George's mistakes - feel free to add to the list.sm
Posted By: LVMT on 2006-07-15
In Reply to:
When Democrats accuse George W. Bush of being a liar, Republicans -- and until recently, the media -- have responded that Bush is a man of integrity whom you can trust at his word. It was the evil Bill Clinton who lied. Remember him wagging his finger at us? That bastard!
Well, yes, Bill Clinton did indeed lie to us. He lied to us about oral sex. It sure is good that we spent nearly $100 million to find out how semen reacts on a cotton blue dress from the Gap. Of course, it turned out that he was telling the truth to us about Whitewater and filegate and travelgate and campaign finance-gate and gate-gate and more. I'm sure we could find better uses for that money today. But, Clinton certainly did lie about that hummer. Imagine that, a man lying about sex. In America no less.
Of course, unlike another president, Clinton's lies didn't kill anyone.
Anyway, I decided to put just a short list together of lies by George W. Bush. These are not banal lies about one's sex life, these are big lies, whoppers and tall tales about his own record, who he is, what he's done and what he stands for.
1. The Iraq War.
We could really start and end with this one, since this lie has killed and wounded thousands of American soldiers and countless Iraqi men women and children. But this one certainly does not stand alone.
Let's break this out into subcategories as well, such as:
a) The smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud. Iraq didn't even have shitake mushrooms.
b) Saddam would not let the inspectors in. Bush has now made this claim twice. It came as quite a surprise to the hundreds of U.N. inspectors that were in Iraq in 2003 and were told by the U.S. to get out or get bombed.
c) Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. All right, I cut them some slack on this one as EVERYONE thought that he still possessed some WMD capability. The difference is that no one else felt that Hussein was any sort of credible military threat to the rest of the region, much less the United States. And, by no one else, I mean C.I.A., the U.N. and anyone else not named Wolfowitz, Rice, Libby, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Pearle.
d) We know exactly where they are. So said Rumsfeld shortly after the war ended. I wonder if he's shared that bit of information with his boss yet?
e) The laundry list. Both Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech and Colin Powell at the United Nations read through a laundry list of horrors that was quantified down to the milliliter. Powell called these charges facts that were unassailable. Yet we have still not found a drop.
f) We believe that, in fact, Saddam Hussein has reconstituted nuclear weapons. Dick Cheney said this on Meet the Press in 2003. Even as Bush and others were careful of going overboard, Dick Goebbels Cheney kept going for not just the Big Lie, but the Grandaddy of them all.
g) Drones that could attack the United States. True, if they were launched from Padre Island. The truth is that little Timmy down the block has a more sophisticated remote control airplane than Saddam did.
h) Yellow cake uranium. The Italian press thought those documents were fake. Let me repeat that: the ITALIAN PRESS thought they were forgeries!
i) We will be welcomed as liberators. Those are bullets, roadside bombs and RPGs, not roses fellas.
j) Imminent? Who said imminent? Well, Ari Fleischer, Donald Rumsfeld and others. But, apparently Bush never said the words himself. He just used every other phrase he could think of to scare the crap out of us. And, as a point of order, isn't it the Bush Administration? When someone is speaking for the administration, don't they speak for Bush?
k) Al Qaeda and Saddam had close ties. Well, both he and bin Laden are Sunni Muslims, they both have moustaches and, to quote Cliff Clavin, neither of them have ever been in my kitchen. They must be like brothers.
l) We have found WMDs in Iraq. Bush and others have made this claim regarding an ever so dangerous weather tracking truck.
m) They could have been destroyed by Saddam. Or moved out of the country. I know Bush doesn't read the papers or watch the news, but does he even listen to his own staff? David Kay, his hand-picked inspector, said there obviously weren't any weapons in the first place. But, what if Bush is right and they were moved, shipped out of the country? Well, then the whole purpose of the war -- to keep Hussein from giving his WMDs to terrorists -- was a failure. Well, George, which one is it?
I could go on and on, but we've got even more real hardcore, honest to goodness, Grade A lies to address.
2. Taxes (part 1)
Bush has consistently claimed that he is against tax increases. Yet, as Governor, his 1997 tax plan would have forced tens of thousands of business to pay franchise taxes that previously did not have to pay. According to the GOP School of Taxes playbook, that's a tax increase, no if ands or buts about it.
3. Taxes (part 2)
Throughout the 2000 campaign and through 2001, Bush claimed that his mega tax cut for the mega rich was actually a tax cut for the working folks. In fact, he said the vast majority would go to the bottom. As Al Franken has so ably pointed out, by far the vast majority usually means more than 14.7 percent that the bottom 60 percent received. Consider that fuzzy math.
4. Taxes (part 3)
In 2003, Bush claimed his latest sop to the uber-wealthy would create jobs. In fact, the special interest, Rockefeller tax cut was -- in true Orwellian fashion -- named the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003. Someone wake me when those 2.6 million jobs Bush promised in 2004 start being created. He needs to create around 300,000 jobs a month through Election Day to reach his pledge.
5. Taxes (part 4)
Bush, who tried to extend taxes to thousands of businesses and not call it a tax increase, now claims that if his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are not made permanent, that is a tax increase. Now, remember, the law as written says those taxes automatically phase out if nothing is changed. Bush now says if the law as written -- the law he signed -- is not changed, that is a tax increase.
6. I fulfilled my duty.
He didn't take his flight physical because his doctor was in Houston. The entire National Guard spin is falling apart before our eyes. The facts of the issue have remained the same, but the Bush Team's laughable responses become inoperable by the day. Despite their ever-angrier denials, the issue won't go away. Last Friday night's document dump and run still hasn't answered the key question: where were you during the war, George? At least 1972. You can say it's trolling for trash all you want, but you can't make the issue go away without some proof.
7. I'm a uniter not a divider
Bush's 2000 mantra -- bought hook, line and sinker by much of the media -- was that only he could come to Washington and end the partisan bickering. Within weeks, this proved to be completely untrue. His heavy-handed partisanship even cost him control of the U.S. Senate for a time, as Republican Jim Jeffords bolted the party.
In 2002, Bush showed his unifying skills by saying that Democrats who disagreed with his behemoth vision for the Department of Homeland Security -- a plan he had opposed for nearly a year -- didn't care about the security of the country. You know, guys like Senator Tom Daschle, who was actually a terrorist target. He then thanked Max Cleland and Mary Landrieu for their steadfast support by targeting them and backing opponents who questioned their patriotism and, in Louisiana, sent out mailers to black neighborhoods with the wrong election date.
Well, Bush is a uniter in one way: He has united the Democratic Party like never before, and is driving independents back to the Democratic Party in droves. Please, keep uniting us.
8. The 2004 budget.
From front to back, the latest Bush budget is one of the most fraudulent documents ever created by the U.S. government. Well, at least since the last budget. Like 2003, Bush doesn't count the cost of Iraq or Afghanistan into his fantasy land accounting. He also counts in billions of spending cuts that are flat out pipe dreams that even the GOP won't support. According to the White House, the deficit -- which has gone from hundreds of billions in the black to $518 billon in the red in just three short years -- will be cut in half. This from an administration that has overestimated growth and underestimated projected deficits each year. But, according to George, prosperity truly is just around the corner.
9. I won't run a deficit.
During the 2000 campaign, Bush responded to those who -- quite correctly -- said his voodoo economic plan would drive us right back into the gutter that he would not operate a deficit. He said that he was a governor. I believe in balanced budgets. Yes, the same way kids believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny.
10. I hit the trifecta.
Following our steady plummet back into deficit land, Bush used the handy excuse of the trifecta: war, national emergency and recession. He explained away his past statements that he wouldn't run a deficit by claiming he had made an exception for those three things. Of course, he never actually said that. Paul Begala, Al Franken, Paul Krugman, Joe Conason and others have all reviewed every statement printed during the 2000 campaign and Bush never made any such qualification. Of course, why should we hold them to what he actually said? As Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan's press secretary once said, No it wasn't true, but it sure sounded good.
11. I released all my National Guard records in 2000.
On Meet the Press, Bush once again fell back to his standard behavior when confronted with an uncomfortable subject: he lied his ass off. Four years after reporters first asked him to release his records -- and a nearly a week after he promised to -- Bush finally followed in the footsteps of John F. Kennedy, John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey and Wes Clark and released his full military record.
12. I'm spending less than Bill Clinton.
On Meet the Press, an interview that will go down in history as one of the stupidest decisions Karl Rove has ever made, Bush claimed that government spending has actually dropped under his tenure. Even GOP stalwarts ran away from this one faster than Rush Limbaugh runs to a bowlful of Oxycontins. The truth of the matter is that federal spending has exploded under George W., just as spending exploded in Texas while he was governor. This fella just ain't your daddy's fiscal conservative.
Here is a great quote on Bush's spending:
His dramatic increase in the size and spending of the federal government with a record deficit. With his $2.23 trillion budget, his administration will complete the biggest increase in government spending since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. The budget deficit predicted by the House Budget Office will hit a record $306 billion. Spending on government programs increased 22% from 1999 to 2003. A Washington Post report said, The era of big government, if it ever went away, has returned full-throttle under President Bush. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey commented that under President Bush, the federal government is out of control. The source? Liberal media publication Intellectual Conservative in an article entitled Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush, February 15, 2004.
13. Free Trade.
George W. Bush supports free trade. That's why he slapped tariffs on imported steel. Of course, had the potentially affected steel mills been located in New York instead of Pennsylvania -- a state he hopes to win in 2004 -- Bush would still be a pure free trader.
14. Outsourcing.
Last week, the Bush Administration claimed that the outsourcing of high-paying U.S. jobs to other countries is a good thing. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote a report saying exactly that. He then reiterated his belief in the wonderful attributes of Americans losing their jobs at a press briefing on the report. Once again, Republicans are fleeing from this statement as fast as they can. So is George Bush, who immediately ran to Pennsylvania to promise 2.6 million jobs by the end of the year. Unfortunately, Mankiw is Bush's hand-picked employee -- and the president has already signed the report.
As Senator Tom Harkin said: Under George Bush, America has a new #1 export: jobs.
15. No one could have imagined them hijacking airplanes.
Of all the lies, this one might be the most annoying. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice made this claim repeatedly during the summer of 2002. Nevermind that Ramsey Yousef, one of the masterminds of the original attack on the World Trade Center, had his plot to hijack and crash 12 airplanes foiled by U.S. and foreign intelligence agents...in 1995. It was big news then, but apparently didn't make it all the way out to Stanford University. Rice's deceit was completely exposed in 2002 when details of the President's Daily Intelligence Briefing in August 2001 revealed that CIA and other sources warned the administration of just such hijackings. But she is never called on this or other lies when she makes her media rounds.
16. Air Force One was a target.
While everyone remembers and praises Bush's appearance with firefighters in New York City, the White House -- and the press -- conveniently ignore the actual timeline of events. That meeting took place on September 14, 2001. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, the entire New York congressional delegation and, of course, Rudy Gulliani, had been on the scene for days, Rudy and Bill since almost minute one. On September 11, 2001, after he was notified of both the first and second plane crashes, it took nearly an hour for Bush to depart Florida. But, he did not go to Washington, or even make a statement in Florida. No, first he flew to an Air Force Base in Louisiana; then, to the safety of a bunker in Nebraska. He told Americans it was safe, while he was entombed.
Many criticized his absence, most notably Peter Jennings who asked Where is the President. To combat such criticism, the Bush White House claimed that they zig-zagged across the country because of a credible threat against Air Force One. Nearly a year later, they were forced to admit that they had, in fact, received no such threat.
Now, I am not necessarily criticizing Bush's flight itinerary on 9/11/01. Keeping the President safe was the top priority and they rightly took steps to ensure his safety. So why not just say that and be done with it? Why did the White House have to put out another lie to try to make themselves look heroic? Because that's what they do.
17. Bill Clinton pillaged the White House as he walked out the door.
Well, according to the General Accounting Office in yet another investigation that spent our tax dollars, the allegations of looting just weren't true. Was there some damage and pranks? Of course, just as there are in every transition. But widespread damage? No, it wasn't true, but it sure sounded good.
18. Leave No Child Behind.
The president's key education initiative is a well-intentioned attempt to change education in the United States. It could lead to real changes, if Bush had actually funded the plan rather than treat it as a nice photo op to show he really cared.
According to Senator Edward Kennedy, the author of the legislation and Bush's main prop in 2001, in the two years since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, the Bush Administration has cut its funding, reneged on promised resources for better teachers and smaller classes, and worked to divert millions of dollars to private school vouchers... President Bush's new budget for 2005 will leave over 4.6 million children behind. Still pending before Congress is President Bush's 2004 budget which provides schools with over $7.5 billion less than promised in the No Child Left Behind Act. And there is every expectation that the President will propose again not only to cut resources for public school reform, but to divert scarce public education dollars to private schools.
Enough said.
19. Cost of the Medicare Bill.
Oops! They must have forgot to carry the one...or they are just liars. In fall 2003, Bush sold his Medicare budget with some interesting numbers: it would only cost $400 billion over 10 years. Now keep in mind that passage of this plan was in extreme doubt, as Democrats opposed the plan as a joke that would cost too much and do too little, while Republicans complained that, well, it cost way too much. The Bush Team assured everyone that it would cost no more than $400 million and the plan passed the House by a razor thin margin.
Lo and behold, they snookered us again. Just a few months later, the plan now costs $540 billion, with more sure to be added as the plan actually begins the implementation process.
20. Ken Lay.
After the Enron scandal hit full force, Bush tried to downplay his relationship with Ken Lay by saying he gave money to my opponent Ann Richards. Suddenly Lay, whom Bush had previously called Kenny Boy, didn't' ring a bell. Despite the fact that Enron was Bush's #1 contributor from 94-00, the fact that Bush was flown around the campaign trail in 1998 on Lay's private plane, and Lay's status as a Pioneer (and serious contender for Commerce Secretary) Bush and he really weren't that close. Maybe that's why Martha Stewart is on trial and not Ken Lay.
(By the way, does it strike anyone as odd that Martha is being tried for almost exactly what George W. Bush did when he left Harken Energy?)
21. I'm against Nation Building.
Throughout the 2000 campaign, Bush assailed Clinton's successful military forays in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, saying he opposed nation building. Today, see Afghanistan; see Iraq. In fairness, when you look at the deteriorating situations in both countries, it is clear that Bush is not really doing any nation building right now. He has ignored the reconstruction of Afghanistan (famously forgetting to fund it in his 2003 budget. Sorry about that Mr. Karzai!) and he has, to put it diplomatically, completely screwed the pooch in Iraq by ignoring the possible resistance to a U.S. occupation, handing over the reconstruction to corporate cronies like Halliburton and the reigns of power to unpopular sycophants like Ahmed Chalabi. Disaster looms where we can least afford to fail.
22. I remember that sign from the Old West: Wanted Dead or Alive.
Following the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cowboy Bush repeatedly strapped on his star and gave us his best John Wayne impersonation, essentially guaranteeing that we would take out Osama bin Laden. Now, Bush says of capturing bin Laden: I have no idea (Meet the Press, February 8, 2004). What would John Wayne say?
23. We're safer now that Saddam is caught.
Howard Dean was ridiculed for questioning this platitude, but he is right. Hopefully we will be safer, but that outcome is certainly not assured. Not if Iran is stronger in the region and Iraq splits apart, divided into three warring factions, any of which could destabilize Turkey, Syria or Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, scores of Al Qaeda fighters have streamed into Iraq since the war began, an outcome we had sought to avoid by taking Hussein out.
For the present, I think we should ask the boys and girls being shot at if they feel more or less safe since December.
24. I was never arrested after 1972 -- unless you count that DWI. Err, those two DWIs.
Bush reportedly told the Dallas Morning News in 1999 that he was never arrested after 1972. Of course, as we all learned, he was arrested for drunk driving in 1978, with his younger sister and Australian tennis star John Newcombe, in the car. According to NBC News, Bush was also arrested for another DWI in Midland after 1972. Are his arrests the big deal? No, but his constant lying about them sure goes to character, don't you think?
25. I supported the Patient Protection Act.
During the 2000 presidential debates, Bush claimed he supported the Patient Protection Act and the Patient's Bill of Rights. I almost fell on the floor, especially since Al Gore, standing mere feet away, did not call him on one of the most obvious lies in campaign history. This one was actually well-explored by the media, but Gore let this meatball glide harmlessly over the plate without taking the bat off of his shoulder.
The truth is Bush vetoed the Patient Protection Act in 1995 and let the Patient's Bill of Rights -- landmark legislation that became the model for other states and the federal government --become law without his signature. So, if by support you mean opposed and tried to kill, then yes, you supported them.
26. I signed the hate crimes bill.
Another juicy whopper. Now Bush had won re-election mere months before with nearly 70 of the vote. If he wanted a bill passed, he got it. But, Bush ordered his legislative minions to kill the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, less than one year after the most gruesome hate murder of the post-Civil Rights era. The guy who was the leader in killing the bill? State Senator David Sibley (R-Waco), a man who had supported the same legislation just a few years earlier. You might recognize Sibley; he's the guy you see driving Bush's golf cart whenever Bush is back in Crawford playing golf.
27. I want to get to the bottom of the Plame leak.
Following the sliming of Ambassador Joseph Wilson for exposing the Nigerian yellow cake lie, and the outing of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, Bush said it was a very serious matter and that he wanted to get to the bottom of it. But he never ordered his staff to do anything about it. Since very few members of the White House would have had the clearance to even know that Plame was an operative, and even fewer are even allowed to make eye contact with, much less to talk to the media, it shouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to find the culprit here. Instead, he actually lamented that we may never know who did it because Washington is full of leakers. Thankfully, after cajoling from Democrats forced Attorney General John Inspector Clouseau Ashcroft to recuse himself from the investigation, it appears that we may actually discover who is behind this act of treason. Scooter Libby, your lawyer is on the line.
28. I will fight the war on terror.
This claim, unfortunately, is also debatable. Just when we had smoked them out of their holes and got them on the run our intelligence services and our military were forced to change their focus from fighting Al Qaeda to invading Iraq, letting bin Laden off the hook. In addition, despite numerous reports on the vulnerability of our ports, little has been done to make them more secure from terrorism. Also, despite a serious congressional study, media scrutiny and an on-going non-partisan investigation, little has changed regarding how our intelligence is gathered and analyzed to avoid making the same mistakes. In fact, little has changed beyond making several bureaucracies into one huge bureaucracy under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security. And, in perhaps the most bizarre example of sleeping at the wheel, the 2004 Bush budget offers no funding for biothreat detection at Post Offices. This after the White House said they foiled a mail attack to the White House last year and days before Ricin was mailed to Senator Bill Cat Murderer Frist's office.
Well, that's my list. Please add to it, as it is far from all-inclusive.
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My sentiments exactly. Feel free to
nm
Feel free to keep clinging to them.
He has stated repeatedly that he won't take them away.
Feel free to start your own on the threads
on the conservative board. Seems to me that most of the conservatives have an inability to start their own conversations and can only respond to liberal threads. Be proactive and start something.
feel free to chose the sources
you want to believe -- Wall Street Journal versus "websites". As the McC campaign stated ' this election will not be based on facts. They are going personality whole-hog. OMG. I just offended someone somewhere.
Feel free to direct your concerns to the Administrator. sm
You can reach the adminstrator at Admin@MTStars.com. As far as deleting, since the incident of several weeks ago, I have made a concerted effort on BOTH boards to keep the bashing to a minimum.
Don't forget about free broadband, free gas, free healthcare, hey they are "rights" now YIP
xxx
George Bush HIMSELF makes it so easy to make fun of George Bush!!!! oh where would I start, so litt
nm
Typos and mistakes - sorry
I meant to spell *neocons* - sorry.
I also meant to say that Charles Shumer tried to pass a bill trying to fix the deplorable 5% of INSPECTED shipments that enter our ports daily and raise that percentage with the introduction of new technology that would enable most, if not all, shipments to be inspected for deadly substances. The Republicans, who hold the majority vote, wanted nothing to do with that.
I apologize for any other errors I made. I'm still not up to par after being discharged from the hospital recently.
Every one makes mistakes, it is enough
to point them out once, especially if one admits to it.
Where is the line for free college, free healthcare...
mortgage paid for, free gas and ability to sit on my rear and let everyone else take care of me? Wow, now I see the light...this prez elect will be great!!
No big deal. Everyone makes mistakes.
It's easy to do on this board sometimes. 
Who's Counting Bush's Mistakes?
Who's Counting Bush's Mistakes?
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real
Posted on February 20, 2006, Printed on March 14, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/32382/
Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. And no administration in U.S. history has spoken louder, or as often, of its honor.
So let us count our spoons.
Emergency Management: They completely failed to manage the first large-scale emergency since 9/11. Despite all their big talk and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on homeland security over the past four years, this administration proved itself stunningly incompetent when faced with an actual emergency. (Katrina Relief Funds Squandered)
Fiscal Management: America is broke. No wait, we're worse than broke. In less than five years these borrow and spend-thrifts have nearly doubled our national debt, to a stunning $8.2 trillion. These are not your father's Republicans who treated public dollars as though they were an endangered species. These Republicans waste money in ways and in quantities that make those old tax and spend liberals of yore look like tight-fisted Scots.
This administration is so incompetent that you can just throw a dart at the front page of your morning paper and whatever story of importance it hits will prove my point.
Katrina relief: Eleven thousand spanking new mobile homes sinking into the Arkansas mud. Seems no one in the administration knew there were federal and state laws prohibiting trailers in flood zones. Oops. That little mistake cost you $850 million -- and counting.
Medicare Drug Program: This $50 billion white elephant debuted by trampling many of those it was supposed to save. The mess forced states to step in and try to save its own citizens from being killed by the administration's poorly planned and executed attempt to privatize huge hunks of the federal health safety net.
Afghanistan: Good managers know that in order to pocket the gains of a project, you have to finish it. This administration started out fine in Afghanistan. They had the Taliban and al Queda on the run and Osama bin Laden trapped in a box canyon. Then they were distracted by a nearby shiney object -- Iraq. We are now $75 billion out of pocket in Afghanistan and its sitting president still rules only within the confines of the nation's capital. Tribal warlords, the growing remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda call the shots in the rest of the county.
Iraq: This ill-begotten war was supposed to only cost us $65 billion. It has now cost us over $300 billion and continues to suck $6 billion a month out of our children's futures. Meanwhile the three warring tribes Bush liberated are using our money and soldiers' lives to partition the country. The Shiites and Kurds are carving out the prime cuts while treating the once-dominant Sunnis the same way the Israelis treat the Palestinians, forcing them onto Iraq's version of Death Valley. Meanwhile Iran is increasingly calling the shots in the Shiite region as mullahs loyal to Iran take charge. (More)
Iran: The administration not only jinxed its Afghanistan operations by attacking Iraq, but also provided Iran both the rationale for and time to move toward nuclear weapons. The Bush administration's neocons' threats to attack Syria next only provided more support for religious conservatives within Iran who argued U.S. intentions in the Middle East were clear, and that only the deterrent that comes with nuclear weapons could protect them.
North Korea: Ditto. Also add to all the above the example North Korea set for Iran. Clearly once a country possesses nukes, the U.S. drops the veiled threats and wants to talk.
Social Programs: It's easier to get affordable -- even free -- American-style medical care, paid for with American dollars, if you are injured in Iraq, Afghanistan or are victims of a Pakistani earthquake, than if you live and pay taxes in the good old U.S.A. Nearly 50 million Americans can't afford medical insurance. Nevertheless the administration has proposed a budget that will cut $40 billion from domestic social programs, including health care for the working poor. The administration is quick to say that those services will be replaced by its faith-based programs. Not so fast...
Despite the Bush administration's rhetorical support for religious charities, the amount of direct federal grants to faith-based organizations declined from 2002 to 2004, according to a major new study released yesterday....The study released yesterday is confirmation of the suspicion I've had all along, that what the faith-based initiative is really all about is de-funding social programs and dumping responsibility for the poor on the charitable sector, said Kay Guinane, director of the nonprofit advocacy program at OMB Watch.. (More)
The Military: Overused and over-deployed.
Former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright warned in a 15-page report that the Army and Marine Corps cannot sustain the current operational tempo without doing real damage to their forces. ... Speaking at a news conference to release the study, Albright said she is very troubled the military will not be able to meet demands abroad. Perry warned that the strain, if not relieved, can have highly corrosive and long-term effects on the military. (More)
With military budgets gutted by the spiraling costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration has requested funding for fewer National Guard troops in fiscal 2007 -- 17,000 fewer. Which boggles the sane mind since, if it weren't for reserve/National Guard, the administration would not have had enough troops to rotate forces in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 40 percent of the troops sent to those two countries were from the reserve and National Guard.
The Environment: Here's a little pop quiz: What happens if all the coral in the world's oceans dies? Answer: Coral is the first rung on the food-chain ladder; so when it goes, everything else in the ocean dies. And if the oceans die, we die.
The coral in the world's oceans are dying (called bleaching) at an alarming and accelerating rate. Global warming is the culprit. Nevertheless, this administration continues as the world's leading global warming denier. Why? Because they seem to feel it's more cost effective to be dead than to force reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. How stupid is that? And time is running out.
Trade: We are approaching a $1 trillion annual trade deficit, most of it with Asia, $220 billion with just China -- just last year.
Energy: Record high energy prices. Record energy company profits. Dick Cheney's energy task force meetings remain secret. Need I say more?
Consumers: Americans finally did it last year -- they achieved a negative savings rate. (Folks in China save 10 percent, for contrast.) If the government can spend more than it makes and just say charge it when it runs out, so can we. The average American now owes $9,000 to credit card companies. Imagine that.
Human Rights: America now runs secret prisons and a secret judicial system that would give Kafka fits. And the U.S. has joined the list of nations that tortures prisioners of war. (Shut up George! We have pictures!)
I could go on for another 1,000 words listing the stunning incompetence of the Bush administration and its GOP sycophants in Congress. But what's the use? No seems to give a fig. The sun continues to shine in this fool's paradise. House starts were up in January. The stock market is finally back over 11,000.
But don't bother George W. Bush with any of this. While seldom right, he is never in doubt. Doubt is Bush's enemy. Worry? How can he worry when he has no doubts?
Me? Well, I worry about all the above, all the time. But in particular, I worry about coral.
Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, which was nominated for a Pulitzer.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/32382/
this is a 'typo', yours is a bad grammar mistakes, get it, or not yet?..
Can't you even differ between those 2? Shall I explain it once more, for those with a slow brain, with an IQ below 90?
Your post is disgusting. Mistakes were made, but
nm
I did not make mistakes, Kendra/Shelly did
over and over and I was just trying to help because after all, we are all professionals... I thought
Not just mistakes, he is being criticized for every breath he takes!!! nm
x
Free speech is alive and well, as is free will...
people can take anything out of context and do with it what they want; it still doesn't make it a McCain/Palin issue.
and I feel like makin *du du duu du du duu* feel like maaa-k-in love to YOU!
ARGH!!
You feel someone should be forced to do something they feel is wrong? sm
Sounds like communism to me.
I do not feel sorry for the 'terrorists', I feel
sorry for those who are (or soon were) held there and are innocent.
By George, I think I've got it!!
I watched "The Situation" on MSNBC last night, and I got a pretty good laugh regarding the Bush Administration taking a quote from Bono (of all people), completely twisting what it said to mean something completely different, and running with it.
I believe I'm starting to understand the disconnect between some of the Conservatives on this board and the rest of humanity. They've obviously adopted the George W. Bush way of communicating. I'm not sure if Bush is their hero because of his communication style or whether they personally adopted his technique after the fact. Someone should really enlighten them that just because Bush does it, doesn't make it right, and that that is the very crux of many people's frustrations with Bush: That he lies, and nobody can believe what he says.
Anyway, here's a copy of the transcript from that show.
CARLSON: Next situation, the Bush administration between the rock and a hard place and it‘s all because of rock star Bono. A State Department press release quotes the U2 front man praising President Bush. But apparently, Bono was not so much quoted as misquoted.
According to the State Department, Bono said Bush, quote, “has already doubled and tripled aid to Africa.” But actually, Bono told “Time” magazine, quote, “Bush feels he‘s already doubled and tripled aid to Africa, which he started from too low a place.”
This is such an interesting story on so many levels. Here is the most interesting level, as far as I‘m concerned. The Bush administration feels compelled to twist Bono‘s words. Why do they care what Bono thinks? Bush actually has dramatically elevated aid to Africa to a much higher level than Clinton ever even thought about bringing it.
The United States is the largest donor to Africa far and away. We have no moral obligation to give anything to Africa. We do it because we‘re decent. Isn‘t that enough? The front man from U2 has to approve? Why are they lying about this? It‘s bizarre.
SEVERIN: This is very sad. By the way, Bono has an “r” missing from the end of his name. I just wanted to report that on this program.
Secondly, you know, how can I know what to think about world affairs until Bono and the Edge weigh in? What about the Backstreet Boys? What do they think today? I mean, this is really sad that we care about what “Bonor” thinks about anything.
MADDOW: Well, fine, you can be upset that they quoted Bono. But the fact is, they misquoted Bono.
CARLSON: No, but that makes me more upset. Why are they doing that?
Why do they care?
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: ... get out there and say that Bono, who they respect for whatever reason, he‘s actually made himself into a voice on debt issues...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Well, I‘m sure he‘s a great guy and very smart. I mean, still.
MADDOW: Paul Wolfowitz thought he was worth, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: That‘s right.
MADDOW: ... long phone call before he took the head position at the World Bank.
SEVERIN: I knew we‘d get you to say something nice about Wolfowitz before the year was up.
MADDOW: Exactly. But the fact is, the State Department, like they‘re doing—like the Bush administration is doing on way too many things, just overreach. They not only had to quote Bono, they had to lie about what Bono said. It‘s embarrassing.
CARLSON: But why not just tell the truth about their own record? It‘s compelling enough. It‘s amazing. Here‘s this purportedly mean, right-wing administration sending huge amounts of aid to Africa.
MADDOW: Well, yes, they‘ve promised—they asked for $4 billion for the Millennium Challenge. They‘ve actually spent $4 million. So we‘ve got a difference of opinion on that.
CARLSON: The fact is, in money spent already, they‘ve elevated 56 percent over the final year of the Clinton administration. It‘s a lot of money.
MADDOW: Yes. But you can‘t take credit for more than you‘ve done.
SEVERIN: Yes, but they‘re Republicans. That‘s why.
CARLSON: All right.
Add George Will
to the conservatives willing to say no mccain, no way.
Yes, it's George Clooney's
George Will on Coulter sm
Freudian slip?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5KD8_22K4w
George W. Bush
Why would you say that about our President? Please help me understand.
George Bush
I am counting the days until this person is out of office and pray that our country can withstand the wait.
I have been around a while (let's just put it that way) and in my opinion we have NEVER had a President who has been so bad for our country - and I certainly include Poor Nixon and his few bungling burglars and his silly little lies in that list, along with Clinton and his scandalous behavior, which now in sad retrospect is just par for the course, apparently, among politicians - he has ransacked our Treasury (I don't know if you all remember we had a surplus when he came into office), has totally ruined the reputation of the US around the world, got us into a pointless war with untruths and fabrications causing the death of over 3000 young Americans (so far) and is able to somehow hold his head up and act like nothing is wrong. And is now busily trying to broker a peace settlement in the Middle East to there is something to be said for his 8 lousy years in the White House.
I truly believe he stole the first election with the help of his like-minded buddies on the Supreme Court and the second one by the curious release of the Osama Bin Laden tape shortly before the elections, which I feel prompted some rubes to be too scared to change horses in the middle of the stream (war) and voted to keep him in office. I myself did not vote for him either time and am glad I didn't, even though I am living with the consequences of his presidency; for example paying $4.15 a gallon for gas and seeing the price of groceries rising every time I go into the store (plus I live in Michigan, which is a hard luck state right now to start with).
Frankly, I was shocked when he was reelected; I truly did not believe that our supposedly sophisticated and intelligent electorate would put this man back into office.
The day he hits the dusty trail for Texas will be a happy one for me!
George W. Bush
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1733748_1733757_1735529,00.html
George W. Bush
By Silvio Berlusconi
There was a genuine atmosphere of trust and goodwill that summer of 2001, when a new era seemed to be upon us, with the Berlin Wall gone and the divisions of the past overcome. I was sharing this thought with President Bush (both of us recently elected to lead our countries) at the closing dinner of the G-8 summit in Genoa in July 2001. Bush led the conversation, talking amiably with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, the tragedies of the Second World War and cold war seemed far away indeed. Bush observed how much the world had changed, and how we could pass on a lasting peace to our children. I remember feeling true happiness inside me. Just two months later the unthinkable happened, and the Sept. 11 attacks would again forever change the world. The battle against terrorism would become the principal preoccupation of the American President and our common international priority.
In the months that followed that immense tragedy, we nonetheless tried to stay focused, aware that justice, freedom and democracy can flourish only if there is security. President Bush knows this well, that a secure world is bound to be a united world, where everyone—and particularly those more fortunate—can and must do their part.
George W. Bush, 61, will be remembered as Commander in Chief, but not only for that. He was above all a President who felt the moral obligation that the leading nation of the free world must carry. My thoughts return again to that G-8 summit, where Italy had brought to the top of the agenda the fate of the world's poorest nations. And Bush was an early and enthusiastic supporter of our initiative to establish a fund for combating endemic illnesses.
One time, Bush told me that it is reasonable to have doubts, but not to have so many doubts that you cannot make a decision. It's up to historians to judge his presidency, but whatever fate history holds for him, I am sure that George W. Bush will be remembered as a leader of ideals, courage and sincerity. Personally, I will always remember him as a friend, a true man who loves his family, understands the meaning of friendship and is grateful toward America's allies around the world.
Berlusconi was elected Prime Minister of Italy for a third time last month
Good ol George
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/bush_tours_america_to_survey
george will, conservative
icon, declares McCain temprament unfit for presidency. You don't get any more conservative than George Will. Meanwhile, Sara P has pictures taken with foreign leaders but absolutely no questions allowed. Photo op.
I think he looks like Curious George.
x
George Bush....sm
God bless you, Mr. President.
History will be much kinder to you, when all is known. While I may not agree with everything that has transpired in the past eight years, I do know that you are kind and decent person.
I know you have kept me safe over the past eight years. Nothing the far left can say or do, can take that away from you.
God bless you and yours, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for your service to our country.
Have you read ANYthing about George...
one-world government Soros? If you had, you would not be asking the question how he could manipulate world markets. And Obama is in his pocket.
george bush
George W. Bush thinks that God wants him to be president. No arguing with that.
In the words of George W....
So what? Doesn't change the fact that scores of outlets are reporting the same thing....Patrick Fitzgerald, Attorney General and a republican, GOES OUT OF HIS WAY to dampen any speculation about Obama's involvement in this arm of the investigation and had repeatedly stated that Obama is not a subject of the investigation.
Yes, I know that Blago's wife is a real estate broker. You have made nothing clear because you have no valid point...just your usual knee-jerk hateful spin. Like I said earlier, grasping at straws that are not even there.
In the words of George W....
So what? Doesn't change the fact that scores of outlets are reporting the same thing....Patrick Fitzgerald, Attorney General and a republican, GOES OUT OF HIS WAY to dampen any speculation about Obama's involvement in this arm of the investigation and had repeatedly stated that Obama is not a subject of the investigation.
Yes, I know that Blago's wife is a real estate broker. You have made nothing clear because you have no valid point...just your usual knee-jerk hateful spin. Like I said earlier, grasping at straws that are not even there.
This Week with George S. had
Sen. DeMint, Barney Fife, Fred Smith CEO of FedEX (?), and ? (didn't catch his name and am terrible with names anyway) about the stimulus package. Sen. DeMint is against the stimulus because it doesn't do much to help the American people. Fred Smith took a 20% cut in pay to help the company.
So far, Barney has been monopolizing the conversation and arguing with the others. I heard him say that the problem was not regulating the financial institutions....Wait. Wasn't he one that voted AGAINST regulation back when they wanted to put tighter controls on them? He also keeps talking about New Bedford. Isn't that his district? I know he's been fighting for the bank in his district. He seems to have a one track mind. What a jerk!!!....and that's why I call him Barney Fife. He has less sense than the real Barney Fife.
Maybe George should have read
the reports instead of clearing brush in Crawford.
WAS. GEORGE. W. BUSH.
nm
Add this to the list
Remember a while back when this story first hit the fan and the cons from the other board came over to tell us we are paranoid? Boy, life sure is simpler if you drink the Kool-Aid, isn't it?
A representative from Qwest just told me they have had lots of calls switching their service over to them.
By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The NSA record collection program
It's the largest database ever assembled in the world, said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is to create a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders, this person added.
For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.
The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.
The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret.
Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden declined to comment about the program.
The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.
In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. In other words, Bush explained, one end of the communication must be outside the United States.
As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.
Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.
Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's operations. Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide, he said. However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law.
The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. There is no domestic surveillance without court approval, said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.
She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal government are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists. All government-sponsored intelligence activities are carefully reviewed and monitored, Perino said. She also noted that all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States.
The government is collecting external data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting internals, a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for social network analysis, the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.
Carriers uniquely positioned
AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers.
The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans.
Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.
Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some services — primarily long-distance and wireless — to people who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that area.
Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is charged with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. The agency was considered so secret that for years the government refused to even confirm its existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA stood for No Such Agency.
In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named Shamrock, led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping.
Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must follow to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people believed to be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States. A special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for adjudicating requests under FISA.
Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve along with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the practice of data mining — sifting through reams of information in search of patterns. Data mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and mathematicians use to crack codes and track international communications.
Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining operations. FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining, said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C.
The caveat, he said, is that personal identifiers — such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses — can't be included as part of the search. That requires an additional level of probable cause, he said.
The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes.
The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and the regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to present a court order before they would even consider turning over a customer's calling data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old Bell Telephone System, out of which those companies grew.
Ma Bell's bedrock principle — protection of the customer — guided the company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers Union. No court order, no customer information — period. That's how it was for decades, he said.
The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.
The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of violation. In practice, that means a single violation could cover one customer or 1 million.
In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree.
Companies approached
The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the country from attacks.
The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their call-detail records, a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits.
The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg.
With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest.
AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA TODAY: We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting national security in strict accordance with the law.
In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: BellSouth does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without proper legal authority.
Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this statement: We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy.
Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: We can't talk about this. It's a classified situation.
In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers.
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: I wouldn't rule it out. His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.
Similarities in programs
The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, I can say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation from future attacks.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.
One company differs
One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest.
According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.
Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.
The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as product in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.
The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.
Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.
In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.
Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them, one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.
In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.
Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.
Contributing: John Diamond
Posted 5/10/2006 11:16 PM ET
Wow. That is quite a list
you've got there. It sounds like you would be happiest in another country and I am not being a smart aleck here. There are countries where your list is pretty much real life. Cuba, Equador, Paraguay, Uruguay to name a few. I know a man who just moved to Equador and he is quite happy. He went for many of the reasons you state. He really just wanted to be left alone. Besides, it is beautiful there...the Gallapagos Islands...the best mangoes in the world. I have given a lot of thought to moving out of the U.S. for a time anyway to try to gain some perspective. Just a thought.
P.S. I don't have a list
of bottom feeders. In this world of ever worsening crises, misery, pain, hunger, intolerance, etc., I am trying more and more to avoid what I consider to be the ugliness that I cab avoid; meaning I don't have to listen to, I don't have to read, etc. There is enough sadness that I cannot turn my back on but I can turn my back on bottom feeders.
List what he's done, please
Sean Hannity has been asking people all over the place, to no avail. I'm guessing you saw Newt & that NBC guy, who couldn't provide an answer?
At least you posed your piece in a respectful tone. The tone on this board has become so obnoxious that I could be in DailyKos Land and not even know the difference.
Sally Quinn even went on O'Reilly Factoid to admit she had been wrong about Sarah. That's impressive.
Acc. to your list......
almost everybody is then a natural-born-citizen.
Then no need to change the constitution.
Thank you for proving again that Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
I hope that the Republicans put this issue FINALLY to rest.
Add another one to the list...sm
Hurt by competition from Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and by pressure from the downturn in the economy that led shoppers to cut back on discretionary purchases, the 59-year old Circuit City Stores Inc. on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Circuit City's move came a week after the company, suffering from declining sales, traffic and cash, said that it planned to shut 155 U.S. underperforming stores and cut 7,300 jobs in a last-ditch effort to stay afloat.
Click link below for more info....................
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/circuit-city-files-chapter-11/story.aspx?guid=%7BD9CB8DE9-943F-4C3F-A007-24081B471F20%7D&dist=msr_5
Do you really want the list...(sm)
of broken promises from Bush? He had 8 years to get his done, and failed miserably. Obama has had what....3 whole days and you already want to crucify him? For all the whining you guys did about kool-aid drinkers thinking Obama is God, you seem to be the ones expecting miracles.
Here is a list.
Democrats and their affairs.
John F. Kennedy: widely known to have had many extramarital affairs while President - including one with Marylin Monroe.
William Jefferson Clinton- Gennifer Flowersgate - Paula Jonesgate- The Lewinsky Affair - Perjury and Jobs for Lewinskygate - Kathleen Willeygate - Jaunita Broaddrick Gate
John Edwards: Ex-Democrat presidential candidate and Senator- admitted to having an extramarital affair during his campaign for president while his wife was suffering from brast cancer.
Reverand Jesse Jackson: Ex-Democrat presidential candidate admitted in 2001 to having an extramarital affair and fathering a child out of wedlock.
Barney Frank: U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Admitted to having paid Stephen L. Gobie, a male prostitute, for sex and subsequently hiring Gobie as his personal assistant. Gobie used the congressman's Washington apartment for prostitution. A move to expel Frank from the House of Representatives failed and a motion to censure him failed.
Colorado Sen. Gary Hart: He was considered the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until the press uncovered his extramarital affair with 29-year-old model Donna Rice. He dropped out of the race a week later.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: Democrat - New York governor - resigned from office after being tied to a prostitution ring and having affairs with prostitutes..
New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey: McGreevey resigned three months after admitting in 2004 that he had had an extramarital affair with a male employee.
Modesto Rep. Gary Condit: Authorities revealed Condit had an extramarital affair in 2001 with intern Chandra Levy, who had disappeared. In 2002, he lost a primary election, and Levy's remains were found in a Washington park. The case is still unsolved.
Florida U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney: admitted he had an affair with an aide and it is reported paid her $121,000 to keep her quiet and avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Henry G. Cisneros: Former housing secretary under Bill Clinton pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI about money he paid to a former mistress.
Rep. Mel Reynolds: of Illinois was convicted in 1995 of sexual assault against a 16-year-old girl- sentenced to five years in prison. President Bill Clinton pardoned him before leaving office.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick: Text messages indicate he had an extramarital affair with his chief of staff.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom: The mayor admitted an extramarital affair in 2007 with the wife of his former deputy chief of staff.
Marion Barry: Democrat - mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1979 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1999. Convicted of cocaine possession after being caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine ith a longtime female friend.
Gov. David A. Paterson acknowledged Monday having extramarital affairs during a period in their 15-year marriage.
Gerry Eastman Studds - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1973 to 1997. The first openly gay member of Congress. Censured by the House of Representatives for having sexual relations with a teenage House page.
Former New York Rep. Fred Richmond: arrested in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. He remained in Congress and won re-election, but resigned in 1982 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and drug possession.
Jerry Springer - Democrat - Resigned from Cincinnati City Council in 1974 after admitting to paying a prostitute with a personal check, which was found in a police raid on a massage parlor.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Announced he had a 2007 extramarital affair with a television reporter covering City Hall. He has filed for divorce from his wife, and remains in office.
David Giles: Candidate for U.S. Representative from Washington in 1986 and 1990. Convicted in June 2000 of child rape.
Neil Goldschmidt: Oregon governor. Admitted to having an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old teenager while he was serving as Mayor of Portland.
Kentucky Governor Paul Patton: political career fell apart after allegations he retaliated against an ex-mistress' business when she ended the affair.
Ohio Rep. Wayne Hays: Rresigned from Congress in 1976 after his mistress, Elizabeth Ray, said he hired her as part of his staff.
Washington Sen. Brock Adams: abandoned a reelection campaign in 1992 amid numerous allegations from women of drugging, assault and rape.
West Virginia Governor Bob Wise: admitted to an extramarital affair;
Allan Turner Howe: U.S. Representative from Utah from 1975 to 1977. Arrested for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
Joseph Waggonner Jr.: U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1961 to 1979. Arrested in Washington, D.C. for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
I'm sure there are many pubs that have had affairs as well but I couldn't find an actual list.
Here is a list.
Democrats and their affairs.
John F. Kennedy: widely known to have had many extramarital affairs while President - including one with Marylin Monroe.
William Jefferson Clinton- Gennifer Flowersgate - Paula Jonesgate- The Lewinsky Affair - Perjury and Jobs for Lewinskygate - Kathleen Willeygate - Jaunita Broaddrick Gate
John Edwards: Ex-Democrat presidential candidate and Senator- admitted to having an extramarital affair during his campaign for president while his wife was suffering from brast cancer.
Reverand Jesse Jackson: Ex-Democrat presidential candidate admitted in 2001 to having an extramarital affair and fathering a child out of wedlock.
Barney Frank: U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Admitted to having paid Stephen L. Gobie, a male prostitute, for sex and subsequently hiring Gobie as his personal assistant. Gobie used the congressman's Washington apartment for prostitution. A move to expel Frank from the House of Representatives failed and a motion to censure him failed.
Colorado Sen. Gary Hart: He was considered the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until the press uncovered his extramarital affair with 29-year-old model Donna Rice. He dropped out of the race a week later.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: Democrat - New York governor - resigned from office after being tied to a prostitution ring and having affairs with prostitutes..
New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey: McGreevey resigned three months after admitting in 2004 that he had had an extramarital affair with a male employee.
Modesto Rep. Gary Condit: Authorities revealed Condit had an extramarital affair in 2001 with intern Chandra Levy, who had disappeared. In 2002, he lost a primary election, and Levy's remains were found in a Washington park. The case is still unsolved.
Florida U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney: admitted he had an affair with an aide and it is reported paid her $121,000 to keep her quiet and avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Henry G. Cisneros: Former housing secretary under Bill Clinton pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI about money he paid to a former mistress.
Rep. Mel Reynolds: of Illinois was convicted in 1995 of sexual assault against a 16-year-old girl- sentenced to five years in prison. President Bill Clinton pardoned him before leaving office.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick: Text messages indicate he had an extramarital affair with his chief of staff.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom: The mayor admitted an extramarital affair in 2007 with the wife of his former deputy chief of staff.
Marion Barry: Democrat - mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1979 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1999. Convicted of cocaine possession after being caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine ith a longtime female friend.
Gov. David A. Paterson acknowledged Monday having extramarital affairs during a period in their 15-year marriage.
Gerry Eastman Studds - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1973 to 1997. The first openly gay member of Congress. Censured by the House of Representatives for having sexual relations with a teenage House page.
Former New York Rep. Fred Richmond: arrested in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. He remained in Congress and won re-election, but resigned in 1982 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and drug possession.
Jerry Springer - Democrat - Resigned from Cincinnati City Council in 1974 after admitting to paying a prostitute with a personal check, which was found in a police raid on a massage parlor.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Announced he had a 2007 extramarital affair with a television reporter covering City Hall. He has filed for divorce from his wife, and remains in office.
David Giles: Candidate for U.S. Representative from Washington in 1986 and 1990. Convicted in June 2000 of child rape.
Neil Goldschmidt: Oregon governor. Admitted to having an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old teenager while he was serving as Mayor of Portland.
Kentucky Governor Paul Patton: political career fell apart after allegations he retaliated against an ex-mistress' business when she ended the affair.
Ohio Rep. Wayne Hays: Rresigned from Congress in 1976 after his mistress, Elizabeth Ray, said he hired her as part of his staff.
Washington Sen. Brock Adams: abandoned a reelection campaign in 1992 amid numerous allegations from women of drugging, assault and rape.
West Virginia Governor Bob Wise: admitted to an extramarital affair;
Allan Turner Howe: U.S. Representative from Utah from 1975 to 1977. Arrested for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
Joseph Waggonner Jr.: U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1961 to 1979. Arrested in Washington, D.C. for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
I'm sure there are many pubs that have had affairs as well but I couldn't find an actual list.
Here is a list.
Democrats and their affairs.
John F. Kennedy: widely known to have had many extramarital affairs while President - including one with Marylin Monroe.
William Jefferson Clinton- Gennifer Flowersgate - Paula Jonesgate- The Lewinsky Affair - Perjury and Jobs for Lewinskygate - Kathleen Willeygate - Jaunita Broaddrick Gate
John Edwards: Ex-Democrat presidential candidate and Senator- admitted to having an extramarital affair during his campaign for president while his wife was suffering from brast cancer.
Reverand Jesse Jackson: Ex-Democrat presidential candidate admitted in 2001 to having an extramarital affair and fathering a child out of wedlock.
Barney Frank: U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Admitted to having paid Stephen L. Gobie, a male prostitute, for sex and subsequently hiring Gobie as his personal assistant. Gobie used the congressman's Washington apartment for prostitution. A move to expel Frank from the House of Representatives failed and a motion to censure him failed.
Colorado Sen. Gary Hart: He was considered the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until the press uncovered his extramarital affair with 29-year-old model Donna Rice. He dropped out of the race a week later.
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer: Democrat - New York governor - resigned from office after being tied to a prostitution ring and having affairs with prostitutes..
New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey: McGreevey resigned three months after admitting in 2004 that he had had an extramarital affair with a male employee.
Modesto Rep. Gary Condit: Authorities revealed Condit had an extramarital affair in 2001 with intern Chandra Levy, who had disappeared. In 2002, he lost a primary election, and Levy's remains were found in a Washington park. The case is still unsolved.
Florida U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney: admitted he had an affair with an aide and it is reported paid her $121,000 to keep her quiet and avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Henry G. Cisneros: Former housing secretary under Bill Clinton pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI about money he paid to a former mistress.
Rep. Mel Reynolds: of Illinois was convicted in 1995 of sexual assault against a 16-year-old girl- sentenced to five years in prison. President Bill Clinton pardoned him before leaving office.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick: Text messages indicate he had an extramarital affair with his chief of staff.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom: The mayor admitted an extramarital affair in 2007 with the wife of his former deputy chief of staff.
Marion Barry: Democrat - mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1979 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1999. Convicted of cocaine possession after being caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine ith a longtime female friend.
Gov. David A. Paterson acknowledged Monday having extramarital affairs during a period in their 15-year marriage.
Gerry Eastman Studds - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1973 to 1997. The first openly gay member of Congress. Censured by the House of Representatives for having sexual relations with a teenage House page.
Former New York Rep. Fred Richmond: arrested in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. He remained in Congress and won re-election, but resigned in 1982 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and drug possession.
Jerry Springer - Democrat - Resigned from Cincinnati City Council in 1974 after admitting to paying a prostitute with a personal check, which was found in a police raid on a massage parlor.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Announced he had a 2007 extramarital affair with a television reporter covering City Hall. He has filed for divorce from his wife, and remains in office.
David Giles: Candidate for U.S. Representative from Washington in 1986 and 1990. Convicted in June 2000 of child rape.
Neil Goldschmidt: Oregon governor. Admitted to having an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old teenager while he was serving as Mayor of Portland.
Kentucky Governor Paul Patton: political career fell apart after allegations he retaliated against an ex-mistress' business when she ended the affair.
Ohio Rep. Wayne Hays: Rresigned from Congress in 1976 after his mistress, Elizabeth Ray, said he hired her as part of his staff.
Washington Sen. Brock Adams: abandoned a reelection campaign in 1992 amid numerous allegations from women of drugging, assault and rape.
West Virginia Governor Bob Wise: admitted to an extramarital affair;
Allan Turner Howe: U.S. Representative from Utah from 1975 to 1977. Arrested for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
Joseph Waggonner Jr.: U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1961 to 1979. Arrested in Washington, D.C. for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
I'm sure there are many pubs that have had affairs as well but I couldn't find an actual list.
The madness of King George
Here's another example of King George's *work*
Bush Quietly Says No Need Follow Patriot Act Oversight Measure
White House Says Signing Statement Is Normal and Constitutional
Analysis
By GEORGE SANCHEZ
March 24, 2006 — - When President Bush renewed the revised USA Patriot Act on March 9, Congress added oversight measures intended to keep the federal government from abusing the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize documents.
The additional provisions require law enforcement officials to safeguard all Americans' civil liberties and mandate that the Justice Department keep closer track of how often and in what situations the FBI could use the new powers, and that the administration regularly provide the information to Congress.
However, it was not known at the time that the White House added an addendum stating that the president didn't need to adhere to requirements that he inform members of Congress about how the FBI was using the Patriot Act's expanded police powers.
After the bill-signing ceremony, the White House discreetly issued a ''signing statement, an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law. In the statement, Bush said he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act's powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties.
Presidential Power in Question
In doing so, it appears the president once again cited his constitutional authority to bypass the law under certain circumstances.
For example, after The New York Times reported last year that Bush had authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law, the president said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the warrant law.
When Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in U.S. custody, Bush signed off on it but issued a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security.
Bush's actions have provoked increased grumbling in Congress from both parties. Lawmakers have pointed out that the Constitution gave the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to ''faithfully execute them.
On Thursday Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, took issue with Bush's assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act. He said it represented ''nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law.
''The president's signing statements are not the law, and Congress should not allow them to be the last word, Leahy said. ''The president's constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as written by Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow. Leahy voted against renewing the Patriot Act this year after sponsoring the bill back in 2001.
The White House dismissed Leahy's concerns, saying Bush's signing statement was simply ''very standard language that is ''used consistently with provisions like these where legislation is requiring reports from the executive branch or where disclosure of information is going to be required.
''The signing statement makes clear that the president will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. ''The president has welcomed at least seven inspector general reports on the Patriot Act since it was first passed, and there has not been one verified abuse of civil liberties using the Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act's renewal was viewed as a rare victory for the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House. The House of Representatives approved the measure by a vote of 280-138 after the Senate passed the controversial bill 89-10.
Did you see the look on George & Laura's face?sm
You know George bounced off the walls when he got home. There is only one look I found more hilarious, and that was the look on Mike Myer's face when Kanye West made the famous statement George Bush does not care about black people.
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