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 Bush’s Legacy of FailurePosted on Mar 18, 2008
That idiotic “what, me worry?” look just never leaves the man’s visage. Once again, there was our president, presiding over disasters in part of his making and totally on his watch, grinning with an aplomb that suggested a serious disconnect between his worldview and existing reality. Be it in his announcement that Iraq was being secured on a day when bombs ripped through that sad land or posed between his Treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve chairman to applaud the government’s bailout of a failed bank, George Bush was the only one inexplicably smiling. Failure suits him. It is a stance he learned well while presiding over one failed Texas business deal after another, and it served him splendidly as he claimed the title of president of the United States after losing the popular, and maybe even the electoral, vote. It carried him through the most ignominious chapter of U.S. foreign policy, from the lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to an unprecedented presidential defense of torture. The totally unwarranted assurance was there this week as the once proud dollar fell into the toilet and the debacle of Iraq and Bush’s other failed Mideast policies pushed oil prices to record highs. The Europeans, who didn’t support the U.S. imperial intervention, are doing much better, not having to pay for guarding besieged oil pipelines while U.S. taxpayers are saddled with trillions in future debt, not to mention 4,000 U.S. military deaths and 30,000 U.S. injuries in a war the administration had promised would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues. Even in Baghdad last week, there wasn’t enough oil to keep the lights on for more than a few hours. But the president is happy because his legacy issue, the war on terror, is intact. No matter that this week the Pentagon was forced to release a report conducted over the last five years that concluded, after surveying 600,000 official Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces, that there is “no smoking gun” establishing any connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The report was so embarrassing that we taxpayers, who paid for it, were not going to be told of its existence, even though the explosive conclusions were totally declassified, until ABC News forced its posting online. The network reported that the Pentagon had canceled plans to issue a press release or make it available by e-mail or otherwise online because, as one Pentagon official put it, the study is “too politically sensitive.” Damned right it is—Bush squandered U.S. treasure and lives in an effort that had nothing to do with the infamous attack on America. As for the real war on terror against the real al-Qaida, those folks are very much on the rebound, just where they were before the 9/11 attack, building their bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, back on the home front, Wall Street is crumbling, not because of planes crashing into buildings but because the outrageous knaves of finance, freed from the most minimal requirements of public accountability, have been permitted to destroy America’s reputation in the world for financial probity. In the name of ending what were claimed to be onerous regulations imposed after the Great Depression, this administration accelerated a bipartisan pattern of allowing Wall Street to betray investors with impunity while abandoning the federal government’s obligation, once accepted equally by conservatives and liberals, to ensure our national solvency. This tendency, under way for decades to give the bankers what they wanted—codified in the Financial Services Modernization Act, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton and which permitted banks, stock brokers and insurance companies to merge—was exacerbated by Bush’s appointment of rapacious corporate foxes to watch the corporate henhouse. They will take care of their own, which is why Bush was smiling, happily posed in that photo op between Henry Paulson Jr. and Ben Bernanke announcing the Bear Stearns bailout, made possible only by the federal government using your tax dollars to pick up the bad debt of the banks. Tape that picture to your wall to remind you, when you open a credit card bill with a 30 percent interest rate—not the 2 percent the Fed will charge banks—or see the increase in your adjustable rate mortgage, of just what your government will do for the really big guys that it will never do for regular folks. In the years to come, as millions lose their retirement income and homes, we will have occasion to remember Georgie Porgie, who kissed the taxpayers and made them cry before he ran away. Previous item: Rev. Wright on the Battlefield Next item: Obama Walks the Minefield Elsewhere: . Comments: 145 Published. Add Yours?Are you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. |
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By Eric B., April 6 at 12:44 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
America
Not only once but twice elected into office, America got what they deserved, the worst President in the history of the Country.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Shenonymous, April 6 at 3:13 pm #
(868 comments total)
Re: America
Eric B. I agree with you completely. What do you say can be done about it? Are they about to elect a man who follows George like a lap dog?
Reply to this | Report thisBy SparksFly, April 5 at 6:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I know why he is smiling. He is smiling because his agenda is working and being fulfilled. He successfully started an unnecessary war, ignored Katrina before & after she landed, created a higher drop out rate with No Child Left Behind, has circumvented the Constitution in every possible way imaginable except for the ways he hasn’t yet circumvented it, has gained total control of the sheeple who constantly fear a terrorist will target their specific subdivision even though they will more likely die of cancer or an accident instead, has gotten richer, signed legislation loosening credit restrictions to help speed up the housing crisis which along with ignoring the rising cost of fuel that is causing the rising cost of everything else, has led us into recession, and need I go on? I think not. The ultimate goal? Complete control of the resulting chaos and ownership of this country along with his fascist friends. What better way to gain that than by leading this country into the modern version of the dark ages? Call me paranoid. I don’t mind. At least I see what is coming. It saddens me that so many don’t.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Joann, April 26 at 7:52 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: Sparksfly
You are 100% correct.
Reply to this | Report thisBy steve, March 24 at 11:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I am so embarrassed. I guess i didn’t spell “propaganda” correctly. I have no idea how i could have made such a silly mistake. Maybe it’s the three jobs i am now working which keep me up day and night; which happened after losing my “real” job after being “outsourced” or “downsized” and taking a different job for less money and most importantly less benefits. But again, back to the orginal point, why shouldn’t Bush be happy; none of what has happened to me and the rest of the middle class in this country will ever happen to him or his family.
Reply to this | Report thisBy steve, March 24 at 11:09 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Mr. Bush has been a success
Of course he is smiling. Why wouldn’t he be? He has been a great success and has achieved everything he set out to do. Enrich his friends and himself. He is set financially and will enjoy a comfortable retirement. He will live in his bubble well protected on his ranch from all of us with all his secret security protection while listening to his ipod everyday which he supposedly loves so much. At least according to fox news which, I admit, i do watch from time to time for the latest proganda. Why wouldn’t he be smiling?
Reply to this | Report thisBy zeitgeist, March 23 at 6:33 pm #
(186 comments total)
Truth Is, The U.S. Is Bankrupt
A Bankrupt Superpower
The Collapse of American Power
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
...The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt. David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the US and head of the Government Accountability Office, in his December 17, 2007, report to the US Congress on the financial statements of the US government noted that “the federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007.” In everyday language, the US government cannot pass an audit.
Moreover, the GAO report pointed out that the accrued liabilities of the federal government “totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007.” No funds have been set aside against this mind boggling liability.
Just so the reader understands, $53 trillion is $53,000 billion.
Frustrated by speaking to deaf ears, Walker recently resigned as head of the Government Accountability Office....
Full Story:
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03182008.html
The excrement just hasn’t hit the, proverbial, circulating receptacle yet!
With a pocket full of gold coins, these conceited empty souls clearly betray their true desire by the words that fall from their mouths and resonate in our ears.
In the words of John McCain: F--- You!
In the words of Dick Cheney: So What!
In the words of a xenophobic god, crusader GW Bush: If you’re not with us, you’re a terrorist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
In the words of Hillary Clinton: Experience as Usual (Who loves McCain more than she does her own and to prove it, is willing to destroy the village in order to save it.)
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
Reply to this | Report thisBy Shenonymous, March 23 at 10:55 am #
(868 comments total)
A gracious handshake
Many thanks Fadel for your gracious welcome. However, that was then and this is now (to borrow a cinematic phrase). And truth must now be foremost. While there are Greeks in my heritage and for that I am grateful, I am of Italian descent in the last four generations. We bloggers often use masques for protection. I enjoy my actual ethnicity immensely. I hope telling you this does not change your perception of me as I do not think ethnicity makes the person. I do not think of you primarily as a Middle Easterner but only as a thinking man, and I can appreciate your being Muslim. I do work in education as previously stated elsewhere and I am a scholar of philosophy as described in the Hitchens forum. Based on your post here, I think you must be open-minded (after all). Italians love the olive trees as much as any Greek or Middle Easterner and for the same reasons. I will share with you what you could not know and that is I regard the intellect and philosophical mind of the Islamic cultures as close to that of the Greeks. The westerners have not really had that much education about the pursuit of wisdom in the Middle East. I am currently being tutored, in a manner of speaking, by a highly intelligent Muslim and learning, albeit slowly, but with interest about the culture and beliefs of Islam. I remain an atheist, however, who is wholly concerned about the welfare of the human race, regardless of ethnicity or culture. Although I have no religious faith, I do believe all people have worth and a right to dignity and a decent life. I have a great deal of tolerance toward people of faith. I do have a repugnance for militant and violent religion of any denomination. Religion, though, is another topic and I think discussion of it is best reserved for other forums.
In this discussion I am concerned with the view of this worst president in the history of this country’s legacy which is in my view as negative as a legacy can be. His leadership, if it could even qualify to be called that, has led this country into the worst economic state it has ever been in, even when there was a great depression in the 1930s, and it will take generations to repair. There is not one thing that could be said as good about this presidency. The Bush War, which I have called it since the first day of the preemptive strike in Iraq, has been the most evil of acts in which this country has ever engaged. There is no legacy except one of iniquitous calamity.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Hammo, March 23 at 7:43 am #
(364 comments total)
What is frightening about the legacy of failure (and death and destruction) of the Bush-Cheney administration, is that they may attack Iran as their final task in office.
The recent “resignation” of Adm. William Fallon seems to be an indication that this is a possibility.
More on this in the articles:
“Will Bush, Cheney Attack Iran? When and Why?”
Truthout.org
02 February 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020207A.shtml
- - -
“Military Draft Needed for War With Iran and Syria?”
Truthout.org
20 September 2006
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6 4/22754
Reply to this | Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, March 23 at 7:21 am #
(355 comments total)
By Shenonymous, March 22 at 6:49 am #
Offering an olive branch to you Fadel, after our enmity of the past, I surprise myself at how much I agree with you these days. Perhaps we are not adversaries as much as might have been thought?
================================
Welcome back Shenonymous! I am glad that you have been reading my short and sporadic comments on Truthdig and that you have found we are not adversaries as much as might have been thought.
Thank you especially for offering an olive branch; it means a lot to me. Olives, olive oils and olive trees mean a lot to people who were born and lived around the Mediterranean basin. Since you come from Greek ancestry, you know these things. When I was doing my undergraduate work in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1960’s, I had many Greek friends and, in fact, my first love was a Greek girl. The point in stating this is that normal Muslims are as open-minded as they can come. Our disagreements in the past were centered around faith: you were strong advocate of atheism and I was an advocate of faith and its values. In this connection, I want to share with you a piece of information that most likely you do not know. Muslims highly valued Greek philosophy and thought to the point that Aristotle has earned among the Muslim philosophers the honorific title of “The First Teacher.” I consider myself a student of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates as I consider myself a student of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. And there is no contradiction in that.
I hope that your open-mindedness will expand to include more tolerance toward people of faith.
Cheers and all the best!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Punk Rock Republican, March 23 at 3:57 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
You Puritans are all the same.
The President smiles. You’re all still being kept awake at night because you’re worried that somewhere, somebody is having a good time.
Reply to this | Report thisBy msgmi, March 22 at 1:13 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
GW’s legacy is historically unprecedented...no historical figure has been as consistent as GW...truly a remarkable record...as an oil businessman he was a failure...as governor, he presided over more capital punishment executions than any other governor...as president, need more be said...national security, the economy, and the American people are facing unpresidented tests. Long live the the omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent King whose legacy will be remebered forever.
Reply to this | Report thisBy JimBob, March 22 at 11:12 am #
(65 comments total)
"Suggests" a disconnect??
I’ve said it before. Bush was put in place to enrich a certain very thin stratum of the world’s population and he’s done it. All the things we consider “disastrous” and “tragic” he doesn’t give two shites about. So sure, he’s grinning. He can’t wait to get out of this job and start basking in the gratitude of those he’s enriched. What a great retirement. Does he care what you or I think? Not one whit, he’ll be insulated from us and our opinion of him forever. Gnash your teeth all you want, he’s won the game as far as he’s concerned. We really should stop talking about what an idiot he is and move on to how we’re going to get back some of what we’ve lost on his watch.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Bill Blackolive, March 22 at 10:20 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
today I caught up at patriotsquestion9/11, found Scheer
Hokay, one thousand howling at patriotsquestion 9/11, militariy men, Sharon Stone and beautiful people, engineers the largest category, firemen bothering Michael Moorer, this is enough to bust on into corporate television already and save our country. But, hurry.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Shenonymous, March 22 at 8:05 am #
(868 comments total)
Intent here outweighs precision
Maani, thank you once again for correcting me. I found the figures in my last post on this topic online. Apparently I do not know how to verify what is found electronically. But a good explanation of how the budget/surplus/deficit works can be found at:
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheNationalDe bt.html
Also at http://budget.house.gov/
is information on the facts of the debt and the budget
I will presume the information from the House might be accurate relatively speaking?
The current US Debt today March 22 is: $9,393,587,213,977.10 over $9 trillion.
Your share of the national debt: $30,931.98
So for a famiy of 4.3 that is $133,007.51 owed for the national debt.
I am not confusing the debt with the budget. The budget as per the House website “invests in proven programs to boost economic growth, provides fiscally responsible tax relief and help for struggling families, and provides the resources to make America safer.”
To see the distinction between debt and deficit, please navigate to
http://www.federalbudget.com/
When Congress has to borrow money to pay for the US expenditures (appropriations), then the interest has to be paid. The total borrowed is more than $9,000,000,000,000 and growing. Again, the debt is seen at over $9 trillion. I think that is a negative???? Right???? So if there was a surplus when Clinton left office of $3 trillion, I believe that is a positive???? then the net loss is $12 trillion since the 3 trillion is gone and an added 9 trillion even more gone???? Is my logic off again? I’m sure if it is you will graciously correct me. Thank you ahead of time.
While I have the absolute figures wrong, I have the intent of my comments right. Each and everyone of us, including our children and babies, will have to pay for George W. Bush’s huge fiasco as president.
Reply to this | Hide 3 replies | Report thisBy cyrena, March 22 at 7:16 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re: Intent here outweighs precision
Thanks for the figures Shenon…
I’ve never heard a more tortured logic response than the below from Maani. No doubt he’ll beat his record though.
After all of this research on the money, he’s decided that it doesn’t matter who the next president is, because they are ‘bound to disappoint’.
Maani, you could fuck up a wet dream.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Maani, March 24 at 5:41 am #
(1254 comments total)
Re: Re: Intent here outweighs precision
Cyrena:
“I’ve never heard a more tortured logic response than the below from Maani.”
Idealism is a good, noble, even critical thing. However, “realism” is never “tortured logic.”
The REALITY is that whoever becomes the next president is almost certainly going to have to spend the next four years just cleaning up the mess Bush left behind, and will have little time or ability to make (much less implement) any bold, new gestures or policies (though I suppose any good policy to undo various aspects of the Bush regime could be seen as “bold"). And since the economic portion of that mess is SO bad (and getting worse), it is likely, as I note, that either OBama or Clinton would “disappoint” in this regard, because, sadly, most people do NOT understand the “realism” of the situation and think that all it will take is a policy here and a policy there, a nip and a tuck, and the economic problems will begin to self-correct. Poppycock.
Re “Maani, you could fuck up a wet dream,” as I noted to Louise, that is EXACTLY my goal: getting the Obamamaniacs here to wake up from their wet dream of Obama to see the realities.
Peace.
Report thisBy Maani, March 22 at 11:06 am #
(1254 comments total)
Re: Intent here outweighs precision
Shenonymous:
“While I have the absolute figures wrong, I have the intent of my comments right. Each and everyone of us, including our children and babies, will have to pay for George W. Bush’s huge fiasco as president.”
No argument here. And this is why it almost doesn’t matter whether Hillary or Obama is the next president: WHOEVER it is is going to have to deal with this, and I don’t envy them. And since it is highly unlikely that EITHER of them will make any significant dent in this problem, WHOEVER is the next president is almost certain to disappoint.
Indeed, if Hillary is president and is unable to deal with the economy to a significant degree, the Hillary-bashers here will say, “See?” And vice versa if Obama becomes president and ends up having the same problem.
And, of course, no matter WHICH one ends up in this position, the GOP will have all the fodder it needs in 2012 to say, “See? The Democrats have been unable to do anything about the economy.”
BOTH candidates are essentially “damned if they and damned if they don’t.”
Peace.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Shenonymous, March 22 at 6:49 am #
(868 comments total)
Not as far apart as once thought
Offering an olive branch to you Fadel, after our enmity of the past, I surprise myself at how much I agree with you these days. Perhaps we are not adversaries as much as might have been thought? I hope this is true. I especially appreciate your renaming this article “Bush’s Legacy of Evil.” The only problem I have with your argument is that I believe it is not simply Bush’s deliberate intention of evil, it is his coterie, his cohorts who have the intentions, and he is merely their instrument to carry them out. I also think these evils need to be spelled out over and over and over again lest anyone forget when they put their pen to ballot in November. For instance, the Bush War for oil in Iraq that could not have been waged without the assistance of his cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court. The only ideas that Tolstoy had, in my estimation, had to do with his model of how colonialism such as Napoleon waged against Russia, and elsewhere by extension, could not have been engaged without those others who supported the military campaign. That Napoleon solely could not have done what he did, that others were more culpable. The same here with Bush. Evil by association, to be sure, but all of the evil factions need to be exposed and exposed often
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy cyrena, March 22 at 9:11 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re: Not as far apart as once thought
Shenon
In your conversations with Fadel, you are right on my efforts to put this authoritarian state stuff with the Cheney operation. Indeed, we know that George Bush is evil, but I’ve said many times, that he could never have pulled this off on his own.
An excellent article by WR Pitt, gets us back to where it all began, (with Dick Cheney) and it’s been a long time in the making.
The article, entitled “Why?” is at the link below.“Politics is the art of controlling your environment”
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031908R.shtml
I should also use another quote from Dick Cheney that dates back to the Florida recount of 2000:
• “. Dick Cheney was up front with Bush campaign minions during the 2000 Florida recount, “Just get control of the Oval Office ... it doesn’t matter how ... just do it.” Machiavelli could not have said it better himself.”
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030608A.shtml
From there, we can consider some comments from Nabih yesterday, when he was annoyed that the NeoCon operation had been referenced as a ‘movement’ in the article about the Rise and Fall of the Neocons. He was understandably annoyed because he (and most of us) view a “movement” as a mass of people behind a common cause.
However, in the sense of the Neocon movement, we can also compare it to the ‘movements’ of Nazism and Communism. Both were intended as GLOBAL DOMINATION of their fundamental ideologies. Both of these movements, (totalitarian in nature) were undertaken by basically a relatively small group that enabled. (No larger in number than the US Congress, Courts, CIA, Pentagon, etc)
Both of these movements depended on destabilization, and maintaining that chaos. They used terror, propaganda, secrecy, and the duplication of government offices/agencies/the bureaucracy. Both were totally inefficient economically speaking. I mean they wasted tons of money. Above all, chaos was the name of the game. ANY stability, even if it was in a totally new form of stability, such as a new set of laws, or a new order of government, could not be allowed. People will adjust to that. Rather, INSTABILITY had to reign.
I suspect that is as much the point of the neocon operation as it has been in the past, for other totalitarian movements with global aspirations.
The “plan” on Iraq
• “We can only conclude that following the occupation, the US had no intention of rebuilding Iraq and indeed as I’ve pointed out, the US is on record as saying that it’s not in the business of ‘nation-building’, so, what is the ‘Plan’?”
• “Iraq is unlike earlier wars of aggression waged by the West. The intention is not to acquire land or even markets (in the accepted sense of the word), nor is it a strategic acquisition designed to block an enemy state. Even the oil is not in and of itself an objective, for as events have shown, the oil is worth even more underground than it is by having it in circulation. Moreover, denying access to the oil by the US’s major competitors, gains a strategic economic advantage for US capital.
• “..even more importantly, the creation of a ‘failed state’ destabilizes the region which weakens opposition to imperial plans and as we have witnessed, it also creates the pre-conditions for extending the ‘area of instability’ Eastward.”
• “The objective here is to foment dissent and create instability in the country or region and as with Iran, actually strengthen the hand of reactionary forces within the country. We’ve seen it in Cuba for decades, for how can a country which has been blockaded and under constant threat of invasion and subversion develop normally? But then this is the entire point, countries like Cuba and Venezuela have to be shown to the rest of the world to be failures, there can be no successful alternative to capitalism.”
Rumors of War, Destabilization is Name of Game
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m42274&hd;=&size=1&l=e
More when I’m done.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, March 22 at 6:31 am #
(355 comments total)
Of course, any reasonable and informed citizen would agree and relate to all what Robert Scheer talks about in this article. However, to entitle the piece as “Bush’s Legacy of Failure” is a mild way of putting it, which, in fact, humanizes Bush since we are all bound to fail even when we have the best intentions to succeed. However, in the case of Bush, it’s all deliberate evil. Therefore, the piece would have been more appropriately entitled as “Bush’s Legacy of Evil.”
Reply to this | Report thisBy Bill Blackolive, March 21 at 10:09 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
B. Scheer and S. Ritter are informed and brave and scared but without declaring the 9/ll coverup there is no beginning to any change from ugly road to fascism. 9/ll really ought to be seen as a gift, a way to shock our most indoctrinated on Earth. Yes, then who, Muslims, Koreans, ignorance from fear. That is different from our fixed ignorance from brainwashed vanity. S. Korean cousins been in touch with N. Korean cousins all along, naturally, same souls Earthwide. Shock the US poor devils into questioning authority. Go to patriotsquestion9/11. for courage.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy cyrena, March 23 at 12:00 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re:
Bill Blackolive,
You are correct here. There can be no resolution until we’ve addressed the truth of the mechanism that was utilized to begin the road to fascism.
I will revisit the site, (patriots question) because it’s been a while, and I’m sure that there are updates, as more people gain more courage.
My very huge concern is now and always has been, the fact that most of the concrete evidence needed to access the truth of those events has long since been destroyed. That doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t use what we DO have, in the form of our own witness or testimony to the truth.
Thanks..
Reply to this | Report thisBy Shenonymous, March 21 at 5:42 am #
(868 comments total)
Avoiding the black hole of nothingness
Whether Bill Clinton is the best president of modern times or not would obviously be an idle debate depending on one’s entrenched political position. The point is that America did have, factually, a surplus in the nation’s coffers of thee trillion ($3,000,000,000,000.00), that is the number 3 in terms of dollars with 12 zeros after it before a decimal sign. Now there is a minus 12 trillion dollars, that is a negative $12,000,000,000,000.00. In effect that is a $15,000,000,000,000.00 or fifteen trillion dollars deficit. In as much as we have roughly about 600 million people in this country, that is about $50,000.00 for each and every person, man, woman and child that is owed to pay off the debts. For a average family of 2.3 children (as per Oxford Journals), that is 4.3 x $50,000.00, that is in the neighborhood of $215,000.00 they owe to pay off the debt. Americans like to put dollar signs on everything, homes, cars, love relationships, politics, religions, literally everything, so putting the legacy of George W. Bush in the dollar perspective, we can see that we have certainly lost just about everything we have, except maybe the air we breathe and even that has lost a lot of quality.
While using the game of chess is a classic analogy, this is no game folks, the picture is even more bleak when we consider the prospects of a John McCain continuing the practices that the Republican party George W. Bush has forced on us. You cannot believe even for a nanosecond that McCain would not continue those policies. Even if he mouths a slightly different scenario, you and I know he lies. He is now the target to be evaporated. Or you will reap more of the same and you will deserve it, as Expat so often and rightly says. The game is avoiding fallng into the abysmal abyss, again!
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Maani, March 22 at 7:02 am #
(1254 comments total)
Re: Avoiding the black hole of nothingness
Shenonymous:
You are confusing two things: the budget and the national debt.
Re the budget, Clinton left office having created the largest budget surplus in history. The amount is disputed, but runs from $127 billion on the low side to $559 billion on the high side. The number I have seen most often is ~$250 billion, though a number of economists put it at closer to $400 billion.
By 2004, GWB was running a budget deficit of $319 billion, and by 2005, it was $521 billion.
Re the national debt, Clinton had paid down more of it than any president in history, and was on track to pay down the entire debt by 2012. When Clinton left office, the national debt was around $4.5 trillion. However, GWB has doubled it, and the current national debt is now a touch under $10 trillion.
Under Clinton, the national debt decreased each year of his presidency, going from 70% to 60% of GDP. Under GWB, the debt is increasing at the rate of $1.5 billion per DAY.
Peace.
Reply to this | Report thisBy bdogmania, March 21 at 1:21 am #
(45 comments total)
How Bush Lost The War on Terror-
If we just do the math then it is obvious G.W. Bush lost the war on terror just like the presidents before him lost the war on drugs.
Reply to this | Report thisTerrorism is a crime, the group Al Quida was like the mafia but a bit more organized with 66 offices world wide. When 911 happened Bin Ladin’s traders were shorting the market in an insider trade deal like never before in our history and they got away with it. Right wingers like to blame this on the best president in modern times Bill Clinton, but we all know who to blame!
When the unqualified Bush bunch took over the White House after the stolen election they didn’t even want to converse with the out going Clinton administration including the heads of Intel who would have warned them of the serious threat Bin Ladin was posing, they were more interested in the three trillion dollar surpluses Clinton passed on to them and squandering it.
The prof is in the pudding, here is the pupping people:
1.the three trillion dollars is now (minus -12 trillion)
2.the Bill of Rights which defined our great nation is now a defiled document with red ink
3. we are not safer when safety organsations are constantly able to sneak weapons across T.S.A check points, and really the ports are not secure when in essence all a terrorist has to do is get a vechical packed with explosives near a port or send one through customs. Also there is huge hole in our boarder and there are over 20 million people here illegally and you only need 19 to make a 911
4.The war Al Quida declared on the U.S.A. for supporting Her friend Israel had two primary objectives; fear, and also they wanted to see our economy destroyed.
5.Fear-they got to the point that heat crimes were committed against the wrong ethnic groups, thousands were detained with out a trial and still missing; so much for the Bill of Rights went missing.
6.With the housing collapse, this unbearably high price for oil not only did they ruin our economy they made a fortune doing so as they profit from record oil prices; like Bush Alquida has vested interests in the price of oil. If Bush cared about us he would have already tapped into our oil reserves we only import 30%.
7.Bin Ladin is still alive and telling the world how doesn’t like cartons about Mohammed. Also Iran the more logical target for the war since they are know to be a state sponsors of terrorism have a leader running the country, the criminal who orchestrated the 80’s hostage crisis.
8.The fact that G-bay and all the secret prisons and torture became the way of the day also is disgraceful behavior Bin Ladin made Bush and others sink to hence losing the moral war.
9.In short Bin Ladin is just a better chess player then Bush, New Orleans is still under construction and to them this is an act of Allah, so one more for the score board
10. the amount of our troops killed and injured is more prof of how Bush lost, I won’t even mention the civilian deaths
Need I say more! I am sure i missed some of his other blunders but i have a heart--------------------------------------------------- Bush President (grade F-)
http://www.bdogmania.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ27h6cDgYg
By Outraged, March 20 at 11:03 pm #
(865 comments total)
New news about Clinton, or maybe not. I don’t know how either of these stories got by one of us but here’s excerpts and links. You may have heard some of this before, but I haven’t heard it quite like this.
Mother Jones 2007
“She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as “to the right of the John Birchers"), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley’s Young Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era’s radicalism, Clinton wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn’t believe that one could be “a mind conservative and a heart liberal.”
“Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.”
Also from MJ: “The Fellowship’s long-term goal is “a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit.” According to the Fellowship’s archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship’s God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators.”
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillar ys-prayer-2.html
The Nation, 3-08
“The Family’s most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes--knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolf Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs.”
cont. The Nation:
“Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton.”
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich
This might explain why Clinton’s supporters are so often “right-wingers” and possibly why Maani calls himself a pastor. You might want to take the time to read through these articles. Things are beginning to fall into place… I told you see was a Republican! And not the nice kind either.... (Geez..I love to say I told you so. LOL) Could this be why “those” Republicans are voting for her....?
Reply to this | Hide 5 replies | Report thisBy Maani, March 22 at 6:25 am #
(1254 comments total)
Re:
Outraged:
This is straight out of the Obama tit-for-tat playbook.
The Family (and the Fellowship) are bipartisan; there is nothing “nefarious” or “sinister” about a Democrat learning and praying with (ohmigod!) Republicans. Hillary has not been a member of the Family for 20 years, and has not attended nearly as many of the “services” of the Family as Obama has at Trinity. She was not married by David Coe. Her child was not baptized by David Coe. David Coe is not her “spiritual advisor.” She does not consider David Coe “family” the way Obama does Rev. Wright.
There is ZERO similarity here. Stop grasping at straws.
Peace.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Outraged, March 22 at 11:44 am #
(865 comments total)
Re: Maani
I didn’t claim that there was SIMILARITY between this and Obama’s preacher. I think this is MUCH, MUCH MORE CATACLYSMIC as it is a cultish, secretive group steeped in fundamentalism.
I have never found Mother Jones or The Nation to “make up” articles or to embellish. So your nonchalant perspective of this matter is without merit. The BOOK is due to be released in May, we’ll see then.
“Jeff Sharlet’s shocking exposé The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.” The Nation.
Report thisBy zeitgeist, March 21 at 8:45 pm #
(186 comments total)
Re:
Thanks!
I’ve seen Hillary’s ‘Young Republicans’ connection, but the ‘National Prayer Breakfast’ club is quite interesting and new to me. I wonder if this will arouse any traction?
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
Reply to this | Report thisBy Expat, March 21 at 2:42 am #
(826 comments total)
Hm, "if" this is true it would.........
^ actually make a kind of perverse sense. I’ve long had doubts that it really makes any difference which party is in control. When we get too pissed off at one of them “they” agree to hand off the “baton” for a term or two. It resembles an ongoing rape; each taking their turn. Hm?
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, March 21 at 12:07 am #
(4023 comments total)
Re:
THANKS Outraged!!
You’re right that it did get by us. ALTHOUGH...I did have a news letter (from Alternet) in my email box that hinted at something like this, at least from the title..."Is Hillary a Fundamentalist?”
So, as soon as I started reading your post, the ‘connectors’ fired up. And, I followed it through to the article, which sourced the Mother Jones piece as well. (So, it repeats some of the same, and adds a few others as well).
Hillary’s Ties to Religious Fundamentalists
By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted March 20, 2008.
“When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, Hillary Clinton is a lot more vulnerable than Barack Obama.”
http://www.alternet.org/election08/80248/
For me at least, most of this information was new. I WAS aware that she’d been a Goldwater Girl early on. (I think before she hooked up with Bill). But then she switched over to the Democrat side. This is what I mean by ‘affiliations’ not always meaning so much, especially political ones. I mean, what does it really mean, (at least these days) to call oneself ANY particular ‘political party’? In all fairness, the current regime in republican clothing has given the original group a bad name. They aren’t just ‘Republicans’, they’re RADICAL repuglicans. Now I’m certainly not suggesting that Hillary is, but I have always suggested that she was a standard repug ‘lite’ despite the banner of the Democrat party.
Meantime, my eye caught yet another article that hit on my own most sensitive ‘nerve’, even more than this revelation of her fundamentalist history.
I’m getting really, really, sick of all of the distortions. This piece shares my disgust with it all.
Hillary Clinton’s Campaign IEDs (Insinuations, Exaggerations and Distortions)
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted March 17, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/election08/79869/
Whatever neutrally-based respect I may have ever had for her has totally reversed itself as I’ve watched her campaign (and she’s done it as well) stoop to the swamp-level cheating.
One might think Karl Rove was running her show.
Speaking of which...thanks for the link to the Cheney stuff. I followed it through to the Think Progress site, which I hadn’t visited in quite a long time.
Reply to this | Report thisBy GW=MCHammered, March 20 at 10:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
America of our dreams
America today is about two letters: G & H.
Greed and Hate.
Get mine. Fuck you.
We were the world-envy once because we could see so much more. They watched because we strived for the America of our dreams.
So don’t imagine what might happen “if I try.” See what happens when you “just do try.”
Nations are built on dreams followed by actions.
Reply to this | Report thisBy cindy graffam, March 20 at 7:36 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
bush
Yeah, but if you look carefully you can see the American flag on his lapel.
I immediately felt better, and will now pay my 31% (!) interest on my credit cards with a smile.
Reply to this | Report thisBy lornejl, March 20 at 6:26 pm #
(7 comments total)
like a nice enough site, but nobody is here, what a shame.
Reply to this | Hide 3 replies | Report thisBy cyrena, March 20 at 10:43 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re:
How does it seem like a ‘nice enough site’ if nobody is here?
Reply to this | Report thisBy lornejl, March 20 at 6:30 pm #
(7 comments total)
Re:
“This seems” was my comment title, I get it now.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy Expat, March 21 at 5:20 am #
(826 comments total)
Sure there is, come on in............
^ the waters fine. You’ll be complimented, flamed, insulted, ridiculed, find friends and generally find out how you’re perceived. You get to practice your opinionating and develop your style.
Report thisBy Marnie, March 20 at 12:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Too Right!
I have, as many have, pointed out that the Repocons, like any good crime family - take care of their own.
And he will have SS protection for life.
He will die fat, rich, and happy. And probably overseas somewhere.
Reply to this | Hide 1 reply | Report thisBy cyrena, March 21 at 5:36 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re:
Paraguay...that’s his escape destination.
Cheney’s...Dubai.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Solon, March 20 at 10:18 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Here’s something to consider… Bush & Co. have no intention of leaving the White House.
A “terrorist disaster” happens.
Elections suspended for the “good of the country and national security.”
Invasion into Iran to catch the “evil doers.”
Doomsday for the Republic.
May your chains weigh lightly upon you, for chained you will be.
Reply to this | Report thisBy STORMY7, March 20 at 8:43 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
BUSH
THAT IS THE SMILING FACE OF PURE EVIL. EVERYONE IN THIS ADMINISTRATION SMILES THAT WAY.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Relaxed Willy, March 20 at 8:18 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Sing Along
The Rules Don’t Apply to You
How did it start?
Who taught your tender heart such a primitive view:
That you’re entitled, whatever you do,
And rules don’t apply to you?
You don’t need laws, you don’t need science,
You don’t need reason or truth.
Stubborn and reckless, you do as you choose.
Rules don’t apply to you.
Katrina, Iraq, the debt on our backs -
See all the damage you’ve done.
Secrets and lies cannot disguise
All of your failures our country is bleeding from.
How can it end while you pretend
Your failed illusions are true?
You smear your critics and fake-up the news;
Rules don’t apply to you.
Katrina, Iraq, the debt on our backs -
See all the damage you’ve done.
Secrets and lies cannot disguise
All of your failures our country is bleeding from.
Full speed ahead. Don’t mind the poor, the dead -
Hey they ain’t nothin’ to you.
Just serve yourself and the privileged few.
Rules don’t apply to you.
Full speed ahead. Don’t mind the poor, maimed, or dead -
Your party approves!
It’s not exactly what Jesus would do,
But rules don’t apply to you.
Laws don’t apply to you.
Science don’t apply to you.
Facts don’t apply to you.
Reason don’t apply to you.
Ethics don’t apply to you.
Constitution don’t apply to you.
I said, Constitution don’t apply to you.
The rules have never applied...to you.
©2006 Miracle Horse Music/Heaven on Earth Music
Reply to this | Report thisBy Relaxed Willy, March 20 at 8:10 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
A Song in Celebration of the Bush Presidency
http://www.myspace.com/relaxedwilly
Reply to this | Report thisBy Outraged, March 20 at 7:37 am #
(865 comments total)
Maybe this is why Bush is smiling and Cheney said, “So” when asked about the American peoples condemnation of the war.
“On May 9, 2007 President George Bush reasserted the role of the Federal government during a declared emergency by issuing Executive Order NSPD 51/ HSPD-20. The Order states that in the event of a ‘catastrophic emergency’ all ‘national essential functions’ may be taken over by the Executive branch of government and the Department of Homeland Security (including FEMA).”
“In January of 2007 the American Civil Liberties Union released a report based on documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act suit showing that the Pentagon had monitored at least “186 anti-military protests in the United States and collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in an anti-terrorist threat database.”
“For some time FEMA has been renovating and constructing new detention camps throughout the country. In January 2006 Haliburton subsidiary KBR announced that it had been awarded an “indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity contract to construct detention facilities for the Department of Homeland Security worth a maximum of $385 million over 5 years.”
“A current estimate of the number of detainment camps is over 800 located in all regions of the United States with varying maximum capacities. [27] If one includes government buildings currently used for other purposes the number is far greater.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va& aid=7763
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-hvPJPTi4
Reply to this | Hide 5 replies | Report thisBy cyrena, March 20 at 5:24 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re:
Ok, I ditto the response from Shenonymous, having just watched the video, and read the article from global research.
The thing (video) gave me the equivalent of severe shock. (goosebumps magnified 3 billion times)
We’ve been hearing of these camps, and of course the skeptics want to blow it all off as ‘conspiracy theories’.
No doubt the same thing was occurring in 1930’s Germany. Or were people simply ignoring it, as in keeping their heads down, as folks were carted away?
Conspiracy theories? I think not.
Outraged, thanks for the research…
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, March 20 at 3:34 pm #
(4023 comments total)
Re:
Outraged (or anybody)..
I missed wherever Cheney said ‘SO’ when asked about the American disapproval of the war. Liza mentioned the same thing in an earlier post, and if someone has the link to it, (so I can cite it) I’d be most grateful.
Thanks…
Reply to this | Hide 2 replies | Report thisBy Outraged, March 21 at 12:37 am #
(865 comments total)
Re: Cyrena
BTW, just watch the video enough times. Until it doesn’t give you goosebumps. Watch it until it makes you angry. The anger subsides quickly with