by OG up thread a way -- and if you're referring to his history quiz about Kennedy and Laos, I am really sorry but I just don't see the connection here. If somebody is trying to make a point about the great American legacy of warmongering, they should come out and say so.

You seem to hold the view that shattering human flesh with shrapnel is somehow an honorable pursuit,, a reasonable tool of international growth. I hold the view that it is the ultimate confession of failure in every other arena of international dialogue. It is the last resort of human stupidity; a marriage to endless brutality. If you like that kind of path, I just wish you and you colleagues in the war-mongering department the joy of it. I am sure it brings great satisfaction, in the very short term.

But spare me the specious rationalization about how "goo" it is. 'Cuz, fact is it isn't "good"; it is really, really stupid.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:41 AM

A correspondent to a list, who works for the American Civil Liberties union, says:

"You may have seen that the Associated Press broke a story late this week on
a survey of the states conducted by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), which polled state DMVs about implementing the requirements of Real ID identification card and system by the Act's May 2008 deadline.

The states are fairly howling over the costs and practical
difficulties (some say impossibility) of implementing this thing - especially within the deadline set by Congress.

One official was so exasperated that he punctuated his official response by
exclaiming " Can we all just go home now?"

Cost and complexity may turn out to be the Achilles heel that ultimately dooms the Real ID, but it would be a real nightmare for Americans in much
broader ways.

The ACLU has created a new web site www.realnightmare.org which has the complete state by state survey results and a white paper detailing the results, but also covers the profound effects that Real ID
will have on the rights of all Americans.

Real ID will be a privacy nightmare creating a de facto National ID card and
computer database. Among the most disturbing mandates will be the card's standard "machine readable component" like an RFID chip or 2D barcode that it will make its data instantly available to not only every convenience store clerk, but to omnivorous data brokers like Choice Point.

And it will be fundamentally unfair to countless Americans who will find themselves unable to jump through all the bureaucratic hurdles and overcome all the mistaken or lost records that will be required to get the de facto national ID.

Imagine being a former resident of New Orleans or an asylee from Iran being asked to present one of the few official government documents recognized by Real ID – only to learn that have been lost to a hurricane or held by the   government that persecuted you.


Here are the relevant URLS

Website:
http://www.realnightmare.org/

White Paper:
http://www.realnightmare.org/about/89/

AP article: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3583029.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:30 AM

The LA Times reports another wheeler-dealer shut down by public scandal, who asserts his innocence:

"Congressman Implicated in Scandal Steps Aside
Bob Ney temporarily exits a key chairmanship as the GOP tries to contain the damage. He has been linked to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who has been accused of accepting lavish gifts from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, announced Sunday that he would step down temporarily from his chairmanship of a key House committee.

In recent days, Republican leaders hoping to contain damage from the Abramoff scandal had begun to discuss removing Ney as chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees the day-to-day operations of the House of Representatives.

Ney's announcement was seen as an effort to avoid being forced from the post."

---

Good thing we have, at least, clean, ethical leadership in the Executive, seeing as how there's so much slush, pork and graft flying around on the Hill...right? Hmmmmmmm?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 08:36 PM

The Environment News Service reports in their current edition:

WASHINGTON, DC, January 13, 2006 (ENS) - Over the opposing voices of Alaska Natives, scientists, sportsmen and conservation groups, the Bush administration Wednesday opened for oil and gas leasing 100 percent of Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.

The decision eliminates longstanding wildlife and environmental protections first put in place by Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt.

The 4.6 million acre area of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is immediately west of the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field in northern Alaska bordering the Beaufort Sea. Conservationists point out that the area provides vital habitat for migratory waterfowl, caribou and other wildlife, and is an important subsistence hunting and fishing area.

Congress last month rejected a proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 110 miles further east.

The Teshekpuk Lake Special Area encompasses one of the most important wetland complexes in the circumpolar Arctic. The 45,000 head Teshekpuk Lake Caribou Herd bears its calves and seeks relief from insects near Teshekpuk Lake, and it is a key summer molting or nesting location for many of North America's migratory ducks, geese, swans, loons and other birds.



For numerous species of wildlife, the network of coastal lagoons, deep-water lakes, wet sedge grass meadows and river deltas of the Teshekpuk Lake area are unsurpassed habitat. (Photo courtesy Northern Alaska Environmental Center)

Alaska Natives rely on the area for subsistence fishing and hunting, especially caribou hunts. Brant and other waterfowl that migrate there are harvested for both subsistence and sport in Alaska and in many of the Lower 48 states.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Chad Calvert, who approved the changes to allow drilling, said the amended plan will guide leasing, exploration and development in the Petroleum Reserve for the next 10 to 20 years. He said the lease stipulations and required operating procedures used will be similar to those adopted for the adjacent northwest area of the Petroleum Reserve in 2004.

Conservationists were dismayed by the decision. "The administration today opened 100 percent of the northeast NPRA to drilling," said Eleanor Huffines of the Wilderness Society. "Apparently 87 percent wasn't enough for the oil companies."

"Even more outrageous is the administration's attempt to dress this up that as 'environmentally responsible' decision," Huffines said. "This decision ignores the voices of leading scientists, sportsmen from across the nation, and the Alaska Native people who depend on the wildlife and subsistence resources of the region."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 08:42 PM

From today (Monday) in the NY Times:

"The Imperial Presidency at Work
E-Mail This
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Published: January 15, 2006
You would think that Senators Carl Levin and John McCain would have learned by now that you cannot deal in good faith with a White House that does not act in good faith. Yet both men struck bargains intended to restore the rule of law to American prison camps. And President Bush tossed them aside at the first opportunity.

Mr. Bush made a grand show of inviting Mr. McCain into the Oval Office last month to announce his support for a bill to require humane treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and other prisons run by the American military and intelligence agencies. He seemed to have managed to get Vice President Dick Cheney to stop trying to kill the proposed Congressional ban on torture of prisoners.

The White House also endorsed a bargain between Mr. Levin and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which tempered somewhat a noxious proposal by Mr. Graham to deny a court hearing to anyone the president declares to be an "unlawful enemy combatant." The bargain with Mr. Levin removed language that stripped away cases already before the courts, which would have been an egregious usurpation of power by one branch of government, and it made clear that those cases should remain in the courts.

Mr. Bush, however, seems to see no limit to his imperial presidency. First, he issued a constitutionally ludicrous "signing statement" on the McCain bill. The message: Whatever Congress intended the law to say, he intended to ignore it on the pretext the commander in chief is above the law. That twisted reasoning is what led to the legalized torture policies, not to mention the domestic spying program.

Then Mr. Bush went after the judiciary, scrapping the Levin-Graham bargain. The solicitor general informed the Supreme Court last week that it no longer had jurisdiction over detainee cases. It said the court should drop an existing case in which a Yemeni national is challenging the military tribunals invented by Mr. Bush's morally challenged lawyers after 9/11. The administration is seeking to eliminate all other lawsuits filed by some of the approximately 500 men at Gitmo, the vast majority of whom have not been shown to pose any threat.

Both of the offensive theories at work here - that a president's intent in signing a bill trumps the intent of Congress in writing it, and that a president can claim power without restriction or supervision by the courts or Congress - are pet theories of Judge Samuel Alito, the man Mr. Bush chose to tilt the Supreme Court to the right.

The administration's behavior shows how high and immediate the stakes are in the Alito nomination, and how urgent it is for Congress to curtail Mr. Bush's expansion of power. Nothing in the national consensus to combat terrorism after 9/11 envisioned the unilateral rewriting of more than 200 years of tradition and law by one president embarked on an ideological crusade....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:01 PM

We interviewed Amos Jessup, who was visibly upset and shaking on and off. He blamed himself, as Susan wanted a committed relation-ship and he didn't. Susan was in the cabin alone after he went to work. He didn't see her alive again. He had no idea she was suicidal.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:08 PM

I must enter a comment here: the "NOTE" in the entry above refers to the 16 August 1972 Oufkir coup attempt against Hassan II, after which Oufkir
himself was assassinated. That is the coup that is associated with the
mission that included John Bragin, Amos Jessup, and Liz Ausley, concerning e-meters and sec-check training for the Moroccan security forces.

However, one thing that we came across in our research, which caused
considerable confusion for some time, is that there was another attempted coup in Morocco against Hassan II earlier than Oufkir's 16 August 1972 coup attempt, and it came very shortly after the Susan Meister incident: on 10 July 1971.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:11 PM

Yo, Amos...

First of all GUEST's is playing their usual coawrdsly game of impersonating other GUEST's

AR ain't AR... It's just some right winged rich white guy... Ignore him... He just want to get richer and that's why he's spending his time 'round this joint messin' with folks who are talling the truth...

Keep in firing, Amos...

AR is cool with you... Asshole GUEST ain't...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:16 PM

Date: 08 Oct 2001 04:19:54 GMT
Local: Sun, Oct 7 2001 11:19 pm
Subject: Re: (no subject)

Elmira is the name of a nice town of 50,000 souls in upstate New York. Wizards is the course Hari said he would never sell. I have proof on audiotape from a lecture at Amos Jessup's place: "There is nothing after Avatar," said Hari back in 1987. He was talking to former Scientologists who were tired of esoteric upper levels. A whole roomfull of them. It was an oral contract, and is binding. I personally know a number of people who heard it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:30 PM

Now, next installment, we're going to get around to that little
episode in 1972, Morocco, with the secret police and the E-meters;
you're going to avoid some more questions about WHO ELSE--besides
Peter Warren and Amos Jessup--met with General Muhammad Oufkir; why
Oufkir tried to shoot King Hassan II's airplane out of the sky on 16
August 1972, when Hassan was returning from PARIS--just a few months
before the infamous Paris indictment rumor broke that supposedly sent
the Old Man flying off to New York.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:36 PM

We took half the students,'
said Amos Jessup, `while the other half were trained in the
traditional way. We spent a month trying to teach them certain study
techniques but they got so anxious that the others were forging ahead
learning post office techniques that they walked out.'

Jessup, who spoke French, led OTC's next assault -- on the Moroccan
army.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:40 PM

The OTC training course for Moroccan secret
policeman was breaking up in disarray under the stress of internecine
intrigue between pro-monarchy and anti-monarchy factions and the fear
of what the E-meter would reveal. `It was a crazy set up,' said
Jessup, `you couldn't tell who was on which side.'

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 09:55 PM

among them Amos Jessup, a philosophy major from Connecticut. The son of a senior editor on Life magazine, Jessup had gone to Saint Hill in 1966, while he was studying in Oxford, to try and get his young brother out of Scientology and instead had become converted himself. 'I was soon convinced', he said, 'that instead of being some dangerous cult it was an important advance in philosophy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:00 PM

Others, like Amos Jessup, an old-time Scientologist, say Palmer has been
scrupulously honest with them to the point of generosity

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:05 PM

A sort of "*Lord of the Flies* syndrome" began working with the
messengers,' said Rebecca Goldstein, who had been recruited into
Scientology by her brother, Amos Jessup. `They were so drunk with
their own power that they became extremely vengeful, nasty and
dishonest. They were a very exclusive, dangerous little group.'

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:14 PM

Scientologists don't have to believe _or_ prove something, they just know it.

As I recall the story, John Jessup had sent the older brothers in to
investigate this crazy cult that his daughters were so into. Low and
behold, Amos and Nate went right up the ranks.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:27 PM

I am not familiar with 05, but I have done Avatar (as delivered by Amos Jessup)

Avatar is the most powerful, purest self-development program available. It is a series of experiential exercises that enables you to rediscover your self and align your consciousness with what you want to achieve. You will experience your own unique insights and revelations. It's you finding out about you.

Avatar is a nine-day self-empowerment training delivered by a world-wide network of licensed Avatar Masters. Over 50,000 graduates from 65 countries, are enjoying the benefits of Avatar

• Would you like to be free of old restraints that make you unhappy?

• Would you like to align your beliefs with the goals you want to accomplish?

• Would you like to feel more secure about your ability to conduct your own life?

• Would you like to experience a higher, wiser, more peaceful expression of self?

• Would you like to be able to rise above the sorrows and struggles of the world and see them for what they really are?

• Would you like to experience the state of consciousness traditionally described as enlightenment?

• Then, Avatar is for you.

In Hinduism, an avatar or avatara (Sanskrit अवतार), is the incarnation (bodily manifestation) of an Immortal Being, or of the Ultimate Supreme Being. It derives from the Sanskrit word avatāra which means "descent" and usually implies a deliberate descent into mortal realms for special purposes. The term is used primarily in Hinduism, for incarnations of Vishnu the Preserver, whom many Hindus worship as God. The Dasavatara (see below) are ten particular "great" incarnations of Vishnu.

Unlike Christianity, and Shaivism, Vaishnavism believes that God takes a special (including human) form whenever there is a decline of righteousness (dharma) and rise of evil. Lord Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, according to Vaishnavism that is espoused by Ramanuja and Madhva, and God in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, said in the Gita: "For the protection of the good, for destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age." (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, verse 8.) In any event, all Hindus believe that there is no difference between worship of Vishnu and His avatars as it all leads to Him.

The word has also been used by extension by non-Hindus to refer to the incarnations of God in other religions, notably Christianity, for example Jesus.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:40 PM

Ahhh, GUEST...

Do you know Amos???

Yes_________

No__________

Yo, GUEST, if you have answered "yes" to the baobe question

When was the last you had contact with Amos? In years, please...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:47 PM

This is a quote by Amos:

"The need to rationalize will seriously reduce his ability to perceive clearly what is there to be seen around him. This will make him more reliant on fixed ideas and irrational assumptions which in turn will not bear the light of clear-eyed inspection. Thus he has ultimately betrayed the society within which he lives by poisoning it's ecology of life-transactions at all levels."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:49 PM

Answer the questions, GUEST...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:52 PM

"Genuine Chaos, as mentioned, has two sides. The one side has a dark and whirling countenance, and it randomizes certainty to the extent that only confusion remains. In order to fend it off, because it is judged uncomfortable, the usual thing to do is to elect a false Order, some sort of stable information which is entirely un-thought-out, but which serves as a palisade into which the blast of hectic motion embodied in Chaos may not enter."

Amos Jessup

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:12 PM

"From Wiretapping Phone Calls to Scanning E-mail
Who's reading your e-mail?
http://rwor.org/a/v22/1070-79/1070/carnivore.htm

Revolutionary Worker #1070, September 17, 2000 (Before Bush Bashing began)

The Clinton administration has pressed hard for laws extending federal ability to wiretap signing the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) which required telephone companies to design their equipment by 1998 to allow federal wiretaps of phone calls and certain "call-identifying information."

In 1999 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved technical requirements proposed by the Clinton administration that would enable the police to locate individuals using cell phones.

It has already been revealed in articles in the mainstream press that the U.S. government is involved in extensive international spying on the Internet using a highly secret spying program called Echelon. The U.S. government's National Security Agency (NSA) operates Echelon jointly with the spying agencies of allied governments. It uses a network of listening posts around the world to scan a large portion of the world's e-mail, fax and telephone traffic. It uses keywords to pluck messages off the airwaves for government agents to read. Because Echelon is international, U.S. spy agencies receive information on U.S. citizens that they could not legally obtain inside U.S. borders. In a Congressional hearing FBI spokesman Kerr acknowledged that his agency receives information "from time to time" in this way.

Now the exposure of Carnivore reveals a new side of the U.S. government's press for police spying. What is unique about Carnivore is that it monitors private Internet e-mail communications something the government has apparently had difficulty doing before.

More than 1.4 billion e-mail messages are sent every day around the world most of them in the U.S. People increasingly use Internet discussion groups and e-mail for correspondence of all kinds including political planning and debate. The media has reported that police forces have repeatedly been surprised recently by the size of political demonstrations and actions which were planned and publicized using e-mail and various forms of Internet discussion. Philadelphia police spied on IRC chat groups to learn about the plans of protesters during the recent Republican convention.

How It Works

The FBI political police clearly want the ability to routinely spy on the massive flow of Internet e-mail and Carnivore deals with three built-in technical challenges of Internet wiretaps: First, people can get their e-mail from different locations, so that wiretapping their home phone is no guarantee of reading their e-mail messages. Second, Internet connections, by their nature, travel over different, rapidly changing routes every time users log on to the Internet. And third, there is an explosively growing volume of e-mail traffic, making it hard to scan the tremendous flow of Internet traffic.

The Carnivore solution is to wiretap the communication at that one point where targeted e-mail must go: through the computers of an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Everyone with an e-mail account has an ISP a company or institution whose computers connect the user to the larger Internet. The FBI's Black Boxes (containing both hardware and software) are installed on the ISP's equipment on the ISP's "server," the computer that processes and stores e-mail from the Internet.

It remains impossible for the FBI to wiretap just one e-mail account so these Black Boxes seize, copy, store and scan all the traffic going through an ISP s server which can involve the e-mail of hundreds or thousands of people. It has recently been confirmed by leading architects of the Internet, in Senate testimony, that once a Black Box is installed at a server, the FBI can wiretap anyone whose traffic runs through that server. There is every reason to suspect that the FBI intends to have Black Boxes semi-permanently installed on the servers of major ISPs, so that they can spy on traffic at will.

The Carnivore system would enable the FBI to install a Black Box in the guise of, say, investigating a case of interstate fraud but then also intercept the e-mail traffic of political activists and organizations who use that same server. The police agents could save and store large amounts of e-mail for later analysis. The ISPs have no way of knowing what the FBI is doing with the e-mail traffic or how many people they are spying on.

The Carnivore e-mail spy system is capable of two modes: It can download entire e-mail messages going to and from a targeted e-mail account so the contents of the messages can be read by agents. Or it can record just the e-mail addresses (the so-called "header information" not the mail content) of the e-mail traffic. Widely available encryption software can prevent government agents from reading the content of encoded e-mail messages and the use of such encryption is spreading. But Carnivore would still enable federal agents to do a surveillance of the header information of even such encrypted messages, and develop a detailed record of the networks of people communicating together on a project."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:22 PM

Our fearful visitor is really running around the world trying to find something discreditable to use. Not coming up with much, though...the citations he is dragging up from the hoary past are 30 years old, except for the quotes from some essays a friend posted for me on the Internet in...lemme think...1994. I guess it's a good thing I don't have anything really ugly to hide in my sordid past, except for that one night with Annabelle Lee...I had almost forgotten about that, too. Damn...

But it's an interesting effort. I don't think I have seen so vehement a personal attack on Mudcat since Gargoyle took a bead on a certain laughing Mudcatter. Anything to smear, discredit or nullify the messenger.

Maybe it would help if I pointed out again that I don't write these articles, and the world at large gets them from the authors I cite in each one.

But I doubt it. Seems to me we're up against something really rabid and frothing at the mouth here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:28 PM

It might be better if you cited facts from the more recent past that have some bearing on the topic, old fruit!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:31 PM

TOP SECRET SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
How the United States spies on us all
January 1999
http://mondediplo.com/1999/01/04echelon
With an annual budget of $26.7 billion - as much as during the cold war - the American intelligence services are the best equipped in the world. Strategic alliances and powerful technology allow them to tap into the world's telephones, faxes and electronic mail as a matter of routine. But the United States' trump card is the cooperation it receives from the police and armed forces of other states more concerned with surveillance than with protecting individual liberties.
With an annual budget of $26.7 billion - as much as during the cold war - the American intelligence services are the best equipped in the world. Strategic alliances and powerful technology allow them to tap into the world's telephones, faxes and electronic mail as a matter of routine. But the United States' trump card is the cooperation it receives from the police and armed forces of other states more concerned with surveillance than with protecting individual liberties.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:36 PM

"NEW YORK New York Senator Hillary Clinton has harsh criticism for the White House, calling the Bush administration "one of the worst" in U-S history.

Speaking at a Martin Luther King Day event in New York, compared the Republican-controlled House to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.
Clinton told a Harlem church audience that the current leadership has been marred by corruption, cronyism and incompetence. She also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors."
News Channel 15

"WASHINGTON - A key Republican senator says he's dubious about the White House's need to bypass domestic spying laws and would seek impeachment if the administration broke the law.

The White House has defended the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program since it was revealed last month, citing President Bush's "inherent" constitutional powers and Congress' authorization to use force against Iraq.

The spying bypasses the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which lets authorities wiretap Americans if they get a warrant from a secret court. The Bush administration says it's not practical to get warrants in modern terrorist cases.

But Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is holding hearings on the surveillance program next month, said Sunday he's skeptical there's a good argument to change the law to allow warrantless eavesdropping.

"I'm prepared to listen, but I'd be very dubious," Specter said on ABC's "This Week."

Specter also said that although the question of impeachment had not yet arisen for him, he would pursue it if he believes Bush broke the law.

From The Mercury News

And if you want a REAL virulent lefty rant, on the topic of Sam Alito's judgeship, much less disciplined than anything I would write, here ya go

And note that all these are recent articles.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:52 PM

March 31, 1997
Policy Analysis no. 271
http://cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1130&print=Y&full=1
Dereliction of Duty: The Constitutional Record of President Clinton
"...The Clinton administration has repeatedly attempted to play down the significance of the warrant clause. In fact, President Clinton has asserted the power to conduct warrantless searches, warrantless drug testing of public school students, and warrantless wiretapping.

Warrantless "National Security" Searches

The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." [51] According to Gorelick, the president (or his attorney general) need only satisfy himself that an American is working in conjunction with a foreign power before a search can take place...

...Clinton's Drive for Limitless Federal Power

President Clinton came to Washington claiming an affinity with Thomas Jefferson. In January 1993 Clinton symbolically retraced the journey Jefferson had made to the capital city in 1801 to assume office as the third president of the United States. [140] When the inaugural festivities were over, however, President Clinton proceeded to repudiate Jefferson's constitutional principles by trampling all over the Tenth Amendment..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 12:01 AM

Yawnnn...anything to spoil a thread, eh? Well, enjoy your froth, mate. Nemaste. I'm going to read a good book.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 12:37 AM

From The Guardian (yes, that one!):

Gore launches bruising attack on Bush over wiretapping

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Tuesday January 17, 2006
The Guardian

The former vice-president Al Gore launched a withering attack on the White House yesterday for authorising wiretaps without court oversight, and accused President George Bush of repeatedly breaking the law.

The strongly worded speech makes Mr Gore the most prominent political figure in America to weigh in on the wiretapping scandal. Mr Gore, who lost the 2000 election to Mr Bush following the intervention of the supreme court, also went further than other Democratic critics in accusing the president of wrongdoing.


The revelation last month in the New York Times that Mr Bush signed secret orders in 2002 authorising the National Security Agency to monitor the email and telephone calls of thousands of Americans has outraged members of Congress and the judiciary.
Mr Gore said yesterday that the decision to bypass the courts was part of a pattern of behaviour from the Bush administration of "indifference" to the constitution. "We still have much to learn about the NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently," Mr Gore said in a speech delivered to mark Martin Luther King day.

"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," he said.

Since the 2000 presidential elections, Mr Gore has occasionally used his peculiar position in American politics - he was defeated by Mr Bush despite winning more votes - to advance an agenda that is more liberal than the Democratic party leadership. He has been a far more outspoken critic of the Iraq war than most senior Democrats.

In yesterday's speech, Mr Gore also called for an independent counsel to investigate the secret wiretap programme. He ranked the operation with other controversial decisions by the administration in the war on terror, including its holding of "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial, and its justification of harsh interrogation techniques.

....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:12 AM

The Imperial Presidency at Work
            
(New York Times)

Published: January 15, 2006

You would think that Senators Carl Levin and John McCain would have learned by now that you cannot deal in good faith with a White House that does not act in good faith. Yet both men struck bargains intended to restore the rule of law to American prison camps. And President Bush tossed them aside at the first opportunity.

Mr. Bush made a grand show of inviting Mr. McCain into the Oval Office last month to announce his support for a bill to require humane treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and other prisons run by the American military and intelligence agencies. He seemed to have managed to get Vice President Dick Cheney to stop trying to kill the proposed Congressional ban on torture of prisoners.

The White House also endorsed a bargain between Mr. Levin and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, which tempered somewhat a noxious proposal by Mr. Graham to deny a court hearing to anyone the president declares to be an "unlawful enemy combatant." The bargain with Mr. Levin removed language that stripped away cases already before the courts, which would have been an egregious usurpation of power by one branch of government, and it made clear that those cases should remain in the courts.

Mr. Bush, however, seems to see no limit to his imperial presidency. First, he issued a constitutionally ludicrous "signing statement" on the McCain bill. The message: Whatever Congress intended the law to say, he intended to ignore it on the pretext the commander in chief is above the law. That twisted reasoning is what led to the legalized torture policies, not to mention the domestic spying program.

Then Mr. Bush went after the judiciary, scrapping the Levin-Graham bargain. The solicitor general informed the Supreme Court last week that it no longer had jurisdiction over detainee cases. It said the court should drop an existing case in which a Yemeni national is challenging the military tribunals invented by Mr. Bush's morally challenged lawyers after 9/11. The administration is seeking to eliminate all other lawsuits filed by some of the approximately 500 men at Gitmo, the vast majority of whom have not been shown to pose any threat.

Both of the offensive theories at work here - that a president's intent in signing a bill trumps the intent of Congress in writing it, and that a president can claim power without restriction or supervision by the courts or Congress - are pet theories of Judge Samuel Alito, the man Mr. Bush chose to tilt the Supreme Court to the right.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 11:56 AM

"So why are the Iranians acting so provocatively? My theory is that they looked at the landscape and saw an excellent opportunity to start pushing their weight. Probably the most important part of the landscape, as they viewed it, is right next door in Iraq, where the only power in the world with sufficient resources to punish them for bad behavior is wallowing in the deadly mire of one of the worst ideas since Vietnam.
From the Baltimore Sun:

Bush team's many missteps make it harder to handle Iran

By G. JEFFERSON PRICE III
Originally published January 17, 2006

Whatever the Bush administration may think about the medieval backwardness of the Iranians, they have excellent intelligence in Iraq and they are certainly as capable as the average American of knowing how badly bogged down America is in Iraq. Why, the United States can't even get satisfactory body armor to its troops in the field.

The deceptions, or misinformation, or whatever that was, that the Bush administration used to launch its war in Iraq while all of its important allies except the British urged restraint and patience, meanwhile, have diminished America's stature and credibility in this current crisis with a country that actually does have a nuclear capacity. ...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 12:09 PM

From http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=504402, January 10th.

Citizen's Tribunal Indicts Bush Administration for War Crimes
Posted: 2006/01/10
From: Mathaba

An unprecedented series of indictments alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, in five separate areas, on moral, political, and legal grounds, will be delivered by a citizens' tribunal to President Bush at the front gate of the White House this Tuesday, January 10th.


An unprecedented series of indictments alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, in five separate areas, on moral, political, and legal grounds, will be delivered by a citizens' tribunal to President Bush at the front gate of the White House this Tuesday, January 10th.

Named in the indictments are: President of the United States George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, U.S. Army Major General Geoffrey Miller, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, et al.

The indictments will be delivered to the White House by: Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern, authors William Blum and Larry Everest, Code Pink, Mike Hersh (Progressive Democrats of America/After Downing Street), Kevin Zeese (Director, Democracy Rising; candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland), Travis Morales (World Can't Wait -- Drive Out the Bush Regime) and others TBA.

A press conference will follow delivery of indictments, which will also be delivered to the Department of Justice.

The indictments result from preparatory work and testimony presented in New York City in October 2005, before the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration which featured former UN envoy to Iraq Denis Halliday, Guantanamo prisoners' lawyer Michael Ratner, and former State Department officer Ann Wright. The Commission's second tribunal will be held at Riverside Church and the Columbia University Law School in New York, January 20- 22. Witnesses will include Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former British ambassador Craig Murray, and former arms inspector Scott Ritter, among many more. The indictments allege war crimes and crimes against humanity authorized by the Bush Administration in relation to:

1) Wars of Aggression, particular reference to Iraq and Afghanistan;

2) Torture and Indefinite Detention;

3) Destruction of the Global Environment, particular reference to distortion of science and obstruction of international efforts to stem global warming;

4) Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights, particular reference to the potentially genocidal effects of enforcing abstinence only, global gag rule, distortion of science, and restriction of generic drugs; and

5) Failure of Bush administration, despite foreknowledge, to protect life during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Appended to these indictments will be the demand for investigation of the war crimes of Tony Blair and George Bush submitted by prominent British citizens to the UN Secretary General and the UK Attorney General.

---

Extreme? Possibly. I guess it depends on how extreme you consider the current posture of the nation to be. Actions like the one described here are always relative to the "scenario" held in the mind of the actor.

Compared to some ideals, our recent path has been extremely wayward indeed. Compared to others, it has been "business as usual" -- a view to which the above article will make no sense and seem to be radical, extreme, anarchistic or anti-American.

All depends on where you're coming from, and where you want to go.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 12:12 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration cannot stop doctors from helping terminally ill patients end their lives under the nation's only physician-assisted suicide law, the    U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

In a stinging defeat for the administration, the high court ruled on a 6-3 vote that then-Attorney General    John Ashcroft in 2001 impermissibly interpreted federal law to bar distribution of controlled drugs to assist suicides, regardless of the Oregon law authorizing it.

The justices upheld a U.S. appeals court ruling that Ashcroft's directive was unlawful and unenforceable, and that he had overstepped his authority.

The Oregon law, called the Death with Dignity Act, was twice approved by the state's voters. The only state law in the nation allowing physician-assisted suicide, it has been used by more than 200 people since it took effect in 1997.

Under Oregon law, terminally ill patients must get a certification from two doctors stating they are of sound mind and have less than six months to live. A prescription for lethal drugs is then written by the doctor, and the patients administer the drugs themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 12:23 PM

From (of all places!) the Arkansas Times editorial section:

Outlaw in office
Arkansas Times Staff
Updated: 1/12/2006



We know that Bill Clinton was not the first horny president, despite what his critics said, but George Bush is surely the first torturemonger.

As old-time Southern congressmen resisted anti-lynching laws, so Bush defies restraints on his use of torture. After first opposing legislation that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" of suspected wrongdoers, Bush appeared to change course and signed the bill, to general applause. Torture is in bad odor with most people.

Then it was revealed that the president found giving up torture "cold turkey" too difficult, that he was reserving the right to bypass the new law under his powers as commander in chief, that he will continue to indulge in fingernail removal and genital electroshock when the craving becomes really strong.

Republican lawmakers who accused Bill Clinton of putting himself above the law tried to impeach him for it (and failed for lack of popular support).

Bush states openly that he won't be bound by laws that apply to lesser men, and the Republican majority in Congress acquiesces. "Nobody died when Clinton lied" is a well-known slogan comparing the former president's deceptive comments about a consensual sexual encounter to Bush's untruths that have caused thousands of unwilling deaths in Iraq.

Bush's insistence on an unlawful right to torture suggests that some of those who are dying will die in agony. Prior presidents would have thought this un-American. ...

---

From the same editorial section, the following brief thought:

"We've noticed that the people who cry "Support our Troops" the loudest seem to interpret "support" to mean "sacrifice." Their idea of supporting our troops in Iraq is to keep a stiff upper lip as more of the troopers die. They don't realize that working to bring the troops home alive and well from a place they should never have been sent in the first place is a higher form of support, and much easier on the troops. Nothing says "support" like saving somebody's life.

If the "Support our Troops" cheerleaders had the troops' best interests at heart, they'd have been rioting in the streets over congressional Republicans' scheme to attach a controversial and irrelevant amendment to the bill providing financial support for American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, an attachment that would have put the bill itself in jeopardy.

But the outrage came instead from high-minded legislators like Arkansas's Blanche Lincoln. "Drilling rights in Alaska has been debated and defeated in this Congress for many years, and I am disappointed that Alaska senators have used our troops as pawns to try to win passage of an economic development project for their region," Senator Lincoln said, in language remarkably restrained for the circumstances. "This extraordinary attempt to insert it into a bill that funds our troops and provides for their safety at a time of war is inappropriate." ...

---

A rich day... outrage seems to be spreading.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:15 PM

The NY Times reports:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - Two leading civil rights groups plan to file lawsuits Tuesday against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program to determine whether the operation was used to monitor 10 defense lawyers, journalists, scholars, political activists and other Americans with ties to the Middle East.

Skip to next paragraph

Dennis Drenner for The New York Times
"It's a return to the bad old days of the N.S.A.," James Bamford, a plaintiff and an expert on the security agency, said of the eavesdropping.


Evan Sisley/Reuters
Former Vice President Al Gore criticized the spying program on Monday.
The two lawsuits, which are being filed separately by the American Civil Liberties Union in Federal District Court in Detroit and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Federal District Court in Manhattan, are the first major court challenges to the eavesdropping program.

Both groups are seeking to have the courts order an immediate end to the program, which the groups say is illegal and unconstitutional. The Bush administration has strongly defended the legality and necessity of the surveillance program, and officials said the Justice Department would probably oppose the lawsuits on national security grounds.

Justice Department officials would not comment on any specific individuals who might have been singled out under the National Security Agency program, and they said the department would review the lawsuits once they were filed.
...

The lawsuits seek to answer one of the major questions surrounding the eavesdropping program: has it been used solely to single out the international phone calls and e-mail messages of people with known links to Al Qaeda, as President Bush and his most senior advisers have maintained, or has it been abused in ways that civil rights advocates say could hark back to the political spying abuses of the 1960's and 70's?...

"There's almost a feeling of déjà vu with this program," said James Bamford, an author and journalist who is one of five individual plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit who say they suspect that the program may have been used to monitor their international communications.

"It's a return to the bad old days of the N.S.A.," said Mr. Bamford, who has written two widely cited books on the intelligence agency.

The Center for Constitutional Rights plans to sue on behalf of four lawyers at the center and a legal assistant there who work on terrorism-related cases at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and overseas, which often involves international e-mail messages and phone calls. Similarly, the plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit include five Americans who work in international policy and terrorism, along with the A.C.L.U. and three other groups. ...

"We don't have any direct evidence" that the plaintiffs were monitored by the security agency, said Ann Beeson, associate legal director for the A.C.L.U. "But the plaintiffs have a well-founded belief that they may have been monitored, and there's a real chilling effect in the fear that they can no longer have confidential discussions with clients or sources without the possibility that the N.S.A. is listening."

One of the A.C.L.U. plaintiffs, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, said that a Stanford student studying in Egypt conducted research for him on political opposition groups, and that he worried that communications between them on sensitive political topics could be monitored. "How can we communicate effectively if you risk being intercepted by the National Security Agency?" Mr. Diamond said.

Also named as plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit are the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who has written in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Barnett R. Rubin, a scholar at New York University who works in international relations; Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at The American Prospect; the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Greenpeace, the environmental advocacy group; and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country's largest Islamic advocacy group.

The lawsuits over the eavesdropping program come as several defense lawyers in terrorism cases have begun challenges, arguing that the government may have improperly hidden the use of the surveillance program from the courts in investigating terrorism leads.

...

---

It is an interesting problem, isn''t it? A war without a defined enemy, whose scope and actions are hidden behind the screen of the enemy's own guerilla-style secrecy AND the secrecy of National Security, with unknown limits and boundaries and ambiguous goals, being weighed against the fundamental precepts of civil liberties and rights that once defined the nation. A real puzzler. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 06:54 PM

Zogby poll: Majority supports impeaching Bush for wiretapping

WASHINGTON, D.C. — By a margin of 52 to 43 percent, citizens want Congress to impeach President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of Pres. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International.

The poll found that 52 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

Of those contacted, 43 percent disagreed, and 6 percent said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

"The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik in a statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:29 PM

PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 16 (UPI) -- The Gallup Poll finds growing consumer confidence in the United States in early January in spite of weak retail sales before Christmas and rising gas prices.
        
In a poll taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 12, 43 percent of those surveyed described economic conditions as excellent or good, while only 18 percent said they were poor. The split between the two numbers of 25 points is higher than in the fall and equal to consumer confidence in January 2005

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20060116-21430900-bc-us-gallup.xml

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 10:46 PM

But, Ol' Guy, these same folks would rather have Bush gone...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 11:05 PM

The rest of the same poll that Amos does not want you to know about:

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1056

However, half of those surveyed said they feel safer with Bush as President, compared to 38% who said they feel less safe.

Which political party is better equipped to handle . . .

Jobs/economy
GOP 40% Dems 41%

Terrorism
GOP 47% Dems 26%

Taxes
GOP 43% Dems 37%

Environment
GOP 27% Dems 55%

Integrity
GOP 35% Dems 34%

Foreign Policy
GOP 40% Dems 40%

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 11:32 PM

And these local points of optimism are not being measured in the whole context of national debt, deficit budgeting and trade deficit which paints a very different picture indeed.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 11:39 PM

Old Guy:

THanks for posting the addition page from Zogby; but you are mistaken (although not untypical) is asserting I don;t want people to know something. That article is not the same one on which I found the data I posted, as you can tell by looking at it. My preference is for information to be accurate and free.

I know you'd like me to be an evil distorter of information, but, you're having a hard time making the point.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 07:46 AM

"How to Stay Out of Power
Why liberal democrats are playing too fast and too loose with issues of war and peace

Posted Sunday, Jan. 08, 2006
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, engaged in a small but cheesy bit of deception last week. She released a letter, which quickly found its way to the front page of the New York Times, that she had written on Oct. 11, 2001, to then National Security Agency director General Michael V. Hayden. In it she expressed concern that Hayden, who had briefed the House Intelligence Committee about the steps he was taking to track down al-Qaeda terrorists after the 9/11 attacks, was not acting with "specific presidential authorization." Hayden wrote her back that he was acting under the powers granted to his agency in a 1981 Executive Order. In fact, a 2002 investigation by the Joint Intelligence Committees concluded that the NSA was not doing as much as it could have been doing under the law—and that the entire U.S. intelligence community operated in a hypercautious defensive crouch. "Hayden was taking reasonable steps," a former committee member told me. "Our biggest concern was what more he could be doing."

The Bush Administration had similar concerns. In the days after 9/11, it asked Hayden to push the edge of existing technology and come up with the best possible program to track the terrorists. The result was the now infamous NSA data-mining operation, which began months later, in early 2002. Vast amounts of phone and computer communications by al-Qaeda suspects overseas, including some messages to people in the U.S., could now be scooped up and quickly analyzed.

The release of Pelosi's letter last week and the subsequent Times story ("Agency First Acted on Its Own to Broaden Spying, Files Show") left the misleading impression that a) Hayden had launched the controversial data-mining operation on his own, and b) Pelosi had protested it. But clearly the program didn't exist when Pelosi wrote the letter. When I asked the Congresswoman about this, she said, "Some in the government have accused me of confusing apples and oranges. My response is, it's all fruit."

A dodgy response at best, but one invested with a larger truth. For too many liberals, all secret intelligence activities are "fruit," and bitter fruit at that. The government is presumed guilty of illegal electronic eavesdropping until proven innocent. This sort of civil-liberties fetishism is a hangover from the Vietnam era, when the Nixon Administration wildly exceeded all bounds of legality—spying on antiwar protesters and civil rights leaders. "


"In fact, liberal Democrats are about as far from the American mainstream on these issues as Republicans were when they invaded the privacy of Terri Schiavo's family in the right-to-die case last year.

But there is a difference. National security is a far more important issue, and until the Democrats make clear that they will err on the side of aggressiveness in the war against al-Qaeda, they will probably not regain the majority in Congress or the country. "

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1147137,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 12:10 PM

Hmmm....are we at war with Al Queda? Someone forgot to post the declaration. I saw this when it wa spublished ten days back, BB, but I didn't think it said much about Popular Views of the Bush Administration.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 02:35 PM

I don't think I have seen so vehement a personal attack, other than yours Amos.

Are you the one who cries "Ad Hominem" with regularity?

And you can also cite a Zogby poll and discredit it at the same time, while acusing others of smokery dopery.

You are extremely talented but extremely transparent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 03:09 PM

OG,

Read what I said; I discredited nothing; I simply said I hadn't seen the page YOU posted, but had seen a different page, the one I quoted from.

Your twisting rolls along, like a dried out tumbleweed.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 03:21 PM

Amos:

Your full text was
Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos - PM
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 11:22 PM

Our fearful visitor is really running around the world trying to find something discreditable to use. Not coming up with much, though...the citations he is dragging up from the hoary past are 30 years old, except for the quotes from some essays a friend posted for me on the Internet in...lemme think...1994. I guess it's a good thing I don't have anything really ugly to hide in my sordid past, except for that one night with Annabelle Lee...I had almost forgotten about that, too. Damn...

But it's an interesting effort. I don't think I have seen so vehement a personal attack on Mudcat since Gargoyle took a bead on a certain laughing Mudcatter. Anything to smear, discredit or nullify the messenger.

Maybe it would help if I pointed out again that I don't write these articles, and the world at large gets them from the authors I cite in each one.

But I doubt it. Seems to me we're up against something really rabid and frothing at the mouth here.

The visitor made no accusations like you are doing, Just revealed some information you would rahter not talk about. You assume they are afraid of something. What are you hiding Amos? What are you afraid of?

You do not hesitate to bring up some elses past from 30 years ago.

Are you one way or something? Could your hoary past mean you are somehow incapable of doing things right like you accuse others?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 10:33 PM

OG,

A slippery dodge; for a year or more you have been posting remarks designed not to address the issues I raise here, but to make me look foolish for addressing them. The length, and sometimes vehemence of your personal attack is way above average for this community. I have no problem with your disagreeing with what I say; but I see no reason to condone your personal savagery. But in the past, I have also resorted to retorts in kind, which I have decided not to be drawn into any further.

Elsewhere, this news from CapitolHillBlue:

A deserving bitch-slap to the Bush administration

By DALE McFEATTERS
Jan 18, 2006, 20:58

An early indication that the Bush administration would be flexible on conservative principles it found inconvenient came when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft sought to kill Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.

That law, twice approved by Oregon voters, clearly fell within the rights the Constitution left to the states, but there was the GOP's "base" to be appeased. So Ashcroft threatened to use federal anti-drug laws to take away the prescription-writing authority of any physician who prescribed a lethal dose of drugs.

What Oregon had done in 1994 was to allow doctors to prescribe, but not administer, a life-ending "cocktail" to a patient who requested it, had been determined to be terminally ill, and found by a psychiatrist to be mentally competent.

Through 2004, prescriptions were issued to 325 people, but only 208 had taken them, pointing up a curious phenomenon _ that many did not take the cocktail but took comfort in knowing they could if their terminal illness became unbearable.

In a 6-3 decision affirming rulings by two lower courts, the Supreme Court properly found that the attorney general had overreached and that Ashcroft's loose reading of the Controlled Substance Act would effectively put final say over general standards of medical practice in the hands of the Justice Department.

Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted at the political motivation behind the attempt to override the Oregon law by noting that Ashcroft's action was "beyond his expertise" and taken "without consulting Oregon or apparently anyone outside his department." Moreover, nowhere had Congress said physician-assisted suicide was a crime.

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the ruling was inconsistent with the court decision last year upholding a federal override of California's medical-marijuana law. Perhaps so, but the Bush administration should have stayed out of that one, too.

---

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 10:36 PM

Hoover scholar joins lawsuit
against Bush administration

From the Palo Alto Online news website

Hoover Institution scholar and Stanford University Professor Larry Diamond is part of a lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the Bush administration for alleged spying on Americans.

Diamond, in a statement posted on the ACLU Web site, said he joined the lawsuit "to bring a halt to the warrantless surveillance by the (National Security Agency) for both professional and principled reasons.

"Professionally, my work as a political scientist studying, teaching about, and working to advance democratic development around the world depends on my ability to communicate freely with people throughout the world who are working for democratic change or who have information and analysis that bears on the struggle.

"There is also the problem of being able to communicate with students of mine who are doing their own research, or conducting research for me, in countries that are being monitored through warrantless surveillance, and on subjects that are politically sensitive, such as the prospects for democratic regime change or the opposition movement in a particular country."

The ACLU is one of two civil rights groups that filed awsuits against the Bush administration today, the New York Times reported. The second group is the Center for Constitutional Rights. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 11:03 PM

Democrats Unveil Lobbying Curbs

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 19, 2006; Page A01

Congressional Democrats yesterday laid out a plan to change what they called a GOP "culture of corruption" in Washington, even as Republicans pointed to ethics lapses on their antagonists' side of the aisle.

Democratic leaders from the House and Senate endorsed proposals that closely mirror Republican plans unveiled this week to tighten regulations on lobbyists since the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal broke. But in a sign that an ethical "arms race" may be developing, the Democratic plans go further than the Republicans' proposals.

Rather than limiting the value of a gift to $20, as House Republicans are considering, Democrats would prohibit all gifts from lobbyists. Democrats also take direct aim at some of the legislative practices that have become established in the past 10 years of Republican rule in Congress. They vowed to end the K Street Project, under which Republicans in Congress pressure lobbying organizations to hire only Republican staff members and contribute only to Republican candidates.

Lawmakers would have to publicly disclose negotiations over private-sector jobs, a proposal inspired by then-House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin's job talks in 2003 that led to his hiring as president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in January 2005. Executive branch officials who are negotiating private-sector jobs would need approval from the independent Office of Governmental Ethics.

Under the Democrats' plan, House and Senate negotiators working out final versions of legislation would have to meet in open session, with all members of the conference committee -- not just Republicans -- having the opportunity to vote on amendments. Legislation would have to be posted publicly 24 hours before congressional consideration. Democrats also proposed to crack down on no-bid contracting and to require that any person appointed to a position involving public safety "possess proven credentials."

"Mr. Abramoff and his associates will be held up as the beginning and end of our congressional crisis, but they are just the symptom of a larger problem," said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.). "Now is the time to realize that the Republican members of Congress who put America up for sale have neither the ability nor the credibility to lead us in a new direction."

---

Seems to me, in general, that a new direction would be a peachy idea.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 11:21 PM

Amos:

So what you are saying is you do not answer questions, I am evasive and you don't like my attacks.

Amos you will not answer the questions because they undermine your position.

You are narrow minded and you concentrate on certain things in order to blot out anything that might make you appear to be wrong.

You are totaly biased one way person.

Do you still deliver Avatar?

What is Avatar?

No answer means you are being evasive.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 11:38 PM

Still at it?

I have answered your question. As to your new question, no, I do not. As to your second question, here's one answer.

And you are yet again altering my position on things, resorting to your usual projections. THere is absolutely nothing about the Laos war which undermines my position on Bush's war in Iraq. They are both ridiculous and short-sighted answers.

And this argument that past precedent justify current crimes is about as bassackwards as anything you have said to date.

Do you honestly think there is some justification which balances out the offense of unilaterally starting a war? I swan...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 12:37 AM

Man this is some heavy shit here Amos. Can you walk me through it? Do I have to put a helmet on with tin foil and rabbit ears? Does somebody have to beam me up?

People pretty much experience what they believe-Even though sometimes they don't believe they believe it.

Avatar is about every reality that is, was or will be. I know that's not very descriptive, but it is the truest statement I can make. Avatar deals with creation, which I define as anything that has definition or limits in space, time or awareness. That covers the universe and everything in it.

   Since most people are not really ready to engage Avatar at such an all-encompassing level, I usually talk about beliefs.

People have an Instinctive recognition that what they believe has a consequence in their lives. The principle dilemma of existence is what to believe. That's the philosophic abyss that confronts everyone. That's the abyss called, "I don't know." It's dangerous not to know. At the edge of this abyss are the shops of the belief peddlers. Some shops are lavish and hallowed with histories. Some are Volkswagen buses driven by cult recruiters. Everybody is selling a program and a one-way pass to the land of truth on the other side of the abyss. There are thousands of bridges across the abyss, and each one leads to a slightly different reality.

   What is different about Avatar is that the program is blank, and the pass is round trip!

Perspective: Are you saying that we don't always know what we believe or experience what we say we believe?

    Harry: That's right. And that is the flaw in positive thinking. You can stick signs on every mirror in the house saying, "I'm happy to be me," and chant it for a half hour before every meal and still not experience it. The reason it won't take you across the abyss into an experience is because you are already across experiencing something else. Maybe you came on the ticket, "Nothing really makes me happy." That is the real belief that is underlying and motivating all of the positive assertions.

Is there a flaw in negative thinking?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 06:46 AM

Andere wie der altgediente Scientologe Amos Jessup sagen, Palmer sei immer grundehrlich zu ihnen gewesen, geradezu grosszügig. Der entscheidende Faktor ist offensichtlich Palmers Verständnis seiner eigenen Macht. Menschen, die ihn in Frage stellen oder Verbesserungen an seiner Unternehmung vorschlagen, bekommen sehr schnell Ärger; diejenigen, die ihn kritiklos verehren, kommen wunderbar mit ihm aus.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 07:14 AM

February 23, 99 Presentation by

Amos Jessup
of
VisiCom
speaking on:
"The Process of Managing Requirements."

In this presentation Amos Jessup looks into the characterization of requirements and how it can be done rationally and clearly. We also examine the functions and basic ingredients of a good, workable requirements management process and one possible way to implement them using an automated tool.

About Our Speaker

Amos Jessup is the Information Manager for the VisiCom Modeling and Simulation product group, and for three years has been the Requirements Manager for the US Marine Corps' MAGTF Tactical Warfare Simulation development project. He holds an MS degree in Technology Management from San Diego's National University and is a graduate of the Software Project Management program run by the SPAWAR Software Engineering Program Office (SEPO). Before joining VisiCom he operated his own management consultancy company specializing in training systems and organizational development.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 07:22 AM

MAGTF Staff Training Program
"Training the first to fight"
Thursday, January 19, 2006
To provide training in MAGTF, Joint and Combined warfighting skills, within the Joint and Combined environment, in order to improve the warfighting skills of senior commanders and their staffs and to provide feedback into the Expeditionary Force Development System (EFDS).         

Improve the warfighting skills of senior commanders and their staff.
        
Develop a common understanding of MEF doctrine. .
        
Enhance the capabilities to employ a MEF in a joint environment
        
Promote MEF/MSC team building.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:24 AM

Intercepted emails from Scientologists in New York City (right after 9/11) are revealing, it shows that this group is intentionally using deceit to gain access to the vulnerable people still suffering from shock and grief. Moreover, it has deliberately interfered with legitimate mental health practitioners sent there to assist. Below are a few excerpts from these emails, sent out to Scientologists to promote this parasitic behavior by "Lt." Simon Hare, CO, I HELP Canada (in NY). (Note: the "Lieutenant" designates a rank in the Sea Org
Intercepted Scientology email:

Dear All,

For the last two days I have been in New York Org running, with several other Sea Org members, the deployment of Volunteer Ministers into the disaster zone.

The Sea Org is Scientology's pretend Navy, and consists of the most dedicated members. These people sign a billion year contract when joining up. Volunteer Ministers have undergone an hour's training in Scientology style disaster training, mostly a technique known as a "touch assist," which is supposed to make one feel better. This was dreamed up by founder L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and college dropout, a man who's "Doctorate" degree was purchased from a diploma mill.

After describing the scene, the Scientologist reporting goes on to say:
Intercepted Scientology email:
Additionally we are trying to move in and knock the psychs out of counseling to the grieving families and that could take another 100 plus people right now. Due to some brilliant maneuvering by some simply genius Sea Org Members we tied up the majority of the psychs who were attempting to get to families yesterday in Q&A, bullbait and wrangling. They have a hard time completing cycles of action and are pretty easy to disperse. But today they are out in full force and circling like vultures over these people and all of our resources are tied up in the support efforts in the disaster zone at present.

Scientology's greatest perceived enemy on Earth is "the psychs." This term refers to formally trained mental health professionals, from counsellors to psychiatrists. Here they are blatantly admitting to interfering with rescue assistance efforts from that field. Here we see that distributing food and water is not their main goal in being on-scene, rather, it is access to the victims they are after. By keeping trained mental health professionals away from the scene, they have full access.

The Scientologist goes on to say:

Intercepted Scientology email:

There is nowhere on Earth right now that hurts like this place. These are brave people and they are the able and they don't know it but they need the Scientologists with LRH's tech to be here right now.

The fire-fighter company down the street from the org lost 14 members on Tuesday. No one can do anything for them or the rest but Scientologists. The other religions here with their ministers have shown their true colors and are working hand in hand with the psychs to give these people as much false data and restimulation as they can. They HAVE NO TECH and they're not even trying to hide it anymore. They've crossed over and abandoned anything spiritual and to hell with them.

Yes, only Scientologists with L. Ron Hubbard's program can do any good right now. Other ministers don't have Ron's wonderful "tech" and are working with real mental health professionals, threatening Scientology's access to potential victims. They are competition. To hell with them, indeed!

In a later report, this Scientologist describes gaining access to the disaster area.
Intercepted Scientology email:

There was a very large barricade there manned by both Police and Military and they absolutely refused to let us though. The SO member in charge of the VM's "snuck" about 5 of us in another way and on the way we gave out cold drinks to tired rescue workers.

Here we have untrained individuals putting themselves and rescuers in danger by their presence. Once inside, they would not leave.
Intercepted Scientology email:

Anyway, we of course jumped right in and helped by giving out food, drinks, unpacking etc... Soon thereafter we set-up an area for assists right there next to the medical area - outside. We put out 3 cots and we started body routing people in for nerve assists.

What this means is, they staked out a spot next to real medical personnel and began "body routing" victims in to deliver Hubbard's spurious "touch assists." By positioning themselves next to legitimate services, they hope no one will notice that they are merely untrained cultists seeking good PR and potential members.

The Scientologist then goes on to boast about how appreciated and useful they are, how they are one of the few groups allowed through the barricades (having sneaked in to begin with) and what wonderful things the Scientologists are doing to further their own agenda.
FOX News FOX News
First this warning scrolls over the screen: "NYPD WARNS OF CRUEL SCAMS" then this comes: "NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH ASSISTANCE: 800-FOR-TRUTH". This telephone number is a Scientology hotline promoting their book "Dianetics - The modern science of mental health"!

After Fox News was made aware that they were referring people to Scientology they removed the crawling banner from their broadcasts. Scientology was able to fool them by promoting themselves as "National Mental Health Assistance," very typical of them to form a front group with a similar sounding name to a legitimate organization. The National Mental Health Association was not amused. This is also done with their Narconon front group, which is often confused with Narcanon, a legitimate group.

Copies of the Scientology emails were circulated to the media, resulting in several articles in newspapers and online news sources today. When indications that this was happening was noticed by Scientology on the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup, a site mostly critical of Scientology and its abuses, a further email was sent by the Scientologist pleading for silence.
Intercepted Scientology email:

This is just going to be a quick communication to the group!

As part of a briefing given to a group going to ground zero this evening (some folks from LA), we were informed not to give out any information about what is going on down there via the internet.

However, we are allowed to call people to share the good news, or news in general.

This restriction was communicated as being necessary in that the internet can be infiltrated, and possibly this information could be gotten into the wrong hands, altered, etc.

Therefore I am afraid that I can not give you all the kinds of detailed messages as I have been in the past, and I am sorry for that.

This information did indeed get into the "wrong hands," the hands of people who know the true nature of Scientology and are not afraid to expose them for the fraudulent criminal organization that they are. People who speak out against Scientology have been harrassed, intimidated, and stalked. They have sometimes lost their jobs thanks to Scientology interference. Their pets have been killed. Before the Internet was widespread, Scientology was very successful at suppressing its critics. Today, news of every move the cult makes is quickly spotted and distributed around the world.

The really awful thing about Scientology using this tragedy, is that they are targeting people who have survived a horrible experience. Unlike looting the dead, they are preying upon the vulnerable survivors, people who are seeking help to try to recover from the shock and regain their lives to some extent. The stories that come out of people who finally manage to leave the cult are terrible in their similarity. Years of coercive mental conditioning. Thousands of dollars wasted in pursuit of a fabrication developed by a drug addicted megalomaniac. Years wasted, families torn apart, souls and minds shattered by the relentless totalitarian control of this evil, greedy cult pretending to be a church.

To compound the survivors' suffering by snatching them off the streets for Scientology processing in New York City should be a crime. People have been warned to beware of scam artists using this tragedy to their benefit. Mayor Giuliani has warned that such hucksters will be prosecuted. Scientology and individual Scientologists should be first in line. That they have inserted themselves into this disaster with such a large-scale operation, including deceiving a major network into unwittingly promoting them, establishing a fraudulent "mental health assistance" front, and interfering with real rescue and assistance operations should not be overlooked when it's time to prosecute those who tried to take advantage of a terrible, tragic event.

http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/20010911-tragedy/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:25 AM

Sigh....

You want my whole resume, twerp? Do you think posting it will somehow make me stop criticising Furless Liter?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:39 AM

From: Amos Jessup
Sent: 10/4/'05, 8:36

Some religionists, feeling one way or feeling another, are unwilling to keep their religions private. The commons of civic discourse may be fed by feelings but in the final analysis, it is best served by reason, and our Constitutional tradition is that that reason is bounded in its concerns to the secular-including th e emotional, unavoidably, but placing religion behind a Jeffersonian âwall of separationâ.

There is reason for doing this which is both good and sufficient, since it is demonstrable that differing religious views are irreconcilable in their basic natu re, and cannot be particularly tested. It is also historically true that the glib and irrational use of religious icons and notions to justify irrational cours es of action is a peculiarly human pox.

Studying that religion exists, and what it does or does not say in a comparative framework is innocuous enough on the face of it and your friend is right that C hristmas deserves as much analysis as Kwanzaa or Ramadan. But whether one or another adherent of any given religion feels his non-secular, religious beliefs ar e given sufficient honor by those who do not share them is pretty irrelevant under the doctrine of separation. He/she may find solace in congregation, or medit ation, or prayer in a private moment. Not in debate on the commons.

Amos Jessup

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:51 AM

From: Amos Jessup
Date: August 10, 2004 11:32:47 PM EDT
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Mental Health Screening for All Americans Proposed?

Dave:

This report is the beginning of a tragedy if the kind of approach it
suggests is followed through. The core and root of its tragedy is a
simple but stunningly important falsehood: without a "true" model of the human mind, defining mental health is an exercise in authoritarian opinion.
There is no such model which uniformly predicts phenomena and explains
observed phenomena. Yet without such a model the industry has no business posing as the source of authority for governmental interference in individual lives.

A. H. Jessup
San Diego

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 10:15 AM

The Anatomy of Resistance

Resistance at the low end of the spectrum, that of physical effort, manifests itself as unwillingness to DO something. In seeking to assist another with a problem for example, a wise person will intuitively point out the fact that the problemee is avoiding certain efforts, thus making the problem solid. Example: the effort of communicating an embarrassing truth.

In consciousness above the effort band autoresist (or any resist) is a manifestation of a core impulse of NOTBE, which can apply to any form, thought, identity, condition, concept, assumed or imagined in any universe real or otherwise. Whatever it is, there is a creation X such that consciousness as experienced is involved in asserting "NOT X!".

It is possible on this model that the persistency of the identity who awakes in the same bed every morning wearing the same body and persona derives from the resistance of the world of dream, illusion, limitless creation and freedom that lies, for many, on the other side of a denial zone called "going to sleep". Like any denial zone "going to sleep" is a compound of decisions not to know one reality, with its parts and packages, in favor of another.

Without the "NOTKNOW!" assertion (which also takes the form of asserting the reality that is NOT X) there would be no unconsciousness connected with the whole reality called "sleep", "dream", and "wake up". These shifts of consciousness would not be cut off one from the other, and the veils that separate them would be translucent.

Asserting that the world as you perceive it when you are awake is the world, while the one you fool around with when asleep is simply an escapist gameparlor of unreality, is one way of guaranteeing the NOTKNOW! of X so one will never be accused of BEING X. (Be anything BUT creative, imaginary or deluded.) Yet the highest creative power you know is unleashed in that "unreal" world, ironically enough. We continue in being something that will not have that ability range to the degree that we "unbe" and "unknow" through the veil.

Thus resistance seems to be a compound of the impulse "NOT KNOW" and the impulse "NOTBE". When these are undone with compassion and tolerance, life takes on a new flood of sights, meanings and possibilities.

# # #

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 10:44 AM

« Scindés en plusieurs groupes, ils descendraient à terre le lendemain matin afin de retrouver les ruines du temple et l'entrée du caveau secret où était enfoui un trésor considérable de vaisselle en or massif. « Nous étions électrisés à l'idée de cette aventure, se souvient Amos Jessup, l'un des premiers à s'être porté volontaire pour embarquer sur l'Avon River. Que ce soit réel ou imaginaire, si Ron y attachait de l'importance j'aurais fait n'importe quoi pour lui. »

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 11:29 AM

Old Guy,

I am assuming all of these:

GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 10:44 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 10:15 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 09:51 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 09:39 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 09:24 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 07:22 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 07:14 AM
GUEST 19 Jan 06 - 06:46 AM

are your efforts. The intention of them is clear enough -- suppress the thread by dumping extraneous material in a battle of egos. It seems to amuse you because in some dark corner of your wormy mind you think that finding old essays of mine on the web, or past articles containing my name, or things I sent to other discussion groups, or long screeds, will just bury the truth about George Bush.

Old Guy, I am going to ask you once more to become a civilized person and limit your posts to coherent and relevant information and opinions in keeping with the guidelines of the FAQ; you may have a sense of decency underneath this foaming schnauzer modality and I would like to appeal to it.

If you will not, I predict that you will find a lot of new threads on the various heinous offenses perpetrated by the Bush Administration, and this thread will be closed because of your inability to comport yourself as a citizen.

If I sound a bit impatient, it is because I am; your effort to denigrate me makes me a little sad and as it continues, a little angry. IT is saddening to realize that even in a relatively decent community like Mudcat, the world will always find a ravening psycho to add to the mix and make things worse for others. You are, in short, acting like a world-class dipshit here, pal. You need manners, and are showing none.

You have shown that you want to make this a personal matter, not a discussion topic; and in doing so you are declaring yourself as a personal enemy. I don't have many of those, in fact I have none; but you seem really intent on it. I am not much practiced in enmity, but I am willing to give it a try if you think it is a really good idea for some reason; I'd like to know what the reason is, though. Making the planet safe for warmongering, perhaps? I dunno. So what's the deal here? You declaring personal war? Lemme know so I can find my gloves so I can take them off. Yeah, right.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 12:13 PM

Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

Amos:

How does it feel to have someone dig up everything someone has said about you and post it like it is some great crime? If it all so innocent and normal you should be able to ignore it.

Paybacks are hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 02:18 PM

You don't see the difference between perpetrating unwarranted hot warfare, corrosion of civil rights, compromise of Constitutional traditions, and massive economic malfeasance...and public criticism of such actions? Between a private citizen and an internationally feared politician? Really, you do me too much honor.

You're an ass of the first order, Old Guy. Your hydrophobic protestion of your iconic but clay-footed Idiot Imperius is pathetic, and whatever spark of decency you may have had has been buried in your clouds of cross-eyed defensiveness. I suggest you find something safe -- like a small rock, or a teddybear -- and spend a lot of time with it until you feel less threatened by free speech of public civic issues. You are very confused.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 05:56 PM

Google Refuses Bush Admin Order to Turn Over User Data
Yesterday, the Bush Administration asked a federal judge to order Google to give the US Government access to approximately one week of recorded searches.

The US Government says it needs the information to determine how often pornographic files are searched for and/or found using the Google search engine. It has already acquired similar data from other, unnamed, search engines.

Court papers filed in San Jose yesterday revealed that Google refused a Justice Department subpoena issued last year which ordered Google to turn over 1-million random search requests and records of all searches and results for a full, one-week period.

Fearing a privacy backlash, Google refused to honour the subpoena last year and is fighting the Justice Department this week.

Interviewed by the San Jose Mecury News yesterday, an associate general counsel for Google, Nicole Wong said, "Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching." She added Google will fight government vigerously.

The US Government contends it requires this information as part of its defense of the Child Online Protection Act, as part of a case being heard in a Pennsylvania Federal Court.

The Child Online Protection Act was struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2004 for being too broad and unfocused. In its ruling, the Supreme Court recognized the Government's responsibility to protect children by suggesting the Government rewrite the COPA so that it does not violate First Amendment protections outlined in the constitution.

Instead of rewriting a law the US Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional, the US Government appears ready to defend it by violating the privacy of Google users and of the corporation itself. If Google is forced to release the data, it will also be forced to reveal important technical information it considers trade secrets.

---

For a while it looked like freedom of information would become one of the finer accomplishments of our land. Unfortunately, Bush&Co now want to use it to control people.   While this expansion of the Bush Administration's intrusion into sitizen privacy is not surprising, given their record, it is still (yet another) abomination.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 06:52 PM

From the U.K. Guardian:

Three UCLA Board Members Resign

Thursday January 19, 2006 9:32 AM


LOS ANGELES (AP) - A former congressman is among three people who have quit the advisory board of a conservative alumni group at the University of California, Los Angeles, after it offered students money to police professors accused of pushing liberal views.

Former Rep. James Rogan, a Republican who served two terms, sent an e-mail Wednesday to Andrew Jones, head of the Bruin Alumni Association, saying he didn't want his name connected to the group.

``I am uncomfortable to say the least with this tactic,'' Rogan wrote in his e-mail. ``It places students in jeopardy of violating myriad regulations and laws.''

Rogan's resignation follows those of Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom and UCLA professor emeritus Jascha Kessler, who both quit the board once they learned of the group's activities.

The group has been offering students up to $100 to supply tapes and notes from classes to expose professors suspected of pushing liberal political views on their students.

Jones, 24, a 2003 graduate and former head of the campus Republican group, said he was concerned about the level of professionalism among teachers at the university.

``We're just trying to get people back on a professional level of things,'' Jones told The Los Angeles Times.

Targeted professors have likened the effort to a witch-hunt.

``Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism,'' said education professor Peter McLaren, whom the association named as No. 1 on its ``The Dirty Thirty: Ranking the Worst of the Worst.''

---

Well, what's next? Blacklisting Pete Seeger and "liberal" actors in Hollywood? Charging professors of evolution with sedition? We are on a fling of Joe Mcarthy's nightmares, aren't we? I guess those who don't understand history -- even if they majored in it -- are doomed to dramatize it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 07:20 PM

A few remarkable quotes from Larry Wilkerson, the Colonel who recently decided enough was just too much:

"This is not a Republican administration, not in my view. This is a radical administration."

Wilkerson calls Bush an unsophisticated leader who has been easily swayed by "messianic" neoconservatives and power-hungry, secretive schemers in the administration. In a landmark speech in October, Wilkerson said: "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."

He is particularly appalled by U.S. treatment of enemy detainees, counting at least 100 deaths in custody during the course of the war on terrorism -- 27 of them ruled homicides. "Murder is torture," he says. "It's not torture lite."

As for the invasion of Iraq? A blunder of historic proportions.

"This is really a very inept administration," says Wilkerson, who has credentials not only as an insider in the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II presidencies but also as a former professor at two of the nation's war colleges. "As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate."

Such a critique, coming from a man who was long thought to speak for Powell, is seismic in Washington power circles. ..."

For the whole story see Breaking Ranks, which gives a much, much larger picture.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:31 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 09:55 PM

Did you miss me Amos?

For a private citizen, you sure left a trail like Godzilla through downtown Tokyo. If GWB had been involved with the same doings as you, I and sure you would be outraged about the horrible person that would do such things.

I have two questions that I hope you don't try to burry in your rabid verbal foaming at the mouth attacks that you accuse me of.

A Why do you hold GWB to a different standard other Predsidents?

B Do you think we will have another terrorist attack?

C What does "People pretty much experience what they believe-Even though sometimes they don't believe they believe it" mean?

The only way I can figure it is you are not experiencing reality but only what you believe to be reality.

If that is true the people that believe in the Avatar that you teach are not aware of reality because they are experiencing something else.

Can you give some serious answers instead of a rant about how mighty you are and how insignificant I am?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 10:42 PM

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/36/subchapters/i/sections/section_1802.html

"Section 1802. Electronic surveillance authorization without court order; certification by Attorney General; reports to Congressional committees; transmittal under seal; duties and compensation of communication common carrier; applications; jurisdiction of court

    (a)(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the
    Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a
    court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence
    information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General
    certifies in writing under oath that -
    (A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at -
    (i) the acquisition of the contents of communications         transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between         or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2),       or (3) of this title; or       (ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than
    the spoken communications of individuals, from property or
    premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign
    power, as defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this
    title;
    (B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance
    will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United
    States person is a party; and
    (C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such
    surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under
    section 1801(h) of this title; and
    if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and
    any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on
    Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at
    least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the
    Attorney General determines immediate action is required and
    notifies the committees immediately of such minimization rocedures
    and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.
    (2) An electronic surveillance authorized by this subsection may
    be conducted only in accordance with the Attorney General's
    certification and the minimization procedures adopted by him. The
    Attorney General shall assess compliance with such procedures and
    shall report such assessments to the House Permanent Select
    Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on
    Intelligence under the provisions of section 1808(a) of this      title.
    (3) The Attorney General shall immediately transmit under seal to
    the court established under section 1803(a) of this title a copy    of his certification. Such certification shall be maintained under
    security measures established by the Chief Justice with the
    concurrence of the Attorney General, in consultation with the
    Director of Central Intelligence, and shall remain sealed unless -
    (A) an application for a court order with respect to the
    surveillance is made under sections 1801(h)(4) and 1804 of this
    title; or
    (B) the certification is necessary to determine the legality of
    the surveillance under section 1806(f) of this title.
    (4) With respect to electronic surveillance authorized by this
    subsection, the Attorney General may direct a specified
    communication common carrier to -
    (A) furnish all information, facilities, or technical
    assistance necessary to accomplish the electronic surveillance in
    such a manner as will protect its secrecy and produce a minimum
    of interference with the services that such carrier is providing
    its customers; and
    (B) maintain under security procedures approved by the Attorney
    General and the Director of Central Intelligence any records
    concerning the surveillance or the aid furnished which such
    carrier wishes to retain.
    The Government shall compensate, at the prevailing rate, such
    carrier for furnishing such aid.
      (b) Applications for a court order under this subchapter are
    authorized if the President has, by written authorization,
    empowered the Attorney General to approve applications to the court
    having jurisdiction under section 1803 of this title, and a judge
    to whom an application is made may, notwithstanding any other law,
    grant an order, in conformity with section 1805 of this title,
    approving electronic surveillance of a foreign power or an agent of
    a foreign power for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence
    information, except that the court shall not have jurisdiction to
    grant any order approving electronic surveillance directed solely
    as described in paragraph (1)(A) of subsection (a) of this section
    unless such surveillance may involve the acquisition of
    communications of any United States person."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 10:44 PM

Old Guy:

1. Nah, not much.

2. I hold Bush to the standards of anyone who claims the Presidency. It is unusual for any President to so dramatically unleash the dogs of war, on such pissant intelligence. I expected better of him, as I would anyone who claims to "know how to lead", to "be a uniter, not a divider", and to want to avoid nation-building imperialism -- all of which he claimed as virtues.

3. I sure hope not. I think it is as likely, or more likely than it was before the invasion of Iraq.

4. It means that your core beliefs pretty much define what life is going to lay on your plate. Sometimes people build up intellectual edifices that deny these core beliefs, intellectually, while still holding them at a deeper level where the real business of their destiny is being transacted. That's all.

I don't teach Avatar, but if I did, the answer to your sarcasm would be the observation that you ARE experiencing reality, exactly as you believe it to be. There really is no other way TO experience reality; but that's a point that is outside the realm of this thread and your own scope, I think.

So, you gonna answer my question about the purpose of your hostilities? Or are you calling an end to them?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 11:07 PM

http://www.montanasnews.com/articles.php?mode=view&id=3452

"..When asked if he thought Bush had gone too far by circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap terrorists, Clinton told ABC's Nightline audience, "As a legal proposition, I don't know."..

..The Echelon system was fairly simple in design: position intercept stations all over the world to capture all satellite, microwave, cellular and fiber-optic communications traffic, and then process this information through the massive computer capabilities of the NSA, including advanced voice recognition and optical character recognition programs. The system would look for code words or phrases (known as the Echelon "Dictionary") that will prompt the computers to flag the message for recording and transcribing for future analysis.

In other words, if I'm discussing terrorism with a colleague, the words "terrorist," "explosives," "weapons," "training," would all be flagged for further surveillance.

Intelligence analysts at each of the respective "listening stations" maintain separate keyword lists for them to analyze any conversation or document flagged by the system, which is then forwarded to the respective intelligence agency headquarters that requested the intercept.

But apart from directing their ears towards terrorists and rogue states, Echelon was also used for purposes well outside its original mission. This regular domestic surveillance targeted American civilians, according to Mr. Poole.

In a May 27, 1999 story in the New York Times, Americans first heard about Echelon. Two congressmen, Republicans Bob Barr and Porter Goss, who now serves as director of Central Intelligence, demanded information on a program they weren't sure even existed. However, Democrats defended Clinton's spying on Americans as a "necessary evil."

But apart from directing their ears towards terrorists and rogue states, Echelon was also used for purposes well outside its original mission. This regular domestic surveillance targeted American civilians...

..In a May 27, 1999 story in the New York Times, Americans first heard about Echelon. Two congressmen, Republicans Bob Barr and Porter Goss, who now serves as director of Central Intelligence, demanded information on a program they weren't sure even existed. However, Democrats defended Clinton's spying on Americans as a "necessary evil." Immediately after coming to office in January 1993, President Clinton added to the corporate espionage machine by creating the National Economic Council, which feeds intelligence to "select" companies to enhance US competitiveness. The capabilities of Echelon to spy on foreign companies is nothing new, but the Clinton administration raised its use to an art..

..When asked if the president should have the authority to order wiretaps without warrants, Clinton said, ''I think that's a decision the Supreme Court would have to resolve.''

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 11:17 PM

Yep, Echelon was pretty damnable. No mistake. FUnny Bush decided to resurrect it under a different name.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 11:26 PM

Avoiding the question again, Mad Dog Guy? Hmmmmm.....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Deda
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 11:59 PM

Hi Amos!

This is some whacked-out interlocutor you're engaging with. You're eloquent, as always. Thanks for continuing to bring the various news items to light.

Old Guy, Amos' past has nothing to do with the new items he's posting. Neither the ACLU, nor AfterDowningStreet, nor any of the majority of Americans who now dissaprove of this president's handling of the war know or care a whit about Amos' life or interests, past or current. His personal life history couldn't be less relevant to the issues he raises here. He's not the issue. If he were raised directly into Heaven tomorrow, the issues about this presidency would be the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 02:27 PM

Hi, Deda!! Thanks for the nice remarks.

Old Guy, this will explain everything.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 03:12 PM

Amos:

So why are you so touchy about your history? Do you feel foolish for pointing out all of GWBs imperfections when you know you have more.

The reason for my questioning of you grip on reality, as evidenced by your accusations of me being a mad dog rabid attacker, is because I think you have a grudge against GWB.

You did not want him to win the election and now you are the one with hostilities.

It says on the net that you deliver avatar. I presume unless it comes in a box, you would have to teach it in order to deliver it. By the wacky wording i see in the description of what it is. I wonder if a normal, every day average person could understand it. It sounds like the Emperors new clothes story gone amok. But the Avatar is just a minute example of all the psycho things you have been involved with.

The thing I object to is your obliteration of anything to put the actions of your enemy GWB into perspective, your refusal to admit that what he does has been done before without the objection of liberals and left wing extremists.

This leads people that do not hold a grudge against GWB to believe that all this blame is just a campaign to get back at GWB for winning.

What other hot wars have occurred? Somalia? Laos? Cambodia? Where was your learned outrage then? Evidently your were complacent then like you accuse the people that are not part of your lynch mob of being.

You refer to Jefferson when it suits you but you refuse to refer to any president when it does not support you effort. You brush off Eschelon as being bad but you won't say who "invented" it or who insisted on it. Are you aware of Carnivore? Will you brush that away as not being significant unless you can use it to make GWB look bad?

I see nothing but hypocrisy, anger, and a desire to get back at someone in your selfish actions and you are doing more harm that good.

My purpose is to point that out and you will no doubt paint me as a rabid, mad, horrible person to Keep yourself insulated from the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 03:21 PM

OG:

Thanks for explaining at length where you're coming from. While I appreciate the effort I can't say it really seems to explain much.

My "grudge" is against political acts, no matter by whom, that undermine the well-being of the country and its citizens, and above all it's legacy as a great human experiment in individual freedom.

If I seem to focus on Bush, it is for the same reason people at the circus once focused on Emmett Kelley, on of Bush's possible mentors. He was in the center ring, with the floodlights and the spotlights on him, and he was the centerpiece of the show. This is the position Georgie wanted for himself, and he has it, but he is not anywhere as competent at carrying it off as he said he would be, or as Kelley was in his day working for Barnum and Bailey.

You have decided this is all hate and grudge; I suggest it is a serious effort to keep in view those steps we are being lead to take down a slippery slope toward fascism.

I think the difference is all-important; to you, apparently, it is "whatever".



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 04:03 PM

Besides, Tweedledumdum, the guy is President of the United States, rightfully or no, and as such he is square in the eye of public opinion. All this crap about "other Presidents" is just smoke and mirrors on your part, a bunch of rotten red mackerels. Why don't you just look openly and squarely at what the current Administration is doing, for a change, instead of gliding off into the past to see if it can be rationalized?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 09:15 PM

Hey, Old Guy, I don't think that Amos is capable of hating a person.... Yeah, just MO... But I have met him, played music with him and there's something about music as a common denominater that kinda cuts thru the crap... Yeah, I know you ain't a musican so I reckon you won't understand that...

Maybe you understand footabll... Remember playin' on that '63 championship team???

You just get into a grrove with folks that you kinda know where they is coming from...

Heck, if you ain't been there with folks then maybe this expalins alot...

But, ahhhhh, you ain't got a clue about Amos... I reckon the only reason you would attack hi is because you ain't all that comfy defending yer guy... You spend a lot of time attacking me, too, rather thah defending yer guy... When you do venture out to defend yer guy, it's either with cut 'n pastes or obscure stuff that ain't got much to do with the subject at hand...

Yeah, you have learned the shuffle well...

Problems is, that's all it is...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 12:44 AM

The Salem, Massachusetts News is of the opinion that the Bush administration is over-stepping in its quest for domination.

WebIndia reports that a global human rights watchdog group has condemned the Administrations violations of basic human rights in their treatment of detainees.

In CHampaign Urbana, the News Gazette reports that the Illinois Governor is quite angry with the Administration, and vilified them in the State of the State Address.

The Canadian Centre for Global Research chides Bush for claiming that revealing his illegal behaviour is treasonous.

In the American Chronicle Senator Wexler calls for full investigation of the domestic spying scandal.

And writing in The Nation Elizabeth de la Vega raises serious questions about the so-called "unitary executive theory" of Presidential powers.

And that's the way it is on Friday night, January 20th 2006.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 02:26 AM

Amos the magnificent:

You have avoided answering the question about where Echelon originated and what Carnivore is. Are you hiding the truth from us again? If you can't blame it on Bush yous don't want to talk about it.

How has your well being been undermined?

I think you have referenced Thomas Jefferson even though you downplay "previous presidents"

Bobert: The beef I got with Amos is he trys to make things seem so bad when it has happened before. He is incapable of putting things into perspective like a rational human being. If you look at his past you will see why he is warped.

I don't hear any music, just vile rhetoric form a sore looser that won't even admit it. Yet he accuses Bush of having a grudge against Saddam for trying to assassinate his Paw.

He is just a hypocrite. He can't stand up to the same dirt digging that he does. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Smoke and mirrors.

If those previous presidents were wrong, where was his rhetoric against them? He didn't have a grudge against them so he was complacent then.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 02:34 AM

January 18, 2006
Hysteria about Bush's spying lacks perspective

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-goldberg1-18jan18,0,7313887.story?coll=all-newsopinionanotherview-hed

"..After 9/11, authorities found a bunch of e-mail addresses and phone numbers in the phones and computers of confirmed terrorists. They tracked down those leads. Most of the people the NSA started eavesdropping on â€" about 7,000 â€" lived overseas, and their phone calls were to other foreigners living abroad. But, according to Risen's book, ''about 500 people'' living in the U.S. who were in contact with suspected terrorists had their communications tapped. Risen calls this ''large-scale'' spying on the American people even though, as the Weekly Standard recently noted, this constitutes ''1.7 ten-thousandths of 1 percent of the U.S. population.''.."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 02:42 AM

Bin Laden Helps Bush on Domestic Spying
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5166369
"..Without meaning to help the president, Osama has weighed in with another of his basement tapes, this one offering a truce in Iraq and Afghanistan but also threatening fresh attacks on the American public sometime in the future. Given his responsibility for the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the leader of Al Qaeda has to be taken seriously -- no matter how mannered and predictable his warnings..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: .Woody
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 10:21 AM

Iraqi leader tells area Rotarians 'true situation'
http://www.thenewsherald.com/stories/012206/loc_20060122001.shtml
By Anne Sullivan
PUBLISHED: January 22, 2006
"Imam Husham Al Husainy speaks Thursday night to Rotarians from several clubs at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in Dearborn on an insider's perspective on Iraq. He told the crowd gathered that Iraqis would always appreciate the liberation from Saddam and are eager to establish a democracy in their nation. ..
..Properly timing the withdrawal of American troops is key to the success of Iraq, he said.
"They appreciate the liberation from Saddam," Al Husainy said. "They will never forget this favor. We owe you a great favor."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 10:58 AM

Old Guy, it is just a little silly to impose on me your arbitrary demands to be the source of research on Echelon, Carnivore, or the 1958 budget for the Department of Agriculture budget, either. I am not your research hound. If you want to remind people what and when Carnivore and Echelon were, by all means, do so.

That something similar happened in the past does not make it right; our current wave of imperialism has not been reached before in scale, cost, or degree of arrogance IMHO.

Perhaps you are of the mind that we should follow the plan laid out in the American Century white paper to dominate the world through force?

These recent posts are much more succinct, relevant to this thread and interesting than your diatribes. Thanks, Woody, also. At least it provides some counterpoint without being all about messengers instead of messages.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Arne
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 03:38 PM

OldGuy:

You have avoided answering the question about where Echelon originated and what Carnivore is. Are you hiding the truth from us again? If you can't blame it on Bush yous don't want to talk about it.

I know a bit about the technology ... hey, I've even seen RFPs for surveillance systems for telecom/IP traffic on major backbones for a certain large foreign country. It ain't easy. I think the "Omnivore" project was undoable, and "Carnivore" not nearly as scary as some people make it out to be. I know the technology of filtering sniffers (for instance, the TopLayer DCFD).   The main problem is a filtering one; the bigger the pipe you want to sniff, the more data you have to filter, and the filters just ain't that good. Another problem is theheterogeneity of the net; one of the design objectives of the IP network was to make it irrelevant what paths were in use. This provided the quite useful quality of redundancy, failure-resilence, and robustness, but it makes the sniffing all the more difficult to do; you have to sniff everywhere< if you want to be sure you're getting the information you want.

But the main issue isn't the technology; it's the use of monitors without oversight. You may have a hard time trying to find a specific thing in your sniff (i.e., something useful like all conversations that are al Qaeda operational discussions, but you can certainly get all kinds of amusing, embarrassing, or blackmailable tidbits just by sniffing promiscuously ... as long as you don't care who it is that you're snooping on).

The scaremongers and conspiracy theorists love to toss out the names "Carnivore" and "Omnivore", hoping the names scare people, but it's really not an issue of whether snooping should beallowed, but why it should be allowed, under what circumsatnces and with what oversight and control. I'm far more worried, not about the technology, but about the process. And that's why it concerns me far more that Dubya's doing warrantless snooping with no oversight than that such snoops are technologically feasible (to the extent that they are). And I'd think you ought to feel the same way.

See this too. I'd rather that control of the sniffers be under the ISPs (as they are under the telcos [here in the U.S.]), with the ISPs providing a check on unauthorised sniffing by requiring warrants be proper before a tap is put in. Then there's this for more background info.

For more on what might be done with Echelon, you should read Bamford's books "The Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets".

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Arne
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 09:41 PM

For OldGuy (who really needs to broaden his reading to beyond the Limbaugh Report and other mouthpieces for the RNC "spin machine" font of lies):

More on the RW slime that Clinton violated FISA with the Echelon program:

Here and here.

Happy reading, OldGuy. You'll feel much better now that you know that Echelon and such really aren't being used for warrantless wiretaps of your dirty laundry ... that is, until Dubya starts using the surveillance infrastructure to bypass the Constitution and the FISA laws and starts acting like a tin-pot dictator with no regard for law....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 10:16 PM

Hey, Old Guy....

I half thought that you were going to stay on messsage but you have regressed back into attacking the messenger...

What happened???

Yer hero's actions are indefensable, I'd gu7ess...

Amos anin't the problem here, pal, but given the atcak, attcak, attack message that Rive has given the brownshirts, I don't find it too surprising to find you back into the attack mode...

Wouldn't it be a lot nicer to be defending ideals and policies???

But, yeah, ya gotta do what yer told...

Hey, no one ever said it would be easy being a brownshirt but seeing that you have signed up, just suck it up, pal...

...and keep them "personal" attacks a'comin 'cause if they ain't comin' then maybe someone might turn yer sorry butt in...

Don't want that to happen 'cause once a brownshirt, hopefully, always a brownshirt...

Right????

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 12:42 AM

Under Clinton, NY Times called surveillance "a necessity"
January 12th, 2006
http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5150
The controversy following revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored suspected terrorist related communications since 9/11 reflects a severe case of selective amnesia by the New York Times and other media opponents of President Bush. They certainly didn't show the same outrage when a much more invasive and indiscriminate domestic surveillance program came to light during the Clinton administration in the 1990's. At that time, the Times called the surveillance "a necessity."

    "If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency." (Steve Kroft, CBS' 60 Minutes)

Those words were aired on February 27, 2000 to describe the National Security Agency and an electronic surveillance program called Echelon whose mission, according to Kroft,

    "is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world."

Echelon was, or is (its existence has been under-reported in the American media), an electronic eavesdropping program conducted by the United States and a few select allies such as the United Kingdom.

Tellingly, the existence of the program was confirmed not by the New York Times or the Washington Post or by any other American media outlet – these were the Clinton years, after all, and the American media generally treats Democrat administrations far more gently than Republican administrations – but by an Australian government official in a statement made to an Australian television news show.

The Times actually defended the existence of Echelon when it reported on the program following the Australians' revelations.

    "Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists…."

And the Times article quoted an N.S.A. official in assuring readers

    "...that all Agency activities are conducted in accordance with the highest constitutional, legal and ethical standards."

Of course, that was on May 27, 1999 and Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, was president.

Even so, the article did admit that

    "...many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information."

Despite the Times' reluctance to emphasize those concerns, one of the sources used in that same article, Patrick Poole, a lecturer in government and economics at Bannock Burn College in Franklin, Tenn., had already concluded in a study cited by the Times story that the program had been abused in both ways.

    "ECHELON is also being used for purposes well outside its original mission. The regular discovery of domestic surveillance targeted at American civilians for reasons of 'unpopular' political affiliation or for no probable cause at all… What was once designed to target a select list of communist countries and terrorist states is now indiscriminately directed against virtually every citizen in the world," Poole concluded.

The Times article also referenced a European Union report on Echelon. The report was conducted after E.U. members became concerned that their citizens' rights may have been violated. One of the revelations of that study was that the N.S.A. used partner countries' intelligence agencies to routinely circumvent legal restrictions against domestic spying.

    "For example, [author Nicky] Hager has described how New Zealand officials were instructed to remove the names of identifiable UKUSA citizens or companies from their reports, inserting instead words such as 'a Canadian citizen' or 'a US company'. British Comint [Communications intelligence] staff have described following similar procedures in respect of US citizens following the introduction of legislation to limit NSA's domestic intelligence activities in 1978."

Further, the E.U. report concluded that intelligence agencies did not feel particularly constrained by legal restrictions requiring search warrants.

    "Comint agencies conduct broad international communications 'trawling' activities, and operate under general warrants. Such operations do not require or even suppose that the parties they intercept are criminals."

The current controversy follows a Times report that, since 9/11, U.S. intelligence agencies are eavesdropping at any time on up to 500 people in the U.S. suspected of conducting international communications with terrorists. Under Echelon, the Clinton administration was spying on just about everyone.

    "The US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world,"

Poole summarized in his study on the program.

According to an April, 2000 article in PC World magazine, experts who studied Echelon concluded that

"Project Echelon's equipment can process 1 million message inputs every 30 minutes."

In the February, 2000 60 Minutes story, former spy Mike Frost made clear that Echelon monitored practically every conversation – no matter how seemingly innocent – during the Clinton years.

    "A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a-a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w-was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist."

    "This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually happened?" Kroft asked.

    "Factual. Absolutely fact. No legend here."

Even as the Times defended Echelon as "a necessity" in 1999, evidence already existed that electronic surveillance had previously been misused by the Clinton Administration for political purposes. Intelligence officials told Insight Magazine in 1997 that a 1993 conference of Asian and Pacific world leaders hosted by Clinton in Seattle had been spied on by U.S. intelligence agencies. Further, the magazine reported that information obtained by the spying had been passed on to big Democrat corporate donors to use against their competitors. The Insight story added that the mis-use of the surveillance for political reasons caused the intelligence sources to reveal the operation.

    "The only reason it has come to light is because of concerns raised by high-level sources within federal law-enforcement and intelligence circles that the operation was compromised by politicians—includingmid- and senior-level White House aides—either on behalf of or in support of President Clinton and major donor-friends who helped him and the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, raise money."

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

    -an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

    -intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

    -and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping. Now, reports that the Bush Administration approved electronic eavesdropping, strictly limited to international communications, of a relative handful of suspected terrorists have created a media frenzy in the Times and elsewhere.

The Times has historically been referred to as "the Grey Lady." That grey is beginning to look just plain grimy, and many of us can no longer consider her a lady.

William Tate is a writer and researcher and former broadcast journalist. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 12:57 AM

Clinton administration plan for FBI spying on email
By Patrick Martin
2 August 2000
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/aug2000/wire-a02_prn.shtml

The Clinton administration announced July 17 that it would seek broad powers to compel Internet Service Providers to allow FBI monitoring of email messages, using a powerful software package devised by the police agency and given the ominous title of "Carnivore."

In its familiar style, the White House is packaging this reactionary plan as a "reform," presenting an expansion of wiretapping as an effort to set limits on the FBI and insure civil liberties. Chief of Staff John D. Podesta, in a speech to the National Press Club, declared, "It's time to update and harmonize our existing laws to give all forms of technology the same legislative protections as our telephone conversations."

Conflicting laws currently regulate police surveillance and interception of various modes of private communication in the United States. For example, telephone calls may only be wiretapped by the police with a court order, while there is no legal restriction on the interception of ordinary email. Communications routed over cable modems are effectively immune from interception, since police are required to obtain a court order after a judicial process in which the target of the surveillance has the right to challenge it.

These contradictions are a byproduct of the rapid development of communications technology. Email messages have little legal protection because until recently it was technologically impractical for the FBI to monitor them systematically. Carnivore was only developed in the last 18 months, as a modification of a software program typically used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) known as a "packet sniffer." It sorts through the stream of data entering an ISP to find the senders and recipients of email to and from the target of surveillance.

Because Carnivore examines every email message handled through a given ISP, it closely resembles a form of telephone surveillance called a "trunk side" wiretap, in which the tap is placed, not on a particular phone, but in a telephone company switching center. Such wiretaps have been illegal in the United States for more than 30 years, since they give police access to all phone calls rather than those of a specific target. Under the Clinton administration plan, the email equivalent of such illegal wiretaps would now be permissible.

Opponents of the legislation have pointed out that there is no way to insure, once Carnivore is installed on an ISP, that the FBI would limit itself to monitoring the email of one targeted individual. The agency would be accountable only to itself. It has refused to release the source code for Carnivore, citing the proprietary interest of the companies which helped develop it, but also because, as one official said, "people might go to work on how to beat the system. We're not interested in getting into that race."

Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the plan to install Carnivore, saying it "represents a grave threat to the privacy of all Americans by giving law enforcement agencies unsupervised access to a nearly unlimited amount of communications traffic."

The Clinton administration's posture is that messages sent over the Internet should be treated in the same way as telephone calls. That is, monitoring ordinary email should require a court order (a restriction of police power), while monitoring email over cable lines should be made easier. But in practice, given the different character of email and telephone communication, the proposed measure amounts to a sweeping expansion of police powers.

For instance, current law gives police virtually unlimited right to "transaction" surveillance of telephone calls. Telephone companies routinely hand over to the police, on request, logs of all calls made from a particular telephone and to whom. This power would now be extended by requiring ISPs to provide police the logs of email messages, when they were sent and to whom, as well as the record of web sites visited.

This power is a much more serious threat to political freedom than telephone logs, which reveal far less about the content of the communication being monitored. A list of web sites visited can tell a great deal about the political beliefs of someone targeted for police surveillance. Moreover, police cannot seek access to the content of phone calls when they learn of them after the fact from a log. Email messages, however, are recorded automatically by the Internet Service Provider. Accordingly, there will be intense pressure to divulge the content of messages once the police learn of their existence.

The email monitoring program would have worldwide implications, since it would apply to all communications that either begin or end in the United States. It would not apply to email messages transmitted entirely outside the country, but these could be monitored if they pass through an ISP based in the US—as do many email messages between European countries, for instance. The FBI recently objected to the takeover of a US-based Internet provider by the Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, citing "national security" considerations. According to one report, "the focus of the FBI's complaint is about preserving wiretap capabilities when an Internet service provider (ISP) is foreign-owned."

The FBI is also pressuring makers of Internet equipment and software to insure that the next generation of Internet technologies have "wiretap-friendly" features. This amounts to an effort by the agency to assume powers that were specifically barred to it in the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which excluded the Internet from federal police spying.

Congressional reaction to the White House plan was mixed, with most Democrats supporting it. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont cited the refusal of some ISPs to execute court orders for wiretapping, declaring, "If an ISP says it will not or cannot execute the order, what is the FBI supposed to do?" There was more opposition among congressional Republicans, citing either privacy considerations or concern that federal monitoring could be a prelude to other forms of regulation of the Internet, or taxation.

Neither party voiced any opposition to the widespread phenomenon of corporate spying on the email and Internet use of workers. An American Management Association survey released last month found that nearly three quarters of all companies conduct such monitoring actively, while one quarter have fired workers as a result.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Arne
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 01:38 AM

Say, "Guest":

Maybe you should have read my links before you cut'n'pasted reams of RW "spin". Your points have been "asked and answered" there. Now, I'm not going to clutter the thread with reams more of cut'n'paste; rather, I'd refer you to the links I provided, and if there's anything of your "talking points" you think are left standing after that, maybe we can discuss 'em.

Even so, the article did admit that

    "...many are concerned that the system could be abused to collect economic and political information."

Yeah, well, perhaps. When the preznit decides that laws don't pertain to him 'cause he's the new king, and he's going to turn the gummint and the military into his own Speznatz. Give you the warm fuzzies there?

According to an April, 2000 article in PC World magazine, experts who studied Echelon concluded that

"Project Echelon's equipment can process 1 million message inputs every 30 minutes."

Whoopdedoo. I installed a message server that delivered (for one of the second-tier U.S. carriers) a half million messages an hour. Hate to say it, but I'm not impressed. I've seen much bigger proposals on the board, and that's not even a fraction of worldwide traffic.

    "A lady had been to a school play the night before, and her son was in the school play and she thought he did a-a lousy job. Next morning, she was talking on the telephone to her friend, and she said to her friend something like this, 'Oh, Danny really bombed last night,' just like that. The computer spit that conversation out. The analyst that was looking at it was not too sure about what the conversation w-was referring to, so erring on the side of caution, he listed that lady and her phone number in the database as a possible terrorist."

    "This is not urban legend you're talking about. This actually happened?" Kroft asked.

That's crap. Nice for scaring the masses, but that's crap.

So, during the Clinton Administration, evidence existed (all of the information used in this article was available at the time) that:

    -an invasive, extensive domestic eavesdropping program was aimed at every U.S. citizen;

    -intelligence agencies were using allies to circumvent constitutional restrictions;

    -and the administration was selling at least some secret intelligence for political donations.

This is even a bigger load of horse-patooties. If you're believing people that are teling you this, you're being played for a sucker.

I do have some knowledge in this field from a technical standpoint, and while I am sympathetic to privacy rights, I don't want people to cry wolf too often, particularly based on bogus stories. It makes the real incursions into our privacy, when they happen, sound like more of the same hysteria mongering. I've personally come out against the "free bite at the apple" that the FBI has asked for under the CALEA act, and against the "emergency" taps. I think these are way too prone to misuse; "emergencies" happen because the cops are too lazy to do the legwork they need to do to get a proper warrant (the Mark Furhman jumping the wall at Brentwood is a prime example). I think, even in cases of "extreme national emergency", if the LEAs think they need to do something urgently, then go for it and break trhe law to do what you think you have to do. Just don't expect that the results will hold up in a court of law, and don't expect a lot of sympathy from a judge when you say you did it. But if it's such a freakin' emergency, then you will have the satisfaction of having done the "right thing" in your mind, and if you really were justified, you'll have the satisfaction of having achieved some "greater good". For this, you can give yourself a pat on the back, and maybe if others think (in the cold light of facts afterwards) that you indeed did something for the greater good, they may go easy on your law-breaking. This would cut back a bit on people who are just using the "emergency" as an excuse, or who really weren't doing anyone a service. FWIW, I think that perhaps half of the trap'n'traces I saw on the board one place were actually "emergency" locations, used to try and find missing people, rather than actual snooping on the bad guys. And a number of letters of thanks for helping out in finding these people (I would guess, suicidal people or missing kids, and the like). A public service, I'd say. But even in these cases, AFAIK they were done with a warrant.

These revelations were met by the New York Times and others in the mainstream media by the sound of one hand clapping.

Bcause they weren't particularly credible.

Now, reports that the Bush Administration approved electronic eavesdropping, strictly limited to international communications, of a relative handful of suspected terrorists have created a media frenzy in the Times and elsewhere.

Mainly because they were being done without oversight and without warrants and probable cause. That is to say, in direct contravention of the law.

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 01:56 AM

January 21, 2006
Editorial, New York Times

Fishing in Cyberspace

Enough is never enough, not when the government believes that it can
invade your privacy without repercussions. The Justice Department
wants a federal judge to force Google to turn over millions of
private Internet searches. Google is rightly fighting the demand, but
the government says America Online, Yahoo and MSN, Microsoft's online
service, have already complied with similar requests.

This is not about national security. The Justice Department is making
this baldfaced grab to try to prop up an online pornography law that
has been blocked once by the Supreme Court. And it's not the first
time we've seen this sort of behavior. The government has zealously
protected the Patriot Act's power to examine library records. It
sought the private medical histories of a selected group of women,
saying it needed the information to defend the Partial-Birth Abortion
Ban Act in the federal courts.

The furor is still raging over President Bush's decision to permit
spying on Americans without warrants. And the government now wants
what could be billions of search terms entered into Google's Web
pages and possibly a million Web-site addresses to go along with them.

Protecting minors from the nastier material on the Internet is a
valid goal; the courts have asked the government to test whether
technologies for filtering out the bad stuff are effective. And the
government hasn't asked for users' personal data this time around.
What's frightening is that the Justice Department is trying once
again to dredge up information first and answer questions later, if
at all. Had Google not resisted the government's attempt to seize
records, would the public have ever found about the request? ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 09:35 AM

What next, the SWAT team bustin' into Max's basement and carryin' off Mudcat???

I mean, let's get real...

In the words of Larry the Cable Guy: "What the Hell is this, Russia?"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 11:56 AM

Another report from the Onion on the Rove leak scandal:

Rove Implicated In Santa Identity Leak



WASHINGTON, DC—The recent leak revealing Santa Claus to be "your mommy and daddy" has been linked to President Bush's senior political adviser and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

"If this devastating leak, which severely undermines the security of children everywhere and has compromised parent-child relations, came from the highest levels of the White House, that is an outrage," said former Bush counterterrorism adviser and outspoken Bush Administration critic Richard Clarke.

The identity of the mythical holiday gift-giver, previously known only in grown-up circles, was published in the popular Timbertoes cartoon in the December issue of Highlights For Children. Jean Abrams, a conservative firebrand known to have close ties to Bush appointees in the Department of Education, revealed "Santa" to be a code name for anonymous parental gift-giving. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 11:58 AM

I am sure Google would have turned them over if the feds had offered to pay. They sell them to anybody that forks over the geetus.

The other portals have allready complied out of patriotic and civic duty as opposed to Google's monetary greed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 08:20 PM

Pretty glib opinions, G. Any facts around behind them?

Your ideal scene, then, is for every citizen to do everything the Government demands? That's your definition of patriotism? What a brave new world you belong to!

In other news the Los Angeles Times reports on the fiscal deftness of our warmaking:

"War's stunning price tag
By Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz
LAST WEEK, at the annual meeting of the American Economic Assn., we presented a new estimate for the likely cost of the war in Iraq. We suggested that the final bill will be much higher than previously reckoned — between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, depending primarily on how much longer our troops stay. Putting that into perspective, the highest-grossing movie of all time, "Titanic," earned $1.8 billion worldwide — about half the cost the U.S. incurs in Iraq every week.

Like the iceberg that hit the Titanic, the full costs of the war are still largely hidden below the surface. Our calculations include not just the money for combat operations but also the costs the government will have to pay for years to come. These include lifetime healthcare and disability benefits for returning veterans and special round-the-clock medical attention for many of the 16,300 Americans who already have been seriously wounded. We also count the increased cost of replacing military hardware because the war is using up equipment at three to five times the peacetime rate. In addition, the military must pay large reenlistment bonuses and offer higher benefits to reenlist reluctant soldiers. On top of this, because we finance the war by borrowing more money (mostly from abroad), there is a rising interest cost on the extra debt.

ADVERTISEMENT

Our study also goes beyond the budget of the federal government to estimate the war's cost to the economy and our society. It includes, for instance, the true economic costs of injury and death. For example, if an individual is killed in an auto or work-related accident, his family will typically receive compensation for lost earnings. Standard government estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death are about $6 million. But the military pays out far less — about $500,000. Another cost to the economy comes from the fact that 40% of our troops are taken from the National Guard and Reserve units. These troops often earn lower wages than in their civilian jobs. Finally, there are macro-economic costs such as the effect of higher oil prices — partly a result of the instability in Iraq.

We conclude that the economy would have been much stronger if we had invested the money in the United States instead of in Iraq.

Spending up to $2 trillion should make us ask some questions. First, these figures are far higher than what the administration predicted before the war. At that time, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey was effectively fired for suggesting that the war might cost up to $200 billion, rather than the $60 billion claimed by the president's budget office. Why were the costs so vastly underestimated? Elsewhere in the government, it is standard practice to engage in an elaborate cost-benefit analysis for major projects. The war in Iraq was a war of choice, an immense "project," and yet it now appears that there was virtually no analysis of the likely costs of a prolonged occupation.

Could we have fought the war in ways that would have protected our troops better and cost the country less? A Pentagon study apparently concludes that better body armor would have prevented many deaths and injuries. Penny-pinching in such matters during the rush to war has led to steep long-run costs for the nation and, tragically, for the individuals involved.

Even more fundamentally, there is the question of whether we needed to spend the money at all. Thinking back to the months before the war, there were few reasons to invade quickly, and many to go slow. The Bush policy of threatened force had pressured Iraq into allowing the U.N. inspectors back into the country. The inspectors said they required a few months to complete their work. Several of our closest allies, including France and Germany, were urging the U.S. to await the outcome of the inspections. There were, as we now know, conflicting intelligence reports.

Had we waited, the value of the information we would have learned from the inspectors would arguably have saved the nation at least $1 trillion — enough money to fix Social Security for the next 75 years twice over."

---

Just imagine, a trillion dollars worth of renewable energy systems, or research. We'd be far away from the oil nipple if we had estimated the situation a little more intelligently.

Pity, huh?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Fwank
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 11:50 PM

NEWSFLASH, JANUARY 20, 2006 Experts confirmed today that a taped message aired on Al-Jazeera television was not only from Osama Bin Laden, but completely scripted by Bush cabinet member Karl Rove.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 01:20 AM

Amos has managed to put off answering questions about who was behind the creation of Eschelon and Carnivore because it invalidates his position against Bush.

He has also avoided answering how his quality of life has been undermined.

He says whetever happened in previous wars and administrations does not matter but I have collected a few of his references to them and references to references to them which illustrates his hypocracy:

From: Amos - PM
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 04:54 PM

Excerpted from a thoughtful essay in the Christian Science Monitor, To the Founders, Congress was king

By John Dillin | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
AMERICA'S expanding involvement abroad, and the need to maintain a large peacetime US military force in dozens of other nations, has also added to presidential power. Berkin says America's modern presidency, with all its trappings, would be "unimaginable" to men like Madison, Washington, and Franklin. Of all those historic figures at the 1787 Convention, perhaps only Alexander Hamilton would relish today's playing of "Hail to the Chief."

Subject: RE: BS: America's New Half-Wit Army
From: Amos - PM
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 01:45 PM

I recall one Revolution where it worked handsomely. It was a rough slog, though...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 01:42 AM

Bobert: Here are two examples of why flies are always buzzin' aroumd your shoes:

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert - PM
Date: 12 Nov 05 - 12:11 AM

Amos, just fir thr record, doesn't do cut 'n pastes, Old Guy. He posts real stories and real op-eds that appear in the corner newspapers... Big difference between that, since he has to go out into th real world or reportin' and find his material rather than go to some right wingnut web site thast has all this corportist bought crap all prepared so, one click 'n yer off on a smoke break!!!!

Purdy disgustin'.... All my stuff is orignial... Well, yeah, I read the Post cover to cover and read as lot of other stuff and even watch the corporate news on TV an' then afetr takin' all it in, come out with what I* have gleaned to be the truth...

I don't go to Move on 'er nuthuin".... All ya' gotta do is read the Post and the Sunday NY times an you can get the big piccure...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos - PM
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 11:56 AM

Another report from the Onion on the Rove leak scandal:

Rove Implicated In Santa Identity Leak



WASHINGTON, DC�The recent leak revealing Santa Claus to be "your mommy and daddy" has been linked to President Bush's senior political adviser and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

"If this devastating leak, which severely undermines the security of children everywhere and has compromised parent-child relations, came from the highest levels of the White House, that is an outrage," said former Bush counterterrorism adviser and outspoken Bush Administration critic Richard Clarke.

The identity of the mythical holiday gift-giver, previously known only in grown-up circles, was published in the popular Timbertoes cartoon in the December issue of Highlights For Children. Jean Abrams, a conservative firebrand known to have close ties to Bush appointees in the Department of Education, revealed "Santa" to be a code name for anonymous parental gift-giving. ...

Big pictures from the NY Times:

"Iraq Has Network of Outside Help on Arms, Experts Say", New York Times, November 20, 1998, By Barbara Crossette

"AFTER THE ATTACKS: THE OVERVIEW; U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production Of Chemical Weapons in Sudan", New York Times, August 25, 1998, by Steven Lee Myers

"Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort", New York Times, February 8, 2000, By Barbara Crossette

"Signs of Iraqi Arms Buildup Bedevil U.S. Administration", New York Times, February 1, 2000, By Steven Lee Myers

"FLIGHT TESTS SHOW IRAQ HAS RESUMED A MISSILE PROGRAM", New York Times, July 1, 2000, By Steven Lee Myers

"C.I.A. Orders Inquiry Into Charges of Chemical Arms Cover-Up", New York Times, November 2, 1996, by Philip Shenon

"Czechs Say They Warned U.S. Of Chemical Weapons in Gulf", New York Times, October 19, 1996, By Philip Shenon

"C.I.A. REPORT SAYS IT FAILED TO SHARE DATA ON IRAQ ARMS", New York Times, April 10, 1997, By Philip Shenon

"U.N. Reveals New Evidence Of Gas From 2d Iraqi Depot", New York Times, July 30, 1997, By Philip Shenon

"Expert Panel Says Pentagon Ignored Evidence of Poison Gas", New York Times, October 31, 1997, By Philip Shenon

"Clinton Says Iraq's Balking Over Weapons Will Backfire", New York Times, November 3, 1998, By Philip Shenon

But Old Guy, those NY Times aticles are from the 90's.

Yeah the NY Times was either full of shit then or it is full of shit now. If they were full of shit then why pay attention to more of the same?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 08:15 AM

Twist, twist, twist.


Sooooo bitter.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 09:06 AM

Check the dates of yer material, Old-ster... Hey, the stuff I report and Amos posts is current affairs, not ancient history...

You remind me of a Russian watch that was given to me back during the 1st Gulf War.... Folks would ask me if it kept good time and I'd say, "Yeah, just 10 years behind..."

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 09:11 AM

There is nothing about Carnivore or Echelon that does any such thing, Old G.

If Bush committed first-degree murder, rather the political and mililtary sort of which he is so fond, you'd justify it on the grounds that some people accused Clinton of something similar once.

The issue is not really Bush, as a person, and you are mistaken that I hate him individually, although I have often thought of him as stupid.

What I hate is the desecration he perpetrates.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 09:59 AM

Oh, dear. The Bush Administration is under the gun again.

1. "McCain criticizes administration for domestic surveillance

BY MICHAEL MCAULIFFNew York Daily News
WASHINGTON -

The top Republican contender in most presidential polls for 2008 slapped the Bush administration Sunday over its domestic spying program - and its insistence on using national security as a political stick.

Arizona Sen. John McCain said he doesn't think President Bush has the authority that he has claimed to wiretap Americans without warrants. But McCain added Bush could probably get the OK from Congress.
"Why not come to Congress?" McCain said on "Fox News Sunday." "I know of no member of Congress, frankly, who has said that if the administration came and said here is why we need this capability, that they wouldn't get it."

He also criticized comments last week by the president's top political adviser, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who told a national Republican meeting that the party should make security the top issue of the 2006 elections.

"Republicans have a post-9/11 world view and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 world view," Rove said, pointing to Democratic concerns over the Patriot Act and the spy program.

McCain shot back, "There's too many good Democrats over there who are as concerned about national security and work just as hard as I do. ... There's nothing wrong with disagreeing, with questioning, with debate and discussion." ...

---

Thus, John McCain, a reasonable Republican.

2. Harry Belafonte, once a revered entertainer, has somewhat harder views of our current leadership:

"Belafonte: Bush administration backs Gestapo tactics


By VERENA DOBNIK
Associated Press Writer

January 21, 2006


NEW YORK -- Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration's harshest critics, compared the national Homeland Security department to the Gestapo and attacked the president as a liar during a fiery Saturday speech.

"We've come to this dark time in which the Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte told thousands of people at the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference.

"You can be arrested and not charged, you can be arrested and have no right to counsel," said Belafonte, who called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" during a trip to Venezuela two weeks ago. Belafonte, 78, made that comment after a meeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

The Harlem-born Belafonte, who was raised in Jamaica, said his activism was inspired by an impoverished mother "who imbued in me that we should never capitulate to oppression."

He acknowledged that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks demanded a reaction by the United States, but charged that the policies of the Bush administration were not the right response

Bush, he said, was a president "who has risen to power somewhat dubiously and ... then lies to the people of this nation, misleads them, misinstructs, and then sends off hundreds of thousands of our own boys and girls to a foreign land that has not aggressed against us." ...

---

3. The Kingsport, Tennessee, Times News wonders publically whether Bush has crossed over the line of unacceptable harm.

4.   And from Rock Island, Iowa, a reader writes:

"Under the rule of Mao Tse Tung, in Communist China communities lived under the fear of their own kind spying on them and turning them in for even disagreeing with the government. These people feared arrest and imprisonment for their beliefs. I can't help but feel that we no longer have a president leading this country, but a dictator that thinks he can do as he sees fit. This does not instill confidence in our current leaders, but fear of our neighbors and our government.

Greg Graf

Rock Island"

---

I am sure the G-gang will accuse me of ranting here, so please forgive my intemperate dramatization.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 03:31 PM

WASHINGTON - An adviser to President Bush said Monday that Bush's photographs in the company of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff amount to a coincidence and shouldn't be interpreted any more seriously than that.
"He doesn't have a personal relationship with him," White House counselor Dan Bartlett said of Bush and Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from his lobbying practices and has pledged to cooperate with government prosecutors.
"We acknowledge he (Abramaoff) attended some Hannukuah celebrations," Bartlett said in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show. "Any suggestions by critics or anyone else to suggest the president is doing something nefarious with Abramoff is absurd."
Bush himself has said that he doesn't recall meeting Abramoff.
Both Washingtonian and Time magazines have reported the existence of about a half-dozen photos showing the two together, however.
Time reported on its Web site Sunday that its staff members have seen at least six photos featuring Bush and Abramoff. They appeared to have been taken at White House functions, according to the reports.
On ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday, Bartlett said, "I don't think it's a surprise to anybody that there's probably widely-gathered events where the president does photo-line opportunities."
The White House has not released any photos featuring the president and Abramoff, who was declared a Bush "pioneer" for raising at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney '04 re-election campaign.
Contributions that came directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the American Indian tribes he represented - a total of $6,000 - were donated to the American Heart Association by the campaign just days after Abramoff entered his guilty pleas.
The White House, after playing down the Bush-Abramoff photos and the lobbyist's ties to the president, criticized Abramoff for breaking the law. "Mr. Abramoff admitted being involved in outrageous wrongdoing," spokeswoman Dana Perino said Sunday.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 04:53 PM

Well, BUsh has decided to take his cmapaign for spying on the road...

Hmmmmmmmm?

Last month he was pissed off at the media for snitchin' on him this month he's going to go out and explain the virtues of it???

Like something don't add up here???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 06 - 08:48 PM

View from the Darker Side:

(LA Times)

"Bush Steps Up Defense of Wiretaps, Patriot Act
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- President Bush today strongly defended the National Security Agency's spying on Americans and the Patriot Act — calling both legitimate tools in the fight against terrorism — as he launched a public embrace of the eavesdropping and sought to turn it into a political advantage.

Arguing that his administration had repeatedly informed congressional leaders about the NSA program, the president said, "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"

ADVERTISEMENT


Bush offered his lengthiest public explanation of what the administration has taken to calling the "terrorist surveillance program" since it was revealed last month, much to his dismay.

Referring approvingly to a 2004 Supreme Court case, he told an audience here: "I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you what it means: It means Congress gave me the authority to use necessary force to protect the American people, but it didn't prescribe the tactics. It said, 'Mr. President, you've got the power to protect us, but we're not going to tell you how.'"

The court said that the resolution Congress passed shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks granting Bush the authority to use whatever force necessary to protect the nation from terrorism gave him, as commander in chief, the power to hold prisoners who were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 11:07 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said Tuesday it would provide $119 million in funding for research into hydrogen fuel cells, touting the automotive technology as a way to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, touring the Washington Auto Show, said the money would fund projects to help overcome some of the barriers "in getting technology out of the laboratory and out onto the test track."

"We are well past the point where we see that it can be done, and now we're at the point of figuring out how it can be done _ affordably and safely," Bodman said.

The funding is part of President Bush's $1.7 billion hydrogen research program, first detailed in 2003. The government and automakers have been working to develop vehicles powered by pollution-free hydrogen fuel cells, which could reduce demand for imported oil while cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Many obstacles remain _ fuel cell vehicles are extremely expensive to produce and lack an infrastructure of fueling stations to make them viable. The government has said it hopes hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be available in car showrooms by 2020.

The Energy Department would provide up to $100 million during the next four years for research projects to improve various components of fuel cell systems, with the goal of improving performance and lowering cost by 2010.

Another $19 million will be devoted toward a dozen research projects looking at the components involved in using hydrogen to create electricity. The projects will be conducted in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 08:19 PM

Future American lawyers to be proud of.
... and Alberto Gonzales.

http://insomnia.livejournal.com/652389.html?nc=2&style=mine
[A few good pictures on the website]

Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today,
justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but
during the course of his speech the students in class did
something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats
and turned their backs to him.

To make matters worse for Gonzales, additional students came
into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner,
written on a sheet.
[The good Ben Franklin quote: "Those who would sacrifice liberty
for security deserve neither"]

Fortunately for him, it was a brief speech... followed by a
panel discussion that basically ripped his argument a new
asshole.

And, as one of the people on the panel said,

"When you're a law student, they tell you if say that if you
can't argue the law, argue the facts. They also tell you if you
can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue either,
apparently, the solution is to go on a public relations
offensive and make it a political issue... to say over and over
again "it's lawful", and to think that the American people will
somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough.

In light of this, I'm proud of the very civil civil disobedience
that was shown here today." - David Cole, Georgetown University
Law Professor

It was a good day for dissent.

---

And from the WP:

Bush the Incompetent
By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A19

Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.

In numbing profusion, the newspapers are filled with litanies of screw-ups. Yesterday's New York Times brought news of the first official assessment of our reconstruction efforts in Iraq, in which the government's special inspector general depicted a policy beset, as Times reporter James Glanz put it, "by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting [and] secrecy." At one point, rebuilding efforts were divided, bewilderingly and counterproductively, between the Army Corps of Engineers and, for projects involving water, the Navy. That's when you'd think a president would make clear in no uncertain terms that bureaucratic turf battles would not be allowed to impede Iraq's reconstruction. But then, the president had no guiding vision for how to rebuild Iraq -- indeed, he went to war believing that such an undertaking really wouldn't require much in the way of American treasure and American lives.

It's the president's prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. ...

---

Mr. Abramoff's Meetings

Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A18

HERE ARE SOME things we know about Jack Abramoff and the White House: The disgraced lobbyist raised at least $100,000 for President Bush's reelection campaign. He had long-standing ties to Karl Rove, a key presidential adviser. He had extensive dealings with executive branch officials and departments -- one of whom, former procurement chief David H. Safavian, has been charged by federal prosecutors with lying to investigators about his involvement with Mr. Abramoff.

We also know that Mr. Abramoff is an admitted crook who was willing to bribe members of Congress and their staffs to get what he (or his clients) wanted. In addition to attending a few White House Hanukkah parties and other events at which he had his picture snapped with the president, Mr. Abramoff had, according to the White House, "a few staff-level meetings" with White House aides.


I'm Feeling . . . Surveilled

» Eugene Robinson | As its servers fill up with our dreams, ambitions, beliefs and fears, Google can know too much. It's no surprise the administration wants in on the action.
Dionne: Rove's Early Warning
Miller: Palestinian Leadership Crisis
Achenblog: Jack Bauer's Lesson for Teenagers
OPINIONS SECTION: Froomkin, Toles, More

Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
This Century Sucks - A Fair and Balanced Look at the Continuing Corrupt and Evil Whistle Ass Administration
Bloggers Didn't Rock The Vote In Canada (markus.blog-city.com)
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On washingtonpost.com | On the web


Here is what we don't know about Jack Abramoff and the White House: whom he met with and what was discussed. Nor, if the White House sticks to its current position, will we learn that anytime soon. Press secretary Scott McClellan told the White House press corps: "If you've got some specific issue that you need to bring to my attention, fine. But what we're not going to do is engage in a fishing expedition that has nothing to do with the investigation."

This is not a tenable position. It's undisputed that Mr. Abramoff tried to use his influence, and his restaurant and his skyboxes and his chartered jets, to sway lawmakers and their staffs. Information uncovered by Mr. Bush's own Justice Department shows that Mr. Abramoff tried to do the same inside the executive branch.

Under these circumstances, asking about Mr. Abramoff's White House meetings is no mere exercise in reportorial curiosity but a legitimate inquiry about what an admitted felon might have been seeking at the highest levels of government. Whatever White House officials did or didn't do, there is every reason to believe that Mr. Abramoff was up to no good and therefore every reason the public ought to know with whom he was meeting....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 09:24 PM

Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today,
justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but
during the course of his speech the students in class did
something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats
and turned their backs to him.

To make matters worse for Gonzales, additional students came
into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner,
written on a sheet.
[The good Ben Franklin quote: "Those who would sacrifice liberty
for security deserve neither"]

Fortunately for him, it was a brief speech... followed by a
panel discussion that basically ripped his argument a new
asshole.

And, as one of the people on the panel said,

"When you're a law student, they tell you if say that if you
can't argue the law, argue the facts. They also tell you if you
can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue either,
apparently, the solution is to go on a public relations
offensive and make it a political issue... to say over and over
again "it's lawful", and to think that the American people will
somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough.

In light of this, I'm proud of the very civil civil disobedience
that was shown here today." - David Cole, Georgetown University
Law Professor

It was a good day for dissent.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 06 - 10:54 PM

A remark from a correspondent:


http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/the_security_th_1.html

        ``In defending this secret spying on Americans, Bush said that
        he relied on his constitutional powers (Article 2) and the joint
        resolution passed by Congress after 9/11 that led to the war in
        Iraq. This rationale was spelled out in a memo written by John Yoo,
        a White House attorney, less than two weeks after the attacks of
        9/11. It's a dense read and a terrifying piece of legal contortionism,
        but it basically says that the president has unlimited powers to
        fight terrorism. He can spy on anyone, arrest anyone, and kidnap
        anyone and ship him to another country ... merely on the suspicion
        that he might be a terrorist. And according to the memo, this power
        lasts until there is no more terrorism in the world.''

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 10:42 AM

US Senators Say Bush Administration Restricting Information in Katrina Response Probe
By VOA News
25 January 2006

Congressional leaders say the White House is refusing to cooperate in an investigation of its response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the U.S. Gulf coast last year.

Speaking in Washington on Wednesday, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman said his staff members were told by federal agency officials the White House has barred them from answering questions pertaining to the probe. Republican Senator Susan Collins also criticized the White House for going too far in restricting information.

A White House spokesman has said the administration is cooperating with the Katrina probe, but added that it wants to protect the confidentiality of presidential advisors.

---

http://www.opednews.com

DUMMERSTON, Vt. — President Bush and other members of his administration have been fanning out around the country this week in a public relations blitz to sell the nation on the idea that their campaign domestic surveillance (or, as they call it, their "terrorist surveillance program") is legal and necessary to national security.
The administration is trying to convince us, as they have for the past few weeks, that no laws were broken. They continue to push the idea that the post-9/11 world means that there is no time for legal niceties such as warrants and court orders. If the president says something needs to be done, it needs to be done.
They keep saying this over and over, as if by sheer repetition, they can convince people that they did nothing wrong.
However, it doesn't matter how many times they say they didn't break the law.
It doesn't matter, because they are all lying.
This fact is indisputable: the Bush administration has repeatedly violated the Fourth Amendment, which clearly states "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
In other words, if you are going to search or spy on someone, you have to have to convince a court that you have probable cause to do so before you can get a warrant.
The Foreign Intelligence Services Act (FISA) gives the Bush administration all the power it needs to spy on terror suspects. All it has to do is go to the secret FISA court and request a warrant. The law even gives the government a full 72 hours to ask for a warrant, allowing it to spy first and seek a warrant later if time is of the essence.
The FISA court has approved all but four of the more than 10,000 warrant requests presented to it since 1978, so the bar of legality is set extremely low.
So, if the FISA law is so easy to comply with, why did the Bush administration brazenly violate that law? Because Bush is claiming the right as commander-in-chief to violate any U.S. law on the grounds of national security.
The Bush administration is also claiming a different standard than the Fourth Amendment. They have ordered surveillance based upon "reasonable belief," rather than probable cause. In other words, if they reasonably believe a person has ties to al-Qaida, they have the right to spy on them. They don't need to show probable cause, which remains the accepted standard in a court of law.

....

---

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 06 - 06:54 PM

The Power-Madness of King George

Is Bush turning America into an elective dictatorship?
By Jacob Weisberg in Slate
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006, at 3:44 PM ET

It's tempting to dismiss the debate about the National Security Agency spying on Americans as a technical conflict about procedural rights. President Bush believes he has the legal authority to order electronic snooping without asking anyone's permission. Civil libertarians and privacy-fretters think Bush needs a warrant from the special court created to authorize wiretapping in cases of national security. But in practice, the so-called FISA court that issues such warrants functions as a virtual rubber stamp for the executive branch anyhow, so what's the great difference in the end?

Would that so little were at stake. In fact, the Senate hearings on NSA domestic espionage set to begin next month will confront fundamental questions about the balance of power within our system. Even if one assumes that every unknown instance of warrant-less spying by the NSA were justified on security grounds, the arguments issuing from the White House threaten the concept of checks and balances as it has been understood in America for the last 218 years. Simply put, Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they're asserting won't be a temporary condition.

This extremity of Bush's position emerges most clearly in a 42-page document issued by the Department of Justice last week. As Andrew Cohen, a CBS legal analyst, wrote in an online commentary, "The first time you read the 'White Paper,' you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution." To develop this observation a bit further, the nation implied by the document would be an elective dictatorship, governed not by three counterpoised branches of government but by a secretive, possibly benign, awesomely powerful king.

---

In other news, MoveOn is requesting wide public support in blocking Mister Bush's power grab:

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Samuel Alito. Every Democrat voted against— the first nomination to lose every minority party vote in 90 years.1 The nomination now goes to the full Senate for a final vote, which could happen in less than a week.

Many of the committee Democrats based their historic opposition on what the New York Times called Alito's "extreme views on presidential authority."2 President Bush claims the power to detain American citizens without trial, torture at will, and spy, apparently illegally, on our private conversations. Confirming Alito to the Supreme Court would threaten the last real check against presidential abuse of power.

The next few days are the last chance we have to influence the Senate before the final vote. So, today, we're aiming to send in 10,000 letters to the editor to newspapers around the country, opposing the nomination of Samuel Alito and Bush's plan to put himself above the law.

You can write and submit your letter online right now, at:

http://www.moveon.org/lte/index.html?lte_campaign_id=44&id=6713-137503-TzJp5.69fYWMrXqR_9bOcA&t=2

Filling the nation's editorial pages with citizens' letters connecting Alito and the Bush power grab is one of the most effective ways we can show the Senate that we understand the stakes and are counting on them to stand up. And it's important to act now, because the Democrats and moderate Republicans who oppose Alito have still not decided if they will mount a filibuster to block his nomination—but they must decide soon.

Senator Leahy, the top Democratic senator on the Judiciary Committee, put it well yesterday: "The president is in the midst of a radical realignment of the powers of the government and its intrusiveness into the private lives of Americans...this nomination is part of that plan."3

Here are some key areas where Alito's record makes him a sure bet to back Bush's grab for unchecked power:


The spying scandal: Bush likely breaking the law


As a lawyer in the Reagan White House, Samuel Alito wrote that he personally believed administration officials should have complete immunity if they break the law and spy on American citizens—and worked to protect Nixon's Attorney General who was convicted of exactly that crime.4 President Bush now stands accused of illegally spying on Americans, and the issue is likely to go to the Supreme Court.


The torture scandal: Bush above the law


Alito helped create the radical argument that the president can override Congress and dominate the courts by issuing a "signing statement" to "get in the last word" about what a new law means.5 Last year, Congress passed a ban on torture and Bush, who opposed the law, issued a signing statement claiming that it simply wouldn't apply to him if he didn't want it to.6 This, too, is likely to come before the Supreme Court in near future. 


The detention scandal: Bush inventing the law


After 9/11 Bush claimed the power to indefinitely detain American citizens, without trial, formal charges, or access to a lawyer. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court rejected his argument.7 Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority, "a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens."8 Clarence Thomas dissented, basing his argument on the theory of the "unitary executive"9—the same theory Judge Samuel Alito refers to as "gospel."10


Samuel Alito even railed against Morrison v. Olson, which granted Congress the power to create an independent counsel to investigate presidential scandals whom the president could not simply fire at will. Alito called the decision, "stunning" and praised Justice Scalia's "brilliant but very lonely dissent."11

Bush's ploy to increase his own power with Alito on the Court will not only throw off checks and balances for the rest of this term, but for decades to come. Vice-President Al Gore spoke on this topic last week and summed it up well when he asked:


Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is "yes" then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited? If the President has the inherent authority to eavesdrop, imprison citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do?12


With Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court, the answer may be very little indeed.

Please take a minute to write a letter to the editor asking your senators to reject Bush's grab for unchecked power and Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.





Sources:

1. "Senate Panel Backs Alito on Party-Line Vote," Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-alito25jan25,0,1707725.story?coll=la-home-nation

2. "Judge Alito's Radical Views," New York Times, January 23, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1407

3. Transcript of the Senate Judiciary Committee, January 24, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1408

4. "Alito said Attourneys General Can't be Sued for Illegal Wiretaps," Bloomberg, December 23, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1409

5. "Alito once made case for Presidential power," Washington Post, January 2, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1410

6. "Bush could bypass new torture ban," Boston Globe, January 4, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1411

7. "Timeline: Sandra Day O'Connor's Key Decisions," Washington Post, July 1, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1412

8. "A Supreme Court nominee in wartime," Kansas City Star, July 09, 2005
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1413

9. "The Limits of Power: Questions for Alito," The Nation, January 6, 2006
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060123/questions_for_alito

10. Sen. Patrick Leahy'Statement on the Confirmation Vote of Judge Samuel Alito, January 19, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=1414

11. "The Record and Philosophy of Samuel Alito," People for the American Way, January 2006, p.22
http://media.pfaw.org/stc/alito-final.pdf

12. "Restoring the Rule of Law," Prepared Remarks of Vice-President Al Gore, January 16th, 2006
http://www.libertyspeeches.org/speechtext.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,T. Herg
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 02:32 PM

you guys auck ass

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 03:20 PM

Perhaps one of the King's stablelads? A surly lot, in sooth, deprived of all learning and bereft of all manners. This child was surely and tragically left behind.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 27 Jan 06 - 06:21 PM

Hey Amos who is your favorite president??

January 19, 2006
Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings:
Thomas Sowell, one of America's brightest intellects, wrote the following about the Senate Confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito:
http://www.lexingtonprosecutor.com/
Thomas Sowell

"They told us more about the Senators than about Judge Alito."

"The biggest hypocrisy was asking Judge Alito questions that everyone knew in advance, no judicial nominee could - or should - answer, and then complaining on nationwide television that Alito was not responsive."

"The real purpose of all this grand standing was to play to the gallery of the most rabid element of Democratic Party activists, people like Hollywood leftists who contribute big bucks and who hate everything this administration stands for, as well as what most Americans stand for."

Sowell then stated "The larger question is how we are going to get good people that we need on courts, if they have to go through smears and petty harassment during confirmation hearings. Highly qualified people usually have other options and many of them may go elsewhere other than becoming the butt of political games on nationwide television."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jan 06 - 03:41 PM

Forunately for our good nation, OG, not everyone agrees with your views on Alito:

"Filibustering the Alito nomination isn't just the right policy for the country, it's good politics for progressives. Voters want leaders with the courage to fight for their true convictions. Democrats have said they oppose Alito's extreme views on unchecked presidential power and limited rights for the rest of us—now it's time to show they mean it.

As John Edwards put it when he declared his support for the filibuster:


Americans know what's at stake here—a president who believes he's above the law, and basic rights in grave danger. This is a critical moment for Democrats to stand up, fight for what we believe, and show the American people that we will provide principled leadership. The country is hungry for this kind of principled leadership and if we lead with conviction we will be successful both in 2006 and beyond



Yesterday, the New York Times came out with a blistering a editorial calling for a filbuster, called "Senators in Need of a Spine," Here are some highlights:


It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle...
...It is indefensible for...any senator who has promised constituents to protect a woman's right to an abortion to turn around and hand Judge Alito a potent vote to undermine or even end it...The judge's record strongly suggests that he is an eager lieutenant in the ranks of the conservative theorists who ignore our system of checks and balances, elevating the presidency over everything else...
...A filibuster is a radical tool. It's easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.


If George Bush is able to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with Samuel Alito, it may become his most damaging legacy: a Supreme Court that frees the president to spy, detain and torture at will, and leaves Congress powerless to protect workers, women, the environment, and to combat discrimination."...

---

I don't think my favorite president has run for office yet...

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 06 - 12:59 PM

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen.

---

The NY Times offers three justifications from the Bush administration on their spy-on-Amrica program, and the counter-arguments for them, in an editorial (1-29-2006):

Sept. 11 could have been prevented. This is breathtakingly cynical. The nation's guardians did not miss the 9/11 plot because it takes a few hours to get a warrant to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail messages. They missed the plot because they were not looking. The same officials who now say 9/11 could have been prevented said at the time that no one could possibly have foreseen the attacks. We keep hoping that Mr. Bush will finally lay down the bloody banner of 9/11, but Karl Rove, who emerged from hiding recently to talk about domestic spying, made it clear that will not happen — because the White House thinks it can make Democrats look as though they do not want to defend America. "President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," he told Republican officials. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Mr. Rove knows perfectly well that no Democrat has ever said any such thing — and that nothing prevented American intelligence from listening to a call from Al Qaeda to the United States, or a call from the United States to Al Qaeda, before Sept. 11, 2001, or since. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act simply required the government to obey the Constitution in doing so. And FISA was amended after 9/11 to make the job much easier.

Only bad guys are spied on. Bush officials have said the surveillance is tightly focused only on contacts between people in this country and Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed it saved thousands of lives by preventing attacks. But reporting in this paper has shown that the National Security Agency swept up vast quantities of e-mail messages and telephone calls and used computer searches to generate thousands of leads. F.B.I. officials said virtually all of these led to dead ends or to innocent Americans. The biggest fish the administration has claimed so far has been a crackpot who wanted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch — a case that F.B.I. officials said was not connected to the spying operation anyway.

The spying is legal. The secret program violates the law as currently written. It's that simple. In fact, FISA was enacted in 1978 to avoid just this sort of abuse. It said that the government could not spy on Americans by reading their mail (or now their e-mail) or listening to their telephone conversations without obtaining a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The court has approved tens of thousands of warrants over the years and rejected a handful.

As amended after 9/11, the law says the government needs probable cause, the constitutional gold standard, to believe the subject of the surveillance works for a foreign power or a terrorist group, or is a lone-wolf terrorist. The attorney general can authorize electronic snooping on his own for 72 hours and seek a warrant later. But that was not good enough for Mr. Bush, who lowered the standard for spying on Americans from "probable cause" to "reasonable belief" and then cast aside the bedrock democratic principle of judicial review.

Just trust us. Mr. Bush made himself the judge of the proper balance between national security and Americans' rights, between the law and presidential power. He wants Americans to accept, on faith, that he is doing it right. But even if the United States had a government based on the good character of elected officials rather than law, Mr. Bush would not have earned that kind of trust. The domestic spying program is part of a well-established pattern: when Mr. Bush doesn't like the rules, he just changes them, as he has done for the detention and treatment of prisoners and has threatened to do in other areas, like the confirmation of his judicial nominees. He has consistently shown a lack of regard for privacy, civil liberties and judicial due process in claiming his sweeping powers. The founders of our country created the system of checks and balances to avert just this sort of imperial arrogance.

---

Imperial arrogance says it mighty succinctly.

When private citizens act like that toward each other they are called assholes.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 06 - 02:53 PM

More on the NASA gagging story from Slate:

"Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, claims that after the speech, the NASA public affairs staff was ordered to review his lectures, papers, web postings and requests for interviews. NASA higher-ups deny the muzzling, but one public affairs officer claims that another officer rejected an NPR request to interview Hansen because NPR's "liberal" slant would interfere with the officer's job "to make the president look good." "

---

Makes me gag, anyway...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 06 - 03:54 PM

In an analytical piece called "All the President's Dodges", Slate examines Bush's favorites gimmicks for not confronting an issue or answering a straight question:

Excerpts:

Hamas: Put on a Happy Face

President Bush believes in a simple formula. Democracy is good. Terrorism is evil. When democracy is introduced in hostile countries it acts like enchanted water: Apply a drop and liberty flowers. That theory, never plausible, obviously has now been undone: The victory of the radical Islamic organization Hamas in the Palestinian elections demonstrates that democracy and terrorism are not mutually exclusive.

Instead of dealing with the topsy-turvy result, the president focused on the sunny side. He said the elections "remind me of the power of democracy" and added, "I like the competition of ideas." Groovy....

NSA Spying: Just Trust Us

The president was asked six questions about the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping, which he carefully calls a "terrorist surveillance program." The questions and answers hopped around over well-worn territory. Finally, Bush played the trump card that shuts off further discussion: To talk any more about the program, or even consider legislation to codify it, would help the terrorists. This doesn't avoid the question so much as it makes asking too many pointed ones an act of treachery. "This program is so sensitive and so important that if information gets out to how we do it, how we run it, or how we operate, it will help the enemy," he said. "I think the American people understand that. Why tell the enemy what we're doing, if the program is necessary to protect us from the enemy?"...

Abramoff: Look at the Shiny Ornament!

Another trick: Distract the questioner with something else. Show reporters a sparkly ornament, and hope we'll forget the tree it's hanging on. (Talking about Saddam Hussein has served this purpose in ducking tricky Iraq questions.) When talking about Jack Abramoff, Bush focused on the pictures of the two together rather than the larger issue of what influence the lobbyist had with White House officials and what, if anything, he may have gotten in return for all of that campaign cash.

The president continued to define the photographs as a few of the thousand taken at "grip and grin" sessions. This wasn't a dodge: It was a deception. At least one of the snapshots with the chairman of the Kickapoo Indians was clearly something more. Bush had a scripted joke for this eventuality. "Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that, you know, I'm a friend with them or know them very well," he said setting up the gag. "I've had my picture taken with you at holiday parties."

Bush's questioners' fixation on the pictures helped him stay focused on just the pictures. (Have you seen how shiny the ornament is! Yes, and he just mentioned us!) The real questions are: What happened in the rooms where there were no photographs taken and where Abramoff met with White House staff? Whom did Abramoff meet with, what did he want, and what did the White House officials want from him?

Other White House officials have refused to answer those questions. And today, the president just ducked them. ..."

---

Alternative title: Anatomy of a Slimeball (my notion, not Slate's.)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 06 - 04:01 PM

UBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines. Thousands spent on a swimming pool that was never used. An elevator repaired so poorly that it crashed, killing people.

A U.S. government audit found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud.

In some cases, auditors recommend criminal charges be filed against the perpetrators. In others, it asks the U.S. ambassador to Iraq to recoup the money.

Dryly written audit reports describe the Coalition Provisional Authority's offices in the south-central city of Hillah being awash in bricks of $100 bills taken from a central vault without documentation.

It describes one agent who kept almost $700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker and mentions a U.S. soldier who gambled away as much as $60,000 in reconstruction funds in the Philippines.

"Tens of millions of dollars in cash had gone in and out of the South-Central Region vault without any tracking of who deposited or withdrew the money, and why it was taken out," says a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is in the midst of a series of audits for the Pentagon and State Department.

Much of the first audit reports deal with contracting in south-central Iraq, one of the country's least-hostile regions. Audits have yet to be released for the occupation authority's spending in the rest of Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jan 06 - 02:08 PM

In fairness, a recent article in the BBC News bravely defends Bush against his detractors. While I am skeptical of its assertions, I respect the fact that Justin Webb, the author, is taking what is for him an unpopular stand on the question of Bush's character.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 12:10 AM

Bush Administration, In Flip-Flop, Not Helping Katrina Investigation

February 02, 2006
David R. Mark

MSNBC's David Shuster is reporting that the White House -- in a "flip-flop" from statements made last year -- is not releasing Hurricane Katrina-related documents or making senior officials available for a Congressional investigation.

We've been down this road before.

Substitute "9/11 Commission" or "Discussions On Warrantless Surveillance" or "Pre-War Intelligence" for "Katrina Investigation," and you get some insight into how the Bush Administration regards sharing information.

It doesn't.

Why? Perhaps the administration doesn't want to create the opportunity for dissenting opinion. Perhaps because the less people really know, the larger the vacuum for administration spin. How else can one explain a history of fighting against the truth?

FIGHTING THE 9/11 COMMISSION

Initially, the administration was against forming the 9/11 Commission. Later, it took the unusual step of having President Bush and Vice President Cheney meet informally -- not under oath -- with the commission.

Shuster reports that the administration wants similar informal meetings with White House advisors now, rather than formal -- under oath -- testimony before Congress.

LIMITED DISCUSSION ON WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE

The administration claimed that it met with senior members of Congress before proceeding with its warrantless surveillance program. But various senators have said that they were either misinformed at the time about what the administration wanted to do, or not given a chance to express disapproval with the plan.

Although Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) suggested that Congress would consider legislation to allow for warrantless surveillance, Bush has said he isn't interested in releasing details of the program, to allow for Congressional consideration. (Note: The Justice Department considered including a provision to cover warrantless surveillance in 2003 legislation, but later nixed those plans.)


YOUR INTELLIGENCE IS NOT MY INTELLIGENCE

The administration has repeatedly said it had access to the same pre-war intelligence as Congress. But the non-partisan Congressional Research Service disputed that, saying in a Dec. 15 report that the White House has access to a much broader ranger of intelligence reports than Congress.

The CRS report identified nine key U.S. intelligence "products" that aren't generally shared with Congress. These include the President's Daily Brief, a compilation of analyses that's given only to the president and a handful of top aides, and a daily digest on terrorism-related matters.

***Excerpted from BlogCritics.Org

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 12:12 AM

From the "American Chronicle":

REPORT: BUSH ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMATICALLY UNDERMINING HEALTH AND SAFETY OF MINE WORKERS

California Political Desk


The California Political Desk provides information, news releases, and announcements obtained from communication and public relations offices throughout the state.

By California Political Desk
January 31, 2006

Rep. George Miller Renews Call for Congressional Hearings

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rep. George Miller (D-CA) today issued a new report that shows that the Bush Administration has systematically undermined health and safety protections for American mine workers by putting the interests of mine operators ahead of rigorous enforcement of the law. The report was prepared at Miller's request by the Democratic staff of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.


"This report clearly shows that the Bush Administration has put mine workers' lives at greater risk by putting the interests of mining company executives ahead of the enforcement of critical workplace health and safety rules," said Miller, the senior Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee. "Most troubling, the Administration has scrapped or delayed 18 regulations that would have improved health and safety conditions in mines without putting onerous burdens on mine operators. These actions represent a shocking abdication of the Administration's responsibilities to protect the lives of American mine workers."


The report's key findings include:

Between 2001 and 2005, the Bush Administration delayed, weakened, or withdrew a total of at least 18 regulations intended to protect the health and safety of mine workers. At least three of those regulations were intended to boost safety measures that could have directly affected the outcomes at the Sago and Alma mines in West Virginia.

In addition to delaying or withdrawing these safety regulations, the Bush Administration also adopted a regulation that weakens safeguards against fires on conveyor belts in mines. At the Alma mine in West Virginia where two miners were killed earlier this month, investigators suspect a conveyor belt fire may have been to blame.

From 1996 to 2000, the Clinton Administration proposed fining coal operators the maximum fine allowed under law a total of 118 times, according to an analysis of MSHA data. From 2001 to 2005, the Bush Administration proposed the maximum allowable fine just 37 times. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 12:16 AM

Bush administration's track record laughable

SEVERAL great minds were asked to help think up interview questions for George W. Bush. I liked, "Are you the worst president since James Buchanan, or have you never heard of him?"
Sorry about the snarkiness quotient, but is there anything these folks can't screw up - and then refuse to own up to? Iraq is the most difficult to judge because it's so far away. I can find no indication - from hours of electricity available to amount of oil being pumped to number of dead people - that hints at any improvement.

On the other hand, even though I don't think it's my job, I can't prove that pulling out won't make things worse. Judging the good news-bad news volume from Iraq took such an exceptional lurch to ludicrous, it's now difficult to even try to judge it with a straight face.

(For those of you who missed it: The Pentagon is now investigating itself to find out why it was paying American soldiers to write phony stories about how well things are going in Iraq and then paying a politically connected Republican public relations firm to in turn bribe Iraqi news outlets to run the phony stories. Presumably, this fooled a lot of Iraqis.)

In matters closer to home, however, it is not that hard to miss total disaster when you see it. The Medicare prescription drug benefit comes to mind. As governmental screw-ups go, it ranks up there with Katrina, which in turn is the latest in a parade of fiascoes inspiring the administration to an impressive level of dishonesty.

Following its usual m.o., the administration's first step on Katrina was to clam up on all the information possible about how the government handled it.

Why should a congressional committee have any right to question the Bush administration? Whom do they think they represent?

I couldn't even bring myself to snicker at poor Joe Lieberman, chair of the committee trying to find out what went wrong, as he forlornly announced a "near total lack of cooperation." Despite his record as a Bush toady, Lieberman couldn't get enough information to even start on the problem.

The committee had one interesting item - Bush had claimed that "no one anticipated" New Orleans would be leveled.

Turns out they not only expected it, but the Department of Homeland Security sent an urgent warning to the White House situation room, saying Katrina will likely leave "the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months."

Meanwhile, the White House informed Louisiana reps it would not be supporting legislation for a federally financed reconstruction program for the area, despite Bush's promise to make it the grandest reconstruction since the Marshall Plan.

Looking on the bright side, this may yet turn out to be a good thing, since a new audit of the federally financed reconstruction in Iraq indicates - well, a great deal left to be desired. That would be counting untold billions of dollars wasted, millions left lying around in footlockers and filing cabinets, millions gambled away and - here's a note - three Iraqis who fell to their death in a repaired hospital elevator that had been certified as safe.

I also like the one about the contractor who got $100,000 to refurbish an Olympic-sized swimming pool (clearly a high priority in war-torn Iraq) but only polished the pumps. Well, polished pumps are nice.

Governance in this administration is like Casey Stengel with the early Mets: "Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?"

But lest you think I do nothing but pick on the Bushies, let me devote some loving attention to the best Congress money can buy.

Last month, in a closed-door, Republican-only "conference committee" meeting, a $22 billion change was inserted at the last minute.

The taxpayers were supposed to get $26 billion in relief over 10 years by altering a formula for Medicare reimbursement. But lo, many insurance lobbyists for the HMOs knew about the committee meeting attended only by Republicans, who helpfully lowered the savings estimate of the formula to $4 billion and handed the other $22 billion back to the insurance industry.

We can certainly see how serious the Republicans are about "reform" - we can't wait to pay, er, hear more. One sign to look for would be if they stop calling it "lobby reform" and call it "congressional reform," instead.

(A Molly Ivins Column)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 12:20 AM

A real health risk.


GONORRHEA LECTIM 2004

The Center for Disease Control has issued a warning about a new virulent
strain of Sexually Transmitted Disease. The disease is contracted through
dangerous and high-risk behavior. It is called Gonorrhea Lectim and
pronounced "gonna re-elect him."

Many victims contracted it in 2004, after having been screwed for the
previous four years.

Cognitive characteristics of infected individuals include:

anti-social personality disorders
delusions of grandeur with messianic overtones
extreme cognitive dissonance
inability to incorporate new information
pronounced xenophobia and paranoia
inability to accept responsibility for one's actions
cowardice masked by misplaced bravado
uncontrolled facial smirking
ignorance of geography and history
tendencies towards evangelical theocracy
categorical all-or-nothing behavior

Naturalists and epidemiologists are amazed at how this destructive disease,
which originated only a few years ago, has spread throughout the country
from an infected bush found in Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 12:53 PM

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush soon will ask Congress for another $120 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing their total cost so far to about $440 billion.

That's enough to buy General Motors Corp. 33 times or Google almost four times, at current stock prices.

The vast majority of the money is for Iraq, where expenses are about $4.5 billion a month, according to administration officials. The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan is costing about $800 million a month.

Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the White House budget office, said Thursday that Bush would seek a quick $70 billion plus another $50 billion as part of the proposed fiscal 2007 federal budget that will go to Congress on Monday.

The Associated Press, citing Pentagon officials and documents, reported Thursday that the 2007 budget request will include $439.3 billion for the Defense Department, a nearly 5% increase over this year. That doesn't include the war requests.

In comparison, the Department of Veterans Affairs budget is about $68 billion a year, and the Environmental Protection Agency spends about $7.9 billion a year.

---

Rock star Bono challenged the U.S. government Thursday to give an additional 1% of the federal budget to the world's poor.



Bono, lead singer for U2, has led a push for health care aid and the cancellation of billions of dollars in debt owed by African nations, causes he mentioned to President George W. Bush and members of Congress at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.



"This is not about charity in the end, is it?" he said. "It's about justice."



Bush, who spoke later, made no commitment but praised Bono.



Articles in full can be found here.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 10:44 PM

A study in the characteristics of Fascism as practiced in different countries:

"Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes.

Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections. "

The above is a summary of the more detailed orignal article "Fascism Anyone?" first published in Spring 2003 edition of Free Inquiry

---

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

H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 10:45 PM

Full story at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1701214,00.html

Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo

PM promised to be 'solidly behind' US invasion with or without UN backing

Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday February 3, 2006

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was
"solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before
he sought advice about the invasion's legality
and despite the absence of a second UN
resolution, according to a new account of the
build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two
leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 -
nearly two months before the invasion - reveals
that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to
invade whether or not there was a second UN
resolution and even if UN inspectors found no
evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

"The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged
around the military planning", the president told
Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have
raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he
was "solidly with the president and ready to do
whatever it took to disarm Saddam".

The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless
World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of
international law at University College, London.
Professor Sands last year exposed the doubts
shared by Foreign Office lawyers about the
legality of the invasion in disclosures which
eventually forced the prime minister to publish
the full legal advice given to him by the
attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

The memo seen by Prof Sands reveals:

· Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so
worried about the failure to find hard evidence
against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2
reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover
over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added:
"If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach
[of UN resolutions]".

· Mr Bush even expressed the hope that a defector
would be extracted from Iraq and give a "public
presentation about Saddam's WMD". He is also said
to have referred Mr Blair to a "small
possibility" that Saddam would be "assassinated".

· Mr Blair told the US president that a second UN
resolution would be an "insurance policy",
providing "international cover, including with
the Arabs" if anything went wrong with the
military campaign, or if Saddam increased the
stakes by burning oil wells, killing children, or
fomenting internal divisions within Iraq.

· Mr Bush told the prime minister that he
"thought it unlikely that there would be
internecine warfare between the different
religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not
demur, according to the book.

The revelation that Mr Blair had supported the US
president's plans to go to war with Iraq even in
the absence of a second UN resolution contrasts
with the assurances the prime minister gave
parliament shortly after. On February 25 2003 -
three weeks after his trip to Washington - Mr
Blair told the Commons that the government was
giving "Saddam one further, final chance to
disarm voluntarily".
. . .
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat acting
leader, said last night: "The fact that
consideration was apparently given to using
American military aircraft in UN colours in the
hope of provoking Saddam Hussein is a graphic
illustration of the rush to war. It would also
appear to be the case that the diplomatic efforts
in New York after the meeting of January 31 were
simply going through the motions.

"The prime minister's offer of February 25 to
Saddam Hussein was about as empty as it could
get. He has a lot of explaining to do."
. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 06 - 03:19 PM

Presidential signing statements are more than just executive branch lunacy.

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Monday, Jan. 30, 2006, at 5:32 AM ET

There are two ways President Bush likes to wage war on your civil liberties: He either asks you to surrender your rights directly—as he does when he strengthens and broadens provisions of the Patriot Act. Or he simply hoovers up new powers and hopes you won't find out—as he did when he granted himself authority to order warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens.

The former category seems more benign, and it's tempting to lump Bush's affinity for "presidential signing statements" in that camp. It's tempting to believe that with these statements he is merely asking that the courts take his legal views into account. But President Bush never asks anything of the courts; he doesn't think he has to. His signing statements are not aimed at persuading the courts, but at reinforcing his claim that both courts and Congress are irrelevant.

Many of us had never heard of a presidential signing statement until last month, when Bush used one to eviscerate the McCain Anti-Torture bill he claimed to endorse. We all saw the big Oval Office reconciliation with McCain; we heard Bush say he was dropping his opposition to the bill, which passed with broad bipartisan support (90-9 in the Senate, 308-122 in the House) and made it illegal for Americans to engage in the "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees held here or abroad. What we missed was the actual signing ceremony, which took place two weeks later, at 8 p.m. on Dec. 30.

Unless you spent New Year's weekend trolling the White House Web site or catching up on your latest U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News as you waited for the ball to drop, you probably missed the little "P.S." the president tacked onto the McCain anti-torture bill. The postscript was a statement clearly announcing that the president will only follow the new law "in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president to supervise the unitary executive branch ... and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power." In other words, it is for the president—not Congress or the courts—to determine when the provisions of this bill interfere with his war-making powers, and when they do, he will freely ignore the law.

---

In other news, various writers fro around the nation offer their thoughts:

Linda from Aurora, Colo., writes:

"Those in the Arab world are not alone in seeing Bush as stubborn and confusing. I think more and more Americans are also seeing him as such, in addition to being dishonest. His story is ever-changing, and that has eroded his credibility here and abroad. It has also eroded the credibility of the United States across the globe."

Yolande, writing from Port of Spain, Trinidad, agrees:

"It is painful to see the country losing credibility at an alarming rate, worldwide, in countries rich and poor, developed and developing. America under Bush is seen as ruthless, bullying and dictatorial, not really interested in true democracy but in other nations following its decrees. Truly, there is no longer a superpower to whom the world could rely in times of crisis. America has lost it."

Mike from Cleveland presents a different view:

"I wonder about your assertion that anything the U.S.A. supports becomes unpopular in the Middle East. By extension, are you suggesting the U.S.A. not voice support for anything it wants, or even to support the opposite of its desires? I sympathize with your viewpoint that the world is far more complex than the worldview our present administration projects, but I don't clearly see what you are recommending our country do."

But in Denver, T.J., who says he is a veteran of Iraq, disagrees:

"I have noticed an implied rhetoric from the current administration that shows an ignorance of Arab culture and a disregard for their views," he writes. "I learned a lot about the culture and our societal differences while in Iraq, and I hope that somehow our government will recognize these and make decisions that are grounded in acceptance and humility. The arrogant, imperialistic approach has done nothing but fuel anti-American sentiment and certainly has not made America a safer place, nor the world a better place."


George, a Vietnam-era veteran from Anchorage, Alaska, poses a similar view:

"This is very hard for me to express," he writes. "I [have] always had a great deal of pride in being an American. I am, as of right now, still proud. I was also a Republican until 1999 … Mr. Bush and his cronies, I feel, are an embarrassment to the ideals and makeup of our great nation. Americans are not just deceived but boldly lied to. Before we can get respect from the world, we have got to clean up our own mess. I think the president means to do the right thing, he is just caught up in his own image of glory and power. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about staining a young lady's dress. Mr. Bush, however, is killing a lot of people with his spin. Can't we as a nation take our place among the proud who walked before all of this mess?"

William from San Diego is on Bush's side. "It isn't about the Arab people. It is about the American people," he writes. "Our president looks out for the United States, our allies and our best interest."

---

(Both offered without comment)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 02:33 AM

Feb. 4, 2006, 1:34AM
Gagged prophet
The Bush administration continues to ignore climate change while trying to silence government scientists

Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

NASA's top climatologist, James E. Hansen, recently urged swift action to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. When he did, the agency's public affairs machinery went into overdrive.


NASA officials ordered Hansen to submit for review any lectures, Internet statements and journalists' requests for interviews. Hansen recently posted a widely quoted report on a NASA Web site stating that 2005 was the hottest year since comprehensive weather records were first kept.

A NASA political appointee, William Deutsch, nixed an interview with Hansen on National Public Radio. Deutsch reportedly told another NASA public affairs officer that NPR was "the most liberal media source" in the nation and that his job "was to make the president look good." If Deutsch said that, he is wrong. The job of government public affairs officials is to inform the public and make available public information.

Hansen, who holds a doctorate in physics, has been issuing warnings of the consequences of man-made pollution of the atmosphere for 15 years. He rightly refused to comply with the gag order. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he told The New York Times, noting that "public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic." According to Hansen, many scientists within the government have been pressured to avoid public discussion of climate change. ... Balance of article here.

In an article called The Worst Shame of the Bush Administration a blogger discusses the culpable consequences of the EPA telling New Yorkers it was safe to go back into Southern Manhattan while the air there was still heavily toxic.

The Toledo Blade , in an editorial, discusses the views of two professors on the hazards of the Bush Administrations distortive impact on the balance of powers, and the checks and balances system of the U.S. Government.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 07:39 PM

Specter: Administration broke law
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program appears to be illegal.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Specter called the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic" and said the program appears to be "in flat violation" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Hearings into the surveillance program are scheduled to begin Monday on Capitol Hill.

---

Reasoning both strained and realistic surfaces when an unacknowledged agenda is in play, and the desire is not to inform but to spin and influence outcomes according to that agenda. This sort of reasoning has been an earmark of the Bush Administration since their first campaign.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 11:04 PM

The one thing Bush always had going for him – and it served him well in two elections – was that he came across as someone who said what he meant and meant what he said.

These days, if you don't like what he says, you can stay tuned and, in a few days, he might say something totally different.

For instance, the administration claims it doesn't need congressional permission or new legislation to engage in domestic spying. But according to The Washington Post, Justice Department lawyers drafted legislation in 2003 that – along with strengthening the USA Patriot Act – would have provided a legal justification for the administration's eavesdropping program.

During his first presidential campaign, Bush projected the image of someone who'd be just as happy if he lost the race and had to go back to the ranch in Crawford. Now, with the domestic spying fiasco, he's projecting a different image – of someone who is not only hungry for the power of the executive branch, but nibbling on the legislative and judicial.

Bush gives a speech talking about how Border Patrol agents should lay off hardworking immigrants trying to support their families and instead focus on smugglers and other hardened criminals. Then he stands before an assembly of Border Patrol agents insisting that we're a nation of laws and anyone who wants to immigrate here must do so legally.

All this has me scratching my head and wondering: "Dude, where's my president?" Can't the guy make up his mind as to what he really believes, instead of trying to please everyone?

It's no wonder that, according to several recent polls, the number of Americans who still consider Bush honest and trustworthy has fallen to below 40 percent.

What many Americans do consider Bush to be is stubborn. In fact, an AP/Ipsos poll conducted in November found that 82 percent of respondents used that word to describe him.

I like my presidents to be steadfast. I'm no fan of flip-flopping, which is why Al Gore and John Kerry gave me the creeps.

But I also want people who know when a product isn't selling – like the Harriet Miers nomination or Bush's plan to offer at least a temporary amnesty to illegal immigrants – and then are willing to go in another direction.

During his speech, Bush showed again why that's so hard for him to do. After promising that he would seek Congress' advice, he was careful to draw a distinction between "responsible criticism" and "defeatism."

"Hindsight alone is not wisdom," he said. "And second-guessing is not a strategy."

Maybe not. But a leader who learns from his mistakes is so much more appealing than one who has difficulty choking out an acknowledgment that he ever erred.

Maybe Bush needs a personal trainer to show him how to digest crow.

(From today;s San Diego Union-Tribune)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 02:50 PM

Borrowing a link from another thread, I invite your attention to this movie well worth seeing and a moment's reflection on whether these are images of necessary force or unnecessary force.

While this is of course a dramatization, it pinpoints very well the core reason for my personal disdain for George Bush and his fellow war-mongers. He (and his colleagues) have accrued great renown, wealth, visibililty and influence as a direct result of deciding to do what this images portray. They made those decisions individually. Above all, George Bush made an individual decision. The ethics of that decision are, IMHO, perverse, destructive and harmful.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 10:19 AM

Bush's budget sparks bipartisan protestMARTIN CRUTSINGERAssociated PressWASHINGTON - President Bush, constrained by wars, hurricanes and exploding budget deficits, has sent Congress a 2007 spending plan that is garnering howls of pain from farmers, teachers, doctors and a wide array of other groups with special interests.
Democrats, as expected, pronounced the Republican president's budget plan dead on arrival. But many Republicans were equally sharp in their reservations about the $2.77 trillion spending blueprint the administration unveiled on Monday.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., called Bush's proposed cuts in education and health "scandalous" while Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she was "disappointed and even surprised" at the extent of the administration's proposed cuts in Medicaid and Medicare.
Given the level of congressional frustration, administration witnesses, led by Treasury Secretary John Snow, were expected to face a tough sales job before various congressional committees on Tuesday.
Bush's spending blueprint for the 2007 budget year that begins Oct. 1 would provide large increases for the military and homeland security but would trim spending in the one-sixth of the budget that covers the rest of discretionary spending. Nine Cabinet agencies would see outright reductions with the biggest percentage cuts occurring in the departments of Transportation, Justice and Agriculture.
And in mandatory programs - so-called because the government must provide benefits to all who qualify - the president is seeking over the next five years savings of $36 billion in Medicare, $5 billion in farm subsidy programs, $4.9 billion in Medicaid support for poor children's health care and $16.7 billion in additional payments from companies to shore up the government's besieged pension benefit agency.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley noted that Congress has just completed a yearlong battle to achieve far smaller five-year savings in Medicaid, the joint federal-state health program for the poor, and Medicare as part of a $39 billion five-year trim in benefit programs.
"It wasn't an easy legislative accomplishment," said Grassley, R-Iowa. "Any more reductions of a significant scope could be difficult this year."
Bush's budget would meet his twin goals of making permanent his first-term tax cuts, which are set to expire by 2010, and cutting the deficit in half by 2009, the year he leaves office.
The administration's new budget projects that this year's deficit will soar to an all-time high of $423 billion, surpassing the old mark in dollar terms of $412 billion set in 2004, as the costs of rebuilding from last year's devastating hurricanes and the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan push spending higher. ...

(From The Mercury News.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 04:34 PM

Bush's $2.7 trillion budget shows true cost of Iraq war
Email Print Normal font Large font By Michael Gawenda, Washington
February 8, 2006

PRESIDENT George Bush has submitted a $US2.77 trillion ($A3.74 trillion) budget to Congress for 2007 that would boost military spending by 6.9 per cent to $US439.3 billion and would cut 141 government programs.

These include cuts to education and Medicare, the Bush Administration's prescription drug program for pensioners.

The military spending does not include the cost of the campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which Mr Bush has requested an extra $US50 billion, but which Administration officials admit is just a starting point for what will be needed.

The Administration has already asked Congress for an extra $US120 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

The budget deficit for this financial year is expected to hit $US423 billion in the wake of hurricane Katrina and the Iraq war, but Mr Bush has included tax cuts of $US1.4 trillion over 10 years in his budget plan.

President Bush said the Administration's plan to halve the budget deficit by 2010 was "on track", but economic commentators were almost unanimous in their view that this was unlikely to be achieved.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 04:10 PM

Cities and State Parties Pass Impeachment Resolutions

"The past month has seen a burst of resolutions supporting impeachment in city councils, state Democratic parties, and even chapters of Democrats Abroad. On January 6, the City Council of Arcata, Calif., passed a resolution demanding the impeachment or resignation of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, citing violations of international and constitutional law. On January 15, the Executive Committee of Democrats Abroad France unanimously passed a resolution calling upon Congress to determine whether impeachable offenses have been committed by the Bush/Cheney Administration and if necessary to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney.

On January 28, the North Carolina Democratic Party passed a resolution to ask elected Democratic Representatives to Congress to sign on to legislation to impeach Bush, Cheney and Gonzales.

The Democratic Central Committee of Marin County, Calif., approved a resolution last Thursday night that calls for the impeachment of President Bush for what it considers to be illegal domestic wiretapping of American citizens.

Today the City of San Francisco began consideration of a resolution calling for a full investigation, and impeachment or resignation of Bush and Cheney

Participants in an upcoming town meeting in Newfane, Vt., will vote on town support for Bush's impeachment.

In Oregon, a former state senator will present a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney to the Multnomah County Democratic Central Committee February 9. The resolution passed the Committee's agenda subcomittee last month. It charges that Bush and Cheney's (1) unprovoked and misrepresented invasion of Iraq violated the UN charter, (2) their actions contrary to acts of Congress volated their oaths of office and (3) their unlawful detention and torture of prisoners violated the US Constitution, acts of Congress and the Geneva Conventions. These actions, the Central Committee is asked to declare, reach the level of High Crimes and Misdeameanors while in office sufficient to constitute articles of impeachment before the House of Representatives. "

From an email from the Impeachment movement.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 10:09 PM

At a White House press conference on June 7, 2005, Steve Holland of Reuters asked President Bush and Prime Minister Blair the $1,000 question: "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street Memo from July, 2002, says 'Intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military actions.' Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?"

The adamant denials by Blair and Bush were widely reported by the White House press corps. But a new "White House Memo," reported in the British media on Feb. 2, 2006, has just exposed both responses as lies.

Democrats.com is now offering $1,000 to any reporter who will directly ask Bush this question:
"How can you claim you were trying to avoid war through the UN, when you told Prime Minister Blair on Jan. 31, 2003, that if you failed to get a resolution from the UN authorizing war, 'military action would follow anyway'?"

Full article here.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 10:20 PM

ACLU Wants Apology to VA Employee Investigated on 'Sedition'
>
> Associated Press
>
>    The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico wants the
> government to apologize to a nurse for seizing her computer and
> investigating her for "sedition'' after she criticized the Bush
> administration.
>      The ACLU said Wednesday the Department of Veterans Affairs
> found no evidence Laura Berg used her VA office computer to write
> the critical letter.
>      VA human resources chief Mel Hooker said in a Nov. 9 letter
> that his agency was obligated to investigate "any act which
> potentially represents sedition,'' the ACLU said.
>      A VA spokesman in Washington could not say Wednesday whether
> the agency had received the ACLU's request.
>      It seeks an apology from Hooker "to remedy the
> unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that
> has resulted from these intimidating tactics.''
>      Even if Berg had used an office computer, neither that nor her
> criticism approached "unlawful insurrection,'' said Peter Simonson,
> executive director of the ACLU.
>      "Is the government so jealous of its power, so fearful of
> dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its
> policies with charges of sedition?'' he said.
>      Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, wrote a letter in September
> to a weekly Albuquerque newspaper criticizing how the
> administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. She
> urged people to "act forcefully'' to remove an administration she
> said played games of "vicious deceit.''
>      She signed the letter as a private citizen, and the VA had no
> reason to suspect she used government resources to write it, the
> ACLU said.
>      "From all appearances, the seizure of her work computer was an
> act of retaliation and a hardball attempt to scare Laura into
> silence,'' the ACLU said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 12:16 AM

From an interesting rising rag called the New York Observer

Bush Flickers Out, Republicans Face Mass Hibernation

By Chris Lehmann

History and polling are two things the Bush administration professes to scorn. But as the 2006 elections speed toward us, both appear to be overtaking the Republican Party, and the Republicans are hardly in position to take on more bad news.

Just before last week's vote designating John A. Boehner as House Majority Leader, the Club for Growth—one of the Hill's biggest low-tax, pro-business political-action committees—released an opinion survey covering 20 key House races.

The survey supplies an advance view of what it could take for Democrats to turn around their present 30-vote deficit in the House. Fourteen of the races involve Republican incumbents facing tough re-election fights, five are open seats, and one is an open district—the one formerly belonging to the stunningly corrupt, indicted and since-departed House member Randy (Duke) Cunningham.

Now President Bush's terse verdict on the political past—"History. We don't know. We'll all be dead"—is looking just a little too vivid for G.O.P. candidates and consultants trying to avoid becoming history themselves.

"If you would have said a year ago that you'd be looking at the Republican House majority being potentially in play, no one would have believed it," said University of Texas historian Lewis Gould, author of histories of the Republican Party and the Senate. "The thing is that animus against Bush is like a beating heart. For whatever it's worth, back in November and December, when I was doing publicity for my book on the Senate, my publisher had me doing these radio call-in shows from all over the country. And people were just throbbing with indignation at Congress. And this wasn't about corruption, though that was part of it. There was this sense of Congress's complete out-of-touchness. In places like Ohio and Oregon, I was getting this hysteria, this animosity about things like the Medicare-reform implementation."

Which is where the leaden sense of historical recognition comes in. "It was amazing," Mr. Gould said. "It took me back to the end of his father's terms, in the fall of '92. It was just clear that that administration had run out of gas. It was to the point where you couldn't even imagine what a second George H.W. Bush agenda could have been."




This was all, mind you, a good two months before Jack Abramoff's ominous plea-bargain. Poll numbers in the wake of that fateful black-garbed performance reinforce the impressions that Mr. Gould picked up through his unscientific headphone sample. National polls show President Bush still mired in 40-percent-approval territory; "right-track/wrong-track" figures—far more telling in an off-year election—are breaking about 65 to 35 against the status quo.

And the Club poll found that in those 20 more vulnerable races, the right-track/wrong-tack tally was worse than in national polls, with a scant 29 percent of respondents giving the Republicans a warm nod of encouragement.

Republican Congress members—the incumbents in most of these contests, who are supposed to enjoy every gerrymandered advantage that Tom DeLay and company could engineer for them out of the U.S. Census—polled a dismal 35 percent in their approval rating. This is so dismal, in fact, as to place them in the company of the Democrats, at 34 percent.

A whopping 80 percent described present Congressional ethics questions as either "serious" (50 percent) or "scandalous" (30 percent). (...)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 10:52 PM

Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.


According to sources with firsthand knowledge, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war.

Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Beyond what was stated in the court paper, say people with firsthand knowledge of the matter, Libby also indicated what he will offer as a broad defense during his upcoming criminal trial: that Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials had earlier encouraged and authorized him to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war. Later, after the war began in 2003, Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the NIE, to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case for war. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 11:44 PM

The Los Angeles Times provides a saddening list of the many programs Bush wants to kill in his 2007 budget.

List here includes the following cuts -- among many others whose funding has been sucked into the black hole of reckless militarism:

EDUCATION

Educational technology state grants, $272 million

Even Start, $99 million

High school programs terminations:

Vocational education state grants, $1,182 million

Vocational education national programs, $9 million

Upward Bound, $311 million

GEAR UP, $303 million

Talent search, $145 million

Tech prep state grants, $105 million

Smaller learning communities, $94 million

Safe and Drug-Free Schools state grants, $347 million

Elementary and secondary education program terminations:

Parental information and resource centers, $40 million

Arts in education, $35 million

Elementary and secondary school counseling, $35 million

Alcohol abuse reduction, $32 million

Civic education, $29 million

National Writing Project, $22 million

Star Schools, $15 million

School leadership,$15 million

Ready to Teach, $11 million

Javits gifted and talented education, $10 million

Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners, $9 million

Comprehensive school reform, $8 million

Dropout prevention program, $5 million

Mental Health integration in schools, $5 million

Women's Educational Equity, $3 million

Academies for American History and Civics, $2 million

Close-Up fellowships, $1 million

Foundations for Learning, $1 million

Excellence in Economic Education, $1 million

Higher Education Programs:

Education demos for students with disabilities, $7 million

Underground Railroad Program, $2 million

State grants for incarcerated youth offenders, $23 million

Postsecondary Student Financial Assistance Programs:

Perkins Loan cancellations, $65 million

Leveraging educational assistance programs, $65 million

Byrd Scholarships, $41 million

hurgood Marshall Legal Educational opportunity, $3 million

B.J. Stupak Olympic scholarships, $1 million


* Vocational rehabilitation programs:

Supported employment, $30 million

Projects with industry, $20 million

Recreational programs, $3 million

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers,$2 million

Teacher Quality Enhancement, $60 million

Total $3,468 million (Educational cuts alone).

Read them as a testimony to rampant, unbridled hypocrisy. Read the lists of cuts in energy, and compare them to his mealy-mouthed platitudes on the subject in the SOTU address.

I swan, 's nuff to mek yer spit.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 02:38 PM

Funny, ya know. GH, the father of the current mistake, was annoyed that several people remarked at Corretta King's funeral on the dramatic difference between her goals and purposes, and the hypocrisy of the current President's.

(CBS) Former President George H.W. Bush has expressed dismay and anger at attacks on his son, President Bush, at the funeral for Coretta Scott King.

"In terms of the political shots at the president who was sitting there with his wife, I didn't like it and I thought it was kind of ugly frankly," the former president said in an exclusive radio interview with CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer.

---

You want ugly, Mister Bush? Here's ugly for you, sir. . Think back on how that came about, and decide where the ugly stick landed.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 07:16 PM

Ramsey Clark, persistent and well-spoken, says:

 

"Impeachment is the most important issue facing Constitutional government in the United States. Impeachment will determine whether the American people will hold the Bush administration accountable for its High Crimes and Misdemeanors: the supreme international crime -- a war of aggression, rampant militarism, torture, surreptitious laws and treaties, and economic policies that steal from the poor and middle class to further enrich the rich.

Impeachment is also the test that will determine whether We, the People of the United States, still have the power to affect the conduct of our own elected officials and the will to exercise that power.

George Bush seeks $2.77 trillion for the 2007 Fiscal Year budget providing for more military aggression and less education, health care and other programs for the people.

He has nearly three more years to take our country into more wars maybe in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, or Sudan; three more years to trash the Bill of Rights at home and destroy all respect for the United States abroad; three more years to enrich the rich, impoverish the middle class and poor, undermine the U.S. economy and burden future generations of Americans with burdens they cannot bear.

Our impeachment ad in the New York Times on January 27, 2006 shows we can make a difference. It generated tens of thousands of new votes for impeachment.

The New York Times carried the Impeachment message in the first section, full page, to readers of more than a million copies of the National Edition and the New York Edition of the New York Times.

More newspaper ads, more votes for Impeachment, more organizing and fundraising can make Impeachment a major issue in the 2006 midterm Congressional elections. A committed effort over the next months can move Impeachment to the forefront in the elections and to the floor of the House of Representatives which has the "sole power of Impeachment," and onto the Senate for trial.

Ads in newspapers in Congressional Districts can help activate impeachment organizing to bring the issue home to members and candidates where their election will be decided.

Only Impeachment will warn the next Presidents that the American people will hold them accountable if they lawlessly lead us into wars, aggression and criminal acts to control foreign government and exploit their peoples.

Only Impeachment will assure governments and peoples around the world that the American people understand what their government has done, that the American people are strong and good, and have impeached and removed their lawless leaders from office for violating all the principles America has always espoused, and that We, the People of the United States will remain vigilant and see to it that the government of the United States will hereafter seek peace, friendship, equality of nations and peoples, and respect for the human dignity of every child, woman, and man on Earth.

I urge you to enlist now in the Impeachment Movement for the duration, to organize your community in the struggle and to raise and contribute funds essential to secure the Impeachment of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other civil officers found to have committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Click here to make a donation for the mass advertising campaign to place the NYT impeachment ad in other newspapers and support the campaign for impeachment.

Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark"

Would it defuse affairs pointing at hostilities with Iran if we pulled the plug on both George and Dick?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 06 - 11:25 AM

WASHINGTON Feb 10, 2006 (AP)— A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in documents filed last month that he plans to introduce evidence that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, disclosed to reporters the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate in the summer of 2003. ...

---

If he's the top aide to the Veep, who would "his superiors" be? I can think of two, anyway.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 06 - 11:44 AM

Excerpts from recent remarks by Sen Barbara Boxer on the flooor of the Senate:

Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I rise now to discuss an amendment
on behalf of myself and Senators Kerry and Lautenberg which
expresses the sense of the Senate that the White House should
provide the public with a thorough account of the meetings that
the President, his staff, and senior executive branch officials
held with Jack Abramoff . The public's confidence in the
government has been rocked by the widespread reports of public
corruption involving Jack Abramoff.

On January 3, Mr. Abramoff pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud,
and tax evasion, charges that carry up to a 30-year sentence.
He agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation
of a number of public officials, and we don't know where all
this will lead. I urge the Justice Department to continue its
investigation into any bribery and corruption.

The damage to the public trust from the Abramoff scandal,
combined with the recent prosecution of Congressman Randy
Cunningham and the indictment of Congressman Tom Delay, is
massive. The investigation by the Department of Justice has
really just begun. But right now, sadly, there is a very low
opinion of politicians, and trust must be restored with the
American people. We cannot govern effectively without the
support and confidence of the people. We are supposed to be
their representatives. We owe them everything, and we must
start with honesty, with ethics, so we can regain their trust.

If the people have lost confidence, we have to win it back.
Every Senator I know has searched his or her records for
contributions from Jack Abramoff, from his associates and the
tribes he represented. Each of us has responded in our own way.
But to my knowledge, we have all made our actions public. We
have told our constituents what the situation is and whether we
plan to do something about it.

In the State of the Union Address, the President said: "Each of
us has made a pledge to be worthy of public responsibility--and
that is a pledge we must never forget, never dismiss, and never
betray."

Those are noble sentiments, very noble sentiments, and I
challenge the President to live up to them.

...If we are going to restore confidence in our government, it
starts with simple openness--not with saying: Oh, this is
privileged, this is secret. I will tell you right now, we all
learned it from our moms and dads. When somebody says "this is
secret," watch out. Our government is supposed to be open, not
secret.

I hope there will be strong support for this particular
amendment. I believe its timing is crucial. We can't let any
more time elapse.

There are calls for--and I am joining them--a special
prosecutor in this particular case. But even before that debate
begins, let us have everyone come clean on these meetings,
contributions, and the like....

---

I agree with her. An open government from the top down would be a very refreshing change.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 06 - 01:06 PM

Trade Gap Hits Record For 4th Year In a Row
The U.S. trade deficit soared to a record in 2005 for the fourth year in a row, according to a government report released yesterday that provided a reminder of the dangers hovering over a generally robust economy.

(Washington Post, 2-11-06)

Michael D. Brown, the former Federal Emergency Management Agency director, accused the Bush administration yesterday of setting the nation's disaster preparedness on a "path to failure" before Hurricane Katrina by overemphasizing the threat of terrorism, and of discounting warnings on the day the storm hit that a worst-case flood was enveloping New Orleans.

Brown called "a little disingenuous" and "just baloney" assertions by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other top Bush administration officials that they were unaware of the severity of the catastrophe for a day after Katrina struck on Aug. 29. Investigators say their inaction delayed the launch of federal emergency measures, rescue efforts and aid to tens of thousands of stranded New Orleans residents.

(Ibid).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Feb 06 - 02:43 PM

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THE ONION DISPATCH
News For Your In-Box

Bush Hides U.S. Report Card In Sock Drawer
February 14, 2006 | Issue 42•07

CRAWFORD, TX—According to White House sources, following yet another disappointing grading period for the nation he leads, President Bush hid the national report card in his bedroom sock drawer Monday. "We, as a nation, got a D in international relations, a D in economics, and an F in military history," Bush reportedly said. "We must work hard to make sure no one finds out about this." Critics say the report-card-hiding effort is immature, and point out that the sock drawer is the first place The New York Times will look.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 12:36 PM

From an interesting new on-line mag called No More King George;

"It is not unusual for a President to refuse to release documents by claiming "executive privilege." Presidents usually invoke this theory to protect the notes and papers of their closest advisors. The justification is made that the fear of finding their words published in the Congressional Record will prevent senior advisors from giving the candid advice that a President needs.

Now, through his extensive use of "signing statements," President Bush appears to have moved the limits of executive privilege into unknown territory.

Starting in 2001, it has become routine for President Bush to attach "statements" when he signs bills into law and returns them to Congress. These statements assert many claims regarding the presumed power of the President to ignore any part of the law that, in his judgement, impose on his view of his constitutional powers.

The most common claim made is in regard to a laws requirements that reports be made to Congress on its enforcement.

Beginning with a bill signed on December 28, 2001, President Bush has asserted "the President's constitutional authority to withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties."

This clause now appears in almost every signing statement. "

---

While I am all for an effective executive branch, the weasely inclusion of the term 'unitary' in its descriptpion is a wide-open wiggle space of Cyclopean dimensions (gigantic, but one-eyed, like a huge prick).

Actual signing statements from the Bush-head can be found here

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: number 6
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 12:46 PM

Hi Amos ... always wondered who posts here ... anyway, just droppin, a hi ya, how ya doin' ... it must be kinda lonely posting downhere by yourself.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:03 PM

Hey, Amos... Check out George Will's column in the Post today... I usually don't spent too much time reading his stuff beduase he is, IMO, very conservative but he has really blasted Bush for the executive power grab that we are witnessing...

Tell ya what... Bush is starting to scare the Hell outta a lot of conservatives...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Feb 06 - 01:16 PM

A brief excerpt of Will's wrath:

"The administration, in which mere obduracy sometimes serves as political philosophy, pushes the limits of assertion while disdaining collaboration. This faux toughness is folly, given that the Supreme Court, when rejecting President Harry S Truman's claim that his inherent powers as commander in chief allowed him to seize steel mills during the Korean War, held that presidential authority is weakest when it clashes with Congress.

Immediately after Sept. 11, the president rightly did what he thought the emergency required, and rightly thought that the 1978 law was inadequate to new threats posed by a new kind of enemy using new technologies of communication. Arguably he should have begun surveillance of domestic-to-domestic calls -- the kind the Sept. 11 terrorists made.

But 53 months later, Congress should make all necessary actions lawful by authorizing the president to take those actions, with suitable supervision. It should do so with language that does not stigmatize what he has been doing, but that implicitly refutes the doctrine that the authorization is superfluous."

---

Power grabbery in the present extreme is no virtue; it is a quest for corruption without accountability.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 12:55 PM

The New York Times opines:

he Shame of the Prisons
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Published: February 18, 2006
Who needs sophomoric cartoons to inflame the Muslim world when you've got the Bush administration's prison system? One reason the White House is so helpless against the violence spawned by those Danish cartoons is that it has squandered so much of its moral standing at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. This week, the world got two chilling reminders of why both prisons must be closed.

On Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Commission issued a scathing report on the violations of democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law at Guantánamo Bay: indefinite arbitrary detentions, hearings that mock fair process and justice, coercive and violent interrogations, and other violations of laws and treaties.

The Bush administration offered its usual weak response, that President Bush has decided there is a permanent state of war that puts him above the law. And that is exactly the problem: by creating Guantánamo outside the legal system for prisoners who, according to Mr. Bush, have no rights, the United States is stuck holding these 500 men in perpetuity. The handful who may be guilty of heinous crimes can never be tried in a real court because of their illegal detentions. A vast majority did nothing or were guilty only of fighting on a battlefield, but the administration refuses to sort them out.

Some members of Congress tried to exert control over Guantánamo Bay late last year. But their efforts were hijacked by Bush loyalists, who made matters worse by stripping the prisoners there of the basic human right to challenge their detentions.

Now the only solution is to close Guantánamo Bay and account for its prisoners fairly and openly. The United States then needs a prisons policy that conforms to the law and to democratic principles.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 01:17 PM

I was just listening to PBS or NPR in the car and was listening to Richard Dryfus addressing the National Press Club and he sho nuff amde an excellent case for impeachment...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 04:28 PM

Maureen Dowd remarks....

"...Like the vice president, the defense secretary is eager to get information out. If the American press wouldn't scream, "Henny Penny, the sky is falling," every time the Pentagon tries to plant paid stories in the Iraqi press, for gosh sakes, maybe we could have some success in the P.R. battle.

After the Lincoln Group's "nontraditional means," as he delicately put it, were discovered, "the resulting explosion of critical press stories then causes everything, all activity, all initiative, to stop, just frozen."

"Even worse," he complained, "it leads to a chilling effect for those who are asked to serve in the military public affairs field." The press "seems to demand perfection from the government," he wailed. And why do the media focus on Abu Ghraib, perpetrated by "people on the night shift, one night shift in Iraq?" he asked. Why not more stories on Saddam's mass graves?

Rummy is genuinely perplexed about why it's wrong to subvert democracy while promoting democracy.

I love it when Shooter and Rummy call us unrealistic for trying to hold them to standards that they set. They are, after all, victims of their own spin on Iraq. Mr. Cheney thought we'd be greeted with flowers; Rummy said we could do more with less.

Rummy misses the point: we're supposed to be the good guys, the beacon of freedom. Our message is supposed to work because it has moral force, not because we pay some Lincoln Group sketchballs millions to plant propaganda in Iraqi newspapers and not because the press here plays down revelations of American torture. If the Bush crew hadn't distorted the truth to get to Iraq, it wouldn't need to distort the truth to succeed there.

"Ultimately, in my view," Rummy concluded, "truth wins out."

Bad news for him, and his pal Dick."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 05:47 PM

Smoking Dutch Cleanser
By Maureen Dowd
New York Times Op-Ed

Vice President Dick Cheney bitterly complains that national security leaks are endangering America.

Unless, of course, he's doing the leaking, tapping Scooter Libby to reveal national security information to punish a political critic.

President Bush says he will not talk about specific security threats to America. Unless, of course, he needs to talk about a specific threat to Los Angeles to confuse the public and gain some cheap political advantage.

The White House says it has done everything possible to protect the homeland. Unless, of course, it hasn't. Then it can lie to hide the callous portrait of Incurious George in Crawford as New Orleans drowned.

The attorney general can claim that torture and warrantless wiretapping are legal, and mislead Congress. Unless, of course, enough Republicans stand up and say, as Arlen Specter told The Washington Post, that if the lickspittle lawyer thinks all this is legal, "he's smoking Dutch Cleanser."

The president doesn't know the Indian Taker Jack Abramoff. Unless, of course, W. has met with him a dozen times, invited him to Crawford and joked with him about his kids.

The Bushies can continue to claim that the invasion of Iraq was justified because Saddam was a threat to our security. Unless, of course, he wasn't, and the Cheney cabal was simply abusing the trust of Americans to push a wild-eyed political scheme.

At the Bush White House, the mere evocation of the word "terror" justifies breaking any law, contravening any convention, despoiling any ideal, electing any Republican and brushing off any failure to govern.

Asked yesterday by Senator Susan Collins why the administration had reacted in slo-mo on Katrina, with "people dying, people waiting to be rescued," Michael Brown replied that if FEMA had confirmed that a terrorist had blown up the 17th Street Canal levee, "then everybody would have jumped all over that and been trying to do everything they could."

Instead of just going after the 9/11 fiends, as W. promised with his bullhorn, the president and Vice President Strangelove have cynically played the terror card to accrue power and sidestep blame. They have twisted our values, mismanaged crises, fueled fundamentalist successes and violence around the world, and magnified a clash of civilizations.

It used to take an Israeli incursion to inflame the Arab world. Now all it takes is a cartoon in Denmark.

W. and Vice have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, turning Iraq into a terrorist training ground, leaving the 9/11 villains at large, and letting cronies and losers botch the job of homeland security.

Brownie, one of the biggest boneheads in U.S. history, considered the homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, so useless that he deliberately didn't call him right away about the suffering in New Orleans.

"The culture was such that I didn't think that would have been effective and would have exacerbated the problem, quite frankly," Brownie told the Republican senator Bob Bennett, who called the statement "staggering." A telephone call to his boss, Brownie said, "would have wasted my time."

The doofus who frittered away lives e-mailing colleagues about being a "fashion god" and wondering how he looked on television may have just been engaged in self-protective spin. Or has the Homeland Security Department simply created another set of paralyzing turf battles?

The most dysfunctional man in government is calling the government dysfunctional.

W.'s sophomoric "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" line makes even Brownie cringe. "Unfortunately," the former FEMA chief complained, "he called me 'Brownie' at the wrong time. Thanks a lot, sir."

In the new Foreign Affairs, Paul Pillar, who was a senior C.I.A. official overseeing Middle East intelligence assessments until October, says the obvious conclusion that should have been drawn from the intelligence on Iraq was that war was unnecessary. He says the White House "went to war without requesting - and evidently without being influenced by - any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

He calls the relationship between the intelligence community and the policy makers - you guessed it - politicized, damaged by bureaucratic rivalries and dysfunctional.

A final absurd junction of dysfunction was reached on Wednesday, when Republican Party leaders awarded Tom DeLay with a seat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Justice Department, which is investigating Jack Abramoff, including his connections to Tom DeLay.

Perfect. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 06:02 PM

Bob Herbert suggest Dick-Head resign:

"It's time for Dick Cheney to step down - for the sake of the country and for the sake of the Bush administration.

Mr. Cheney's bumbling conduct at the upscale Armstrong Ranch in South Texas seemed hilarious at first. But when we learned that Harry Whittington had suffered a mild heart attack after being shot by the vice president in a hunting accident, it became clear that a more sober assessment of the fiasco at the ranch and, inevitably, Mr. Cheney's controversial and even bizarre behavior as vice president was in order.

There's a reason Dick Cheney is obsessive about shunning the spotlight. His record is not the kind you want to hold up for intense scrutiny.

More than anyone else, he was fanatical about massaging and distorting the intelligence that plunged us into the flaming quagmire of Iraq. He insisted that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was hot on the trail of nukes. He pounded away at the false suggestion that Iraq was somehow linked to Al Qaeda. And he spread the word that the war he wanted so badly would be a cakewalk.

"I really do believe," he told Tim Russert, "that we will be greeted as liberators."

Well, he got his war. And while the nation's brave young soldiers and marines were bouncing around Iraq in shamefully vulnerable Humvees and other vehicles, dodging bullets, bombs and improvised explosive devices, Mr. Cheney (a gold-medal winner in the acquisition of wartime deferments) felt perfectly comfortable packing his fancy 28-gauge Perazzi shotgun and heading off to Texas with a covey of fat cats to shoot quail.

Matters went haywire, of course, when he shot Mr. Whittington instead.

That was the moment when the legend of the tough, hawkish, take-no-prisoners vice president began morphing into the less-than-heroic image of a reckless, scowling incompetent who mistook his buddy for a bird.

This story is never going away. Harry Whittington is Dick Cheney's Monica. When Mr. Whittington dies (hopefully many years from now, and from natural causes), he will be remembered as the hunting companion who was shot by the vice president of the United States. This tale will stick to Mr. Cheney like Krazy Glue, and that's bad news for the Bush administration.

The shooting and Mr. Cheney's highhanded behavior in its immediate aftermath fit perfectly with the stereotype of him as a powerful but dangerous figure who is viewed by many as a dark force within the administration. He doesn't even give lip service to the idea of transparency in his public or private life. This is the man who fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep his White House meetings with energy industry honchos as secret as the Manhattan Project. (Along the way he went duck hunting at a private camp in rural Louisiana with Justice Antonin Scalia.)

This is also the man whose closest and most trusted aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice as a result of the investigation into the outing of a C.I.A. undercover operative, Valerie Wilson.

Mr. Cheney is arrogant, defiant and at times blatantly vulgar. He once told Senator Patrick Leahy to perform a crude act upon himself.

A vice president who insists on writing his own rules, who shudders at the very idea of transparency in government, whose judgment on crucial policy issues has been as wildly off the mark (and infinitely more tragic) as his actions in Texas over the weekend, and who has now become an object of relentless ridicule, cannot by any reasonable measure be thought of as an asset to the nation or to the president he serves.

The Bush administration would benefit from new thinking and new perspectives on the war in Iraq, the potential threat from Iran, the nation's readiness to cope with another terror attack, the development of a comprehensive energy policy and other important issues.

President Bush's approval ratings have dropped below 40 percent in recent polls. Even Republicans are openly criticizing the administration's conduct of the war, its response to Hurricane Katrina and assorted other failures and debacles.

Dick Cheney is a constant reminder of those things the White House would most like to forget: the bullying, the intelligence failures, the inability to pacify Iraq, the misuse of classified information and the breathtaking incompetence that seems to be spread throughout the administration.

Mr. Cheney would do his nation and his president a service by packing his bags and heading back to Wyoming. He's become a joke. But not a funny one...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 08:25 AM

The :A Tims reports on yet another area of stealth lawmaking undercutting individual and state traditional rights vis-a-vis different industries, shielding manufacturers from litigation and state regulation:

..."The surprise move seeking legal protection for automakers is one in a series of recent steps by federal agencies to shield leading industries from state regulation and civil lawsuits on the grounds that they conflict with federal authority.

Some of these efforts are already facing court challenges. However, through arcane regulatory actions and legal opinions, the Bush administration is providing industries with an unprecedented degree of protection at the expense of an individual's right to sue and a state's right to regulate.

In other moves by the administration:

• The highway safety agency, a branch of the Department of Transportation, is backing auto industry efforts to stop California and other states from regulating tailpipe emissions they link to global warming. The agency said last summer that any such rule would be a backdoor attempt by states to encroach on federal authority to set mileage standards, and should be preempted.

• The Justice Department helped industry groups overturn a pollution-control rule in Southern California that would have required cleaner-running buses, garbage trucks and other fleet vehicles.

• The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has repeatedly sided with national banks to fend off enforcement of consumer protection laws passed by California, New York and other states. The agency argued that it had sole authority to regulate national banks, preempting state restrictions.

• The Food and Drug Administration issued a legal opinion last month asserting that FDA-approved labels should give pharmaceutical firms broad immunity from most types of lawsuits. The agency previously had filed briefs seeking dismissal of various cases against drug companies and medical-device manufacturers.

In a letter to President Bush on Thursday, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said, "It appears that there may have been an administration-wide directive for agencies … to limit corporate liability through the rule-making process and without the consent of Congress."

Administration officials said the initiatives had not been centrally coordinated.

"Under the constitution, federal laws take priority over inconsistent state laws," said Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. "Decisions about … whether particular rules should preempt state laws are made agency by agency and rule by rule."

Preemption initiatives by regulatory agencies have drawn less public attention than controversial legislative moves supported by the White House. With administration support, Congress has restricted class-action suits and banned certain claims against gun makers and vaccine producers.

By embedding similar protections for businesses in regulatory changes, the administration has advanced Bush's repeated pledge to rein in what he calls junk lawsuits."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Feb 06 - 08:31 AM

"The best domocracy that money can buy..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 03:10 PM

New York Times Magazine, Feb. 19
Francis Fukuyama renounces neoconservatism in an essay on post-Iraq U.S. foreign policy and labels the contemporary core of the movement—William Kristol and Robert Kagan, et al.—as Leninist: "They believed" he writes, "that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will." Fukuyama worries that our failures in Iraq will lead to a new American isolationism and argues that in rethinking our relationship to the world, we need "ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of American power and hegemony to bring these ends about." …

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Feb 06 - 04:55 PM

WWIII or Bust: Implications of a US Attack on Iran
Posted: 2006/02/20
   
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous... Having said that, all options are on the table." George W. Bush, February 2005


By Heather Wokusch
Witnessing the Bush administration's drive for an attack on Iran is like being a passenger in a car with a raving drunk at the wheel. Reports of impending doom surfaced a year ago, but now it's official: under orders from Vice President Cheney's office, the Pentagon has developed "last resort" aerial-assault plans using long-distance B2 bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles with both conventional and nuclear weapons.

How ironic that the Pentagon proposes using nuclear weapons on the pretext of protecting the world from nuclear weapons. Ironic also that Iran has complied with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing inspectors to "go anywhere and see anything," yet those pushing for an attack, the USA and Israel, have not.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 12:00 AM

The Torturers Win
Bob Herbert
NYT Op-Ed

"Justice? Surely you jest.

Terrible things were done to Maher Arar, and his extreme suffering was set in motion by the United States government. With the awful facts of his case carefully documented, he tried to sue for damages. But last week a federal judge waved the facts aside and told Mr. Arar, in effect, to get lost.

We're in a new world now and the all-powerful U.S. government apparently has free rein to ruin innocent lives without even a nod in the direction of due process or fair play. Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen who, according to all evidence, has led an exemplary life, was seized and shackled by U.S. authorities at Kennedy Airport in 2002, and then shipped off to Syria, his native country, where he was held in a dungeon for the better part of a year. He was tormented physically and psychologically, and at times tortured.

The underground cell was tiny, about the size of a grave. According to court papers, "The cell was damp and cold, contained very little light and was infested with rats, which would enter the cell through a small aperture in the ceiling. Cats would urinate on Arar through the aperture, and sanitary facilities were nonexistent."

Mr. Arar's captors beat him savagely with an electrical cable. He was allowed to bathe in cold water once a week. He lost 40 pounds while in captivity.

This is a quintessential example of the reprehensible practice of extraordinary rendition, in which the U.S. government kidnaps individuals - presumably terror suspects - and sends them off to regimes that are skilled in the fine art of torture. In terms of vile behavior, rendition stands shoulder to shoulder with contract killing.

If the United States is going to torture people, we might as well do it ourselves. Outsourcing torture does not make it any more acceptable.

Mr. Arar's case became a world-class embarrassment when even Syria's torture professionals could elicit no evidence that he was in any way involved in terrorism. After 10 months, he was released. No charges were ever filed against him.

Mr. Arar is a 35-year-old software engineer who lives in Ottawa with his wife and their two young children. He's never been in any kind of trouble. Commenting on the case in a local newspaper, a former Canadian official dryly observed that "accidents will happen" in the war on terror. The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York filed a lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf, seeking damages from the U.S. government for his ordeal. The government said the case could not even be dealt with because the litigation would involve the revelation of state secrets.

In other words, it wouldn't matter how hideously or egregiously Mr. Arar had been treated, or how illegally or disgustingly the government had behaved. The case would have to be dropped. Inquiries into this 21st-century Inquisition cannot be tolerated. Its activities must remain secret at all costs.

In a ruling that basically gave the green light to government barbarism, U.S. District Judge David Trager dismissed Mr. Arar's lawsuit last Thursday. Judge Trager wrote in his opinion that "Arar's claim that he faced a likelihood of torture in Syria is supported by U.S. State Department reports on Syria's human rights practices."

But in dismissing the suit, he said that the foreign policy and national security issues raised by the government were "compelling" and that such matters were the purview of the executive branch and Congress, not the courts.

He also said that "the need for secrecy can hardly be doubted."

Under that reasoning, of course, the government could literally get away with murder. With its bad actions cloaked in court-sanctioned secrecy, no one would be the wiser.

As an example of the kind of foreign policy problems that might arise if Mr. Arar were given his day in court, Judge Trager wrote:

"One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria."

Oh yes, by all means, we need the federal courts to fully protect the right of public officials to lie to their constituents.

"It's a shocking decision," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "It's really saying that an individual who is sent overseas for the purpose of being tortured has no claim in a U.S. court."

If kidnapping and torturing an innocent man is O.K., what's not O.K.?"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 12:03 AM

Paul Krugman: The Mensch Gap
The Mensch Gap
New York Times Op-Ed

"Be a mensch," my parents told me. ...By implication, a mensch is an upstanding person who takes responsibility for his actions.

The people now running America aren't mensches.

Dick Cheney isn't a mensch. There have been many attempts to turn the shooting of Harry Whittington into a political metaphor, but the most characteristic moment was the final act - the Moscow show-trial moment in which the victim of Mr. Cheney's recklessness apologized for getting shot. Remember, Mr. Cheney, more than anyone else, misled us into the Iraq war. Then, when neither links to Al Qaeda nor W.M.D. materialized, he shifted the blame to the very intelligence agencies he bullied into inflating the threat.

Donald Rumsfeld isn't a mensch. Before the Iraq war Mr. Rumsfeld muzzled commanders who warned that we were going in with too few troops, and sidelined State Department experts who warned that we needed a plan for the invasion's aftermath. But when the war went wrong, he began talking about "unknown unknowns" and going to war with "the army you have," ducking responsibility for the failures of leadership that have turned the war into a stunning victory - for Iran.

Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, isn't a mensch. Remember his excuse for failing to respond to the drowning of New Orleans? "I remember on Tuesday morning," he said on "Meet the Press," "picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged the Bullet.' " There were no such headlines, at least in major newspapers, and we now know that he received - and ignored - many warnings about the unfolding disaster.

Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, isn't a mensch. He insists that the prescription drug plan's catastrophic start doesn't reflect poorly on his department, that "no logical person" would have expected "a transition happening that is so large without some problems." In fact, Medicare's 1966 startup went very smoothly. That didn't happen this time because his department ignored outside experts who warned, months in advance, about exactly the disaster that has taken place.

I could go on. Officials in this administration never take responsibility for their actions. When something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault.

Was it always like this? I don't want to romanticize our political history, but I don't think so. Think of Dwight Eisenhower, who wrote a letter before D-Day accepting the blame if the landings failed. His modern equivalent would probably insist that the landings were a "catastrophic success," then try to lay the blame for their failure on the editorial page of The New York Times.

Where have all the mensches gone? The character of the administration reflects the character of the man at its head. President Bush is definitely not a mensch; his inability to admit mistakes or take responsibility for failure approaches the pathological. He surrounds himself with subordinates who share his aversion to facing unpleasant realities. And as long as his appointees remain personally loyal, he defends their performance, no matter how incompetent. After all, to do otherwise would be to admit that he made a mistake in choosing them. Last week he declared that Mr. Leavitt is doing, yes, "a heck of a job."

But how did such people attain power in the first place? Maybe it's the result of our infantilized media culture, in which politicians, like celebrities, are judged by the way they look, not the reality of their achievements. Mr. Bush isn't an effective leader, but he plays one on TV, and that's all that matters.

Whatever the reason for the woeful content of our leaders' character, it has horrifying consequences. You can't learn from mistakes if you won't admit making any mistakes, an observation that explains a lot about the policy disasters of recent years â€" the failed occupation of Iraq, the failed response to Katrina, the failed drug plan.....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 08:37 PM

Republicans Split With Bush on Ports
White House Vows to Brief Lawmakers On Deal With Firm Run by Arab State
By Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 23, 2006; Page A01


Faced with an unprecedented Republican revolt over national security, the White House disclosed yesterday that President Bush was unaware of a Middle Eastern company's planned takeover of operations at six U.S. seaports until recent days and promised to brief members of Congress more fully on the pending deal.

One day after threatening to veto any attempt by Congress to scuttle the controversial $6.8 billion deal, Bush sounded a more conciliatory tone by saying lawmakers should have been given more details about a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates purchasing some terminal operations in Baltimore and five other U.S. cities.

...
"This is one where we probably should have consulted with or briefed Congress on sooner," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

But congressional Republicans renewed their vow to prevent the sale from being finalized next month and warned Bush, sometimes in taunting terms, that an overwhelming majority of lawmakers will oppose the sale on national security grounds. "Dear Mr President: In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO but HELL NO!" Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) wrote to Bush in a one-sentence letter.

---

In related comments:

President Bush wasn't aware of the sale of six U.S. ports to an Arab company until after federal approval was granted and congressional opposition erupted over the deal, his spokesman said today.
(By Daniela Deane, The Washington Post)

---

Must be difficult when selling the country gets crossed up with the war-led xenophobia which Bush, himself, inspired and fueled.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 06 - 08:42 PM

Part of a recent Maureen DOwd column

GOP to W: You're Nuts

:

"...Mr. Bush is hoist on his own petard. For four years, the White House has accused anyone in Congress or the press who defended civil liberties or questioned anything about the Iraq war of being soft on terrorism. Now, as Congress and the press turn that accusation back on the White House, Mr. Bush acts mystified by the orgy of xenophobia.

Lawmakers, many up for re-election, have learned well from Karl Rove. Playing the terror card works.

A bristly Bush said yesterday that scotching the deal would send "a terrible signal" to a worthy ally. He equated the "Great British" with the U.A.E. Well, maybe Britain in the 12th century.

Besides, the American people can be forgiven if they're confused about what it means in the Arab world to be a U.S. ally. Is it a nation that helps us sometimes but also addicts us to oil and then jacks up the price, refuses to recognize Israel, denies women basic rights, tolerates radical anti-American clerics, looks the other way when its citizens burn down embassies and consulates over cartoons, and often turns a blind eye when it comes to hunting down terrorists in its midst?

In our past wars, America had specific countries to demonize. But now in the "global war on terror" - GWOT, as they call it - the enemy is a faceless commodity that the administration uses whenever it wants to win a political battle. When something like this happens, it's no wonder the public does its own face transplant.

One of the real problems here is that this administration has run up such huge trade and tax-cut-and-spend budget deficits that we're in hock to the Arabs and the Chinese to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. If they just converted their bonds into cash, they would own our ports and not have to merely rent them.

Just because the wealthy foreigners who own our debt can blackmail us with their economic leverage, does that mean we should expose our security assets to them as well?

As part of the lunatic White House defense, Dan Bartlett argued that "people are trying to drive wedges and make this to be a political issue." But as the New Republic editor Peter Beinart pointed out in a recent column, W. has made the war on terror "one vast wedge issue" to divide the country.

Now, however, the president has pulled us together. We all pretty much agree: mitts off our ports.

Categories: Maureen Dowd Entire article here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 07:07 PM

"As a result of the full-page impeachment ads in newspapers, the mass demonstrations, rallies in Congressional districts, and the more than 650,000 people that have joined the impeachment campaign at ImpeachBush.org, the political climate in the United States has changed.

There are now 27 members of the House of Representatives, including John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who are supporting a bill, H. Res 635, calling for "a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before Congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."

"Our principles are enshrined in our Constitution and a system of duly enacted laws, and in a government where all are accountable and no one is above the law," stated Rep. Barbara Lee of California, one of the co-sponsors of the impeachment inquiry. "Our Constitution gives us a system of checks and balances and divided power because our founders were bitterly familiar with dealing with an unaccountable executive and were determined that our nation should not have a king," said Congresswoman Lee.

At the same time the Congressional inquiry moves forward, recent polls reveal that the majority of the country now favors impeachment if the President either lied about the reasons for going to war or broke federal law with his illegal wire-tapping program. This is a clear-cut sign that the impeachment movement is becoming a decisive factor in U.S. politics."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 12:58 PM

An excerpt from a recent column by Paul Krugman, N.Y. Times, which is of interest and historical value for its documentation of the early orders of Rumsfield regarding Hussein, as early as 9-12-02.

The storm of protest over the planned takeover of some U.S. port operations by Dubai Ports World doesn't make sense viewed in isolation. The Bush administration clearly made no serious effort to ensure that the deal didn't endanger national security. But that's nothing new - the administration has spent the past four and a half years refusing to do anything serious about protecting the nation's ports.

So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation.

Let's go back to the beginning. At 2:40 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld gave military commanders their marching orders. "Judge whether good enough hit S. H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time - not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]," read an aide's handwritten notes about his instructions. The notes were recently released after a Freedom of Information Act request. "Hard to get a good case," the notes acknowledge. Nonetheless, they say: "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

So it literally began on Day 1. When terrorists attacked the United States, the Bush administration immediately looked for ways it could exploit the atrocity to pursue unrelated goals - especially, but not exclusively, a war with Iraq.

But to exploit the atrocity, President Bush had to do two things. First, he had to create a climate of fear: Al Qaeda, a real but limited threat, metamorphosed into a vast, imaginary axis of evil threatening America. Second, he had to blur the distinctions between nasty people who actually attacked us and nasty people who didn't.

The administration successfully linked Iraq and 9/11 in public perceptions through a campaign of constant insinuation and occasional outright lies. In the process, it also created a state of mind in which all Arabs were lumped together in the camp of evildoers. Osama, Saddam - what's the difference?

Now comes the ports deal. Mr. Bush assures us that "people don't need to worry about security." But after all those declarations that we're engaged in a global war on terrorism, after all the terror alerts declared whenever the national political debate seemed to be shifting to questions of cronyism, corruption and incompetence, the administration can't suddenly change its theme song to "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

The administration also tells us not to worry about having Arabs control port operations. "I want those who are questioning it," Mr. Bush said, "to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company."

He was being evasive, of course. This isn't just a Middle Eastern company; it's a company controlled by the monarchy in Dubai, which is part of the authoritarian United Arab Emirates, one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan.

But more to the point, after years of systematically suggesting that Arabs who didn't attack us are the same as Arabs who did, the administration can't suddenly turn around and say, "But these are good Arabs."

...

---

This helps make the story clear.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 04:42 PM

I've recently learned of an interesting resource that may be of interest to
others: Dr. Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired USAF Lt Col who spent her
final assignment as a political-military affairs officer in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense (http://www.militaryweek.com/kwiatkowski.shtml).

Basically, Karen worked alongside the Office of Special Plans (OSP, which
was originally created by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to review raw information collected by the official
U.S. intelligence agencies for connections between Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein and al-Qaeda. In this capacity, she seems to have had unusual
insight into the claims that Rumsfeld et al exaggerated and manipulated
intelligence about Iraq before passing it along to the White House.

Here are a few links of interest:

Career Officer Does Eye-Opening Stint Inside Pentagon


"What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and
discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of
``intelligence'' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the
post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps,
one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary
of Defense."



Karen Kwiatkowski: Archives
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski-arch.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 10:06 AM

John Dickerson, writing in Slate, offers a list of "Bush critics you should trust", because they (a) are from the Republican side of the fence and (b) think carefully about thier criticisms. Worth a look.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 06 - 09:45 AM

William Buckley Jr., the arch-conservative's conservative, reflects on the core postulates behind Bush's war experiment:

February 24, 2006, 2:51 p.m.
It Didn't Work


"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes — it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

   
One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that "The bombing has completely demolished" what was being attempted — to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others' throats.

A problem for American policymakers — for President Bush, ultimately — is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.

One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom.

The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on violence.

This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail.

It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail — in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn't work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat. ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 02:37 PM

The New York Timers is hard on Bushie this week.

Thomas Friedman slices thropugh the war of PR on the military track:

Thomas Friedman: The Big Question

New York Times Op-Ed

Since the start of the Iraq war, it's been clear that "victory" rested on the answer to one Big Question: Was Iraq the way Iraq was because Saddam was the way Saddam was, or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq was the way Iraq was - a country congenitally divided among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds that can be held together only by an iron fist.

Unfortunately, to answer this big question - even Iraqis didn't know - the U.S. had to provide a minimum degree of security for all Iraqis, so people could feel relaxed enough to think beyond their most narrow tribal or religious identities. We didn't do that, because of President Bush's decision to approach the Iraq invasion with the Rumsfeld Doctrine, which calls for just enough troops to fail, rather than the proven Powell Doctrine, which calls for overwhelming force to win.

What happened in the absence of an overwhelming U.S. force was the looting of government buildings and ammo dumps, open borders for infiltrators, and then widespread insecurity, which naturally prompted Iraqis to fall back on tribal loyalties and militias, rather than trusting the Iraqi Army or the police. People are very good at figuring out who will protect them in a crisis, and too many Iraqis opted for local militias.

Yes, we are now better at training an Iraqi Army and have held national elections. But the failure to provide security after the invasion means we are trying to build these national institutions in competition with the insurgents, Qaeda terrorists, Shiite death squads and sectarian Iraqi militias that sprouted in the security vacuum.

One thing that covering the Lebanese civil war taught me was this: once sectarian militias take root, they develop their own interests and are very hard to uproot. "Militias are the infrastructure of civil war, and the basis of warlordism," the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, told The Washington Post.

This did not have to be. The Bush team repeatedly declared that it had enough troops in Iraq and that no one on the ground was asking for more. Totally untrue. As Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. civilian administration in Iraq, reveals in his new book, "My Year in Iraq," he repeatedly asked for more troops, but was ignored.

Mr. Bremer confesses in his book: "Coalition forces were spread too thin on the ground. During my morning intelligence briefings, I would sometimes picture an understrength fire crew racing from one blaze to another." He writes that he told Condoleezza Rice in 2003, "The coalition's got about half the number of soldiers we need here, and we run a real risk of having this thing go south on us."

Mr. Bremer describes this in 2004: "On May 18, I gave Rice a heads-up that I intended to send Secretary Rumsfeld a very private message suggesting that the coalition needed more troops. ... That afternoon I sent my message. ... I noted that the deterioration of the security situation since April had made it clear, to me at least, that we were trying to cover too many fronts with too few resources." But, Mr. Bremer writes of Mr. Rumsfeld, "I did not hear back from him."

Because the U.S. never deployed enough troops, America alone cannot establish order in Iraq today. We don't have a way to do that. And Iraq's Army, no matter how well trained, will never have enough will - without a broad political consensus. So we're down to the last hope, and it's a mighty thin reed. The only people who can produce a decent outcome now are Iraq's new leaders - by coming together, burying their hatchets, forging a real national unity government and getting their followers to follow.
..."

And Paul Krugman lambasts "George the Unready":

"...This is the season of decision. We have an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi-written constitution. Either the elected Iraqi leaders will heroically come together and forge a national unity government - and save Iraq - or they will divide Iraq. Our job was to help them decide in a reasonably secure environment, not in a shooting gallery. We failed in that task, but they will have to decide nevertheless.

It is Iraqis who will now tell Americans whether they should stay or go. A majority of Americans, in a gut way, always understood the value of trying to produce a democratizing government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world. That is why there has been no big antiwar movement. Americans should, and will, stick with Iraq if they sense that Iraqis are on a pathway to building a decent, stable government. But Americans will not, and should not, baby-sit an Iraqi civil war. The minute they sense that's what's happening, you will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war.

Categories: Thomas L Friedman The Big Question

Paul Krugman: George The Unready

George The Unready
By Paul Krugman
New York Times Op-Ed

Iraqi insurgents, hurricanes and low-income Medicare recipients have three things in common. Each has been at the center of a policy disaster. In each case experts warned about the impending disaster. And in each case - well, let's look at what happened.

Knight Ridder's Washington bureau reports that from 2003 on, intelligence agencies "repeatedly warned the White House" that "the insurgency in Iraq had deep local roots, was likely to worsen and could lead to civil war." But senior administration officials insisted that the insurgents were a mix of dead-enders and foreign terrorists.

Intelligence analysts who refused to go along with that line were attacked for not being team players. According to U.S. News & World Report, President Bush's reaction to a pessimistic report from the C.I.A.'s Baghdad station chief was to remark, "What is he, some kind of defeatist?"

Many people have now seen the video of the briefing Mr. Bush received before Hurricane Katrina struck. Much has been made of the revelation that Mr. Bush was dishonest when he claimed, a few days later, that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees.

But what's really striking, given the gravity of the warnings, is the lack of urgency Mr. Bush and his administration displayed in responding to the storm. A horrified nation watched the scenes of misery at the Superdome and wondered why help hadn't arrived. But as Newsweek reports, for several days nobody was willing to tell Mr. Bush, who "equates disagreement with disloyalty," how badly things were going. "For most of those first few days," Newsweek says, "Bush was hearing what a good job the Feds were doing."

Now for one you may not have heard about. The new Medicare drug program got off to a disastrous start: "Low-income Medicare beneficiaries around the country were often overcharged, and some were turned away from pharmacies without getting their medications, in the first week of Medicare's new drug benefit," The New York Times reported.

How did this happen? The same way the other disasters happened: experts who warned of trouble ahead were told to shut up.

We can get a sense of what went on by looking at a 2005 report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office on potential problems with the drug program. Included with the report is a letter from Mark McClellan, the Medicare administrator. Rather than taking the concerns of the G.A.O. seriously, he tried to bully it into changing its conclusions. He demanded that the report say that the administration had "established effective contingency plans" - which it hadn't - and that it drop the assertion that some people would encounter difficulties obtaining necessary drugs, which is exactly what happened.

Experts within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services must have faced similar bullying. And unlike experts at the independent G.A.O., they were not in a position to stand up for what they knew to be true.

In short, our country is being run by people who assume that things will turn out the way they want. And if someone warns of problems, they shoot the messenger.

Some commentators speak of the series of disasters now afflicting the Bush administration - there seems to be a new one every week - as if it were just a string of bad luck. But it isn't.

If good luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, bad luck is what happens when lack of preparation meets a challenge. And our leaders, who think they can govern through a mix of wishful thinking and intimidation, are never, ever prepared."...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 05:33 PM

Nipping and Tucking on Both Coasts
By Maureen Dowd
New York Times Op-Ed

There is a crash of ideologies between the country's two most self-regarding and fantasy-spinning power centers. The Bush crowd cringes away from gay cowboys spooning, gay authors flouncing, transgender babes exploring and George the Dashing Clooneying in movies about the glories of free speech and the dangers of oilmen influencing policy.

But as I looked around Vanity Fair's slinky Oscar party on Sunday night, it struck me that the bellicose Bushies do share a presentation aesthetic with Tinseltown's trompe l'oeil beauties: you see no furrowed brows, no regretful winces, no unflattering wrinkles, no admissions of imperfection, no qualms about puffing up what you really have, no visible signs of hard lessons learned, and no desire to confront reality in the mirror.

Who ever thought Dick Cheney and Mamie Van Doren would have so much in common?

The White House is constantly trying to do laser resurfacing on its Iraq policy, to sandblast away the damage from its own mistakes. ...
In Hollywood terms, we've reached an Indiana Jones crisis moment in our parlous protectorate. The cave is collapsing, the snakes are encroaching, the vehicles are exploding, the crushing ball is rolling down on us. The public has stopped buying the administration's sugary spin. The Washington Post reported yesterday that 80 percent of Americans - cutting across party lines - say sectarian violence makes civil war in Iraq likely. More than a third call it "very likely." Half also think the U.S. should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, the poll found, and two-thirds say the president has no clear plan for Iraq.

The widespread resistance to the Dubai ports deal, even among newly fractious Republicans, indicates that Americans have lost faith in the president's competence — a faith shredded by the White House's obtuseness and lies on Katrina.

As Hollywood often does, the administration scorns introspection and originality. It sticks with the same worn themes: Stay the course. Victory's around the corner. Anyone who expresses skepticism is a defeatist, a softie on terrorism.

On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraq was "going very, very well, from everything you look at." And on Tuesday at a Pentagon briefing, Rummy, who should have resigned in shame long ago, tried to blame the press, echoing Gen. George Casey in saying: "Much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation."

He added, "The steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists."

After all the horrible mistakes in judgment the defense secretary has made - mistakes that have left our troops without proper backup and armor, created an inept and corrupt occupation, and confused soldiers into thinking torture was O.K. - it takes humongous gall to suggest that the problem is really the reporters.

Many experts say we're close to a civil war - or already in one. Even the U.S. envoy, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, told The Los Angeles Times on Monday that the invasion of Iraq had opened a "Pandora's box" of tribal and religious fissures that could devour the region. His words evoked a harrowing image of the bad spirits swarming up the mountain in Disney's "Fantasia" as Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" played.

He said that if there's another incident like the Shiite shrine's being blown up, Iraq is "really vulnerable."

The Pentagon says it'll look once more at the death by friendly fire of the football player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, because the first three inquiries were tainted - one more sad illustration of the administration's cynical attempt not to let anything get in the way of its heroic, and dermatologically plumped up, story line for America.

 

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 05:38 PM

President Bush was scheduled to worship at a small Methodist Church outside Washington, D.C. as part of Karl Rove's campaign to reverse Bush's rapidly deteriorating approval ratings. A week before the visit, Rove called on the Methodist Bishop who was scheduled to preach on the chosen Sunday. "As you know, Bishop," began Rove, "we've been getting a lot of bad publicity among Methodists because of the president's position on stem cell research and the like. We'd gladly arrange for Jack Abramoff's friends to make a contribution of $100,000 to the church if during your sermon you would say that President Bush is a saint." The Bishop thought about it for a few minutes, and finally said, "This parish is in rather desperate need of funds ... I'll agree to do it."

The following Sunday, Bush pompously showed up for the photo op, looking especially smug even while attempting to appear pious. After making a few announcements, the Bishop began his homily:

"George W. Bush is a petty, vindictive, sanctimonious hypocrite and a nitwit. He is a liar, a cheat, and a low-intelligence weasel with the world's largest chip on his shoulder. He used every dirty election trick in the book and still lost, but his toadies in the Supreme Court appointed him. He lied about his military record in which he used special privilege to avoid combat, and then had the gall to dress up and pose on an aircraft carrier before a banner stating 'Mission Accomplished.' He invaded a sovereign country for oil and war profiteering, turning Iraq into a training ground for terrorists who would destroy our country.

He continues to confuse the American people by insisting on a nonexistent connection between the horrors of 9/11 and the reason he started his war in Iraq. He routinely appoints incompetent and unqualified cronies to high-level federal government positions and as a result, hundreds and hundreds of Americans died tragically in New Orleans. He lets corporate polluters despoil God's creation and doom our planet. He uses fear-mongering to justify warrantless spying on American citizens, in clear violation of our Constitution. He is so psychotic and megalomaniacal that he believes that he was chosen by God.

He is the worst example of a Methodist I have ever personally known.

But compared to Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and the rest of the evil fascist bastards in this administration, George W. Bush is a saint."

---

This is a joke which is presently circulating the internet. The question it raises is what the tenor of our national sentiment is when symptoms like this can be found in many places?

Better than Fort Sumter, I guess.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 07:46 PM

Yeah, good joke Amos... 'Cept it's purdy close to being the truth...

What buggin me these days is not the Repubs but the Dems... Every dat they remind me of why I'm a Green... Hey, I expect the Repubs to be crooks but why is it that the Dems won't step up to the plate with some initiatives of their own... Karl Rove has a carefully crafted PR campaign going right now to paint the Dems as the party with no ideas and guess what... It's working mainly becasue the Dems dobn't have any, or if they do, they have them locked up in a safe...

Winning elections and changing policies takes more than beating up on the mental midget... Yeah, I like bashing Bush, too, but over the years I have propsed alternative policy proposals... The beating up the mental midget philosophy is starting to take it's toll on progressives as Bush's failures are so vast it's tempting to jump on him rather than ignore the dunce and move on...

The Congressioanl Repubs have allready figured this out which means to me that the Dems don't deserve to have any more power if they aren't even smart enough to do what the Repubs are doing... Hey, if this was the '08 election it would be one thing but the dems are Hell bent on blowing the best opportinty they have had going back a couple decades here with this mid=term...

I know this ain't got much to do with Bush but...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 11:18 PM

How about a platform to restore Constitutional freedoms the way they were before King George snuck in?

How about a platform to restore the honor of the name if the United STates fiscally and politically around the world?

How about re-establshing the once automatic link in people's minds between "US" and "principles, justice, and individual rights"?

How about establishing a Federal ethics code as a starter?

How about a platform to make hidden law-making, however contrived, illegal?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 08:46 PM

Subject: Leahy: The assault on the public's right to know

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20060312/OPINI
ON/603120329/1006&theme
The assault on the public's right to know

By Sen. Patrick Leahy

March 12, 2006
As we take stock during the second annual "Sunshine Week," we
confront the disturbing reality that the foundations of our open government are under
direct assault from the first White House in modern times that is openly
hostile to the public's right to know.

The right to know is a cornerstone of our democracy. Without it,
citizens
are kept in the dark about key policy decisions that directly affect
their lives. Without open government, citizens cannot make informed choices
at the ballot box. Without access to public documents and a vibrant free press,
officials can make decisions in the shadows, often in collusion with
special interests, escaping accountability for their actions. And once
eroded, these rights are hard to win back.

The right to know is nourished by openness and vigorous congressional
oversight of federal agencies, but both are sorely lacking, and
government effectiveness and accountability have been among the casualties.

The disastrous failure to prepare for and respond to Hurricane
Katrina is only the most recent example, but a glaring one. Despite misleading
assertions in the storm's horrific aftermath, we now know that the White
House was warned in advance that the levees could fail in a
hurricane. We have belatedly seen videotapes in which President Bush was cautioned
by FEMA officials of this great danger.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) empowers the American people to
pry information from their government that agencies would prefer to keep
locked
away. Americans learned more about Abu Ghraib and conditions at
Guantanamo
from FOIA requests than from oversight by Congress.

As we celebrate FOIA's fourth decade as law, we also watch its
erosion as a
target of attacks such as when the Administration pushed an overly broad
FOIA waiver for the Department of Homeland Security's charter -- the
single
biggest rollback of FOIA in its 40-year history.

Our free press and the consciences of whistleblowers also serve the
public's
right to know. We would not know of the domestic spying program
conducted in
secret by the National Security Agency, with the full approval of the
White
House, unless the press had revealed it last December. The Department of
Justice is stonewalling Congress's efforts to obtain facts on this
program
while threatening to prosecute reporters who disclosed the illegal
program
to the public.

The Bush administration has kept vital facts secret by silencing
scientists
and experts. We saw it with the gagging of NASA scientist James Hansen,
whose conclusions about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions and
global
warming differed with Administration policy. This administration also
secretly let lobbyists from polluting industries write rules on mercury
emissions, overriding the advice of the EPA's scientists and even
drawing a
harsh rebuke from EPA's inspector general. This tacit war on science
--trumping scientific evidence with ideology -- has also victimized
women's
access to the Plan B pill and cut international family planning funds
which
help the poorest of the poor, even though the evidence is clear that
these
funds reduce the numbers of abortions.

This kind of secrecy produces bad policies, as we saw when the Bush
administration tried to hide the true cost of its Medicare
prescription drug plan from Congress and the American people. While they were twisting
congressional arms for votes on the program, political leaders at
Medicare told Congress the price tag was $400 billion. Medicare's own accountants
projected the cost to be $500 billion to $600 billion, but one of those
career staff, Richard Foster, was threatened with being fired if he told
Congress the truth.

We saw it again when the political leadership of the Justice Department
overruled career lawyers who found that Congressman Tom DeLay's Texas
redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power.
Career attorneys also found that a Georgia voter-identification law would
discriminate against black voters. The Department's political leaders
dismissed these findings and quietly approved both plans. We only
learned of these politically-motivated decisions later when the press obtained
documents and made them public.

In a situation that borders on the absurd, the intelligence agencies
have been quietly reclassifying documents that were open for years. This
program began in 1999 but has exploded under this Administration, which has
reclassified more than 55,000 pages. Even the Archivist of the United
States said he knew "precious little" of the program until it was revealed
by the press. The examples go on and on. The Bush administration has
displayed a near-total disdain for the free press and the public's right to know.

Sunshine Week invites an inventory check on tools like the Freedom of
Information Act that make real the public's right to know. Attacks on
these tools only erode that right. A free, open and accountable democracy
is what our forefathers fought and died for, and it is the duty of each new
generation to protect this vital heritage and inheritance.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 08:49 PM

I ain't too mush for censoring folks but, hey, Bush is a liar and a crook... But, ahhh, will this shut him up???

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 10:44 AM

An interesting assessment of the costs and prognosis for the Madness of King George can be found on this editorial page.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:09 PM

Of all the through-the-looking-glass moments in the last few days, the strangest is this: The F.B.I officer who arrested and questioned Zacarias Moussaoui told a jury that he had alerted his superiors about 70 times that Mr. Moussaoui was a radical Islamic fundamentalist who hated America and might be plotting to hijack an airplane.

Seventy? That makes one time for every virgin waiting for Mr. Moussaoui in heaven. Judging by how disastrously the prosecution is doing, the virgins will have to wait.

We could have cracked the 9/11 plot if the F.B.I. wasn't run by dunces. Mr. Moussaoui's lawyers got a break because according to the testimony of the officer, Harry Samit, a better-run bureau could have broken the case even without the terrorist's confession - maybe F.B.I. officers should have shot him with some paintballs.

On Sept. 10, 2001, Mr. Samit confided to a colleague that he was "desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer." He never heard back from the F.B.I.'s bin Laden unit before 9/11 - what did the unit have to do that was more pressing than catching bin Laden? And he was obstructed by officials in F.B.I. headquarters here, whom he labeled "criminally negligent."

He named two of the officials who did not want to endanger their careers with any excess aggression toward radical fundamentalists: David Frasca and Michael Maltbie, then working on the Radical Fundamentalist Unit.

Even though Condi Rice told the 9/11 commission that "no one could have imagined" terrorists' slamming a plane into the World Trade Center, an F.B.I. officer did. Officer Samit testified that a colleague, Greg Jones, tried to light a fire under Mr. Maltbie by urging him to "prevent Zacarias Moussaoui from flying a plane into the World Trade Center."

Later, Mr. Jones told Mr. Samit that it had just been "a lucky guess."

Kenneth Williams, a Phoenix agent, also sent a warning memo to the phlegmatic Mr. Frasca in July 2001, after sniffing out a scheme by Osama to dispatch Middle East extremists to America to get flight training.

Neil Lewis wrote in The Times yesterday that "William Carter, an F.B.I. spokesman, said that neither the bureau nor Mr. Maltbie nor Mr. Frasca, who are still employed there, would have any comment."

Still employed there? How can Mr. Maltbie and Mr. Frasca still be employed at the F.B.I.? How can Michael Chertoff still be employed at Homeland Security? How can Donald Rumsfeld still be employed at the Pentagon?

Missing 9/11, missing Katrina, mangling Iraq, racking up a $9 trillion debt - those things don't cause officials to lose their jobs. Only saying something honest - as prescient Gen. Eric Shinseki did - can get you a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

Rummy told reporters last week that the military was preparing for a civil war in Iraq, but he did not consider it a civil war yet - even though he acknowledged it was hard to tell exactly when chaos tipped into civil war.

"I don't think it'll look like the United States' Civil War," he added sanguinely. Yeah. At Fort Sumter, Lincoln let the enemy fire first. So the defense secretary believes if the body count stays below the Civil War era's 600,000, Iraq will achieve a healthy blue-state, red-state democracy?

One administration official says that Rummy does not hold the same sway in meetings anymore, that he's treated as an eccentric old uncle who pops off and is ignored. But why can't W. just quit him? Instead, the president praised him for doing "a fine job" on two wars and transforming the military, when Rummy actually bullied the military to go along with his foolish schemes in Iraq and has sapped the once-feared fighting machine.

At his impromptu press conference yesterday, the president presented himself as a nice guy doing a difficult job, relentlessly joshing with reporters. He chided the press for playing into terrorists' goals by showing bad news from Iraq - "they're capable of blowing up innocent life so it ends up on your TV show" - even as reports surfaced about insurgents outside Baghdad storming a jail, slaughtering 18 police officers and letting the prisoners out, following fast upon an insurgent raid on Iraqi Army headquarters in Kirkuk. Does the president think TV will instead report on an increase in melon sales at the market?

When the Bushies harp on training Iraqi security forces so America can hand the country over to them, it has a hollow ring. Back in 2003, the U.S. de-Baathified Iraq and put its faith in its friends, the Shiites. Now, given the suspected Shiite death squads and militias, the U.S. wants to bring the Sunnis back into the system. So whom do we trust? And for how long?

Asked if he could envision a day when there would be no more U.S. forces in Iraq, the president said, "That, of course, is an objective." But he added that it would be decided by future Iraqi governments and future American presidents.

Once W. is not still employed there.
....

(From my favorite redhead at the New York Times....)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,rarelamb
Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:24 PM

"Of all the through-the-looking-glass moments in the last few days, the strangest is this:"

For me Amos it was looking into the eyes of all those liberals, who had previously been beating their tables with their shoes, proclaiming there was no link between Al Queda and Iraq, when they read this article.

Al Queda and Iraq link

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:40 PM

"A friend currently serving in Iraq gave me permission to post
these comments of his:

   Interesting series of letters in the Stars and Stripes lately, with
   many service members of all ranks writing in to criticize Bush, and
   several others writing back to say they weren't permitted to do that
   under Article 88 of the UCMJ and Article 92 of the UCMJ. Finally a
   JAG lawyer wrote in to say that criticism itself isn't illegal under
   Article 88, as long as no contempt is expressed, and Article 92
   doesn't apply because that is about failure to follow orders.

   Now here is where it gets really interesting...At this point, a
   Major writes in to point out that in fact, Article 88 has been
   refined recently by DoD directive 1344.10, governing political
   activity by military personnel. The directive specifically states
   that a service member may not use contemptuous language against an
   office holder, which is further defined as the President, Vice
   President, Congress, Secretary of Defense, the secretary of a
   military department, and so on down to the state level.

   So what it amounts to is this: if a service member criticizes anyone
   in office, they can be busted if their langauge is found to be
   "contemptuous." I have yet to see this regulation applied, but the
   means is there.

   When was the DoD directive signed? August 2nd, 2004--under George
   W. Bush.

See http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html2/d134410x.htm
for the full text of that DoD directive".

From the IP List server.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 06 - 08:07 PM

Not enough to hang your hat on, RL, sorry -- let alone murdering folks on the strength of it.
Of course, you may feel murder is more easily justified than I do.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Mar 06 - 04:23 PM

The LA Times today opines:

"Good versus evil isn't a strategy
Bush's worldview fails to see that in the Middle East, power politics is the key.
By Madeleine Albright
March 24, 2006


THE BUSH administration's newly unveiled National Security Strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran." Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world.

It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

For years, the president has acted as if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts of the same problem. Yet, in the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war. In the 1990s, Al Qaeda's allies murdered a group of Iranian diplomats. For years, Osama bin Laden ridiculed Hussein, who persecuted Sunni and Shiite religious leaders alike. When Al Qaeda struck the U.S. on 9/11, Iran condemned the attacks and later participated constructively in talks on Afghanistan. The top leaders in the new Iraq — chosen in elections that George W. Bush called "a magic moment in the history of liberty" — are friends of Iran. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bush may have thought he was striking a blow for good over evil, but the forces unleashed were considerably more complex.

The administration is now divided between those who understand this complexity and those who do not. On one side, there are ideologues, such as the vice president, who apparently see Iraq as a useful precedent for Iran. Meanwhile, officials on the front lines in Iraq know they cannot succeed in assembling a workable government in that country without the tacit blessing of Iran; hence, last week's long-overdue announcement of plans for a U.S.-Iranian dialogue on Iraq — a dialogue that if properly executed might also lead to progress on other issues.

Although this is not an administration known for taking advice, I offer three suggestions. The first is to understand that although we all want to "end tyranny in this world," that is a fantasy unless we begin to solve hard problems. Iraq is increasingly a gang war that can be solved in one of two ways: by one side imposing its will or by all the legitimate players having a piece of the power. The U.S. is no longer able to control events in Iraq, but it can be useful as a referee."....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 06 - 11:07 AM

An excerpt from a NEw York Times expose on Bush' longt term insistence on going to war:

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says

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By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: March 27, 2006
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.

Skip to next paragraph

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and President Bush arriving for a White House news conference on Jan. 31, 2003, after a meeting about Iraq that would be summarized in a memorandum by an adviser to Mr. Blair.




Forum: The Transition in Iraq
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."

The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.

Although the United States and Britain aggressively sought a second United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to obtain — the president said repeatedly that he did not believe he needed it for an invasion.

Stamped "extremely sensitive," the five-page memorandum, which was circulated among a handful of Mr. Blair's most senior aides, had not been made public. Several highlights were first published in January in the book "Lawless World," which was written by a British lawyer and international law professor, Philippe Sands. In early February, Channel 4 in London first broadcast several excerpts from the memo.

Since then, The New York Times has reviewed the five-page memo in its entirety. While the president's sentiments about invading Iraq were known at the time, the previously unreported material offers an unfiltered view of two leaders on the brink of war, yet supremely confident.

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Those proposals were first reported last month in the British press, but the memo does not make clear whether they reflected Mr. Bush's extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government's plan.

Consistent Remarks

Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but declined to talk further about it, citing Britain's Official Secrets Act, which made it illegal to divulge classified information. But one of them said, "In all of this discussion during the run-up to the Iraq war, it is obvious that viewing a snapshot at a certain point in time gives only a partial view of the decision-making process."

On Sunday, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said the president's public comments were consistent with his private remarks made to Mr. Blair. "While the use of force was a last option, we recognized that it might be necessary and were planning accordingly," Mr. Jones said.

"The public record at the time, including numerous statements by the President, makes clear that the administration was continuing to pursue a diplomatic solution into 2003," he said. "Saddam Hussein was given every opportunity to comply, but he chose continued defiance, even after being given one final opportunity to comply or face serious consequences. Our public and private comments are fully consistent."

The January 2003 memo is the latest in a series of secret memos produced by top aides to Mr. Blair that summarize private discussions between the president and the prime minister. Another group of British memos, including the so-called Downing Street memo written in July 2002, showed that some senior British officials had been concerned that the United States was determined to invade Iraq, and that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy by the Bush administration to fit its desire to go to war."
...

From this article

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Apr 06 - 08:14 PM

President Bush, First Lady Laura and Dick Cheney were flying on Air
Force One. George looked at Laura, chuckled and said, "You know, I
could throw a $1,000 bill out of the window right now and make
somebody very happy."

Laura shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I could throw ten $100
bills out of the window and make ten people very happy."

Cheney added, "That being the case, I could throw one hundred $10
bills out of the window and make a hundred people very happy."

Hearing their exchange, the pilot rolled his eyes and said to his
co-pilot, "Such big-shots back there. Shit, I could throw all of them
out of the window and make 56 million people very happy."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 01:29 PM

Warning: Bobert advises that GUEST's thoughts are not complete. Think them at your own risk. The Surgeon General reports that thinking GUEST's incomplete thoughts may lead to erosion of certainty, compromised awareness of self doubt of the other's Existence...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 03:34 PM

Jeezus Criminy. Old Guy can't even let this thread go after all these months? Maybe he thinks I am single handedly responsible for his Bushman falling into tragic disrepute as a result ofhis unerring idiocy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Apr 06 - 03:36 PM

Sane people, pushed hard enough by insane people, will resort to humor before they revolt openly.

"

A Dictionary of Republicanisms

Alternative energy sources n. New locations to drill for gas and oil.
[Peter Scholz, Fort Collins, CO]

Bankruptcy n. A punishable crime when committed by poor people but
not by corporations.
[Beth Thielen, Studio City, Calif.]

"burning bush" n. A biblical allusion to the response of the
President of the United States, when asked a question by a
journalist who has not been paid to inquire.
[Bill Moyers, New York, NY]

Cheney, Dick n. The greater of two evils.
[Jacob McCullar, Austin, Tex.]

Class warfare n. Any attempt to raise the minimum wage
[Don Zweir, Grayslake, Ill.]

Climate change n. The blessed day when the blue states are swallowed
by the oceans.
[Ann Klopp, Princeton, NJ]

Compassionate conservatism n Poignant concern for the very wealthy
(Lawrence Sandek, Twin Peaks, Calif.]

Creationism n. Pseudoscience that claims George W. Bush's resemblance
to a chimpanzee is totally coincidental
[Brian Sweeney, Providence, RI].

DeLay, Tom n. 1. Past tense of De Lie
[Rick Rodstrom, Los Angeles, Calif.].
2. Patronage saint
[Andrew Magni, Nonatum, Mass.].

Extraordinary rendition n. Outsourcing torture
[Milton Feldon, Laguna Woods, Calif.].

Faith n. The stubborn belief that God approves of Republican moral
values despite the preponderance of textual evidence to the contrary
[Matthew Polly, Topeka, Kans.].

Free markets n. Halliburton no-bid contracts at taxpayer expense
[Sean O'Brian, Chicago, Ill.].

Girly men n. Males who do not grope women inappropriately
[Nick Gill, Newton, Mass.].

God n. Senior presidential adviser
[Martin Richard, Belgrade, Mont.].

Growth n. 1. The justification for tax cuts for the rich.
2. What happens to the national debt when Republicans
cut taxes on the rich
(Matthew Polly, Topeka, Kans.].

Healthy forest n. No tree left behind
[Dan McWilliams, Santa Barbara, Calif.].

Honesty n. Lies told in simple declarative sentences--e.g., "Freedom
is on the march"
[Katrina vanden Heuvel, New York, NY].

House of Representatives n. Exclusive club; entry fee $1 million to
$5 million (See Senate)
[Adam Hochschild, San Francisco, Calif.].

Laziness n. When the poor are not working
[Justin Rezzonico, Keene, Ohio].

Leisure time n. When the wealthy are not working
[Justin Rezzonico, Keene, Ohio].

Liberal(s) n. Followers of the Antichrist
[Ann Wegher, Montello, Wisc.].

No Child Left Behind riff. 1. v. There are always jobs in the military
[Ann Klopp, Princeton, NJ].
2. n. The rapture
[Samantha Hess, Cottonwood, Ariz.]

Ownership society n. A civilization where 1 percent of the population
controls 90 percent of the wealth
[Michael Albert, Piscataway, NJ].

Patriot Act n. 1. The preemptive strike on American freedoms to
prevent the terrorists from destroying them first.
2. The elimination of one of the reasons why they hate us
[Michael Thomas, Socorro, NM].

Pro-life adj. Valuing human life up until birth
[Kevin Weaver, San Francisco, Calif.].

Senate n. Exclusive club; entry fee $10 million to $30 million
[Adam Hochschild, San Francisco, Calif.].

Simplify v. To cut the taxes of Republican donors
[Katrina vanden Heuvel, New York, NY].

Staying the course interj. Slang. Saying and doing the same stupid
thing over and over, regardless of the result
[Suzanne Smith, Ann Arbor, Mich.].

Stuff happens interj. Slang. Donald Rumsfeld as master historian
[Sheila and Chalmers Johnson, San Diego, Calif.].

Voter fraud n. A significant minority turnout
[Sue Bazy, Philadelphia, Pa.].

Woman n. 1. Person who can be trusted to bear a child, but can't be
trusted to decide whether or not she wishes to have the child.
2. Person who must have all decisions regarding her
reproductive functions made by men with whom she wouldn't want to
have sex in the first place.
[Denise Clay, Philadelphia

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 21 Apr 06 - 11:48 PM

Check out this puppy (I hope to gawd the blue clicky works this time):

I am the Egghead
I am the Egghead

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Apr 06 - 03:48 PM

From the New York Times' Paul Krugman: (excerpted):

The Great Revulsion
By Paul Krugman
New York Times Op-Ed

"I have a vision - maybe just a hope - of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country."

I wrote those words three years ago in the introduction to my column collection, "The Great Unraveling." It seemed a remote prospect at the time: Baghdad had just fallen to U.S. troops, and President Bush had a 70 percent approval rating.

Now the great revulsion has arrived. The latest Fox News poll puts Mr. Bush's approval at only 33 percent. According to the polling firm Survey USA, there are only four states in which significantly more people approve of Mr. Bush's performance than disapprove: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. If we define red states as states where the public supports Mr. Bush, Red America now has a smaller population than New York City.

The proximate causes of Mr. Bush's plunge in the polls are familiar: the heck of a job he did responding to Katrina, the prescription drug debacle and, above all, the quagmire in Iraq.

But focusing too much on these proximate causes makes Mr. Bush's political fall from grace seem like an accident, or the result of specific missteps. That gets things backward. In fact, Mr. Bush's temporarily sky-high approval ratings were the aberration; the public never supported his real policy agenda.

Remember, in 2000 Mr. Bush got within hanging-chad and felon-purge distance of the White House only by pretending to be a moderate. In 2004 he ran on fear and smear, plus the pretense that victory in Iraq was just around the corner. (I've always thought that the turning point of the 2004 campaign was the September 2004 visit of the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a figurehead appointed by the Bush administration who rewarded his sponsors by presenting a falsely optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq.)

The real test of the conservative agenda came after the 2004 election, when Mr. Bush tried to sell the partial privatization of Social Security.

Social Security was for economic conservatives what Iraq was for the neocons, a soft target that they thought would pave the way for bigger conquests. And there couldn't have been a more favorable moment for privatization than the winter of 2004-2005: Mr. Bush loved to assert that he had a "mandate" from the election; Republicans held solid, disciplined majorities in both houses of Congress; and many prominent political pundits were in favor of private accounts.

Yet Mr. Bush's drive on Social Security ran into a solid wall of public opposition, and collapsed within a few months. And if Social Security couldn't be partly privatized under those conditions, the conservative dream of dismantling the welfare state is nothing but a fantasy.

So what's left of the conservative agenda? Not much....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Rufus
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 09:55 AM

Hey perfessor diarrhea brain:

You are on the wrong side and have been all of your life.

"Clooney conceded Friday in a television interview that he saw eye-to-eye with the president on the issue"

Amos is to obsessive compulsive to let his "ode to Amos" thread die.

Rufus

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 01:22 PM

Sounds like someone has an issue with Being Right, but it ain't me.

This thread is not an ode to me. It is an Ode to the Odious -- a documentation of the worst Presidency ever foisted on this country.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 04:07 PM

 Stuck With Bush
Bob Herbert
NYT Op-Ed


If George W. Bush could have been removed from office for being a bad president, he would have been sent back to his ranch a long time ago.

If incompetence were a criminal offense, he'd be behind bars.

But that's just daydreaming. The reality is that there are more than two and a half years left in the long dark night of the Bush presidency - nearly as long as the entire time John Kennedy was in office.

The nation seems, very belatedly, to be catching on to the tragic failures and monumental ineptitude of its president. Mr. Bush's poll numbers are abysmal. Republicans up for re-election are running from him as if he were the bogyman.

Callers to conservative talk radio programs who were once ecstatic about the president and his policies are now deeply disillusioned.

The libertarian Cato Institute is about to release a study titled "Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush." It says, "Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power." While I disagree with parts of the study, I certainly agree with that particular comment.

In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Sean Wilentz, a distinguished historian and the director of the American Studies program at Princeton University, takes a serious look at the possibility that Mr. Bush may be the worst president in the nation's history.

What in the world took so long? Some of us have known since the moment he hopped behind the wheel that this reckless president was driving the nation headlong toward a cliff.

The worst thing he did, of course, was to employ a massive campaign of deceit to lead the nation into a catastrophic war in Iraq - a war with no end in sight that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and inflicted scores of thousands of crippling injuries.

When he was a young man, Mr. Bush used the Air National Guard to hide out from the draft in a time of war. Then, as president, he's suddenly G. I. George, strutting around in a flight suit, threatening to wage war on all and sundry, and taunting the insurgents in Iraq with a cry of "bring them on."

When the nation needed leadership on the critical problem of global warming, Mr. Bush took his cues from the honchos in the oil and gasoline industry, the very people who were setting the planet on fire. Now he talks about overcoming the nation's addiction to oil! This is amazing. Here's the president of the United States scaling the very heights of chutzpah. The Bush people and the oil people are indistinguishable. Condoleezza Rice, a former Chevron director, even had an oil tanker named after her.

Among the complaints in the Cato study is that the Bush administration has taken the position that despite validly enacted laws to the contrary, the president cannot be restrained "from pursuing any tactic he believes to be effective in the war on terror."

This view has led to activities that I believe have brought great shame to the nation: the warrantless spying on Americans, the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the creation of the C.I.A.'s network of secret prisons, extraordinary rendition and the barbaric encampment at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in which detainees are held, without regard to guilt or innocence, in a nightmarish no man's land beyond the reach of any reasonable judicial process.

The sins of the Bush administration are so extensive and so egregious, they could never be adequately addressed in a newspaper column. History will be the final judge. But I've no doubt about the ultimate verdict.

Remember the Clinton budget surplus?

It was the largest in American history. President Bush and his cronies went after it like vultures feasting in a field of carcasses. They didn't invest the surplus. They devoured it.

Remember how most of the world responded with an extraordinary outpouring of sympathy and support for America in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11?

Mr. Bush had no idea how to seize that golden opportunity to build new alliances and strengthen existing ones. Much of that solidarity with America has morphed into outright hostility.

Remember Katrina?

The major task of Congress and the voters for the remainder of the Bush presidency is to curtail the destructive impulses of this administration, and to learn the lessons that will prevent similar horrors from ever happening again.

---

Just in case anyone thinks it's just Amos shooting off his mouth about this despot's idiotic record.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 08:56 AM

C-Span caller on the Republican line:

"I saw George W Bush at the corresponents dinner last night and he was wonderful. He may mot be articulate, like his father, but he is full of wisdom.
I'd rather have his wisdom than any Harvard educated liberal."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 09:24 AM

Yeah, this caller has indeed been bush-wacked.... Actually, it was Bush the Father who started playin' the intellectual card long ago and taught his boys to do so as well... Plays real well to the uneducated and unenlightened...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 10:16 AM

The Most popular word now used by Republicans:

Alleged !!!!!!!!

ie.
"the alleged enviormental concerns of Mhtb gas additives..."
"the alleged misconduct of ______"
"The alleged climate change"
ect. ad infinitum

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 May 06 - 08:41 PM

A brief excerpt from Farnk Rich's Op Ed in the NYT today:


Bush of a Thousand Days
By Frank Rich
New York Times Op-Ed

LIKE the hand that suddenly pops out of the grave at the end of "Carrie," the past keeps coming back to haunt the Bush White House. Last week was no exception. No sooner did the Great Decider introduce the Fox News showman anointed to repackage the same old bad decisions than the spotlight shifted back to Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury room, where Karl Rove testified for a fifth time. Nightfall brought the release of an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll with its record-low numbers for a lame-duck president with a thousand days to go and no way out.

The demons that keep rising up from the past to grab Mr. Bush are the fictional W.M.D. he wielded to take us into Iraq. They stalk him as relentlessly as Banquo's ghost did Macbeth. From that original sin, all else flows. Mr. Rove wouldn't be in jeopardy if the White House hadn't hatched a clumsy plot to cover up its fictions. Mr. Bush's poll numbers wouldn't be in the toilet if American blood was not being spilled daily because of his fictions. By recruiting a practiced Fox News performer to better spin this history, the White House reveals that it has learned nothing. Made-for-TV propaganda propelled the Bush presidency into its quagmire in the first place. At this late date only the truth, the whole and nothing but, can set it free.

...


Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 May 06 - 09:51 PM

The high point of the last few months on the political front has been watching Steven Colbert hand Bush his arse on a plate, while W sat still and tried to smile about it.

If Colbert dies a mysterious death in the next few months, the reason why is in this tape.

I would be ROFLMAO if it weren't so close to the truth.

A

(Part 1 goes almost all the way through. Part 2 starts with the introduction of "Joe Wilson, the most famous husband since Desi Arnez."

Enjoy!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 May 06 - 11:08 PM

Bob Herbert: War as It Really Is is a description of a movie that sounds very compelling. Even if you don't see the movie, reads the description.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 06 - 11:14 PM

Thanks for posting that link Amos .... that war has to end (period).

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 May 06 - 07:30 AM

And will...

...but not in the next 1000 days according to the Liar in Chief...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 May 06 - 07:35 PM

I really am POd at the New York Times for putting Maureen Dowd behind the Subscription Curtain, especially when she comes up with sharp analyses like this comparison among the Bushialites:

"Father and Son Reunion
Maureen Dowd


One Bush did it by staying out of Baghdad, raising taxes and driving down the deficit.

The other Bush did it by going into Baghdad, cutting taxes and driving up the deficit.

But, perhaps inevitably, the father and son ended up in an Oedipal tango at the same spot: 31 percent.

After trying not to emulate his father's presidency in any way, W. emulated it in the worst possible way. He came out of a conflict with Saddam as a towering figure with soaring approval ratings and ended up as a shrunken figure with scalding approval ratings.

In the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, W.'s stunning implosion landed him in a tie with his dad's low point in July 1992, four months before the public traded in Poppy for Bill Clinton. As Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee noted in their Times article today, that is the lowest approval rating for any president in the last half-century, other than Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter.

Even Hillary Clinton has a more favorable rating than W. -- 34 percent. But the president can draw some solace: John Kerry's at 26 and Al Gore's at 28 percent. And Dick Cheney is in the bunker at 20.

But in the new poll, even many of the party faithful are glum. Only 45 percent of evangelical Christians, 69 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of conservatives like the way W. is taking care of bidness. A whopping 70 percent deem the country pretty seriously on the wrong track, and two-thirds consider the nation in worse shape now than when W. took over.

On the issues that earned Karl Rove his nickname, Boy Genius -- values and national security -- the shift was notable. Fifty percent of respondents said Democrats came closer to sharing their moral values, compared with 37 percent said Republicans did. And the G.O.P. retains a tenuous advantage on being seen as stronger on terrorism. The numbers for those who think we did the right thing invading Iraq are steadily dropping, and rising for those who believe we should have stayed out.

Many Americans have simply lost faith in the administration's ingenuity. Only a quarter of those polled had much confidence in W.'s ability to handle a crisis; a mere 9 percent are sure that he can successfully end the war in Iraq, and a paltry 4 percent think the administration has a clear plan for keeping gas prices down.

The Bush presidency has devolved to an assertion of empty will.

The White House blew off warnings from Republicans in Congress about appointing Gen. Michael Hayden as C.I.A. chief. You know you're in trouble when conservatives fret that the military is getting too much power.

If W. really cared about getting good intelligence for his war on terror, he would never have appointed Porter Goss. That wasted more than 18 months that could have been used fixing the dysfunctional agency, and drove out some good officials.

Mr. Goss, the Cheney toadie, was appointed because W. and Vice wanted him to go to Langley and do a hostile takeover to clear out suspected leakers (especially Kerry contributors), malcontents, critics of the war or anyone else who wasn't with the program.

Before the Iraq invasion, it was about fixing the intelligence around the policy. Now it's about appointing yes men and enforcing loyalty. The Bush warriors didn't want good intelligence in the first place because it would have told them they were wrong about Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda and W.M.D. And now they're still more concerned with turf battles than with truth-tellers, and finding someone -- anyone -- who can tell us where Osama is. (Osama who?)

Even Denny Hastert, the Republican speaker, scoffed at the Hayden move as a Negroponte "power grab."

The general is a Cheney pal who stood up for the White House's right to be unconstitutional, going along with the heinous warrantless snooping. That makes him one of the team and ready for a promotion, or a Medal of Freedom. He will no doubt be accommodating when Darth Cheney comes over to Langley to lurk around the analysts and oversee the evidence building a case on sending bombs rather than diplomats, to Iran.

Now that we're dealing with a crazed Iranian president, dreaming of nukes and writing an 18-page letter that sounds like an Israel-hating Islamic version of the Rapture, wouldn't it be great if our spooks could stop fighting and go spy on somebody?
..."

---

If I were only her age and single.... ;>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 06 - 06:41 PM

Fran Rich of the New York Times observes the beginning of a witch-hunt:

"
Will the Real Traitors Please Stand Up?
Frank Rich
NYT Op-Ed

When America panics, it goes hunting for scapegoats. But from Salem onward, we've more often than not ended up pillorying the innocent. Abe Rosenthal, the legendary Times editor who died last week, and his publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, were denounced as treasonous in 1971 when they defied the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, the secret government history of the Vietnam War. Today we know who the real traitors were: the officials who squandered American blood and treasure on an ill-considered war and then tried to cover up their lies and mistakes. It was precisely those lies and mistakes, of course, that were laid bare by the thousands of pages of classified Pentagon documents leaked to both The Times and The Washington Post.

This history is predictably repeating itself now that the public has turned on the war in Iraq. The administration's die-hard defenders are desperate to deflect blame for the fiasco, and, guess what, the traitors once again are The Times and The Post. This time the newspapers committed the crime of exposing warrantless spying on Americans by the National Security Agency (The Times) and the C.I.A.'s secret "black site" Eastern European prisons (The Post). Aping the Nixon template, the current White House tried to stop both papers from publishing and when that failed impugned their patriotism.

President Bush, himself a sometime leaker of intelligence, called the leaking of the N.S.A. surveillance program a "shameful act" that is "helping the enemy." Porter Goss, who was then still C.I.A. director, piled on in February with a Times Op-Ed piece denouncing leakers for potentially risking American lives and compromising national security. When reporters at both papers were awarded Pulitzer Prizes last month, administration surrogates, led by bloviator in chief William Bennett, called for them to be charged under the 1917 Espionage Act.

We can see this charade for what it is: a Hail Mary pass by the leaders who bungled a war and want to change the subject to the journalists who caught them in the act. What really angers the White House and its defenders about both the Post and Times scoops are not the legal questions the stories raise about unregulated gulags and unconstitutional domestic snooping, but the unmasking of yet more administration failures in a war effort riddled with ineptitude. It's the recklessness at the top of our government, not the press's exposure of it, that has truly aided the enemy, put American lives at risk and potentially sabotaged national security. That's where the buck stops, and if there's to be a witch hunt for traitors, that's where it should begin...."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 06 - 12:53 AM

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_source_.html

May 15, 2006 10:33 AM
Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:

"A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government
is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out
confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told
us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling,
or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of
the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters
for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are
being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a
confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known
to have upset CIA officials.

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say
the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of
CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for
the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.

The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones
were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded.

A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide
valuable clues for leak investigators."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 May 06 - 08:02 PM

The passion of the liberal press is rising:

"In the dark days of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt counseled Americans to avoid fear. George W. Bush is his polar opposite. The public's fear is this president's most potent political asset. Perhaps his only asset.

Mr. Bush wants ordinary Americans to remain in a perpetual state of fear -- so terrified, in fact, that they will not object to the steady erosion of their rights and liberties, and will not notice the many ways in which their fear is being manipulated to feed an unconscionable expansion of presidential power.

If voters can be kept frightened enough of terrorism, they might even overlook the monumental incompetence of one of the worst administrations the nation has ever known.

Four marines drowned Thursday when their 60-ton tank rolled off a bridge and sank in a canal about 50 miles west of Baghdad. Three American soldiers in Iraq were killed by roadside bombs the same day. But those tragic and wholly unnecessary deaths were not the big news. The big news was the latest leak of yet another presidential power grab: the administration's collection of the telephone records of tens of millions of American citizens.

The Bush crowd, which gets together each morning to participate in a highly secret ritual of formalized ineptitude, is trying to get its creepy hands on all the telephone records of everybody in the entire country. It supposedly wants these records, which contain crucial documentation of calls for Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Ind., and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Ala., to help in the search for Osama bin Laden.

Hey, the president has made it clear that when Al Qaeda is calling, he wants to be listening, and you never know where that lead may turn up.

The problem (besides the fact that the president has been as effective hunting bin Laden as Dick Cheney was in hunting quail) is that in its fearmongering and power-grabbing the Bush administration has trampled all over the Constitution, the democratic process and the hallowed American tradition of government checks and balances.

Short of having them taken away from us, there is probably no way to fully appreciate the wonder and the glory of our rights and liberties here in the United States, including the right to privacy.

The Constitution and the elaborate system of checks and balances were meant to protect us against the possibility of a clownish gang of small men and women amassing excessive power and behaving like tyrants or kings. But the normal safeguards have not been working since the Bush crowd came to power, starting with the hijacked presidential election in 2000.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, all bets were off. John Kennedy once said, "The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war." But George W. Bush, employing an outrageous propaganda campaign ("Shock and awe," "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"), started an utterly pointless war in Iraq that he still doesn't know how to win or how to end.

If you listen to the Bush version of reality, the president is all powerful. In that version, we are fighting a war against terrorism, which is a war that will never end. And as long as we are at war (forever), there is no limit to the war-fighting powers the president can claim as commander in chief.

So we've kidnapped people and sent them off to be tortured in the extraordinary rendition program; and we've incarcerated people at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere without trial or even the right to know the charges against them; and we're allowing the C.I.A. to operate super-secret prisons where God-knows-what-all is going on; and we're listening in on the phone calls and reading the e-mail of innocent Americans without warrants; and on and on and on.

The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.

Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.

There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George W. Bush has done to his country. If the United States could look at itself in a mirror, it would be both alarmed and ashamed at what it saw. "

America The Fearful
Bob Herbert
NYT Op-Ed

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:30 PM

Saying No to Bush's Yes Men
Thomas Friedman
NYT Op-Ed (excerpt)

President Bush has slipped in one recent poll to a 29 percent approval rating. Frankly, I can't believe that. Those polls can't possibly be accurate. I mean, really, ask yourself: How could there still be 29 percent of the people who approve of this presidency?

Personally, I think the president can reshuffle his cabinet all he wants, but his poll ratings are not going to substantially recover -- ever. Americans are slow to judgment about a president, very slow. And in times of war, in particular, they are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I think a lot of Americans in recent months have simply lost confidence in this administration's competence and honesty.

What has eaten away most at the support for this administration, I believe, has been the fact that time and time again, it has put politics and ideology ahead of the interests of the United States, and I think a lot of people are just sick of it. I know I sure am.

To me, the most baffling thing about the Bush presidency is this: If you had worked for so long to be president, wouldn't you want to staff your administration with the very best people you could find, especially in national security and especially in the area of intelligence, which has been the source of so much controversy -- from 9/11 to Iraq?

Wouldn't that be your instinct? Well, not only did the president put the C.I.A. in the hands of a complete partisan hack named Porter Goss, but he then allowed Mr. Goss to appoint as the No. 3 man at the agency -- the C.I.A.'s chief operating officer -- Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, whose previous position was chief of the C.I.A.'s logistics office in Germany, which provides its Middle East stations with supplies.

Mr. Foggo has spent almost his entire undistinguished C.I.A. career in midlevel administrative jobs. He ingratiated himself with Mr. Goss during his days as a congressman by funneling inside dope about the C.I.A. under George Tenet to Mr. Goss, Newsweek reported. When Mr. Goss was tapped by the president to head the C.I.A., he plucked Mr. Foggo from obscurity to handle day-to-day operations at the agency, where he immediately made his mark by purging the C.I.A. of veteran spies and managers deemed unfriendly to the White House. I feel safer already.

Mr. Foggo resigned, along with Mr. Goss, after the C.I.A.'s chief internal watchdog opened an investigation to determine whether Mr. Foggo had helped steer a contract, apparently involving bottled water, to a company run by his old friend Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor who was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case involving the corrupt San Diego congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who is now in prison. Mr. Foggo is not an expert on Iran or Iraq or Russia, but rather on Perrier, Poland Spring and Fiji water. That is the guy the Bush team chose as its chief operating officer at the C.I.A.

Is there no job in this administration that is too important to be handed over to a political hack? No. (...)

---

Discuss...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 May 06 - 08:05 PM

Molly Ivins, a little white-haired lady from Texas, offers these thoughts on the immigration question:

Yes, I Am Actually Calling Them Racist.

I highly recommend it for a refreshing view of another way to look at things.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Wavery
Date: 31 May 06 - 08:45 PM

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."

- Inscription on Billy Pilgrim's tombstone; and my current philosophy to avoid going insane trying to be a US citizen under the Bush Administration.

Buck Fush.