475 + 87 = "at least" 525

Brilliant math skills: another example of a brilliant administration.

Bush: $87 billion 'worth it' for security

The White House conceded Monday the funding request for the upcoming fiscal year budget would swell the record $475 billion deficit to at least $525 billion.
...

Some have suggested repealing at least some of the nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts enacted since Bush took office.

"I heard somebody say, well, what we need to do is have a tax increase to pay for this. That's an absurd notion," Bush told reporters.

Because though Bush said: "This will take time and require sacrifice. Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure." He didn't mean it. Come on he was talking about the sacrifice of the people who don't donate to his campaign. Let's face it most of the money in those tax cuts were to very rich people, and they sacrifice enough what with keeping track of all their various bonds and stocks and puts and calls... What more do you want from them? No, Bush didn't really mean sacrifice to the point of trying to solve the budget crisis that is definitely making our nation less secure, why to think Bush really meant what he said, to think that Bush really wanted our nation secure, that's an absurd notion.

- rob 5:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Yesterday I obviously wasn't in the mood to post much to this site. That day is difficult, but it doesn't mean we should not stop asking questions:

WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANSWERS TO THESE 9/11 QUESTIONS?

4. Are all 19 people identified by the government as participants in the Sept. 11 attacks really the hijackers?

Probably not. Just 10 days after the attacks, a report by the British Broadcasting Corp. said that some of the supposed hijackers identified by the FBI appeared to be alive and well. The BBC story said Abdelaziz al-Omari, named as the pilot who crashed the jet into the World Trade Center's North Tower, was reported by Saudi authorities to be working as an electrical engineer. He reported his passport had been stolen in Denver in 1995. Saudi officials said it was possible that another three people whose names appear on the FBI list also are alive.

The article, which can be read at Unanswered Questions, makes a persuasive case that another man was posing as Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of hijacked Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pa. So why did this story line vanish into thin air?

5. Did any of the hijackers smuggle guns on board as reported in calls from both Flight 11 and Flight 93?

Quite possibly. An internal Federal Aviation Administration memo written at 5:30 p.m. on the day of the attacks said that a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11 - Israeli-American Daniel Lewin - had been shot to death by a single bullet before the jet slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The FAA insists the memo was a mistaken "first draft," even though the

alleged shooting is described in great detail.

Aboard Flight 93, passenger Thomas Burnett told his wife, Deena, in a 9:27 a.m. cell-phone call: "The hijackers have already knifed a guy, one of them has a gun, and they are telling us there is a bomb on board."

Why has this angle of Sept. 11 not been investigated in more detail?

- rob 5:33 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You know, to make it fun, every district in California has the candidates in slightly different order.

- rob 5:29 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Using money with Bush's face on it will get you arrested.

Hey, maybe Bush is behind this funny money. I mean he'd only need to print 2,900,000,000 of them next year to take care of the 2004 deficit (of course that still leaves the 2002, 2003, and future Bush deficits).

- rob 5:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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California Recal Ballot

Oh yeah, that's going to be fun for the voters.

- rob 5:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Krugman: Exploiting the Atrocity
The press has become a lot less shy about pointing out the administration's exploitation of 9/11, partly because that exploitation has become so crushingly obvious. As The Washington Post pointed out yesterday, in the past six weeks President Bush has invoked 9/11 not just to defend Iraq policy and argue for oil drilling in the Arctic, but in response to questions about tax cuts, unemployment, budget deficits and even campaign finance. Meanwhile, the crudity of the administration's recent propaganda efforts, from dressing the president up in a flight suit to orchestrating the ludicrously glamorized TV movie about Mr. Bush on 9/11, have set even supporters' teeth on edge.

That reminds me of the Doonesbury a while back where Ari announces that the answer to all questions will be: 9/11. But that isn't fair, sometimes they don't say 9/11, sometimes they say "It's Clinton's Fault" (click for that Doonesbury).

But wait, Krugman really tells it like it is:

Yet it's almost certainly wrong to think that the political exploitation of 9/11 and, more broadly, the administration's campaign to label critics as unpatriotic are past their peak. It may be harder for the administration to wrap itself in the flag, but it has more incentive to do so now than ever before. Where once the administration was motivated by greed, now it's driven by fear.

In the first months after 9/11, the administration's ruthless exploitation of the atrocity was a choice, not a necessity. The natural instinct of the nation to rally around its leader in times of crisis had pushed Mr. Bush into the polling stratosphere, and his re-election seemed secure. He could have governed as the uniter he claimed to be, and would probably still be wildly popular.

But Mr. Bush's advisers were greedy; they saw 9/11 as an opportunity to get everything they wanted, from another round of tax cuts, to a major weakening of the Clean Air Act, to an invasion of Iraq. And so they wrapped as much as they could in the flag.

Now it has all gone wrong. The deficit is about to go above half a trillion dollars, the economy is still losing jobs, the triumph in Iraq has turned to dust and ashes, and Mr. Bush's poll numbers are at or below their pre-9/11 levels.

Nor can the members of this administration simply lose like gentlemen. For one thing, that's not how they operate. Furthermore, everything suggests that there are major scandals - involving energy policy, environmental policy, Iraq contracts and cooked intelligence - that would burst into the light of day if the current management lost its grip on power. So these people must win, at any cost.

- rob 5:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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U.S. Newswire - Draft Gore: Gore in Statistical Dead Heat with Bush, Leads All Democrats in Zogby/Draft Gore Poll

Okay, so are we looking at, Gore/Clark 2004?

- rob 4:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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September 11.

Two years ago today I left work early after it was announced that every member of our downtown NY office was accounted for. At home my wife was with a friend whose husband worked across the street from the WTC but was safe, the woman was still shaken up. So to give them some calm I took my then 4 year old son to the park.

The park was filled, it was, like today, a beautiful day. All the parents in the park had these weak fake smiles for their children, and frequently would look away from their children for a chance to frown. An odd scene.

On the way back from the park we passed a house with a whole family, extended family even, looking anxious as a car pulled up with a father and son coming out covered in dust head to toe, both wore trading floor jackets. The family was overjoyed, the mother, I assume, crying ran to the son saying “never do that to me again.” The son had a dumbstruck smile on his face as he said “what’d I do?” with a laugh.

My son stared. I prodded him to keep walking. “They need their privacy,” I said.

Today, at 8:46am I was at the Stop and Shop (a grocery store) when all the customers and store employees held hands for a moment of silence.

Afterwards I went back to my car and listened to the radio as children read out the names, each ending with the name of their lost love one; either a father or mother or a more distant relative. Many children were crying. Other put on the type of brave face only children are capable of. I cried as I drove to work.

- rob 3:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Sign It Now!

DSCC - Petition: CEO lobbies for Bush while seeking contract to sell voting machines

Diebold is the company that wants to get the contract to provide and program voting machines in every state for the 2004 election and O'Dell is raising money exclusively for President Bush and the Republican National Committee (RNC). O'Dell, in a fundraising letter on August 14th, committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" according to the Associated Press. In the 2002 election cycle, O'Dell gave $5,965 to the RNC while Diebold gave the RNC $95,000.

This is outrageous!! Not only does Mr. O'Dell want the contract to provide every voting machine in the nation for the next election – he wants to "DELIVER" the election to Mr. Bush. In fact, Mr. O'Dell's fundraising appeal on behalf of President Bush came one day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three companies eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election. INCREDIBLE!! On the day before the Ohio Secretary of State was set to qualify Diebold to provide voting machines for the state of Ohio, its CEO said in a letter he will "DELIVER" Ohio for President Bush.

- rob 6:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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#know_your_enemies

A handy guide to knowing who is the source of much of the Whistle Ass's more idiotic cruelties: The neo-cons.

- rob 5:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Campaign Poster potential:

Presidential Character

George Bush's long-term plans for 2003 probably did not call for his August vacation to be followed by a national television address trying to justify a floundering policy in Iraq. Just about nothing, in fact, looks like what he must have hoped for in the run-up to an election. To many Americans, the economic recovery is anything but — 2.7 million private-sector jobs have been lost in the last three years. The number of people living below the poverty line is rising, the trade imbalance has reached unnerving proportions, and the federal budget deficits have grown so huge that even the International Monetary Fund has begun expressing concern.

It is useful at times like this to look back on the road that brought a president into trouble and try to divide bad luck from bad guesses, and both from the wrong turns that stem from the innate nature of the presidency itself. In the case of Iraq, there is a little of each. Early in his term, Mr. Bush was stuck with trouble that was not of his making, including both the terrorist attack and the sinking economy. His judgment about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq appears to have been wrong — and, worse, hyped. But over all, it was a bad guess that was shared by intelligence experts from the Clinton administration and many allies.

Other wrong turns, however, were chosen because of a fundamental flaw in the character of this White House. Despite his tough talk, Mr. Bush seems incapable of choosing a genuinely tough path, of risking his political popularity with the same aggression that he risks the country's economic stability and international credibility. For all the trauma the United States has gone through during his administration, Mr. Bush has never asked the American people to respond to new challenges by making genuine sacrifices.

He committed the military to war, but he told civilians they deserved big tax cuts. He seems determined to remake the Middle East without doing anything serious about reducing our dependence on Middle East oil. His energy policy is a grab bag of giveaways to domestic oil and gas lobbyists. He refuses to ask for even the smallest compromise when it comes to fuel-efficient cars.

The pattern goes further. Mr. Bush rolled out a domestic agenda that included some ambitious programs aimed at lifting up America's least fortunate, particularly his No Child Left Behind education package. But in this — as in the African AIDS initiative and even his controversial faith-based initiative for social services — Mr. Bush has been content to take the credit for proposing, without paying the political dues necessary to get things done. Certainly most American parents, whose public schools are racked by state and local budget crises, are not feeling that their children are enjoying better educational opportunity. The AIDS program that got such a positive response when the president unveiled it has been underfinanced by Congress, with the White House's encouragement.

Even the administration's foreign policy reflects its tendency to go for quick gratification without much thought of the gritty long haul. The invasion of Iraq appears to have been planned by people who assumed that after a swift military assault, Saddam Hussein would be gone and Iraq would quickly snap into a prosperous, semidemocratic state that would be a model for the rest of the Middle East.

When it turned out that things were far more complicated, the president hedged on the price tag — apparently out of fear that if Congress knew how high the bill was going to be, there would not be enough votes for another round of tax cuts. Congress, however, was happy enough to be deluded until it was too late. Now we know the cost is going to be massive, with much of the tab to be paid by the future generations who will be saddled with the Bush debt.

Mr. Bush is a man who was reared in privilege, who succeeded in both business and politics because of his family connections. The question during the presidential campaign was whether he was anything more than just a very lucky guy. There were times in the past three years when he has been much more than that, and he may no longer be a man who expects to find an easy way out of difficulties. But now, at the moment when we need strong leadership most, he is still a politician who is incapable of asking the people to make hard choices. And we are paying the price.

I feel this editorial is a turning point as much as that carrier landing was. People are suddenly beginning to look at Bush honestly, and it isn't pretty.

- rob 5:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Talking about The Project for the New American Century below got me to looking around their site again, and I got these generous words by Wolfowitz to a House Committee back in 1998:

It is an honor to appear as part of a hearing in which Scott Ritter testifies. Scott Ritter is a public servant of exceptional integrity and moral courage, one of those individuals who is not afraid to speak the truth. Now he is speaking the truth about the failures of the UN inspection regime in Iraq, even though those truths are embarrassing to senior officials in the Clinton Administration. And the pressures he is being subjected to are far worse. After first trying to smear his character with anonymous leaks, the administration then took to charging that Mr. Ritter doesn't have a clue about U.S. policy toward Iraq and saying that his criticisms were playing into Saddam Hussein's hands by impugning UNSCOM's independence.

Well you remember Ritter, in the lead up to the war, he was saying things like this:

I bear personal witness through seven years as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq for the United Nations to both the scope of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs and the effectiveness of the UN weapons inspectors in ultimately eliminating them.
...

In direct contrast to these findings, the Bush administration provides only speculation, failing to detail any factually based information to bolster its claims concerning Iraq's continued possession of or ongoing efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. To date no one has held the Bush administration accountable for its unwillingness - or inability - to provide such evidence.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld notes that ``the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.'' This only reinforces the fact that the case for war against Iraq fails to meet the litmus test for the defense of our national existence so eloquently phrased by President Lincoln.

So that got the administrationation to say things like this: "Scott Ritter doesn't know what he's talking about," the official said on condition of anonymity. Doesn't that sound familiar?

Ritter tells the truth about Iraq under Clinton and Wolfowitz loves him. He tells the truth about Iraq and the Bush Administration hates him.

- rob 4:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Other People's Sacrifice

In his Sunday speech President Bush made a call for unity: "We cannot let past differences interfere with present duties." He also spoke, in a way he hasn't before, about "sacrifice." Yet, as always, what he means by unity is that he should receive a blank check, and it turns out that what he means by sacrifice is sacrifice by other people.

It's now clear that the Iraq war was the mother of all bait-and-switch operations. Mr. Bush and his officials portrayed the invasion of Iraq as an urgent response to an imminent threat, and used war fever to win the midterm election. Then they insisted that the costs of occupation and reconstruction would be minimal, and used the initial glow of battlefield victory to push through yet another round of irresponsible tax cuts.

Now almost half the Army's combat strength is bogged down in a country that wasn't linked to Al Qaeda and apparently didn't have weapons of mass destruction, and Mr. Bush tells us that he needs another $87 billion, right away.

- rob 4:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Ha Ha!

Project for the OLD American Century

If you don't get the joke, remember all of Bush's imperial actions were written up by Cheney, Jeb, Quyle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others back in 2000 by The Project for the New American Century. At this site you can read about their plans for removing Saddam (pre 9/11/01) and more.

The Iraqi war had nothing to do with 9/11, it was just the excuse.

- rob 2:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Since I missed it yesterday, again.

The Top Ten Conservative Idiots, No. 125

1. The Bush Administration
Was it really only six months ago that chickenhawk Richard Perle was thanking God for the death of the UN? How times change. Last week the Bush administration officially admitted that their occupation of Iraq is failing dismally and crawled on their hands and knees to the United Nations for help. How embarrasing. Unsurprisingly the UN was not particularly impressed - and who can blame them considering the rough treatment they've received at the hands of Bush & Co. Even while groveling to France and Germany the Bush administration managed to come over as belligerent and hostile, demanding that any UN support must be placed under American command. "Uh, hi there UN. Our troops are getting killed, and it's becoming politically embarrasing. Will you give us thousands of your young men for cannon-fodder instead? Oh, by the way, you can't have any say in what happens to them." France and Germany last week rejected this plan as "insufficient," and that's probably putting it mildly. I mean, what did the Bush administration expect? "Oh, sure, here you go. Never mind that we opposed the invasion in the first place, and you've done nothing but insult us and call us irrelevant ever since. We'd much rather see our soldiers shot at than yours." Honestly, does the foreign policy incompetence of this administration know no bounds?

2. The White House
Any sane person would assume that the bin Laden family could have given us some really useful information about Osama immediately after 9/11 - but don't look to the Bush White House for sanity. It has long been rumored that shortly after September 11 the Bush administration put members of the bin Laden family on a plane and flew them back to Saudi Arabia - and now those rumors have been revealed to be true. According to Richard Clarke, an adviser who ran the White House crisis team after the attacks, "dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden" were allowed to leave the country while most flights were still grounded. Yet according to the FBI, "no one was accorded any additional courtesies that wouldn't have been accorded anyone else." Funny - if I recall correctly, just after 9/11 the FBI was arresting anyone with an Arabic-sounding name and spiriting them away to military bases where they could be held indefinitely without a trial. I guess that was anyone except Saudis who might actually have some useful information - they were sensibly put on a plane back to Saudi Arabia. So let's see: Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia as were fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, and a recent Congressional report showed that the Kingdom funnels money to terrorists (see Idiots 119). Yet the Bush White House has for some reason done everything in its power to divert attention away from Saudi Arabia. I guess they were too busy drawing up plans to invade, uh, Iraq.

- rob 1:17 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Ha Ha!

"DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" - My Favorite Scenes, by Smokey Sojac

My favorite:



"….then the pet goat said to the little girl...."

- rob 1:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Iraq Estimates Were Too Low, U.S. Admits

Oh. Of course. The very next morning they say "umm... we need more."

WASHINGTON — The White House acknowledged Monday that it substantially underestimated the cost of rebuilding Iraq and that even the additional $87 billion it was seeking from a wary Congress would fall far short of what is needed for postwar reconstruction.

Administration officials said President Bush's emergency spending request — which would push the U.S. budget deficit above the half-trillion-dollar mark for the first time — still left a reconstruction funding gap of as much as $55 billion.

- rob 1:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Reality in Iraq requires help

Oh if only someone had told Rummy this before the war:

• "Having entered into Iraq, the United States will find itself unable to leave rapidly, despite the many pressures to do so."

• "A small number of terrorists could reasonably choose to attack U.S. forces in the hope that they can incite an action-reaction cycle that will enhance their cause and increase their numbers."

• "If the United States assumes control of Iraq, it will assume control of a badly battered economy."

• "To tear apart the [Iraqi] army in the war's aftermath could lead to the destruction of one of the only forces for unity within the society."

Most chilling of all, however, is the report's conclusion:

"Without an overwhelming effort to prepare for occupation, the United States may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making."

Oh Rummy did get this before the war, as this was from a February report by the U.S. Army War College, the military's own think tank. I think this editorial says it best about Rummy and Wolfy and Pearle:

Like I said, these guys ought to be fired.

- rob 1:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Added yet another site motto to the right hand side of this fine site:

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
- James Madison

Also lower down on the right side we now have constantly updating headlines from Buzzflash.

- rob 11:34 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Donate or else, drug companies told staff

During the 2000 presidential campaign in the US, executives at Bristol-Myers Squibb, one of America's largest drug companies, received an urgent message: Donate money to George Bush.

The message did not come from Republican campaign officials. It came from top Bristol-Myers executives, according to four executives who say they donated to Mr Bush under pressure from their bosses.

The four, who asked not to be named, said they were told to donate the maximum - $US1000 ($1500) in their own name and $US1000 in their spouse's - and if they failed to do so, their names would be forwarded to the company's then chief executive, Charles Heimbold.

Guess I won't be working there anytime soon.

- rob 3:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Thanks George!

Census survey finds nearly 1.4 million more people in poverty in 2002

Another George W. Bush success!

- rob 2:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Going Down.
(emphasis on certain numbers: mine)

Zogby America Poll. Sept. 3-5, 2003

"Do you think President Bush deserves to be reelected or do you think it is time for someone new?"

Deserves: 40%
Someone New: 52%
Not Sure: 8%


Time/CNN Poll conducted by Harris Interactive. Sept. 3-4, 2003

"If George W. Bush runs for reelection in 2004, would you say you will definitely vote for him, might vote for or against him, or will you definitely vote against him?”

Definitely For: 29%
Might Vote For Or Against: 25%
Definitely Against: 41%
Not Sure: 5%


Ipsos-Reid/Cook Political Report Poll. Sept. 2-4, 2003

"If the election were held today, would you definitely vote to reelect George W. Bush as president, consider voting for someone else, or definitely vote for someone else as president?"

Definitely Bush: 38%
Consider Someone Else: 24%
Vote for Someone Else: 36%
Not Sure: 2%

Well, you've got the numbers, and so do the press, and yet they have headlines like:

Can any Democrat beat President Bush in 2004?

For a jarring juxtaposition, check out this paragraph:

Some 41 percent of all registered voters say they will definitely vote against Bush; just 29 percent say they will definitely vote for him. So Bush must woo about seven in ten swing voters -- not a difficult task for a popular incumbent, but far from a certainty.

The idea that Bush was popular was always debatable. Now it is a fact he is not, yet the press is certain he is, facts be damned. How else can an editor have a paragraph that says 41% will vote against Bush, while only 29% say they will vote for him, and then say he is popular. Pathetic. Perhaps they're just embarrassed that they sold their soul to Rove but didn't get the 72 virgins. Maybe they didn'y read this final nail in the coffin for the "popular war time President" myth:

Bush Numbers Hit New Low

Less than half (45%) of the respondents said they rated his [Bush] job performance good or excellent, while a majority (54%) said it was fair or poor. In August Zogby International polling, his rating was 52% positive, 48% negative. Today’s results mark the first time a majority of likely voters have given the president an unfavorable job performance rating since he took office.

- rob 2:06 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Review's of last nights' Bush rewriting of history are in:

Showtime's 'DC 9/11' Is A Shameless Bush Booster

(oh, you thought I was talking about the speech).

Simultaneously dull and disgraceful, "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis," a new Showtime movie, uses the tragic attack on America in 2001 as the basis for a reelection campaign movie on behalf of George W. Bush.

The film is an insult to those who perished in the attacks and, really, an insult to America generally, but it's so insanely boring that people aren't likely to become very outraged over it. Written by conservative Republican Lionel Chetwynd, who admits to a bias in Bush's favor, the film -- premiering on Showtime tomorrow night at 8 -- is primitive propaganda that portrays Bush as the noblest hero since Mighty Mouse.

Nothing in historical record suggests Bush acted particularly heroically Sept. 11, 2001, but Chetwynd's script has him all but saddling up a horse and riding over to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban man-to-man. When Bush announces he will give a speech to the nation from the White House and aides try to talk him into seeking a safer location, Bush bellows, "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come on over and get me. I'll be home!"

Oh, from the film:

"People can't have an AWOL president!"

But, alas, we do.

- rob 1:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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George W. Bush, Sept. 13, 2001:
"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him!"

George W. Bush, March 13, 2002:
"I don't know where he is ... I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you ... I truly am not that concerned about him."

George W. Bush, last night:
“Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front.”

George W. Bush, March 24, 2006 (if re-elected):
“Iraq? Not really an issue. I guess its going well, not really on my radar screen. We’ve got to concentrate on bringing stability to the chaos and terrorist training grounds that is the Korean Peninsula.”

- rob 1:36 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



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- Thomas Jefferson



"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."
- James Madison



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- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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