BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:19 PM

What comrade Amos said, Ol' Guy...

Awww, jus' funnin'... Amos ain't no commie but we sho nuff know how righties like to play the "c card" in defendin' their evilness...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:37 PM

The agenda of the CP is of communism, a political philosophy I have no interest in.

I do believe, however, in decency, compassion, clear and thoughtful policy and effective betterment for human conditions.

Bush's agenda has been uncompassionate, brutal, muddied in thinking, unthoughtful, ineffective, self-serving and designed to better only the wealth of the few against the general operation of the larger nation.

Hope this answers your dumb-ass question.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 09:11 PM

I think Stalin was a Commie so therefore his agenda must have been communisim.

My agenda is Capitalism.

When I ran across the American Communist website I saw that the bullshit they are spouting is the same as the bullshit you are spouting.

Care to point out any differences?

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 10:34 AM

Explain the difference between yours and Josef Stalin's, Old Guy. Then, as soon as I have stopped beating my wife, I'll answer your dumbass question.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 09:48 AM

Amos:

Explain the differences between your agenda and the Communist Party of America.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 11:10 AM

An interesting analsyis offering three explanations for the apparent imminent collapse of the GOP.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 12:23 AM

And you, OG, are of course in perfect agreement with who...the John Birch society? Get over yourself and get a little closer to the present. You're acting like a Cuisinart with a broken blade -- all whir and no chop. Who gives you the right to publish blatant cheap-minded little falsehoods about me, you mealy-mouthed little twerp?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Old Guy
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 09:41 PM

Amos is perfectly in agreement with the Communist Party:\

The National Board of the Communist Party USA released the following appeal on Sept. 25:

The Nov. 7 midterm elections are less than six weeks away. The stakes have never been so high: Control of the House and Senate and governorships nationwide. A recent poll shows that 75 percent of voters are disgusted by the Republican majority House and Senate, the highest disapproval rate since 1994. They are frustrated at Bush's endless Iraq war, by Republican cronyism and corruption, tax giveaways to the rich, cutbacks in vital services, and criminal negligence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Bush's policies of war and repression have made us less secure. The people are angry and they want change.

Scraping the bottom in polls, Bush and the ultra-right attempted to change the subject back to the "war on terror." The aim is to incite fear among voters and smear Democrats as "weak on national security." But this time the "Swift Boat" tactics are falling flat.

Still they haven't given up on "fear and smear." That's why they are trying to ram through legislation to build a 700-mile fence along our border with Mexico, trying to criminalize immigrants. This is a desperate last minute attempt to win — or steal — the election by inciting racist hatred against immigrants and people of color. They are also attempting to pass legislation allowing torture and wiretapping and limiting voting rights, and pushed through the war appropriations in the last week of Congress.

Most Republicans are running hard to distance themselves from Bush and

Cheney. They can run but they can't hide! Even so-called "moderate" Republicans supported Bush when the chips were down. We must not let their scam divert attention from the Republicans' failure to provide the basic needs of the people.

Whereas a few weeks ago only a handful of House and Senate seats were considered "competitive," now more than 50 House seats are in play and more than a dozen Senate seats. A change of 15 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate would change control of Congress. Members of the congressional Progressive, Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific caucuses would chair half of the House committees and sub-committees.

An end to the ultra-right control will give strength to the grassroots demands to enact pending legislation to end the Iraq war, end torture and spying, reallocate resources to hard-pressed cities, towns, and rural communities, and end Bush's attempt to pack the courts. It will open the door for legislation to protect the civil rights of all. We can move long-stalled legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act, Medicare for All, and strengthen health and safety and environmental protection.

But it's not in the bag. In the countdown to the election, everyone must set aside business as usual. We must devote all our efforts to getting out the vote and insuring that the vote is counted.

• Volunteer to phone bank with your union, neighborhood association or political organization.

• Go door to door in your neighborhood or in citywide mobilizations on behalf of candidates you support.

• Help distribute campaign literature including "A Call to Action: Defend Democracy, Change Congress." Distribute the People's Weekly World.

• Know and discuss with voters the basic issues. Explain why changing Congress is so crucial to reversing the extremist, right-wing thrust of the Republicans.

• Volunteer to be a poll watcher or election judge on Election Day.

• "Protect the vote." Volunteer with groups working to prevent the right wing's "voter suppression" and "vote theft" tactics. Know the election laws and be an advocate for people whose right to vote is under attack.

• Register your family, neighbors and co-workers to vote and bring them to the polls on Nov. 7.

• Help give reminders and rides to get out the vote on Election Day.

This is a fight we can win! If not us, then who? If not now, when?

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 06 - 04:21 PM

Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi takes an in-depth look at the outgoing 109th Congress in his article, "The Worst Congress Ever." In it, Taibbi writes that over the past six years, "The U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula -- a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable."

Article here.

"How I turned America into a belligerent third-world country in my spare time for fun and profit", coming soon to a True Confessions newsstand near you.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 11:05 AM

Some more Schroeder quotes

What a string of miscalculations Cheney was never held accountable for any of these mistakes -- or perhaps they were deliberate distortions? (about the decision to turn to Iraq)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 10:59 AM

It is no secret that Bush would not have been (re)elected in Germany, but might have collected close to 10% of the votes.

Now, in Schroeder's autobiography one can read how our Chancellor thought about Bush:

click for English translation of a SPIEGEL article with some quotes

I don't know exactly when in the year 2002 the change in justification for a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq took place -- when, in other words, the fight against international terrorism slid into the background and the possible existence of weapons of mass destruction was thrust into the foreground. But the change made me increasingly distrustful...

In my opinion, the demonizing of George W. Bush tends to divert attention from the need to critically examine a political alliance in the United States that I consider problematic for the world and America: the alliance between neoconservative intellectuals and Christian fundamentalists, which had and still has a great deal of influence over the policies of the United States and its president.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 07:46 PM

If you notice, the newest buzzword is "Victory" even though not one Bushite in the universe can or is willin' to even attempt to define what "victory" means.... Hmmmmmmmmmm???

Sound like "victory" actually means "stay the course"...

Like what is the end-game here??? Seems like it's the same end-game they had in Nam...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 07:28 PM

no more stay the course?! I did dozens of stay the course cartoons. dammit.

how about 'stay the new course'

Amos: this summer it was no more "bring it on" remarks.



The court said no more torture but the regieme has side stepped that with new revised secret torture definitions.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 04:41 PM

No matter what you think of political parties and their ideology, you have admit: Bush will probably be the last REAL MAN president.

Thats right W is a real man.


W is a real man of the people who are suspect of higher education and the elitism of extremely intelligent people.

W is a real man who, if lost, will not ask for directions and will stay the course out of pride.

W is a real man because he is ignorant and stubborn.

Don't ask Laura if W would ask for directions if lost while driving stupid...
Ask the former big 3 automobile manufacturers of America.

They have all crashed under his regieme.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 10:36 AM

Some comments from Maureen Dowd:

Things have become so dire for the Republicans that now even Bush is distancing himself from Bush.


The president is cutting and running from the president.

In a momentous event at the White House on Monday, Tony Snow made a major announcement about an important new strategy for Iraq. The president will no longer stay the course on the rallying cry "stay the course."

A presidency built on message discipline (Message: "Stay the course") is trying to salvage itself with some last-minute un-messaging (Message: "No more stay the course").

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 08:27 PM

Yo, Dougie...

I didn't bring it back... Might of fact I had forgotten that I even started it... One of them senior things that I'm sure you know nuthin' about but...

...that's the truth... I clicked on it and went "Wow, I started this thing???"

But my bud, Amos, has dug it up and pumped some new life into it...

...and I'm glad he did...

Yeah, I am terribly dishartened that the scaredy-cat Rebubs thought they might save their own jobs by punting away 800 years of accepted international legal principles in the hopes that would save their lousy butts... They deserve to lose for that reason alone... I'd bet that if they were told that the only way they would be re-elected was is they went out and shot their parents then there would have been a lot of funerals... These folks are so dishonest and corrupt that America will be much better off with new crooks in town... No Dem will be half the whore as the current batch of Repubocrooks...

Disgracefull and mark my words, historians will not be nice to Bush and his Repubocrook congressmen... No sir...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 11:48 AM

"...If the Democrats win in November, that doesn't necessarily mean that the "liberals" win. Contrary to the simplistic view held by many Republicans, not all Democrats are liberals. However, a return to the liberal values that have made this country great would be a welcome change. For starters, it would be nice to be free of the congressional scandals caused by the Tom Delays, Duke Cunninghams and Mark Foleys of the world.

There are many more areas in which the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to deliver, including immigration reform (unless you call the un-American notion of building a wall a plan), a rational energy policy and balancing the federal budget. It would be almost impossible for Democrats NOT to do better.

If the liberals/Democrats win, we can finally give a boost to working Americans by raising the minimum wage, something GOP senators have blocked nine times since 1997 while voting to raise their own pay. We may finally see affordable health care for all Americans and a Social Security plan that doesn't involve playing the stock market.

At the state level in Iowa, Democratic control of the Legislature would mean that lawmakers would finally have the ability to live up to the progressive nature of this great state. Among the reforms would be a repeal of tax cuts that help only the wealthy, more funding for schools, and an increase in the state's cigarette tax. And yes, a liberal agenda would include upholding reproductive rights for women, and the addition of sexual orientation to the state's civil rights code.

In other words, if the liberals win, the United States of America would have an opportunity to once again be a country with guts, a backbone and a conscience. Just what our founding fathers intended."

Paul Guggenheimer is a free-lance writer and radio commentator from Sioux City. You can write to him in care of The Sioux City Journal or at [e-mail].

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 01:06 AM

Good for you, Bobert! You brought back one of the most popular threads on the Mudcat for the past five or six years! You are a doobie! Amos buy you lunch lately?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 09:57 AM

During an interview today on ABC's This Week, President Bush tried to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years. George Stephanopoulos asked about James Baker's plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is "between 'stay the course' and 'cut and run.'"

Bush responded, 'We've never been stay the course, George!' Watch it:


Bush is wrong:

BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We'll stay the course. [4/13/04]

BUSH: And that's why we're going to stay the course in Iraq. And that's why when we say something in Iraq, we're going to do it. [4/16/04]

BUSH: And so we've got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]


The clip, followed by a thread of disgust, outrage and disparagement of the President's inconsistency can be found here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 02:38 PM

I urge you to watch this short presentation:

Wrong, Sir!.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 02:58 PM

Bush Campaigns for Pa., Va. Candidates
By JENNIFER LOVEN , 10.19.2006, 06:52 PM


President Bush campaigned Thursday for a congressman who has confessed to adultery and a senator accused of racial insensitivity, seeking to boost incumbent Republicans once safe for re-election but now in peril.

Bush's appearances for Rep. Don Sherwood here and for Sen. George Allen in Richmond, Va., found the White House on the defensive over the decision to try to help candidates in such straits as the GOP struggles to keep control of Congress.

"I think the president understands that it's important to set high standards," said spokesman Tony Snow.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Allende
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 12:49 PM

Bush was first installed into his role through a bloodless coup.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 06 - 01:37 PM

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step.

Not satisfied with having won the vote, Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, quickly issued a statement accusing Democrats who opposed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 of putting "their liberal agenda ahead of the security of America." He said the Democrats "would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans' lives" and create "new rights for terrorists."

This nonsense is part of the Republicans' scare-America-first strategy for the elections. No Democrat advocated pampering terrorists — gingerly or otherwise — or giving them new rights. Democratic amendments to the bill sought to protect everyone's right to a fair trial while providing a legal way to convict terrorists.

Americans will hear more of this ahead of the election. They also will hear Mr. Bush say that he finally has the power to bring to justice a handful of men behind the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that Mr. Bush could have done that long ago, but chose to detain them illegally at hidden C.I.A. camps to extract information. He sent them to Guantánamo only to stampede Congress into passing the new law.

The 60 or so men at Guantánamo who are now facing tribunals — out of about 450 inmates — also could have been tried years ago if Mr. Bush had not rebuffed efforts by Congress to create suitable courts. He imposed a system of kangaroo courts that was more about expanding his power than about combating terrorism.

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let's be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an "illegal enemy combatant." It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

(NEw York Times editorial)

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 11:40 AM

http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0041033.cfm

June 26, 2006

Bush Issues Executive Order on Eminent Domain

by Pete Winn, associate editor

Last Friday marked the anniversary of the Supreme Court's infamous Kelo decision.

It has been one year since the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion that shocked the country and attacked the fundamental American doctrine, "A man's home is his castle."

Now the backlash is under way.

President Bush marked the anniversary of the Kelo v. New London ( Conn.) decision by issuing an executive order barring the federal government from taking private land for someone else's private use.

Specifically, Bush's order said "it is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property" by "limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public."

Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Bush's order specifically requires agencies that answer to the president to make sure, when they exercise eminent domain, that people's property is taken only for a public use, such as a road or airport, rather than what Kelo allows � the taking of private property for any use, including commercial development.

"Kelo interpreted the Fifth Amendment to allow state and local governments to condemn private property for the benefit of private developers," Hausknecht said, "to build privately owned improvements on that property for the hope of a public benefit, such as a higher tax base."

The ruling, cited by family advocates as an egregious example of judicial activism, sprung from a 1997 case in which the city of New London, Conn., allowed the New London Development Corp. to seize Susette Kelo's entire neighborhood for a shopping mall. Kelo and some of her neighbors sued � and lost.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, applauded Bush for taking executive action.

"The protection of homes and small businesses and other private property against government seizure or unreasonable government interference is a fundamental principle of American life and a distinctive aspect of our form of government," Cornyn said.

Cornyn has authored legislation � The Protection of Homes, Small Businesses, and Private Property Act (S. 1313) � which puts into federal law for the full government what Bush's order does for the executive branch. His bipartisan bill now has 31 Senate co-sponsors.

A House bill, H.R. 4128, passed the lower chamber with bipartisan support by a vote of 376-38 and is currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee. That bill would restrict federal economic-development funding to states where municipalities engage in eminent domain abuse.

"The Supreme Court's decision last year represented a radical departure from the decisions handed down interpreting that constitutional provision over the last 200 years, and the president's action was an important step toward righting that wrong," the Texas senator said. "But Congress must act soon."

Good news, bad news

The Kelo decision has brought both good news and bad news, according to Steve Anderson, a senior staff attorney for the Institute for Justice. The bad news is that Kelo opened up a floodgate of government property seizures.

"We did a study from 1998 to 2002, which showed more than 10,000 instances of eminent domain abuse around the country," Anderson told CitizenLink. "But in the last year, since Kelo, over 5,700 properties are being threatened or condemned for private development � that's nearly triple the yearly average."

The good news, he said, is that the ruling has unleashed a response from state legislatures and grassroots activists.

"The one thing the court got right is that states are free to pass laws that are more restrictive and pass laws that are more protective of their residents," he said. "We've seen that occur in about half the states. About 25 states have passed some kind of reform."

In addition, citizen-driven initiatives are being placed on the ballot in a number of states this fall, including California.

"We've seen an unprecedented grassroots rebellion because of this decision," Anderson said. "Quite frankly, it hits home."

It's ironic, Hausknecht said, that the anniversary of Kelo comes so close to July 4, America's Independence Day, because the Founding Fathers were very protective of private property in the Constitution.

"Property rights were near and dear to everything the Founders believed," he noted, "and part of the abuse of rights that England committed against America dealt directly with property rights."

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 11:23 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_combatant

Article 5 of the GCIII states that their status may be determined by a "competent tribunal" and until such time they are to be treated as prisoners of war.[2] After such "competent tribunals" have determined their status, the "Detaining Power" may choose to accord detained unlawful combatants the rights of prisoners of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 11:01 AM

http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/5LPHBV/%24File/irrc_849_Dorman.pdf

A textual interpretation of the Conventions can only lead to the conclusion
that all persons who are not protected by GC I-III, thus also persons
who do not respect the conditions which would entitle them to POW status/
treatment, are covered by GC IV provided that they are not:
• nationals of a State which is not party to the Convention;
• nationals of the Party/Power in which hands they are; or
• nationals of a neutral State (only if they are in the territory of a belligerent
State) or co-belligerent State with normal diplomatic representation
(for details see the foregoing quotation from the ICRC Commentary).

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 01:01 PM

Saturday, July 1, 2006

Is Bush A War Criminal?
01 Jul 2006 05:20 am

That question has troubled me for quite a while. The Hamdan decision certainly suggests that, by ignoring the Geneva Conventions even in Guantanamo (let alone in Iraq), a war crime has been committed. And in the military, the command structure insists that superiors are held accountable. I've been saying this for a long time now, and have watched aghast as the Bush administration has essentially dumped responsibility for war-crimes on the grunts at Abu Ghraib. The evidence already available proves that the president himself ordered torture and abuse and the violation of the Geneva Conventions. Now he has been shown to be required to act within the law, and according to the Constitution, his liability for war crimes therefore comes into focus. Money quote from a useful Cato Institute Hamdan summary:

Both the majority and concurrence cite 18 U.S.C. § 2241, which Justice Kennedy stresses makes violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention a war crime punishable as a federal offense, enforceable in federal civil court. The majority holds, of course, that trying persons under the president's military commission order violates Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, suggesting that trial is a war crime within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 2241.

Furthermore, the majority stresses that the Geneva Conventions 'do extend liability for substantive war crimes to those who "orde[r]' their commission" and "this Court has read the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 to impose 'command responsibility' on military commanders for acts of their subordinates." The Court's emphasis on the liability that attaches to "orders" is significant, because trials in the military commissions are, of course, pursuant to a direct presidential order. Even so, it's difficult to imagine a circumstances in which charges under Section 2241 might actually be prosecuted.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 08:50 AM

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/entertainment/14847443.htm

Sun, Jun. 18, 2006

'We have to stay in Iraq,' Soros says
George Rush and Joanna Molloy Star Talk

Billionaire George Soros spent a fortune trying to pry President Bush out of the White House. But the Democratic Midas agrees with the president that we can't pull out of Iraq now.

"Unfortunately, many countries have a national narrative that condemns them to keep on defending a cause that is really indefensible," the Open Society founder said Monday at the Core Club party for his book "The Age of Fallibility." "The Turks can't admit the massacre of Armenians, for example. We have been better in the past at recognizing our sins. I'm afraid that we have to recognize that was a terrible mistake.

"I can't expect President Bush to do that," Soros allowed. "That would be out of keeping for anybody. What's worse, I think we actually have to stay in Iraq for a while. If we left, we would have a conflagration. We are sitting on a civil war. Therefore, American soldiers have to continue giving their lives to a bad cause."

Soros said Bush was right to invade Afghanistan, because that "was where Bin Laden was located." He also conceded that, since pre-war Iraq was "a magnet for general terrorists," the U.S. occupation may "have deflected a terrorist attack" here. But Soros argued that, thanks to Bush's policies, "The danger of a terrorist attack is greater since 9/11. We may actually be growing terrorist cells."

P.S. Soros was downright courtly toward the Bushies compared with Sen. John Kerry's spokesman, David Wade, who snarled Tuesday at White House adviser Karl Rove for accusing Kerry and fellow Vietnam vet Rep. John Murtha of "cutting and running" from the war.

"The closest Karl Rove ever came to combat was these last months spent worrying his cellmates might rough him up in prison," said Wade. "This porcine political operative can't cut and run from the truth any longer. When it came to Iraq, this administration chose to cut and run from sound intelligence and good diplomacy.... In November, Americans will cut and run from this Republican Congress."

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 10:21 PM

"I heared in Austraily they got Zero deficit. Izat true? '

Well, depends on just what is MEANT by that...

Howard has got (I forget the EXACT clever phrase) 'Net Govt Debt' - whatever the hell that means! - down to zero, by 'creative book-keeping', just as the unemployment figures are now below 5% - a historical low for oh, yonks, but in order to DO that, even while being paid (partial) unemployment benefit payments (now called 'Newstart' - so it must be all purely the fault of those without a job!) - you are now counted as 'not unemployed' if you are in 'paid employment' (any sort of low paid temporary casual job, like delivering pamphlets at less than $1 an hour) for an hour a fortnight...


Of course 'private debt' has never been higher per capita, and we have had a record run of Trade Deficits (we import far more tha we export, except for jobs, which is the other way around!) of ever increasing amounts...

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: toadfrog
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 10:08 PM

It is just plain silly to say of GWB that he is the "worst president since World War II." It underrates him. He is surely the best American president of the 21st Century, so far!

As for competing in the other direction, he has to be the very worst president since before the Civil War. At the very least. Probably the worst in the history of the Republic. Most of those other guys are guilty at most of falling asleep at the switch. Or like poor old Grant, just being elected at the wrong time.

A point I am v. curious about. This is the only on-line discussion group I ever joined, and I have not been around much in the last couple years. Is Guest Woody's tactic of dumping a ton of s..., so you cannot wade through it and have no desire to respond, a common one in on-line discussions?

Surely Woody is right about one thing. Sadaam Hussein is a bastard. He is also a bastard that was put into power by U.S. meddling and fostered and sustained by Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Regan administration. And whoever ends up in power in Iraq after our adventure there is over (if it ever is) is likely to be equally bad. One might think the moral is, meddling can have unintended bad consequences and should be indulged in with restraint.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 06 - 08:10 PM

oll: Bush Worst President Since 1945
Ronald Reagan Picked As Best President In Nationwide Survey

June 1, 2006
Former President Ronald Reagan, on his ranch in 1992 and President Bush on his ranch in 2001 (AP)






(CBS) President Bush has been named as the worst president since the end of the World War II in a new national poll.

Mr. Bush was chosen by 34 percent of the voters who participated in the the Quinnipiac Unversity survey. Richard Nixon finished second with 17 percent -- just ahead of Bill Clinton with 16 percent.

Ronald Reagan was the top choice as best president, with 28 percent. Finishing second was Mr. Clinton with 25 percent.

The poll reflected deep partisan divisions. Mr. Bush was ranked worst by 56 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of independent voters but only 7 percent of Republicans.

Reagan, on thew other hand, was named as the No. 1 president by 56 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of independent voters but only 7 percent of Democrats.

"Kennedy and Truman get big Democratic votes, especially among baby boomers (45 - 64 years old) and seniors (over 65), but recent memory counts," said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac's Polling Institute.

"Democrats say Clinton's the best and Republicans say he's the worst. Republicans don't think much of Jimmy Carter either. There's no contest for the GOP favorite: It's the Gipper," Carroll added.

The Quinnipiac University poll was carried out from From May 23-30 and surveyed 1,534 registered voters nationwide. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 10:50 AM

Woody:

Rather than a flurry of pastes from various years in the past, how about just posting links, with a brief statement of the point you are trying to make? It is a little bewildering to understand what, if anything, you are trying to communicate.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 10:01 AM

The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Jim Hoagland Jun 30, 2002

That means more reliance on U.S. military might to support diplomacy. Events pull Bush toward a strategy of transforming the region by establishing a greatly expanded and intrusive U.S. military presence there. American forces would stay for years to help develop and shield new and democratic leaderships in Iraq and in a Palestinian state.

Straws in the wind suggest a growing acceptance at the White House of the need for an overwhelming U.S. invasion force that will remain on the ground in Iraq for several years. The U.S. presence will serve as the linchpin for democratic transformation of a major Arab country that can be a model for the region. A new Iraq would also help provide greater energy security for Americans.

The wind has shifted in the region as well. Iran welcomed Ahmed Chalabi, [Saddam Hussein]'s most visible and dedicated opponent in exile, for political discussions in Tehran earlier this month. Turkey has privately told Washington it will support U.S. action against Baghdad. U.S. officials will soon begin discussions with Israel on the implications for the Jewish state of a U.S. campaign against Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 09:57 AM

The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Jim Hoagland Apr 8, 2001

President Bush is said to have empowered three administration working groups to think hard and devise one more new-and-improved U.S. policy on Iraq. Have no doubt: This means war.

The working groups -- the other two cover economic sanctions and the no-fly zones over Iraq policed by U.S. and British planes -- will provide excellent platforms for stealth assaults unless Bush, [Cheney] and [Condoleezza Rice] get a better handle on where the review is going.

Also left out was the salient fact that [Ahmed Chalabi] has become the be^te noire of the CIA and its friends at the State Department. He publicized the intelligence agency's gross failures in Iraq. A serious Iraq review would begin with a serious look at why and how the CIA fell on its face in Iraq under Bill Clinton.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 09:48 AM

The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Jim Hoagland Jan 18, 1998

If Iraq's defiance of U.N. arms inspections forces President Clinton to order U.S. military strikes, America's top soldier will not waste time trying to bomb Saddam Hussein into resuming inspections or making other political gestures. Gen. Henry H. Shelton will instead probably go after the chemical, biological or nuclear facilities that Iraq has sought to conceal.

Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined that sensible but historic proposition during a Dec. 19 meeting with editors and reporters at The Washington Post. I had asked Shelton if he really thought air strikes could inflict enough pain to make the Iraqi dictator change goals and accept a publicly humiliating retreat on inspections.

The Shelton approach represents not just a shift from Vietnam-era thinking that the military long ago absorbed. It also reflects a still coalescing change in the way the United States will now respond to the spread to hostile or irresponsible nations of chemical, biological and nuclear arms -- weapons of mass destruction, or WMD in the jargon of doomsday thinkers.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 12:18 AM

Addendum, Ibid:

Bush's alarmingly aberrant take on the Constitution is ironic. One need go back in the record less than a decade to find prominent Republicans railing against far more minor presidential legal infractions as precursors to all-out totalitarianism. "I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the president," Sen. Bill Frist declared of Bill Clinton's efforts to conceal an illicit sexual liaison. "No man is above the law, and no man is below the law - that's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country," Rep. Tom DeLay asserted. "The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door," warned Rep. Henry Hyde, one of Clinton's chief accusers. In the face of Bush's more definitive dismissal of federal law, the silence from these quarters is deafening.

   The president's defenders stoutly contend that war-time conditions fully justify Bush's actions. And as Lincoln showed during the Civil War, there may be times of military emergency where the executive believes it imperative to take immediate, highly irregular, even unconstitutional steps. "I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful," Lincoln wrote in 1864, "by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation."

Bush seems to think that, since 9/11, he has been placed, by the grace of God, in the same kind of situation Lincoln faced. But Lincoln, under pressure of daily combat on American soil against fellow Americans, did not operate in secret, as Bush has. He did not claim, as Bush has, that his emergency actions were wholly regular and constitutional as well as necessary; Lincoln sought and received Congressional authorization for his suspension of habeas corpus in 1863.

Nor did Lincoln act under the amorphous cover of a "war on terror" - a war against a tactic, not a specific nation or political entity, which could last as long as any president deems the tactic a threat to national security. Lincoln's exceptional measures were intended to survive only as long as the Confederacy was in rebellion. Bush's could be extended indefinitely, as the president sees fit, permanently endangering rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to the citizenry.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jun 06 - 12:09 AM

Excerpt from an article in Rolling Stone:

The Worst President in History?
   By Sean Wilentz
    Rolling Stone


One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush.

  
  (Illustration by Robert Grossman)     
  
   George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

   From time to time, after hours, I kick back with my colleagues at Princeton to argue idly about which president really was the worst of them all. For years, these perennial debates have largely focused on the same handful of chief executives whom national polls of historians, from across the ideological and political spectrum, routinely cite as the bottom of the presidential barrel. Was the lousiest James Buchanan, who, confronted with Southern secession in 1860, dithered to a degree that, as his most recent biographer has said, probably amounted to disloyalty - and who handed to his successor, Abraham Lincoln, a nation already torn asunder? Was it Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who actively sided with former Confederates and undermined Reconstruction? What about the amiably incompetent Warren G. Harding, whose administration was fabulously corrupt? Or, though he has his defenders, Herbert Hoover, who tried some reforms but remained imprisoned in his own outmoded individualist ethic and collapsed under the weight of the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression's onset? The younger historians always put in a word for Richard M. Nixon, the only American president forced to resign from office.

   Now, though, George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure." Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration's "pursuit of disastrous policies." In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton - a category in which Bush is the only contestant.

   The lopsided decision of historians should give everyone pause. Contrary to popular stereotypes, historians are generally a cautious bunch. We assess the past from widely divergent points of view and are deeply concerned about being viewed as fair and accurate by our colleagues. When we make historical judgments, we are acting not as voters or even pundits, but as scholars who must evaluate all the evidence, good, bad or indifferent. Separate surveys, conducted by those perceived as conservatives as well as liberals, show remarkable unanimity about who the best and worst presidents have been.

   Historians do tend, as a group, to be far more liberal than the citizenry as a whole - a fact the president's admirers have seized on to dismiss the poll results as transparently biased. One pro-Bush historian said the survey revealed more about "the current crop of history professors" than about Bush or about Bush's eventual standing. But if historians were simply motivated by a strong collective liberal bias, they might be expected to call Bush the worst president since his father, or Ronald Reagan, or Nixon. Instead, more than half of those polled - and nearly three-fourths of those who gave Bush a negative rating - reached back before Nixon to find a president they considered as miserable as Bush. The presidents most commonly linked with Bush included Hoover, Andrew Johnson and Buchanan. Twelve percent of the historians polled - nearly as many as those who rated Bush a success - flatly called Bush the worst president in American history. And these figures were gathered before the debacles over Hurricane Katrina, Bush's role in the Valerie Plame leak affair and the deterioration of the situation in Iraq. Were the historians polled today, that figure would certainly be higher.

   Even worse for the president, the general public, having once given Bush the highest approval ratings ever recorded, now appears to be coming around to the dismal view held by most historians. To be sure, the president retains a considerable base of supporters who believe in and adore him, and who reject all criticism with a mixture of disbelief and fierce contempt - about one-third of the electorate. (When the columnist Richard Reeves publicized the historians' poll last year and suggested it might have merit, he drew thousands of abusive replies that called him an idiot and that praised Bush as, in one writer's words, "a Christian who actually acts on his deeply held beliefs.") Yet the ranks of the true believers have thinned dramatically. A majority of voters in forty-three states now disapprove of Bush's handling of his job. Since the commencement of reliable polling in the 1940s, only one twice-elected president has seen his ratings fall as low as Bush's in his second term: Richard Nixon, during the months preceding his resignation in 1974. No two-term president since polling began has fallen from such a height of popularity as Bush's (in the neighborhood of ninety percent, during the patriotic upswell following the 2001 attacks) to such a low (now in the midthirties). No president, including Harry Truman (whose ratings sometimes dipped below Nixonian levels), has experienced such a virtually unrelieved decline as Bush has since his high point. Apart from sharp but temporary upticks that followed the commencement of the Iraq war and the capture of Saddam Hussein, and a recovery during the weeks just before and after his re-election, the Bush trend has been a profile in fairly steady disillusionment.

(snip...)



A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 20 Jun 06 - 09:43 AM

http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2006/06/19/opinion/opinion02.txt

Reader views: Encourage our troops, not the enemy
Monday, June 19, 2006

Polls, polls and more polls. The liberal politicians in our nation complain about our president's low poll numbers. Yet, their own poll numbers are more than 10 percent lower than the president's.

I feel that our president's poll numbers are great considering he has sustained a five-year "Bash Bush" campaign by the liberal press and Hollywood. I don't buy all the bull that American people want to know. I have more faith in the American people than that.

Have you noticed the type of complaints? When our president takes action, he either did it too early or too late or too much or not enough. They push for us to pull out of Iraq, and if we did, they would probably say, "See, I told you we couldn't win, and the war was a quagmire from the word go." Well, we are winning this war against the terrorists. The American people will settle for nothing less.

I often wonder how many of our brave soldiers would still be alive if these complainers wouldn't complain, which encourages the enemy.

We have the best, most well-trained force and the most modern equipment in the world, even after the military was cut by nine divisions during the Clinton administration.

It also seems like our liberal news will believe the word of the enemy before our own soldiers. We should not have any newspeople on our front lines. They should be no closer than our headquarters. They hurt our troops because the newspeople are so critical of our troops that a solider might hesitate and get himself killed and loose the battle. The 75 newspeople that died is a shame, and their deaths were unnecessary.

Also, to accuse our soldiers of deliberately shooting women and children is crossing the line. Because the terrorists are cowards that hide behind women and children, our soldiers sometimes have to make split-second decisions, and women and children do get killed. How would our soldiers know if these women and children have bombs taped around them or grenades under their armpits? Did you ever hear of the human wave attack of the Korean War?

These terrorists are the lowest of all cowards. Let our troops do their job, and keep politics out of it - politics caused us to lose the last two wars. Encourage our troops, not the enemy. I will never vote for a liberal because I'm a Christian and an American, and I am proud of it. Support our troops.

Loren Behmlander

Safford

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jun 06 - 01:45 AM

The USA itself has a long history of harbouring and promoting terrorists, from Latin America to the Middle East or wherever they like. Their own military forces are terrorists. They have funded death squads in Central and South America, and they funded and trained the Mujahedin in Afghanistan (to fight the Soviets), and the Mujahedin were the same people, the same religious fanatics who became, in time, the Taliban and Al Queda. The USA-back Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was different from the Taliban in one very interesting area...they grew opium for the international drug trade. The Taliban had shut down the opium farming in the areas they controlled, because of their religious/moral stand on the matter. The Afghani opium trade is now up and running again full steam, since the USA knocked out the Taliban administration. This is handy for the CIA, because the CIA deals opium (secretly, that is). It's a handy way of raising a hell of a lot of money fast. The Northern Alliance committed mass killings of prisoners during the fighting in Afghanistan. The USA was also complicit in helping Saddam during many of his massacres of Kurds, and standing quietly aside when he massacred Shiites, following the Gulf War.

The USA has itself committed pretty much every crime it is busy accusing others of committing. It's one of the most blatant cases of the pot calling the kettle black in recorded history for the USA to accuse other people of war crimes and/or terrorism.

But I forgot..."terrorism" is only called terrorism when other people do it, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 06 - 01:30 AM

The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Jim Hoagland Oct 10, 2002

[George W. Bush]'s immediate predecessors overlooked the genocide against the Kurds, the defiance of the United Nations on weapons of mass destruction, the harboring of terrorists, the breaking of the overly generous cease-fire terms that the United States dictated at the end of the Persian Gulf War and other parts of what Bush on Monday accurately called Iraq's "unique" record of evil. Until the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush and his Cabinet seemed able to also argue information about Iraq round or flat.

A sea change has occurred in official Washington since the president decided last summer that he would soon have to be ready to go to war against Iraq. Public attempts by officials to bury or explain away menacing information about Iraq have largely dried up or gone underground, although the CIA fights a rear-guard action. Now information and intelligence are marshaled to make the case, rather than deflect it.

"You sure write a lot about Iraq," an exasperated editor at The Post said to me in 1998. I took it as an unintended compliment from a colleague who was not eager to devote more space to [Saddam Hussein]'s transgressions then. Bush's determination has cleared news space as well as time at the Pentagon for Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 20 Jun 06 - 01:27 AM

The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Jim Hoagland Jul 2, 2000

Gore's problem on Iraq is his campaign problem in microcosm: The meeting with the opposition was the right thing to do. It was intended to suggest that a President Gore would do more to bring down [Saddam Hussein] and to check his development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. But the choreography of the meeting as an official occasion at the State Department (rather than a political meeting, where promises would have to be made) gave Gore a pretext for not saying such words or for actually differing with Clinton's approach. Once again, Gore seemed to lack the courage of his convictions.

Waiting for Saddam to go away has emerged as the most daring strategy President Clinton will pursue in Iraq. He has also extended that strategy to the Iraqi opposition over the past two years, apparently hoping it too will just blow away if not given meaningful U.S. help.

The INC leaders were in Washington this past week primarily to meet with Vice President Al Gore, who voted for Desert Storm as a senator and showed early, strong interest in helping Saddam's opponents. But Gore has quietly gone along with Clinton's Iraq finesse since they arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue together.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 20 Jun 06 - 01:21 AM

The Washington Post - Washington, D.C.
Jim Hoagland Mar 5, 1998

Desk officers in the U.S. government's Middle East bureaucracy would not return Chalabi's calls when he visited. The CIA was bad-mouthing him to reporters. One senior State Department official bought Chalabi lunch at the Cosmos Club to avoid meeting with him at State -- "off-lining" the meeting, in the official's parlance, meaning that it did not officially happen.

It was a grim time for a man who has been an honest, observant and reliable interpreter of Iraq since we met in Beirut 26 years ago. Our friendship survived my departure from the Middle East a few years later, several wars in the region and numerous betrayals of Chalabi's cause by successive American governments. Despite his own unrelenting confidence on recent visits here, I felt growing apprehension for this cultivated Iraqi banker, mathematician and revolutionary.

But tomorrow is always another day in the life of an exile politician. On Monday, Chalabi appeared before the Senate subcommittee on the Middle East and got a sympathetic hearing for his new detailed paramilitary plan for undermining Saddam's reign of terror. Chalabi is suddenly being sought after by officials at the Pentagon and State to talk about low-intensity conflict scenarios..

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jun 06 - 12:28 AM

Why would Iraq NOT want to strike back at the USA? The USA was bombing and persecuting and threatening Iraq ever since the Gulf War with George Bush the elder. They were attacking and damaging Iraq on a daily basis, and violating Iraqi airspace on a daily basis. Seems to me that Saddam or any other national leader would be entirely justified (if a bit foolish) to plan retaliatory strikes against the USA, given such a situation.

Would the USA not feel justified to counterattack with deadly force if it were being bombed by foreign aircraft on a daily basis for about 10 years?????????

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Arne
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 11:59 PM

Woddy:

Do the initial "B" and "S" mean anything to you? Look, if there was anything to this claim, the maladministration would be shouting it from the rooftops ... actually, if it was even mildly plausible this claim might: have any substance, they'd be doing that. After all, they were spreading the lies of Chalabi's thugs far and wide before the war.

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 11:58 PM

Putin--now there's an unimpeachable source, who never in his life has participated in disinformation, nor ever received bad data.   Thanks for giving us the definitive answer. Now we can all go out and vote for Bush supporters with a clear conscience.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 11:45 PM

CNN

Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 18, 2004

"I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received ... information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations." --

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Arne
Date: 19 Jun 06 - 10:17 PM

Woody:

More than 10,000 U.S.-led troops have spread out over four southern provinces as part of Operation Mountain Thrust, a counterinsurgency blitz aimed at quelling a Taliban resurgence.

Well, that was good planning, eh? Leave Afghanistan to rot and go off chasing hallucinations in Iraq? Let the Taliban build up their strength again?

Kind of reminds me of the "heck of a job" Dubya did with Katrina.....

Cheers,

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:54 PM

Yup. That is the crux of the problem, all right.

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:50 PM

I forget the author of the quote, but it goes something along this line: "It is very difficult to get someone to understand a thing when their salary depends on their not understanding it." I think it was Sinclair Lewis. Someone who understood the human proclivity for selling souls in exchange for pottage.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Unpopular views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Heidebundt Pikelmaas, international arms dea
Date: 18 Jun 06 - 10:45 PM

Yes, it's all wonderful for the arms trade, Woody. With any luck, it will go on indefinitely. As a matter of fact, I'm sure it will. If one enemy of convenience is eliminated we just create another one. It's as easy as destabilizing a society or falling off a log, relatively speaking. War is good business. Unending war is even better. The best way to maintain an unending war is to create an intolerable situation for many people, and specify military and political objectives that are completely unrealistic and impossible to achieve. All this has been done by the Bush administration AND their Muslim opponents AND Israel too, and very efficiently, I might add. Business is booming.

I may have to buy another Maserati soon.