Bush's "Active/Negative" Presidency
Posted By: Democrat on 2006-05-10
In Reply to: To Liberals - Pollster
Bush's Active/Negative Presidency
Recent events provide an especially good illustration of Bush's fateful - perhaps fatal - approach. Six generals who have served under Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have called for his resignation - making a strong substantive case as to why he should resign. And they are not alone: Editorialists have also persuasively attacked Rumsfeld on the merits.
Yet Bush's defense of Rumsfeld was entirely substance-free. Bush simply told reporters in the Rose Garden that Rumsfeld would stay because I'm the decider and I decide what's best. He sounded much like a parent telling children how things would be: I'm the Daddy, that's why.
This, indeed, is how Bush sees the presidency, and it is a point of view that will cause him trouble.
Bush has never understood what presidential scholar Richard Neustadt discovered many years ago: In a democracy, the only real power the presidency commands is the power to persuade. Presidents have their bully pulpit, and the full attention of the news media, 24/7. In addition, they are given the benefit of the doubt when they go to the American people to ask for their support. But as effective as this power can be, it can be equally devastating when it languishes unused - or when a president pretends not to need to use it, as Bush has done.
Apparently, Bush does not realize that to lead he must continually renew his approval with the public. He is not, as he thinks, the decider. The public is the decider.
Bush is following the classic mistaken pattern of active/negative presidents: As Barber explained, they issue order after order, without public support, until they eventually dissipate the real powers they have -- until nothing [is] left but the shell of the office. Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon all followed this pattern.
Active/negative presidents are risk-takers. (Consider the colossal risk Bush took with the Iraq invasion). And once they have taken a position, they lock on to failed courses of action and insist on rigidly holding steady, even when new facts indicate that flexibility is required.
The source of their rigidity is that they've become emotionally attached to their own positions; to change them, in their minds, would be to change their personal identity, their very essence. That, they are not willing to do at any cost.
Wilson rode his unpopular League of Nations proposal to his ruin; Hoover refused to let the federal government intervene to prevent or lessen a fiscal depression; Johnson escalated U.S. involvement in Vietnam while misleading Americans (thereby making himself unelectable); and Nixon went down with his bogus defense of Watergate.
George Bush has misled America into a preemptive war in Iraq; he is using terrorism to claim that as Commander-in-Chief, he is above the law; and he refuses to acknowledge that American law prohibits torturing our enemies and warrantlessly wiretapping Americans.
Americans, increasingly, are not buying his justifications for any of these positions. Yet Bush has made no effort to persuade them that his actions are sound, prudent or productive; rather, he takes offense when anyone questions his unilateral powers. He responds as if personally insulted.
And this may be his only option: With Bush's limited rhetorical skills, it would be all but impossible for him to persuade any others than his most loyal supporters of his positions. His single salient virtue - as a campaigner - was the ability to stay on-message. He effectively (though inaccurately) portrayed both Al Gore and John Kerry as wafflers, whereas he found consistency in (over)simplifying the issues. But now, he cannot absorb the fact that his message is not one Americans want to hear - that he is being questioned, severely, and that staying on-message will be his downfall.
Other Presidents - other leaders, generally - have been able to listen to critics relatively impassively, believing that there is nothing personal about a debate about how best to achieve shared goals. Some have even turned detractors into supporters - something it's virtually impossible to imagine Bush doing. But not active/negative presidents. And not likely Bush.
The Danger of the Active/Negative President Facing A Congressional Rout
Active/negative presidents -- Barber tells us, and history shows -- are driven, persistent, and emphatic. Barber says their pervasive feeling is I must.
Barber's collective portrait of Wilson, Hoover, Johnson and Nixon now fits George W. Bush too: He sees himself as having begun with a high purpose, but as being continually forced to compromise in order to achieve the end state he vaguely envisions, Barber writes. He continues, Battered from all sides . . . he begins to feel his integrity slipping away from him . . . [and] after enduring all this for longer than any mortal should, he rebels and stands his ground. Masking his decision in whatever rhetoric is necessary, he rides the tiger to the end.
Bush's policies have incorporated risk from the outset. A few examples make that clear.
He took the risk that he could capture Osama bin Laden with a small group of CIA operatives and U.S. Army Special forces - and he failed. He took the risk that he could invade Iraq and control the country with fewer troops and less planning than the generals and State Department told him would be possible - and he failed. He took the risk that he could ignore the criminal laws prohibiting torture and the warrantless wiretapping of Americans without being caught - he failed. And he's taken the risk that he can cut the taxes for the rich and run up huge financial deficits without hurting the economy. This, too, will fail, though the consequences will likely fall on future presidents and generations who must repay Bush's debts.
For the whole article go to: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060421.html
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Bush Presidency - eight years in eight minutes
I watch Olbermann. Sometimes I agree with him. Sometimes I don't.
However, last night he hit it into the park with his attempt to review what Bush did in the last eight years into eight minutes; he ran over time a little bit because there was so much to say.
I would strongly urge anyone who is not too busy whining, moaning, groaning, hating and raging about Obama -- anyone who is truly interested in the future of America -- to watch this, from beginning to end -- especially at the end (since this is done chronologically, not by matter of importance).
THESE are the reasons people voted for Obama. THESE are the reasons that Obama supporters cannot understand why Bush worshippers still support him and reject the man who might undo the wreckage of Bush.
BUSH is the man who claimed to have a direct line to GOD. Obama never claimed anything of the sort; if he had, I probably would not have voted for him for that very reason -- because it creeped me out so much when Bush did it. So the assertion that Obama supporters are "worshippers" is ridiculous, when, in fact, it seems that those who still support Bush (the closest thing to the Anti-Christ that I'VE ever seen) are the ones who seem to think Bush is some sort of god.
Please watch every single SECOND of this video. It will give you just a taste of the grueling task ahead of Obama in trying to correct all the damage that Bush has done. We may, in fact, never know the full extent of the damage because Bush (as is mentioned in the video) has "exempted" himself from the Presidential Records Act.
THIS is why every truly honest, patriotic, honorable American who voted for Obama is so relieved he won. Not so much "happy" -- but RELIEVED -- hoping (yes, HOPING) that our country may once again resemble the USA that once held respect throughout the world, the USA where hard work was once rewarded, the USA where families could afford to feed their children, and the USA where one's ability to obtain something as basic as healthcare wasn't only limited to the wealthy. I'm not naive enough to believe this can all be fixed in four (or even eight) years, because Bush has been like a four-year-old sociopath that was armed with Daddy's credit card, an AXE and an arrogant giggle, each of which he used to its full capacity, and that's a LOT to clean up.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#28699663
I don't see it as a negative. SM
As a matter of fact, it was a case he was assigned when he was in a law firm and his law firm, from what I understand, took pro bono cases from time to time.
A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said Judge Roberts's involvement was minimal. "As in any other case," Ms. Healy said, "it is wrong to equate legal work product with personal opinions."
Don't get too excited. In any case, I don't really care.
What would an Obama Presidency Mean?
What Would an Obama Presidency Mean?
by Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr.
The Democrat Party has for years given lip service to the African-American community. They have talked about prominence without fulfilling the promise. They patronize without empowering. Worst of all, this unholy bond has done more to decimate and deplete our community than slavery and Jim Crow laws ever could have accomplished. This allegiance has destroyed millions of our children; children created but denied access to the American dream, children aborted.
The Democrat Party has been a major contributor to the African American slippery slide down the slope of depravity. It has caused our community to deny the God of our Fathers and ignore the counsel of His Word. This Word brought us up and out of Egypt. This Word broke the chains of a terrible bondage and established us in the path of upward mobility and prosperity.
Our loyalty to this political regime has vexed our leaders and organizations. Institutions that were birthed to advance the causes of Afro-Americans, now in their ignorance, lobby for our decline. NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, Rainbow Coalition, Urban League, the list goes on and on. All of these were once heralded groups with anoble past and great historic accomplishment. Today, they are stymied by this ungodly tie. Rev. Jessie Jackson, AL Sharpton, Julian Bond, Joseph Lowery are all allied in party and, in the process, have lost their souls. What happened to the God of Dr. Martin Luther King?
Despite this deplorable behavior of our perceived leadership, the winds of change have begun to blow. Pastors and leaders in the Black community have begun to remember their roots and realize they are chained to mediocrity and complacency. There has been a consistent flow of Afro-Americans making their way back to freedom. This has sent shock waves through the present Democrat leadership. While we are yet somewhat in a vacuum of solid Afro-American leadership with true integrity (there are many on the horizon not yet recognized), we are once again being wooed by the oppressor’s ploys to stay on the plantation. Staying where there is little reward and where our lives and votes are taken for granted. Once again it is someone of our own ethnicity, our own race being used. The Democrats have deployed a new pied piper in a desperate attempt topreserve their self serving party.
New face, same tune. The song being played is from the movie “The Culture of Death.” The goal is to fill the seats with Afro-Americans in the theater of apostasy. Why? Because if the current trend continues the Democrat party could soon be performing in their final act.
Enter Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill), who is truly turning out to be one of the greatest performers of all times. Obama’s biggest act is that he calls himself a Christian.
Howard Dean, Chair of the Democrat National Committee, scripted most of the scenes in this production starring Obama. Dean outlined an approach that will emphasize outreach to evangelicals. He said, “People of faith are in the Democratic Party including me.”
Listen to this line. Obama stated, “As I travel around this state, I don’t get asked about gay marriage, I don’t get asked about abortion, I get asked ‘How can I find a job that allows me to support my family?’ I get asked, ‘How can I pay those medical bills without going into bankruptcy.’” (Taken from a reply to questions asked during the Ill. Senate campaign)
We are deeply troubled, but not surprised at the Senator’s remarks. One would only have to look at Obama’s consistent support and advocacy for the gay agenda and the abortion industry to understand. As a longtime activist for children in the womb (the most discriminated against segment of our society) and proponent for family values, I am horrified at this man’s voting record. Anytime Planned Parenthood gives you a 100% rating, all Americans should cringe in fear because they are the leading abortion provider in the nation.
Each day, 1452 African Americans are murdered by abortion, 4,000 children over all.
There have been over 15 million African American children dismembered in the womb by the abortion holocaust and as many women victimized.
As an elected official, should anyone have to ask you about abortion to make it your concern?
Marriage, since the 1970s, is down 17% in America and in the African Community it’s down 34%, which is twice the national average.
Should Barack Hussein Obama again have to wait until someone asks him about the fundamental building block of all society? Shouldn’t he protect the sanctity of marriage? The truth is, someone has asked and how he has answered the question wasabysmal.
The question was asked of Obama, should the heinous act of partial birth abortion be outlawed in America? Twice Sen. Obama answered no! When he was asked if a child, who might miraculously survive the sentence of death by abortion, be protected from an abortion doctor after surviving? Sen. Obama said no! (See Born Alive Victims Protection Law.) Has he no conscience? Is he misinformed on the facts of these barbaric practices? His response to these questions is not indicative of the Black community’s beliefs, and certainly shows a low degree of conscience and moral fiber.
These six things the lord hates, yea seven are an abomination unto him, a proud look, a lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood. (Proverbs 6:17)
There is no candidate running for the office of the presidency with a worse record than Sen. Barack Hussein Obama. His hands have aided and abetted the abortion industry’s slaughter of the innocent and no other community is affected by it more than the African American community. It’s an industry that targets Afro-Americans for profit at the expense of our children’s lives and the pain of Black women.
This charade has been quite a production. It is now playing and coming to a theater near you!
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his letter from a Birmingham jail, “The early church put an end to such evils as infanticide (infant killing).”
From a jail in Birmingham, AL, without any other source of reference but his heart and the Bible, Martin wrote to some Bishops and Pastors who were not in favor of the demonstrations he was leading. They felt that it was counter productive and not in the best interest of the Negro people. Martin Luther King, Jr. felt quite differently, he chided church leaders for their reluctance to join him in the struggle for freedom. King’s reference to infanticide pointed to the legality of infant killing under Roman law in the first century. Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed to the practice of Christians to rescue babies left on the side of the road to die, because their parents did not like their complexion, eye color, hair color or viewed the child as an inconvenience (sound familiar?) First century Christians rescued those babies and raised them as their own children.
The early Church defied unjust laws even when the consequences could have meant their own death for doing so. Oh, if that kind of love and courage could be demonstrated today by our leadership, it would begin to heal our land.
Sen. Obama has written, “I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters ashospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex – nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the sermon on the mount.”
Sen. Obama, did you say obscure? That would tend to lead unlearned listeners to believe that the Bible is vague or obscure on the subject of homosexuality.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Nearly half of the 32 verses in the first chapter of the New Testament book of Romans were dedicated to warning the early church about sexual perversion. The Apostle Paul warned that perverse thinking and the habits they create were due to the fact that “they did not want to retain God in their knowledge.” That verse truly reflects much of the cast in the Democrat Party.
I would like to ask Sen. Obama the question, “How obscure is this verse?”
Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with woman kind: it is an abomination.
That sounds pretty definitive to me.
It would appear to me that Sen. Obama as well as many others shun and ignore the obvious and cloak the true causes of our problems.
African Americans make up 12% of the population, but account for over 50% of all new cases of HIV. African American women account for a staggering 68% of all newly diagnosed HIV positive women in the United States. These women primarily contracted HIV from heterosexual sex. Now, with that said, 60% of all new AIDs cases in America will be the result of the violation of Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:27 (men having sex with men).
Martin Luther King, Jr., who never marched one step for “Gay Rights,” said, “The contemporary church is often a weak ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power of the average community is consoled by the churches silent and often vocal sanctions of things as they are.”
You have heard my review of this masterful political production concerning Sen. Obama and a few of his cast. There is undoubtedly more to come.
Suffice it to say, the prospect of Sen. Barack Hussein Obama becoming President of the United States poses a real threat to African Americans.
Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, conducted a survey tracking the attitudes of nearly 1,600 young people of all races nationwide. The professor did one of the most comprehensive studies with the focus on African Americans 15-25 ever performed.
The survey shows that young African-Americans are more conservative than their white counterparts when it is comes to same-sex marriage and abortion. There has been consistent data that shows African-Americans are pro-life and oppose same-sex marriage. An Obama presidency would certainly not reflect Afro-American youth or the nation he’d be leading. In fact, his position on these issues would be ensuring their present destructive trend.
Black Enterprise magazinedid a survey in which 58% of its participants viewed the NAACP’s pro-choice stance as wrong. As a role model, Barack Hussein Obama would be stirring the cauldron of confusion and mixed emotion. Many people would be happy for his success, because he is black, but vexed by his immoral position on the critical issues.
Obama’s use of the presidential bully pulpit would be a boost for the culture of death and the homosexual agenda.
As President, there would also always be the threat of a veto of any significant pro-life or pro-family legislation. Additionally, Obama would undoubtedly nominate pro-abortion justices to the US Supreme Court, which could etch Roe v. Wade into stone for generations.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Any success achieved at the expense of our children is no success.” I and many other African-Americans long to see the day of an African-American President, but not at the expense of our children and our values.
Remember, all significant social change which empowered and eradicated injustice has come from the Church not congress, from Pastors not the president. Politicians often join in the cause later, but social reform always starts in the Church. To keep this better in mind I will close with another quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from a Birmingham Jail:
There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced as they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.
God help us to be a thermostat.
Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr. is the Senior Pastor of New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, NJ. He hosts “The Urban Prophet” which takes the pro-life, pro-family message into the urban areas.
Rev. Childress is the author of “No Shepherd’s Cry.” Pastor Childress and his book were recently featured on the 700 Club hosted by CBN’s Pat Robertson.
Pastor Childress is joyously married to Regina Childress and has four children: Clenard, Thomas, Tonya and Tia.
One heartbeat away from the presidency.,,,,,,,,
Very scary indeed for a candidate with a 4-year degree in journalism
okay, not only negative but arrogant!
A bit of humility would be in order.
Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. - Mark Twain
cant prove a negative
pure speculation. Not been attacked by little green people from Mars either.
NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN ADS
Obama has had 61% of his ads negative throughout his ENTIRE campaign........... McCain only for one week.
Obama spent 47 million on negative ads.....McCain 27 million.
Yea, poor 'ole Obama....... just keeping believing in this guy. He'll sell you to the middle east and you'll be feeding their camels.
what a bunch of negative
nellies. Why even bother getting up in the morning with that burden of resentment on your shoulders?
Funny. I think CNN is negative.
x
Ever try to prove a negative?
The government can ''guestimate'' a number and send you a bill for what you ''owe''. Then I guess it's up to you to prove they're wrong? Not an enviable position to be in.
Democrat hasn't won the presidency yet.
Mostly because I can't wait to see what you all have to say when the country is still in shambles with a Democrat behind the wheel. I can't believe you all actually think a Dem in office will help. Entire Congress is Dem right now. What has it done lately?
Senator versus presidency
Sure, I can see where a lot of this would be overlooked while running for a senate position versus president of our country. The higher the position, the more you look into someone's history and that is what separates the boys from the men....
Looking Ahead to the Obama Presidency.....sm
Looking Ahead to the Obama Presidency
Written by John F. McManus
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 00:40
Barack Obama's and Joe Biden's own records and agendas show the direction they have in mind for the nation.
Without doubt, the election of Barack Obama is historic because he is the first Black American selected by voters for the highest office in the land. Indeed, the election of an African-American to the presidency by a nation with a majority white population may be unprecedented, and the fact that this is possible should be a source of pride for all of us, regardless of whether Obama himself was a good or bad choice.
An articulate and confident young man, Obama's presence in the White House will be welcomed by many. Along with his oratorical skills and appealing vitality, his family will remind older Americans of the John F. Kennedy era when a telegenic and appealing wife and two charming youngsters accompanied the newly elected president into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
What will the Obama presidency be like? Throughout a campaign stretching back for almost two years, the Illinois senator regularly employed the word "change," and the word even morphed into "change we can believe in." The posters, oratory, television ads, and pronouncements of several Obama staffers repeatedly issued unspecified pledges that this new and different candidate would alter the course America was following.
"Blueprint for Change"
But how would America's course be altered? Even though the American people could have read online what an Obama-Biden administration promised, most failed to do so. Much of the agenda, albeit without a lot of detail, is contained in Blueprint for Change, the 83-page document subtitled "Plan for America" issued by the Obama-Biden team. As we shall see, the "change" envisioned by the Blueprint includes more government at home and a continuation of our interventionist foreign policy abroad.
Of course, America has been moving in the direction of more and bigger government for decades, regardless of whether a Republican or Democrat has been in the White House. Obama hopes to move us even further in the big-government direction. What kind of change is that?
Even many Americans who recognize that Obama will push for more government at home believe that he will end our interventionist foreign policy because of the opposition he has expressed to the Iraq War. But this conclusion flies in the face of his proposal to transfer troops to Afghanistan (in essence transferring the Iraq War to a different theater) and his support for international arrangements, including expansion of NATO.
Please consider the following positions as they appear in the pages of the revealing "blueprint" document and judge for yourself how much change there will be and whether the recommended "change" would be a good thing. (Comments following each quoted item are ours.)
• "Emergency Economic Plan to Inject Immediate Relief into the Economy." Both Obama and Biden voted for the $700 billion bailout (along with John McCain). More bailouts will likely follow.
• "Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families." Government giving money to everyone, as was done with the 2008 rebate, doesn't solve any problems. These funds either have to be printed (the root cause of inflation) or borrowed, likely from China, which puts our nation's neck in a noose. The interest that is compounding on our already enormous debt is a toxic time bomb. The government will eventually resort to massive inflation to pay the debt or collateralize the debt with American assets; in which case, those now holding our bonds will end up owning America.
• "Invest in the Manufacturing Sector." America's manufacturers need relief from the stifling array of taxes and regulations, and from the steady erosion of the dollar brought on by debilitating inflation, not government handouts that are always followed by government control. A 2006 study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute entitled "Ten Thousand Commandments" found that the federal regulatory burden on U.S. businesses amounted to $1.13 trillion. This burden is killing American businesses, productivity, innovation, and jobs.
• "Create 5 Million New Green Jobs." This will be done, says the Blueprint, by investing "$150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy," etc. In other words, politicians and bureaucrats would create government jobs and subsidize private-sector jobs that should be financed by the private sector (and would be if they were economically viable). Government should get out of the way and let free Americans create jobs.
• "Create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank." This promise includes an infusion of $60 billion more in federal spending.
• "Give the Federal Reserve Greater Supervisory Authority." The Federal Reserve, which already wields enormous, unconstitutional powers, is a destructive engine of inflation and should hardly be given greater authority. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has recommended, it should be abolished, not enhanced.
• "Pressure the World Trade Organization to Enforce Trade Agreements." Granting the UN's WTO even more authority is another step toward global governance. The WTO is already exercising judicial jurisdiction over sovereign nations, overruling national laws and legislatures, including the laws and the Congress of the United States. Congress and President Bush have weakly protested these usurpations — and then meekly accepted them.
• "Guarantee Affordable, Accessible Health Care for Every American." Healthcare costs have risen dramatically because of already existing government intervention. A national healthcare system would swell the cost while making healthcare hard to obtain, as such plans have done everywhere they have been instituted.
• "Barack Obama has fought for comprehensive immigration reform." Ultimately, what this means is amnesty for as many as 20 million illegal aliens in our nation.
• "High Quality Zero-to-Five Education." The Obama plan actually calls for "early care and education for infants in a Zero to 5 Plan," more government for K-12, federal support for afterschool programs, and more grants for those who move on to college.
• "Double our annual investment in foreign assistance ... to $50 billion.... Invest at least $50 billion [annually] by 2013 for the global fight against HIV/AIDS." With record deficits and a soaring National Debt, America is, in effect, giving away borrowed money.
The above constitute only a sampling of the pledges for more programs, more spending, and more government powers contained in the 83 pages of the Blueprint for Change. And the official Obama-Biden Internet website provides several hundred more pages of details, all pointing toward plans for a vast expansion of the federal government. Less than a week after the election, Georgia Congressman Paul Broun (R) told an audience in his district the president-elect shows "signs of being a Marxist." Perhaps Broun had read the Obama-Biden Blueprint, a rather obvious call for socialism in the United States. And perhaps Broun knows that, in addition to Marx's well-publicized association with communism, Karl Marx is also the godfather of socialism.
Although he didn't mention his own party, we should point out that Rep. Broun's criticism of Obama's apparent Marxist bent applies also to many Republicans. In fact, in October, President Bush and many Republican members of Congress rolled out the Socialist Express to push through the bailout package. Take it from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist, who congratulated Bush for joining the socialist club, and then chided him and his allies for applying a double standard. "How many times have they criticized me for nationalizing the phone company?" he asked. "They say, 'The state shouldn't get involved in that.' But now they don't criticize Bush for having nationalize[d] ... the biggest banks in the world. Comrade Bush, how are you?"
Expanding the UN
The United Nations Association of the United States is the most determined promoter of the UN within our nation. Early in 2008, its leaders sent a questionnaire to all presidential candidates. Barack Obama displayed his strong commitment to the world body and to its various sovereignty-compromising programs in his responses, some of which follow:
• "No country has a greater stake in a strong United Nations than the United States."
• "I have pledged to create a [UN-promoted] cap on carbon emissions in the United States."
• "I fully support the [UN] Millennium Development Goals."
In the year 2000, the 189 member nations of the UN adopted the Millennium Development Goals, a program of eight goals to aid developing countries. Our share of funding these goals could total hundreds of billions of dollars in just a few years. Senator Barack Obama introduced S. 2433 in 2007. Labeled the "Global Poverty Act," this proposal seeks to require our nation to "achieve the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of the people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than one dollar per day." Five months later, Senator Biden offered minor amendments to the bill as he co-signed it. Obviously, these two senators — and the handful of others they have enlisted to back their proposal — believe the American people should pony up enormous sums of money sought by the UN in another program that would empower the world body and further enrich corrupt foreign dictators while doing little to improve the plight of the world's poor.
Based on their stated positions and track records, it is reasonable to expect that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the team they will select to staff the new administration won't even consider less government and a mind-your-own-business foreign policy to be options. Their agenda, if implemented, would speed the growth of the federal government, accelerate the surrender of America's independence, and hasten our nation down the path toward submergence in what internationalists euphemistically refer to as "global governance" by various supranational institutions, of which the UN, the WTO, and the IMF are among the most noteworthy. For more information about the power brokers who have helped formulate Obama's agenda and who will be running the Obama-Biden administration, see "Behind the Obama Agenda."
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/543-looking-ahead-to-the-obama-presidency
Celebrate Obama's presidency!
In "celebration" of this stimulus and a month of his presidency, let's see if Obama has lived up to his promises. I will let you score your president.
Here are the 7 promises.
1. Make government open and transparent.
2. Make it "impossible" for Congressmen to slip in pork barrel projects.
3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. (Even Congressional Republicans shut out.)
4. No more secrecy.
5. Public will have 5 days to look at a bill.
6. You’ll know what’s in it.
7. We will put every pork barrel project online.
Obama is rich in his own right - not just the presidency -
he can spend money any way he pleases. Believe me, if I had that kind of money, I would be going to broadway too!
You are the most unhappy, negative person I have ever seen! nm
You are such a negative person - I saw your other posts.
So hmmmmmm
Iim ignoring all the negative dem psychobabble....
...doesn't change anything for me.
Sam = I'm ready for her to hit a home run tonight. It's the most important speech of her life. Can hardly wait....
Watched Romney talk earlier today, and he is such a class act. Looking forward to his speech tonight, too.
and to anyone thinking it....no, I won't read any negative posts after mine, so don't bother....
One BIG difference....O's negative campaign
the SCARIEST notion of all...4 more years of 90%. He has not engaged in character assassination. He has criticized McC's policies, which is what ANY candidate from ANY party is entitled to do.
"The wisdom of the Clinton Presidency..."
ohhhhh to quote reville guffaw guffaw GUFFAW guffaw lol
Excuse me....the Presidency is an executive position...
Palin is the only one of the four who has executive appearance. She is as ready to lead right now as Obama is. Obama has zero international experience other than one trip to talk to the Germans in a political speech.
And I would think the fact that your #1 has less experience than McCain's #2 you would stay away from the experience thing...?
He picked her because she shares his ideals..wants change in washington. Obama wants that too. McCain picked a REAL Washington outsider. Obama didn't. Soooo..they are saying some of the same things Obama is saying, but when Obama says it is good, when they say it, it is bad?
Hello President McCain, and VP Palin!
your msg. "American Presidency is an exec. role"
nm
What is the one thing you want an Obama presidency to accomplish?
Mine is curbing illegal immigration.
This will be a very effective presidency! This is GREAT !!! read more sm
President Obama just announced that the pay of top White House employees is being frozen. The Associated Press says it will affect those in positions paying more than $100,000 a year.
"All of you are committed to building a more responsible government," Obama told top staff at a meeting now underway at the White House.
"Families are tightening their belts and so should Washington," Obama added.
The president also announced he's about to sign new ethics rules designed to restrict lobbying by current staff after they leave the administration.
Update at 2:55 p.m. ET: The White House just put out this statement about the actions the president took today.
Update at 1:31 pm. ET: "What a moment we are in," Obama also said. "What an opportunity we have to change this country."
Update at 1:28 p.m. ET: The AP adds that about 100 White House aides will be affected.
Update at 1:25 p.m. ET: Obama also announced he is directing federal agencies to be more open, in part by returning to pre-Bush administration policies regarding the Freedom of Information Act.
"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency," he said.
I do not think there will be anything negative from family values voters...
I do not believe they will react negatively to this. What kind of man would McCain have been to decide not to choose her just because her daughter was pregnant and not married. What if she was pregnant and married? This whole thing just reeks. Like Obama said...children should not be involved in politics and this will not affect her ability to function as governor or as vice president. At least one on the left is being decent about this.
I agree totally with you. A very negative message. nm
.
I find it interesting that anything negative about Obama is
desperate and anything negative about McCain is truth--yet you call McCain supporters hyprocrites.
By my read, not a single negative response among them.
x
I'm just voting for him because he is the lesser of the two evils who are running for presidency
x
And you think that terrorist attack was planned in just a few months during his presidency?
nm
Obama's Approval Index hits negative territory
The approval index is computed by subtracting the percentage of voters who strongly disapprove of Obama's job performance from those who strongly approve of it.
Once sporting an index in the +30 range, the Big BO (you may interpret "BO" however you wish) has in a matter of a mere handful of months fallen like Lucifer from Heaven. May his end be similarly appropriate, politically speaking. Let's make this goofy clown a one-term bozo.
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Yeah right. Served under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II
x
Stop bringing up Bush - this post was not about Bush
I even said we have had some good presidents and some bad ones, but this post was not about Bush. It was about Obama. Yes Bush was one of the worst presidents I'm not arguing with you on that one, but everytime anyone brings up something about our current president they are shot back with Bush this or Bush that and on things that have nothing to do with what the current topic is about. Again, this was not about Bush. It was about Obama.
Oh, more "blame Bush" - except Bush didn't send these out, now did he?
Here's a news flash for you since you apparently haven't heard: BUSH IS NOT IN OFFICE and just today Gallup did a poll showing that THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK OBAMA SHOULD START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENS ON HIS WATCH.
G E T A C L U E.
Bush is gone, YEA!!! and yeah, it could darn well be Bush! LOL.
Chimp boy!! But, the cartoon is NOT about Bush, now is it? Give me a break.
George Bush HIMSELF makes it so easy to make fun of George Bush!!!! oh where would I start, so litt
nm
Yes, Bush and Bush alone did this whole mess all my himself
Your speaking as though nobody else had a hand in this, just Bush nobody else. Last I knew we had a democratic congress and they are the ones who got us into this mess. Time to put fault where it belongs - congress. Bush is only a talking head.
Bush....they will still blame Bush.
nm
Corporation owned media does not bash Bush, they bash those that bash Bush.sm
Google Bush and vote fraud and there is tons of information about how many Americans 'voted' for Bush. Poor us and poor troops.
bush says....
bush says we are safer cause of our Iraq war..No way..we have created a culture of American haters.a culture of terrorists against America due to this so wrong war..hopefully the Downing Street Memo and the people now realizing we have sacrified too much will be the downfall for the warmonger in the White House..
Bush
He is shrub, chimp boy and many other names I cant post here but which I call him at home and among friends..oh yeah, dufus, jerk, imbecile...
As soon as Bush went from
"Anyone in my office involved with a leak will be fired" to "Anyone who is found guilty of leaking," I figured he had a handle on what the decision is going to be by the special prosecutor, who, incidentally, was appointed by BUSH.
I guess time will tell if justice truly does prevail.
Bush makes Nixon look like a choir boy.
Bush's oil? sm
Well, you all have blamed Bush for everything except original sin. I guess that is next. Thank the environmentalists partly for the mess we are in with oil. And stop deifying Chavez. He is not a good person.
No, Bush, you certainly are no FDR!
No One Can Say They Didn't See It Coming
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com
Wednesday 31 August 2005
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
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A New Orleans resident waded through floodwaters coated with a fine layer of oil in the flooded downtown area on Tuesday, August 30, 2005. |
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Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.
A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation.
The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised no net loss of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection, said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as highly questionable, and boasted, Everybody loves what we're doing.
My administration's climate change policy will be science based, President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as a report put out by a bureaucracy, and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive Report on the Environment, stating, Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment, the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.
In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease. Bush completely ignored this statement.
In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of abstinence. When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.
On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan. Bush had boarded his very own Streetcar Named Desire.
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Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of The Clinton Wars, is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.
Bush's war
We are going to deal with the homecoming veterans of Iraq, their mental and physical troubles, for decades to come. I remember when I was a teenager, there was a man who lived down the street from my best friend where we all hung out..He would sit on his stoop. We would go up to the fence and ask him questions..He was spaced out, shaking, stared into space..We, as punky kids, thought it was funny..Later I found out, he was suffering from *shell shock*, post traumatic stress disorder..FROM WWII..He had never recovered..This was in the 1960's and he still was suffering..OMG..I also have a friend who was in Vietnam and he has never been the same after he came home in 1969..These returning vets are gonna experience hell on earth and we along with them..This war did not have to happen..this was an unnecessary war..a war of convenience, of profit and we will pay the price..Not Bush or his cronies, they will be insulated, locked away in their gated communities counting their money..We the working and caring American people, both democrat and republican, will pay the price..The only difference is democrats will admit it, republicans will still try to make excuses for Bushs war.
What? Not Bush?
Nobel Peace Prize 2005: Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez makes the final list
VHeadline commentarist Carlos Herrera writes: The
Nobel Commission for the Peace Prize has received 199
nominations including Colin Powell, the U2 singer Bono
and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
It's Bush's
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