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BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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." |
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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 Printer-Friendly Save Article 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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.' |
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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. |
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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 |
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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.' |
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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. |
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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. |
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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 |
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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." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration From: Bobert Date: 16 Jan 06 - 10:49 PM Answer the questions, GUEST... |
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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 |
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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." |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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..." |
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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 |
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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. .... |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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... |
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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% |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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? |
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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 |