BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration

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 - 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: GUEST,Siggy
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 11:12 PM

Sanity

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: 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: 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 - 02:08 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 07:05 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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 - 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 - 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 - 07:30 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 - 07:28 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 - 07:25 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: 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: 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: 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 - 07:30 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 - 07:14 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: 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: 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,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: 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,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 - 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: 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: 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 - 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 - 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 - 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: 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