Conventional wisdom holds that George W. Bush's
foreign policy failed because the president -- who famously called
himself "the decider" -- is too, well, decisive. Bush's reckless,
impulsive decision to invade Iraq, the argument goes, opened the door.
There's a lot to this assessment. But you can't
fully comprehend the Bush record without understanding another Bush
problem: a chronic failure to reach decisions or implement those that
are made. On one key issue after another, from the Middle East to North
Korea to the Department of Homeland Security, Bush has proven himself
to be a dawdler, a foot-dragger who can't make fundamental choices or
press his team to follow his commands. Call him the non-decider.
There's a lot to this assessment. But you can't fully comprehend the
Bush record without understanding another Bush problem: a chronic
failure to reach decisions or implement those that are made. On one key
issue after another, from the Middle East to North Korea to the
Department of Homeland Security, Bush has proven himself to be a
dawdler, a foot-dragger who can't make fundamental choices or press his
team to follow his commands. Call him the non-decider.
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether the president may order that people
picked up in the United States be detained indefinitely and without
criminal charges.
The court is undertaking a fresh review of the Bush administration's
aggressive use of preventive detention for suspected terrorists. The
administration asserts that the president has the authority to order
the military to detain anyone suspected of being an al-Qaida member.
On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
musicians are uniting against the use of music to torture by joining www.ZeroDB.org The Zero dB project (zero decibels = silence) was launched today by
legal charity Reprieve which represents over 30 prisoners in Guantanamo
Bay. Many of Reprieve’s clients - and hundreds more held in US secret
prisons across the world - have been subjected to deafening music
played for hours, days and often months on end in order to ‘break’ them.
The New York Times offered a strong critique of one of George W. Bush's exit interviews -- and Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley has just issued his protestations.
The tribunals used for putting suspects on trial at Guantanamo Bay
are a "stain on America's military", a former military prosecutor has
told the BBC in his first interview since resigning.
Before the odor of burned gunpowder has left the air of the Taj
Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the US is lecturing India not to go off
half-cocked and attack Pakistan, simply because all of the attackers in
the terrorist assaults in that city arrived by boat, apparently from
neighboring Pakistan. US officials, including Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, are calling on India to engage in a “transparent” and
“thorough” investigation into the attacks to establish who was
responsible.
How different this is from the American government’s response to the 9-11 attacks in the US!
Barack Obama should act from the moment of his inauguration to restore a U.S. image
battered by allegations of torturing terrorism suspects, said a group
of retired military leaders planning to press their case with the
president-elect's transition team on Wednesday.
Personal information detailing intimate aspects of the lives of every
British citizen is to be handed over to government agencies under
sweeping new powers. The measure, which will give ministers the right
to allow all public bodies to exchange sensitive data with each other,
is expected to be rushed through Parliament in a Bill to be published
tomorrow.
The Bush administration on Tuesday will try to convince a federal judge
to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation's
telecoms, which are accused of transmitting Americans' private
communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.
A growing body of investigative reporting and memoirs by Bush White
House insiders-turned-dissenters suggests that most of the
administration's most controversial national security decisions -- on
wiretapping, the Iraq War, and renditions -- originated in the Office
of the Vice President, hashed out by Cheney, vice presidential counsel
David Addington, and aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Cheney's papers are
the Amazon rain forest of Bush administration records: they are of
immense importance to the big picture, and there is a real risk that
they will be lost before we know exactly what's in there. If there is
one overarching priority between now and January 20, it is to surround
Cheney's office with every possible legal barrier to removing so much
as a Post-it Note from the premises.
Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming
American democracy. The second step must be indicting ex-president
George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many
criminal acts and putting him in prison. Forget revenge. Think rule of
law and justice.
Barack Obama's selection of Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services
Secretary, as well as "health reform czar," signals that the incoming
president is serious about passing comprehensive healthcare reform. Over at the think tank Cato, Michael Cannon warns that blocking any such legislation is vital for the GOP's survival.
We should be ashamed of how poorly we have treated President Bush.
That, believe it or not, is the thesis of a bizarre opinion
published the day after the election in The Wall Street Journal by one
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, described as an investigative reporter, a lawyer
and a former intern for, of all people, John Kerry.
Over and over the Bush administration has been caught engaging in illegal domestic propaganda. To generate public support for the invasion of Iraq, they paid retired military officers to repeat administration talking points as pundits on TV. They paid newspaper columnists to parrot administration policy positions. They distributed free fake "news reports" to local TV and radio stations. All of it covert domestic propaganda, all of it patently illegal however much the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel doth protest.
Now we learn of another element in this propaganda machine. A program manager at a right-wing talk radio station in Milwaukee, Dan Shelley, reveals that the Bush White House sent out propaganda daily to talk radio contacts. That's entirely and sadly predictable, as well as illegal.
The president of the nation's largest general science organization
yesterday sharply criticized recent cases of Bush administration
political appointees gaining permanent federal jobs with responsibility
for making or administering scientific policies, saying the result
would be "to leave wreckage behind."
At the time it was delivered, Bush's acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention
in Philadelphia was an arrogant, deceitful broadside against the
Clinton/Gore years. But the very words Bush used to tar Al Gore with
the blight of the Lewinsky scandal may now constitute the epitaph for
the Bush presidency:
"So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to
not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor
and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God."
That hateful address, of course, was filled with exactly the kind of lies and taunts - the smallness - that came to define George W. Bush.
One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".
Yesterday we flagged a Washington Post report
about the "burrowing" of Bush administration political appointees into
career jobs at various departments -- most prominently Interior --
where it will be difficult for the incoming Obama administration to
dislodge them.
Just over two years into George W. Bush’s presidency, The American Prospect featured Bush on its cover under the headline, "The Most Dangerous President Ever."
At the time, some probably thought it a bit over the top. But nearly
six years later, it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the
multifaceted burden that will soon be lifted from our collective
shoulders.
During his victory speech,
President-elect Barack Obama told the world that "if this financial
crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall
Street while Main Street suffers."
It seems Wall Street didn't get the memo. All nine banks about
to get a total equity capital injection of $125 billion, courtesy of
phase one of the bailout plan, reserved $108 billion during 2008 in
order to pay for compensation and bonuses (.pdf). Guess who'll end up footing the bill?
People the world over are marking Barack Obama’s victory as an end to
the eight-year-long Bush nightmare. But their sky-high expectations may
clash with the reality of Obama’s foreign policy.
The failure of the administration of
George W. Bush — and the accompanying crisis of the
Republican Party — has caused a political meltdown of
historic proportions. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of
September 11th, Bush enjoyed the greatest popularity ever recorded
for a modern American president. Republicans on Capitol Hill, under
the iron rule of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, fattened their
coffers through a fearsome operation overseen by corporate
lobbyists and GOP henchmen that functioned more like an empire than
an old-fashioned political machine. "Republican hegemony," the
prominent conservative commentator Fred Barnes rejoiced in 2004,
"is now expected to last for years, maybe decades."
Perhaps the hardest question, at least in the short run, is how a state that so overwhelmingly supported Obama
for president, that on the same ballot supported more spacious quarters
for chickens and abortion rights for teenagers, could vote for an
initiative that is a cruel slap in the face to our gay friends and
relatives. In the 21st century, we look beyond race but get stuck at
sexual orientation.
After 9/11, George Bush told the nation to spend, and during a time of
war, that's what the nation did. It borrowed at unprecedented levels so
as to not only pay for its war on terror in the Middle East (calculated
to cost $4 trillion) but also pay for tax cuts at the very time it
should have increased taxes. Bush removed the reserve requirements in
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from 10% to 2.5%. They were free to not
only lend even more at bargain basement interest rates, they only
needed a fraction of reserves. Soon banks lent thirty times asset
value. It was, as one economist put it, an 'orgy of excess'.
It was the best con game in town: get paid well for selling vast
amounts of risk, fail, and then have governments fix the problem at the
expense of the taxpayers who never saw a penny of shared wealth to
begin with.
While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.
Early plans to create a giant "Big Brother" database holding
information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in
the UK were last night condemned by the Government's own terrorism
watchdog.
The Bush administration explicitly endorsed the use of waterboarding
and other harsh interrogation methods against al Qaeda suspects in a
pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004, The Washington Post
reported on Wednesday.
Wayne Slater has known Karl Rove for 20
years. As the author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George
W. Bush Presidential, he's not easily shocked by the
Republican strategist's Gila-monstroid tactics. But even he's been
blown away by Rove's latest political comeback.
U.S. economist Paul Krugman, a fierce critic of the Bush administration
for policies that he argues led to the current financial crisis, won
the 2008 Nobel prize for economics on Monday.
A professor at Princeton University, the 55-year-old Krugman argues
that President George W. Bush's zeal for deregulation and loose fiscal
policies helped spark the current banking meltdown.
The 53 men and women wrongly classified by the Maryland State Police
as terrorists include two Catholic nuns, a Democratic candidate for
Congress, a man who campaigns against military recruiting at high
schools and one person who has never set foot in the state.
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence
officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been
eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according
to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant
National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.
A U.S. military officer warned
Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly
insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a
U.S. military brig in South Carolina , according to documents obtained
by The Associated Press.
IT IS HARD to believe how far this republic has fallen since President
George W. Bush took office. Eight years ago, the United States had a
budget surplus, peace and prosperity reigned, and America was
universally respected. True, Bill Clinton had besmirched the office of
the presidency by his self-indulgence. In his memoir, he would put down
his dalliance with a White House intern to the worst of all possible
motives. He did it because he could. But that pales in comparison to
what Bush has done to the country. LINK BostonGlobe.com...October 7, 2008
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george bush herbert hoover
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NEW YORK, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers has hired Jeb
Bush, brother of the President of the United States, as an
advisor to its private equity business, a source familiar with
the situation said.
Lehman hired another relative of U.S. President George W.
Bush last year--George Walker, a second cousin, who heads up
the bank's asset management business.
Jeb Bush is the former governor of Florida.
Lehman Brothers declined to comment.
...
Before the total melt down of our financial markets this week, way
back in May of 2008, the Texas Observer recounted the progression of
events that led to the “shadow banking system” that is about to screw
the taxpayers into $700 Billion of corporate welfare, while we still
don’t approve of helping ourselves.
Reading the complete article will show you how we got into this
mess. Reading the end of this post, will tell you how we can get out of
this mess.
The chief author of this mess, John McCain’s campaign adviser, Phil Gramm. The whole article is well worth a look:
Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only
hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page
government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later
call “a stunning departure from normal legislative practice,” the
Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas
Sen. Phil Gramm.
There was little debate on the floor. According to the Congressional
Record, Gramm promised that the amendment—also known as the Commodity
Futures Modernization Act—along with other landmark legislation he had
authored, would usher in a new era for the U.S. financial services
industry.
“The work of this Congress will be seen as a watershed where we
turned away from an outmoded Depression-era approach to financial
regulation and adopted a framework that will position our financial
services industry to be world leaders into the new century,” Gramm said.
Enron should have been the wake-up call, but, of course, since our
political process is so polluted with lobbyists money, Congress has
conveniently looked the other way while keeping their hands out for
table scraps of the pillaging of the American financial system.
This November, you have a choice to choose the course of our country- to go with a top Harvard scholar, Barack Obama, or a man who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis John McCain. Their choices of Vice Presidential candidates also vary as much, the Harvard man picking a seasoned politician who at one point challenged his credentials, and the other picking a beauty queen who went to five different colleges
to earn a degree in broadcast journalism. If you are wondering how
loopholes as big as this entered our system, one only has to look at
the caliber of our elected leaders. We’re getting exactly what we
should expect as long as we keep voting for candidates based on things
like skin color, stands on hot button issues like abortion and gun
control- which are often used as a distraction while we’re robbed blind.
There is a reason there are only four members of Congress who aren’t millionaires. Us.
You are about to let your legislators put our country forever in the
hole to save the asses of people who’ve never cared one iota for your
welfare. You’ve been relegated to life as a cash cow- to be milked for
all you’ve got, so they can get rich and powerful, while we stuggle.
Until we fix campaign finance- taking the money out of politics, the
Phil Gramms of this country will continue to get rich, while screwing
you, your kids, your grandkids and their grandkids into trillions of
dollars of debt.
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Financial crisis? What financial crisis?
Less than two weeks after Uncle Sam gave American International Group (AIG) an $85 billion loan - staving off financial collapse - execs from one of its insurance subsidiaries, AIG American General, gathered for a conference at the uber-swank St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, billed as “California’s only Mobil Travel Guide Five-Star Resort,” where ocean-view rooms start at $565 a night and “world class luxury” is the rule.
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security will proceed with the
first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even
though an independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured
the program will comply with privacy laws.
Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage
boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by
far the largest bank failure in American history.
Regulators simultaneously gifted brokered an emergency sale of virtually all of Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan, to JP Morgan Chase for $1.9 billion, averting another potentially huge taxpayer bill for the rescue of a failing institution.
Customers of WaMu, based in Seattle, are unlikely to be affected, although shareholders and some bondholders had their money stolen by the federal government will be wiped out.
But the seizure and the deal with JPMorgan came as a shock to
Washington Mutual’s board, which was kept completely in the dark: the
company’s new chief executive, Alan H. Fishman,
was in midair, flying from New York to Seattle at the time the deal was
finally brokered, according to people briefed on the situation. Mr.
Fishman, who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible
for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5
million signing bonus, according to an analysis by James F. Reda and
Associates.
washington mutual wamu stock bank closure fdic cartoon
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It was brief, just two minutes. His brow was furrowed, and his words
were careful: "The American people can be sure we will continue to act
to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor
confidence." Then, having imparted no specifics, he once again slipped
out of sight.
In the increasingly surreal world of the White House, the appearance
was a sign that all pretense of normalcy is gone. All week long, with
Wall Street engulfed by what analysts are calling the worst financial
crisis since the Great Depression, President George W. Bush had mostly
stayed out of sight, except when trying to maintain the façade of
business as usual.
What does Christianity, 9-11, and the Federal Reserve have in common? Watch the film below and find out.
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wall st meltdown stock market bailout
wall street bailout socialism
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phil gramm deregulation wall street st. credit crises
Not a dime of public money is provided for over-extended
mortgage-owners trying to stay in their homes. Not one congressman or
senator at Thursday's meeting rejected the bailout plan or called for a
criminal investigation to establish whether laws were broken in the
sale of fraudulent securities which have clogged the global system;
pushed banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and homeowners into
default, and precipitated the greatest financial crisis in the nation's
230 year history.
Ironically, the very people who created this
mess, are the ones who will decide how to resolve it; the Federal
Reserve and the US Treasury. Where else, but Washington would such
massive failure be rewarded with more power and authority.
The
investment giants and the Federal Reserve are entirely responsible for
the current meltdown. Currency deregulation brought foreign capital
flooding into the equities and bond markets while the real economy
suffered. Businesses were off-shored while good paying manufacturing
jobs were moved overseas. Wall Street gorged itself on foreign capital
while America was transformed into a nation of construction workers and
service industry workers. Now those jobs are vanishing by the millions
and unemployment lines are swelling.
In 1933, a few years following the stock market crash, Congress passes
the Glass-Steagall Act, in hopes that regulating banks will help
prevent market instability, particularly amongst Wall Street banks. The
purpose of the act is to separate commercial banks that focus on
consumers from investment banks, which deal with speculative trading
and mergers.
In 1999, former Senator Phil Gramm (who is, incidentally, Senator John
McCain's economic adviser and cochairs his presidential campaign) set
out to completely gut the Glass-Steagall Act, and did so successfully,
replacing most of its components with the new Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act:
allowing commercial banks, investment banks, and insurers to merge
(which would have violated antitrust laws under Glass-Steagall). Sen.
Gramm was the driving force behind the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, as he
had received over $4.6 million from the FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance
and Real Estate donations) over the previous decade, and once the Act
passed, an influx of "megamergers" took place among banks and insurance
and securities companies, as if they had been eagerly awaiting the
passage of Gramm's Act. Everything in between Glass-Steagall and
Gramm-Leach-Bliley (i.e. Savings and Loan crisis/bust) was, in large
part, the incubation period for what would take place over the nine
years that would follow the passage of Gramm's Act: an experiment in
deregulation. LINK...InjuryBoard.com June 24, 2008
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A FUN WEBSITE EVEN IF YOU DON'T BUY ANYTHING!
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The use of torture by the US Government in the aftermath of the
terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 has come under
increasing criticism. The US Justice Department declared treatment only amounted to
torture if it intentionally resulted in pain equivalent to serious
injury, organ failure or death. Some are now questioning whether the officials who authorised these techniques may be open to being charged with war crimes.
A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the FBI to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion
The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an
investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private
records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for
suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected
to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity,
national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities."
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