In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Fun with not necessarily 100% reliable news sources:
Capitol Hill Blue: Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.
“We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t know anymore is just who the enemy might be,” says one troubled White House aide. “We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing.”
It all sounds like it could be true, but then you read this:
Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."
God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration’s lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft “the Blues Brothers” because “they’re on a mission from God.”
After you read that Blues Brothers line you realize that this article is most definitely true.
- rob 2:41 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Krugman: An Economic Legend
Here's a sample version of the legend: according to a recent article in The Washington Times, Ronald Reagan "crushed inflation along with left-wing Keynesian economics and launched the longest economic expansion in U.S. history." Actually, the 1982-90 economic expansion ranks third, after 1991-2001 and 1961-69 — but even that comparison overstates the degree of real economic success.
The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment.
The depressed economy in 1982 also explains "Morning in America," the economic boom of 1983 and 1984. You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump. (Last year, Argentina's economy grew more than 8 percent.)
for more on this read Atrios's frustration on all this mendacity posing as reverence.- rob 2:37 PM - [PermaLink] -
- The House and Senate did not both come under Republican rule during Reagan's time.
- The Berlin Wall did not come down when Reagan was in office.
- Reagan is not the president who left office with the highest approval rating in modern times.
- Reagan was not "the most popular president ever."
- Reagan did not preside over the longest economic expansion in history.
- Reagan did not shrink the size of government.
- Reagan did preside over what was at the time the "biggest tax cut in history" but it was almost instantly followed up by the "biggest tax increase in history."
- Reagan was not "beloved by all." He was loved by some, liked by some, and hated by some with good reason.
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Buy tix now, by the first on your block to see it:
Fahrenheit 9/11 Tickets
- rob 1:54 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Bush Shows How Much He Really Supports Our Troops
Bush's Kiss of Death
Just before Memorial Day, Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi said, "Our active military respond better to Republicans" because of "the tremendous support that President Bush has provided for our military and our veterans." The same day, the White House announced plans for massive cuts in veterans' health care for 2006.
Last January, Bush praised veterans during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The same day, 164,000 veterans were told the White House was "immediately cutting off their access to the VA health care system."
My favorite in this category was the short-lived plan to charge soldiers wounded in Iraq for their meals when they got to American military hospitals. The plan mercifully died a-borning after it hit the newspapers.
In January 2003, just before the war, Bush said, "I want to make sure that our soldiers have the best possible pay." A few months later, the White House announced it would roll back increases in "imminent danger" pay (from $225 to $150) and family separation allowance (from $250 to $100).
Look this war isn't going to pay for itself you know (despite promises by the administration before the war that it would). And we certainly aren't going to ask any rich folks for this money, so why not get the money from the soldiers, I mean after losing lives and limbs over a needless war, surely they're not going to mind some money taken from their pockets now and then.
- rob 1:50 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Oh this is bad. How lucky it is Friday and everyone is going to cover Reagan's funeral. Has any other administration used death, fear, or Friday's to better effect?
U.S. Wrongly Reported Drop in World Terrorism in 2003
WASHINGTON, June 10 - The State Department acknowledged Thursday that it was wrong in reporting that terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding the Bush administration had pointed to as evidence of its success in countering terror.
Instead, the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time; the facts that we had were wrong," Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said.
When the report was issued April 29, senior administration officials used it as evidence that the war was being won. J. Cofer Black, coordinator of the State Department's Counterterrorism Office, cited the 190 acts of terrorism in 2003, down from 198 in 2002, as "good news" and predicted the trend would continue. Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, said at the time, "You will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight." His office did not respond Thursday to a request for a statement on disclosures that some of the findings were inaccurate. The erroneous report, titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism," said that attacks declined last year to the lowest level in 34 years and dropped 45 percent since 2001, Mr. Bush's first year as president, when 346 attacks occurred.
Among the mistakes, Mr. Boucher said, was that only part of 2003 was taken into account.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Thursday that the errors were partly the result of new procedures for collecting data. "I can assure you it had nothing to do with putting out anything but the most honest, accurate information we can," Mr. Powell said said.
Then Powell jumped into one of those mobile weapons labs he got from Iraq and did donuts in the parking lot.
- rob 1:48 PM - [PermaLink] -
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To follow up B's excellent post below:
Soldier Described White House Interest
The head of the interrogation center at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq told an Army investigator in February that he understood some of the information being collected from prisoners there had been requested by "White House staff," according to an account of his statement obtained by The Washington Post.
Blah blah...
But this is what the heart of B's post below is about:
Bush: U.S. Expected to Follow Law On Prisoners
SAVANNAH, Ga., June 10 -- President Bush said Thursday that he expects U.S. authorities to follow the law when interrogating prisoners abroad, but he declined to say whether he believes torture is permitted under the law.
Pressed repeatedly during a news conference here about a Justice Department memo saying torture could be justified in the war on terrorism, Bush said only that U.S. interrogators had to follow the law.
...
A second questioner asked Bush whether he would authorize "any means necessary" to elicit information from a prisoner who had information about an imminent terrorist attack. The president replied: "What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law."
Pointing out that the administration lawyers who wrote the memo believe terrorist suspects could be tortured without violating the law, a third questioner asked whether torture is ever morally justified. "Look, I'm going to say it one more time," Bush replied. "Maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you." Yes I meant to make that whole paragraph bold.
I'm not answering you question, I'm trying to comfort you. What a sick bastard.
If that paragraph in bold doesn't make alarm bells go off in every newsroom in America we might as well have every newspaper close up shop. This administration believes it is above the law. It believes it is the law, and that the law of the land (which according to the constitution once congress ratified the Geneva Conventions, they became US law) can be interpreted to mean anything the President wants it to. How did the White House decide it had such extra-constitutional powers? Because some lawyers trained in the black arts down in the bowels of the Justice Department (where the crisco is stored) and the White House (where the pretzels are stored) said so... so there.
- rob 1:44 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Looks like the terrorists are winning elections all over Europe. Not just the ones in Spain. How will this major loss get spun?
Liberal Democrats in Britain gaining 62 seats on their opposition to the Iraq war. Dutch opposition parties also scoring big gains on the war issue. And no train bombing in sight for the press to focus on.
- B 1:32 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Has someone already made this connection? If so, let me reinforce it. Bush said at the G-8 summit that the military was instructed to "stay within U.S. law" when interrogating prisoners and that "instructions went out to our people to adhere to law." But if his own lawyers were advising the president that US laws and treaties prohibiting torture did not apply in the War on Terror, then let me ask a simple question: what law did the military have to "adhere to" or "stay within?"
As such, I can't figure out the wool that the Chimper is trying to pull over our eyes. I mean it's great that he told everyone to play by the rules and act nice-nice. But at the same time he suspended the rules by fiat. So what does his admonishment add up to, other than lip service? The commander-in-thief wasn't going to discipline anyone for actions that might have otherwise pushed the boundaries of legality, christian goodness or humanity because they had a permission slip from W's lawyers saying "push away." There was nothing to hold anyone back from the actions they took. Nothing to stop any military intelligence guys from having a contest to see who could make more Iraqi's pee on themselves in fear. Nothing to stop the probing with light sticks. Nothing to stop, well, let's just say it: torture. There was no fear of disciplinary action. No worry of being held accountable. That's why the pictures got taken. That's why it continued for months. That's why people bragged about it. If anyone doubts that the permission came from the highest levels, just look at the why the people who committed these acts behaved. They certainly didn't act like people who were afraid of anything. They didn't try to hide their actions.
The kool-aid drinkers out there like to think that this was just a few bad apples. But in an organization that thrives on discipline. That rewards dedication and adherence to the rule of order. Where the consequences of your actions are well understood. Where failing to behave and follow your orders is actionable. To paraphrase a line from A Few Good Men: "President Bush, those men tortured Iraqis because that's what you told them to do."
- B 12:56 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Writ of douche-baggery?- Thursday, June 10, 2004 -
Heck this clip from Jon Stewart is even worth downloading the real player if you don't have it. As I mentioned yesterday, in the week when news channels were all Reagan all the time, the Bush administration officially declared the nation a monarchy and that congress has no say in how our nation is run.
Daily Show video clip of Ashcroft basically saying "congress doesn't need to know what this administration does, why not drink some kool-aide then you'll feel better about the whole situation."
- rob 10:30 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Here's a slogan:
Dead Forever
- Michael 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The Bush campaign has been milking Reagan's death for every potential vote it might bleed.
And yet they still can't help but let their religious zealotry screw things up for themselves (and the rest of the country at the same time:
Laura Bush Says Cannot Support Stem Cell Research
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Laura Bush, whose father died from Alzheimer's, said on Wednesday she admired Nancy Reagan's devotion to former President Ronald Reagan until his death but could not back her call for relaxation of stem cell research restrictions.
- rob 3:35 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The Iraqi War a Gift to Terrorists Served on Silver Platter
Banned Iraqi Missile Engines Found in Jordan -UN
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Engines for long-range missiles have turned up in Jordan from unguarded sites in Iraq that were once monitored for materials that could produce banned weapons, U.N. inspectors said on Wednesday.
In a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting, Demetrius Perricos, the acting director of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission, warned that too many pieces of equipment were leaving Iraq, some as scrap.
"We found a few more engines and a few other items in Jordan," Perricos told Reuters. "It is getting bad. Too many things are coming out."
Recruits, Bombs, World Anger directed to America, wow if Bush was only so generous to the American people.
- rob 3:32 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Now who's being emotional?
The knock against liberals used to be that liberals were the emotional ones and conservatives acted on intelligence not feelings, i.e. the old saying that "when I was young I was a liberal because I have a heart but when I got older I became a conservative because I have a brain." Which is a fair statement only that it was offensive to both liberals and conservatives.
But now the conservatives, as demonstrated by the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, and the neo-cons have neither heart nor brain. Every act seems to be a hideous twist on the adage "if it feels good do it." But what feels good to them is hate. They love it. It feels right. Revenge, destruction, Hate. It doesn't matter if it messes things up at least it isn't coddling the enemy.
All too often I see Bush apologists when confronted with facts, jump into the defensive posture of stating "but at least we are doing something." Or worse yet "It feels good that at least we aren't sitting back.' Next time there are people trapped in a fire in a house make sure to run next door and kick in the windows... Because at least you're doing something.
Remember as a kid how fun it was to knock down a big wall of blocks that you had built? Well think of what fun the bullies had knocking down blocks that some other kid built, oh that was real fun! I bet it "felt good." In the invasion phase of the war (you know before the mission was accomplished) Bush wanted to be notified ahead of time of any major bomb runs so he could watch in on TV. He won't read the news, but a big building blowing up, now that's some fine entertainment. It reminds me of the debates with Gore in 2000 when he finally showed some passion, it was on a question about the death penalty, he just beamed. Finally something he was interested in: Killing People (and if they were supposedly bad people, so much the better).
Conservative white men are paranoids who were always under attack from homos or commies or non-Christian heathens. Well finally they found a real enemy: terrorists. So all this pent-up rage gets directed at Iraqis, and they finally are getting to do something. They are finally getting to ACT LIKE MEN.
This era of machismo gone wild is putting our soldiers at risk. It is wasting American lives and resources. And it is just sad. Junior High is over.
Again, I feel the need to quote the very pissed off Senator Biden:
"There's a reason why we sign these treaties: to protect my son in the military," Biden said. "That's why we have these treaties. So when Americans are captured, they are not tortured. That's the reason, in case anybody forgets it."
- rob 3:27 PM - [PermaLink] -
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NEWSFLASH
Ronald Reagan died a looo-oooooo-oooooooo-ooooooooooo-oooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.
- Michael 11:30 AM - [PermaLink] -
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VCR Alert- Wednesday, June 09, 2004 -
Tonight at 7 on Comedy Central, catch the repeat of last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Trust me, the bit on Ashcroft is worth it.
Now that news channels are "All Reagan - All the Time" The Daily Show (a comedy show) is the only source of non-Reagan news. And there is a lot of it, and it is pretty scary stuff. To sum up, its official: The executive branch keeps around congress just for kicks, kind of like Ceaser and the Senate. Hopefully tomorrow they'll make the clip available on line.
In the meantime here are some excellent recent bits from the show that are worth catching (requires Real Player and a decent connection):
Tenet Resigns
CIA head George Tenent: Convenient fall guy or superb public servant?
and
Friendly Fired
It turns out Ahmad Chalabi was supplying accurate, helpful, truthful secret information...to the Iranians.
- rob 11:03 AM - [PermaLink] -
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READ
Legalizing Torture
And this is just the last 2 paragraphs:
There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.
Perhaps the president's lawyers have no interest in the global impact of their policies -- but they should be concerned about the treatment of American servicemen and civilians in foreign countries. Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.
This isn't an op-ed piece. This is an official Washington Post. After 3 years of not only treating Bush with kid gloves, but practically bending over backwards to ignore how heinus his reign has been; the Washington Post finally had too much moral repugence from the White House.
Joe Biden, who also spent much of the past 3 years trying to excuse some of Bush's atrocities sums it up:
"There's a reason why we sign these treaties -- to protect my son in the military," Senator Biden growled at Mr Ashcroft. "That's why we have these treaties.
"So when Americans are captured, they are not tortured. That's the reason, in case anybody forgets it."
- rob 5:14 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Corrente has a great post on a new piece of GOP legislation: Safe Harbor for Churches
Republican lawlessness: House to give churches a "mulligan" on campaign violations
Update: Here's an article in the Washington Post about it:
Speaker Pushes Jobs Bill Provision
Religious Leaders Would Be Allowed More Freedom to Participate in Partisan Politics
House Republican leaders have tacked on to a major jobs bill a provision that would give religious leaders more freedom to engage in partisan politics without endangering the tax-exempt status of their churches.
Conservative Christian groups have been pushing for such legislation for years, while civil liberties organizations and religious minorities have opposed it. But unlike past proposals, which were stand-alone bills, the current provision is attached to a huge tax bill that House leaders have placed on a fast track for consideration.
What's this have to do with jobs you ask? Ummm... for the Repug congress it could mean their jobs.
- rob 4:18 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Just too much to cut and paste.
Just read: Moon Over Washington
Why are some of the capital’s most influential power players hanging out with a bizarre Korean billionaire who claims to be the Messiah?
okay, maybe I'll cut and paste just a little:
Should Americans be concerned that on March 23rd a bipartisan group of Congressmen attended a coronation at which a billionaire, pro-theocracy newspaper owner was declared to be the Messiah – with royal robes, a crown, the works? Or that this imperial ceremony took place not in a makeshift basement church or a backwoods campsite, but in a Senate office building?
- rob 3:43 PM - [PermaLink] -
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In a Loud Voice now: We're winning the war on terror
In a quiet voice now: umm we're not doing so hot on the war on terror
U.S. Will Revise Data on Terror
WASHINGTON — The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate and was politically manipulated by the Bush administration.
When the most recent "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report was issued April 29, senior Bush administration officials immediately hailed it as objective proof that they were winning the war on terrorism. The report is considered the authoritative yardstick of the prevalence of terrorist activity around the world.
"Indeed, you will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight" against global terrorism, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said during a celebratory rollout of the report.
But on Tuesday, State Department officials said they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003, and added that they expected to release an updated version soon.
Several U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years.
Would it be cynical to point out that a lot of bad news for Bush seems to be coming out (or in the case of the 'torture is fun' memos - leaking out) during a week in which the newspapers and news channels are all Reagan all the time. Genius.
- rob 3:41 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Ashcroft Refuses to Release '02 Memo
Document Details Suffering Allowed In Interrogations
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told Congress yesterday that he would not release a 2002 policy memo on the degree of pain and suffering legally permitted during enemy interrogations, but said he knows of no presidential order that would allow al Qaeda suspects to be tortured by U.S. personnel.
Angry Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Ashcroft to provide the document. They said portions that have appeared in news reports suggest the Bush administration is reinterpreting U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the memo on interrogation techniques permissible for the CIA to use on suspected al Qaeda operatives "appears to be an effort to redefine torture and narrow prohibitions against it." The document was prepared by the Justice Department's office of legal counsel for the CIA and addressed to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales.
Okay, to sum up:
Ashcroft: "nothing even close to torture is in the document."
Democrats: "can we see the document?"
Ashcroft: "no."
...
Ashcroft: "what you don't trust me?"
Let the eagle soar and poop on Ashcroft's head.
Look I've said this before, but Ashcroft looks a lot like X-File's "Black Lunged Bastard." And he acts like him too.
- rob 3:29 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Let's just let Enron speak for themselves for a moment (a peak at your average Bush supporter - corporate trader style):
More Enron Tapes, More Gloating
In one tape, an employee says, "You gotta think the economy is going to f------g get crushed, man. This is like a recession waiting to f-----g happen."
The tapes show Enron tried to bring California to its knees.
Elsewhere on the tapes, another employee says, "This is where California breaks."
"Yeah, it sure does man," says another.
And they proposed to do that by exporting energy out of the state so the company could drive up prices even more.
"What we need to do is to help in the cause of, ah, downfall of California," an employee is heard saying on the tapes. "You guys need to pull your megawatts out of California on a daily basis."
"They're on the ropes today," says another employee. "I exported like a f------g 400 megs."
"Wow,'' says another employee, "f--k 'em, right!"
Their mothers must be so proud.
- rob 3:10 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Invading Iraq made the Middle East a safer place for?If you choose Number 6, you won the big prize!
- Freedom
- Democracy
- Americans
- Westerners
- peace loving societies
- violent extremism
Poll of Saudis shows wide support for bin Laden's views
(CNN) -- Almost half of all Saudis said in a poll conducted last year that they have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric...
Again, thanks to a Phunkster.
- rob 2:33 PM - [PermaLink] -
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and speaking of: October Surprise!
What tricks will BushCo pull to attempt to win the election in November? Well, he'll probably try something around or before October. Welcome to October Surprise! Where we explore what will happen before the November. Participate in the poll - What will happen before the 2004 election?
Thanks to a phunkster for the link.
- rob 2:28 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Kerry Pays Respects to Reagan in Calif.
"I didn't agree with a lot of the things he was doing, obviously," Kerry said of Reagan, whom he called a "very likable guy." But he added that he got along well with the Republican, was able to work with him and visited the White House a number of times during his two terms.
"I met with Reagan a lot more than I've met with this president," Kerry said.
The Democrat also said he had more meetings with George H.W. Bush during his one term than he has had with President Bush.
"I liked his father very much. I like his dad. He's a very good guy. He used to write notes. I have a number of notes from him. He's very thoughtful," Kerry said.
Kerry suspended campaign activities this week in deference to Reagan. The presumptive Democratic nominee said he first took note of Reagan in the 1960s, a time when some were wary of the California Republican.
"He got your notice," Kerry said. He praised Reagan's 1964 speech for Barry Goldwater, calling it "better than anything else you heard from the campaign."
Kerry's rival, President Bush, will deliver the eulogy for the 40th president during a state funeral Friday at Washington's National Cathedral. Kerry will be one of dozens of notables attending the service, a face in the political crowd.
If Bush doesn't nail this eulogy, if this isn't his best public performance of his career, than this comparison between him and Reagan will flat and Bush will look like a pathetic wannabe in the eyes of his most important constituents: The Reagan lovers. If that happens the only thing will help him will be an October Surprise.
- rob 2:25 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Film Industry Gives Controversial Iraq Film Ovation
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (Reuters) - Director Michael Moore's controversial anti-Iraq war film "Fahrenheit 9/11" won a standing ovation on Tuesday night from an audience of film industry professionals attending its West Coast debut at Academy Award headquarters.
After an audience of more than 600 people in the theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences cheered, whistled and laughed their way through the two-hour film, they jumped to their feet to give Moore a standing ovation as he took the stage.
Clearly buoyed by the reception, Moore, whose film is scathingly critical and mocking of President Bush, declared: "There has been a shift in this country. ... The average American is finally beginning to figure it out. We were duped (into invading Iraq)."
"I hope this country will be back in our hands in a short period of time," he added.
Republicans have denounced the film as unfair.
Boo hoo hoo... repugs don't control what movies are in the theater... that's so unfair that some one might be allowed to say true things about our glorious leader.
As your hear about how this movie is all lies and trick editing, the truth begins to leak out:
TIA now verifies flight of Saudis
The government has long denied that two days after the 9/11 attacks, the three were allowed to fly.
TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.
The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.
The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.
For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.
Please see this movie the first weekend. If it gets big numbers the media will really have to start reporting about the movie in the context about what it is saying, and how people are so unhappy with Bush. Maybe then we can finally put a nail in the coffin of this whole "popular war time President" myth.
And for those who haven't seen the trailer, its finally up on at Apple so you can see it Quicktime with a strong server backing it up.
- rob 2:18 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Stampede of Bullshit
In the coming Republican stampede to wipe Franklin D. Roosevelt off the dime and replace him with Ronald Reagan (have no doubt, my friends), I suggest the following: that the Reagan dime have no flipside. They should just leave it blank, to represent our shared future -- yours, mine, and his.
- Michael 1:13 PM - [PermaLink] -
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An atrios reader posted this in Atrios's comment section:- Tuesday, June 08, 2004 -
Suggested Kerry Campaign Slogan:
Defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
- rob 11:07 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Bush to the US Constitution: Drop Dead
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I Freakin' Knew It
New Catholic Times: Pope fears Bush is antichrist
WASHINGTON DC -- According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, "George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ."
Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, who often writes for Counterpunch, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament. Emphasis Mine.
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Don't forget to read Krugman Today:
The Great Taxer
- rob 1:42 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Vonnegut Cuts Loose
Kurt Vonnegut: Cold Turkey
My government’s got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.
Other drunks have seen pink elephants.
And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.
We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call “Native Americans.”
How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.
So let’s give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That’ll teach bin Laden a lesson he won’t soon forget. Hail to the Chief.
- rob 1:41 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Republicans had great fun over the fact that Clinton argued over the definition of "is."
"He's a man who understands what the definition of 'is' is."George W. Bush on Dick Cheney
Isn't that almost quaint? Now we live in a time when the current resident of the White House has problems with the definition of extremely important words like torture (in combination with words like 'legal') and sovereignty.
Behind the Scenes, US Tightens Grip on Iraq's Future
Haider al-Abadi runs Iraq's Ministry of Communications, but he no longer calls the shots there. Instead, the authority to license Iraq's television stations, sanction newspapers and regulate cellphone companies was recently transferred to a commission whose members were selected by Washington. The commissioners' five-year terms stretch far beyond the planned 18-month tenure of the interim Iraqi government that will assume sovereignty on June 30.
The transfer surprised Mr. Abadi, a British-trained engineer who spent nearly two decades in exile before returning to Iraq last year. He found out the commission had been formally signed into law only when a reporter asked him for comment about it. "No one from the U.S. even found time to call and tell me themselves," he says.
As Washington prepares to hand over power, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer and other officials are quietly building institutions that will give the U.S. powerful levers for influencing nearly every important decision the interim government will make.
In a series of edicts issued earlier this spring, Mr. Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority created new commissions that effectively take away virtually all of the powers once held by several ministries. The CPA also established an important new security-adviser position, which will be in charge of training and organizing Iraq's new army and paramilitary forces, and put in place a pair of watchdog institutions that will serve as checks on individual ministries and allow for continued U.S. oversight. Meanwhile, the CPA reiterated that coalition advisers will remain in virtually all remaining ministries after the handover.
In many cases, these U.S. and Iraqi proxies will serve multiyear terms and have significant authority to run criminal investigations, award contracts, direct troops and subpoena citizens. The new Iraqi government will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials and others familiar with the plan.
Heck, its not only torture and sovereignty that the Bush administration has trouble with. Their definitions of "A free Iraq" and "Democracy" seem to be a little sketchy too.
- rob 1:35 PM - [PermaLink] -
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At a young age I had an epiphany:
If an advertisement on TV is only about why a company is good, than that company must have done something bad.
Have you noticed that there is a heck of a lot of "energy companies save the world" ads running right now? (even more than those "Walmart is great for towns" dreck)
- rob 1:23 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Before the body is cold
Bush already using Reagan's death to campaign
On behalf of President Bush's campaign I would like to offer our sincerest condolences to Nancy Reagan and the Reagan family. Our nation mourns with you.
In this time of mourning, I encourage you to go to www.GeorgeWBush.com [the bush/cheney 2004 campaign site] to read some of President Reagan's greatest speeches.
Sincerely,
Marc Racicot
Chairman
Bush-Cheney '04
- rob 10:20 AM - [PermaLink] -
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BUSH CAN TORTURE WHOEVER HE WANTS- Monday, June 07, 2004 -
According to a March 2003 memo, administration lawyers concluded that Bush is immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture.
"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential memorandum, the prohibition against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority."
See? That makes it okay if the president's own lawyers and the Justice Department say so. Never mind that "It was not a legal analysis" -- even according to the Pentagon chief spokesman. The brilliant legal reasoning behind this beauty is that the White House counsel decided that if (a) American military personnel need to skirt the Geneva Convention, then (b) the Geneva Convention doesn't apply.
I always said that Bush never met a law he didn't break.
The March memorandum, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, is the latest internal legal study to be disclosed that shows that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks the administration's lawyers were set to work to find legal arguments to avoid restrictions imposed by international and American law. (Emphasis mine.)
Notice how this has absolutely nothing to do with precedent -- the founding principle of due process and basis of the rule of law. Why should Bush and his invading Army be concerned with anything that could be used against them in a court of law, international or otherwise? Might is right.
In addition, that memorandum, dated Feb. 2, 2002, noted that lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency had asked for an explicit understanding that the administration's public pledge to abide by the spirit of the conventions did not apply to its operatives.
In other words, the lawyers insist that if the president makes a public pledge he can lie with impunity.
According to the general whose command oversees Guantánamo, his response to reporters about a working group investigating torture under his watch is that the group "wanted to do ... what is right for our soldiers." That's right: your responsibility isn't the lives of your captives -- who in many cases haven't done anything at all -- it's to make sure your men "do what is right" -- that is, torture the prisoners to the point where they hang themselves.
Jamie Fellner, the director of United States programs for Human Rights Watch, said Monday, "We believe that this memo shows that at the highest levels of the Pentagon there was an interest in using torture as well as a desire to evade the criminal consequences of doing so."
Hm. You think so? We need to do further research studies and get back to you.
The March memorandum also contains a curious section in which the lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of the anti-torture statute because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside American jurisdiction.
That's my favorite part -- America can torture whoever it wants on its overseas bases, since they are within American jurisdiction, but the prisoners don't have any rights because the bases are overseas. A fine legal argument, boys.
Bush and the Justice Department are putting the final touches on Act One so they can finish Act Two over here.
- Michael 8:35 AM - [PermaLink] -
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Barf bag alert
Don't say I didn't warn you. I can't even begin to determine whether I should laugh or cry at the transcript of Bush's interview with Brokaw this weekend. So, to paraphrase a line from "Wayne's World" I'm just going to hurl. This exchange in particular:
Brokaw: “Do you think that there is too much disagreeable in American politics today?”
Bush: “I'm trying to elevate the debate as best I can. But it's pretty rough right now. And I've read a lot of history… that American politics has been rough. I remember the year of the pamphleteering, when people would write all kinds of stuff, without any without any sense of propriety.
“And seems like we may be-- some of that may be happening these days. People just write down whatever they want, whether it's truthful or not… And, you know, look, politics is a rough business. But my job is to-- I think my job as the president, is to try to elevate the debate out of the muck, focus our country's attention on where we need to go and what we need to do as a nation to make ourselves more secure and make the world more peaceful and free.”
"I'm trying to elevate the debate"????!!!! Uh. "When people would write all kinds of stuff"????!?!!! Sure.
Man. After that guy loses for the second time, he's going to have a great job doing stand-up. Rove can be his writer.
- B 6:07 PM - [PermaLink] -
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It's Monday, and here's the link to:The Top Ten Conservative Idiots
- rob 4:57 PM - [PermaLink] -
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The TCS Store Has been updated
Besides the new I Miss America / Orange Alert Combo shirt (see image in Michael's weekend post)
There is the new official GOP NYC 2004 Convention T:
This shirt is going to be all the range in New York City this August, don't be left out!
The store has other updates as well (like new yellow and green t-shirts).
- rob 4:19 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Since The Bush Family Inherently Sets Aside Laws
Please read this frightening Talking Points Memo Post
The article describes a confidential Pentagon report providing legal rationales and interpretations by which US personnel could use torture and methods of near-torture in contravention of various international treaties and US laws. The bulk of the arguments rest on arguments of 'necessity' and the powers of the president as commander-in-chief. They also go into some depth about how people acting at the president's order could avoid prosecution for demonstrably criminal acts.
The article is well worth reading for this alone.
But that whole discussion is different in kind from one passage in the report. I quote from the piece ...To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."
So the right to set aside law is "inherent in the president". That claim alone should stop everyone in their tracks and prompt a serious consideration of the safety of the American republic under this president. It is the very definition of a constitutional monarchy, let alone a constitutional republic, that the law is superior to the executive, not the other way around. This is the essence of what the rule of law means -- a government of laws, not men, and all that.
- rob 4:15 PM - [PermaLink] -
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With all due respect ...
let's not forget what a complete asshole President Ronald Reagan was; no wonder he's a Bush role model. Some choice Reagan quotes:
"Facts are stupid things."
"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?"
"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under
a desk."
"Growing and decaying vegetation in this land are responsible for 93
percent of the oxides of nitrogen."
"I've said it before and I'll say it again. The U.S. Geological Survey
has told me that the proven potential for oil in Alaska alone is
greater than the proven reserves in Saudi Arabia."
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the
jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking
stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."
"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal."
"What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it
now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that
is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are
homeless, you might say, by choice."
"Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders."
"We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry
every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet."
So let's not go over the top, please. Some of us remember what he actually said and did. "We will never negotiate with terrorists" is my favorite. Arms for hostages anyone? How about running drugs in South America and lying to Congress for eight years -- in blatant defiance of the U.S. Constution's separation of powers (sound familiar? Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush were running that particular show) -- to fund an illegal covert operation on behalf of a fascist dictator's death squads, who murdered tens of thousands in cold blood, and continuing to lie about it, after the fact? And then declaring Oliver North, a notorious traitor, a national hero? Personally, I'd feel better about my country if these unrepentant international criminals were struck by lightning.
- Michael 1:16 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Not sure this is the answer, but hopefully it gets some action in the right direction.
Americans for Healthcare
Presently I'm dealing with health insurance hell. I'm not special, horrible and ridiculous insurance policies are the accepted standard these days.
The present dysfunctional system is a huge tax on the American economy. Doctors today to keep financially alive have to be more informed about insurance procedures than about medical procedures. Medical offices spend huge amounts of time filing and refilling medical insurance forms. Doctors rewrite invoices again and again to make sure the insurance company fulfills their obligations. Patients have to pay more attention to required notifications and preauthorizations than to their cough. Pharmacists have to spend more time dealing with the insurance companies than they do with fulfilling the prescription (and forget about having time to correctly advise the patient about the drug, if the pharmacist even had enough time to learn about the new drugs becoming available).
The only group happy with this situation is the insurance companies. Oh, and the politicians who get the huge campaign contributions from said insurance companies, they like the present system too.
- rob 12:48 PM - [PermaLink] -
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''It's quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,'' Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.
Rumsfeld fears U.S. losing long-term fight against terror
SINGAPORE -- The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.
The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists -- whom he termed ''zealots and despots'' bent on destroying the global system of nation-states -- are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.
Bush: Losing the War on Terror
- rob 12:25 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Sign the Petition (please):
Oppose the Haynes Nomination
It is appalling and unacceptable that President Bush continues to support the judicial nomination of the person largely responsible for the legal atmosphere that failed to prevent and may actually have helped produce the torture and mistreatment of detainees in Iraq.
- rob 12:22 PM - [PermaLink] -
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After watching the Fahrenheit 9/11 trailer, don't miss the trailer for The Hunting of the President.
- rob 12:20 PM - [PermaLink] -
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Politics and Death: Reagan
Reagan Legacy Looming Large Over Campaign
Advisers to Mr. Bush said they had not determined how prominently Mr. Bush should identify his presidency with Mr. Reagan, whether Mr. Reagan's image should be incorporated in Mr. Bush's advertisements and whether Nancy Reagan might appear on Mr. Bush's behalf in the fall.
Some Republicans said the images of a forceful Mr. Reagan giving dramatic speeches on television provided a less-than-welcome contrast with Mr. Bush's own appearances these days, and that it was not in Mr. Bush's interest to encourage such comparisons. That concern was illustrated on Sunday, one Republican said, by televised images of Mr. Reagan's riveting speech in Normandy commemorating D-Day in 1984, followed by Mr. Bush's address at a similar ceremony on Sunday.
"Reagan showed what high stature that a president can have — and my fear is that Bush will look diminished by comparison," said one Republican sympathetic to Mr. Bush, who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing the president.
I never liked Reagan as a President and unfairly I'm sure I sometimes disliked the man due to his politics. But the disease he suffered from, and more importantly his family suffered due to, should not happen to anyone. That is why I respect Nancy Reagan for ignoring the pleads of the present GOP by crusading for stem cell research. By stopping stem cell research in the United States, Bush is effectively saying that a few cells is the same thing as a human life, I feel a human is worth a bit more than just a few cells. Bush is condeming families to watch their loved ones slowly dissappear year after year. A cure for alzheimer's is just one of the achievements that stem cell research could possibly lead to. A Superman that could again walk is another one.
The lasting damaging legacy of Reagan's presidency is the dumbing down of the office and the elevation of the Bush family. Before Reagan it was believed the office of Presidency required a sharp mind (which it does), but Reagan was more or less successful and wasn't especially bright so that obvious requirement was put aside (hopefully temporarily). As for the Bush family, Reagan didn't want the elder Bush to be his VP, it was forced upon him. And due to this the optimism that Reagan is famous for has been destroyed by Bush the lesser.
Reagan in my mind did acheive two extremely important things:Best wishes to Reagan’s family, and I hope they now can feel some relief.
- The fall of the Soviet Union. Bush the elder claims this achievement for himself because it happened on his watch, but it was due to mistaken policies set forth under Reagan. In another case of exaggerated bad intelligence Reagan was told that the Soviet Union was an extremely powerful and an extremely well armed nation, so Reagan began a huge defense build up in his words "to close the gap." The Soviet Union however was barely surviving but after observing the US build-up it placed what limited funds it had into a relatively weak military. It bankrupt the Soviet Union. Reagan’s wrong reasons delivered a result better than anyone hoped; the Soviet Union fell.
- He made America snap out of it. Its hard to say how he did it, and he shares this achievement with many other events (like the gold metal ice hockey team), but he got America out of a serious funk (I realize that isn’t much of a scientific term, but anyone who lived through the seventies knows exactly what I mean).
- rob 12:11 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
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- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- 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
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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