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    Arrest Karl Rove

    Arrest Karl Rove

    Wednesday, January 30, 2008

    Bush Jr- The Dark Side

    Bush Jr.'s Skeleton Closet

    Picture of Bush, Jr.
    George Bush likes to present himself as a straight-talking, regular guy. But it's an act -- regular guys don't go to Andover Prep, Yale and Harvard Business School, and straight-talking guys don't pretend to be regular guys after growing up in one of the most privileged homes in world history. Not only was Bush's dad president, his grandpa was a U.S. Senator and wealthy Wall Street banker, and his mom's blueblood family owned (among other things) the estate in Maine that Bush still hangs out at.

    Now, as Bush's regular guy act is wearing thin, some of his other deceptions are becoming more obvious.

    Click on the allegation of your choice:

    -- His top aides exposed an undercover CIA agent to silence critics

    -- Lies, deception and coverups to push the war in Iraq

    -- Convicted of drunk driving. Lied repeatedly to cover up his arrest.

    -- Lying under oath. Bush & staff stop investigation of contributor's huge funeral home company.

    -- Avoided Vietnam and Skipped Out on his National Guard Service

    -- Texas government corruption: State $$ for campaign funders & business cronies

    -- Cocaine: felony drug use, vile hypocrisy, and a hushed up arrest?

    -- His "young and irresponsible" behavior: sex, drugs and (gasp!) rock and roll?

    -- Thin skinned: censors his critics with police, lawyers, $$$

    -- Character: Spoiled rich kid living off his family's name and reputation

    -- Made millions on insider business deals, for little work
    -- -- Deal #1. Personal Profits from Failing Oil Companies
    -- -- -- -- Easy Money From Odd Sources
    -- -- -- -- A Surprise Deal From Bahrain
    -- -- -- -- Access to the President and National Security Adviser for his foreign business partner
    -- -- Deal #2. Selling Oil Stocks Just Before Iraq Invaded: lucky guess or illegal insider trading?
    -- -- Deal #3. A Big Slice of a Baseball Team
    -- -- -- -- Hypocrisy: using government coercion to make his private fortune

    -- Quotes

    -- Sources

    Tuesday, January 29, 2008

    Traitors? | AfterDowningStreet.org

    Traitors?

    Cindy Sheehan

    By Cindy Sheehan

    “America is a nation without a distinct criminal class; with the possible exception of Congress"
    Samuel “Mark Twain” Clemens

    Today, November 6th, Dennis Kucinich exercised a Congressional privilege and introduced his bill, H Res 333 on the House floor to impeach Vice-Criminal Richard V. Cheney. Some people question the timing of introducing the resolution today. Was it just motivated by the proximity to the Iowa Caucuses? Is Dennis actually concerned with our Constitution and preventing a seeming impending attack on Iran? Either way, a resolution to impeach any, or all, of BushCo has been long overdue and was supported by many of the progressive base which is clamoring for peace and accountability.

    As soon as the resolution was introduced, House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer (D-Md) made a motion to “table” or kill the resolution. The vote to do so was supposed to last for fifteen minutes, but lasted for over an hour as the vote, which was at first 3 to 1 to kill the resolution, started tipping the other direction as repugs started to switch their votes from the “yea” to the “nay” column (not because they are finally growing some true patriotism, but because they almost always cynically use political manipulation). From the first, the Democrats overwhelmingly voted to kill the resolution, following their treasonous leadership who are boldly asserting that parts of our Constitution dealing with impeachment; spying on Americans without warrants; and incarcerating Americans without due process or torturing human beings are no longer valid. BushCo and Pelosi/Hoyer’s Congress, Inc have rewritten the Constitution with the blood of almost 4,000 Americans and over one million innocent Iraqis.

    After Hoyer’s obedient move to kill the resolution was unsuccessful, he immediately made a motion to send the bill to Congressman John Conyers’ (D-Mi) House Judiciary Committee. That motion passed with most Democrats voting “yea.” So more than likely, Dennis’ motion of today can languish in committee along with the one that he introduced straight to committee seven months ago. Yesterday Rep. Conyers’ defended the Speaker’s traitorous demolishing of the Constitution by saying: “If she (Pelosi) were to let this thing (Justice, maybe?) out of the box, considering the number of legislative issues we have pending…it could create a split that could affect our productivity for the rest of the 110th Congress.” Well, with the 110th Congress’ past “production” of pissing off Turkey and giving George billions of more dollars to continue the deadly (2007 worst year for deaths in Iraq) occupations while legitimizing George’s crimes, affecting their “productivity” might be a good thing.

    Deposed House Majority Leader, Tom Delay is a criminal that used his position as Leader as a personal financial windfall for his family and his contributors. Tom Delay was forced to step down as Majority Leader as a slew of scandals rocked his office and the affects are still being felt in other members of Congress. Nancy Pelosi’s selection as Speaker was groundbreaking, and way past time, as the first female Speaker, but she has been, not only a failure but a disaster to democracy. She admitted it herself last week when she said she would give Congress low ratings, too. She acts like she is a helpless player in this national order of things. If only the world wasn’t filled with “Senators and Republicans,” then she would be able to do her job! If the world wasn’t filled with Senators, House Reps, Dems and Repugs, my son would still be alive and I would still be a working Mom in Vacaville, Ca. We often have to work or make do with a set of circumstances that are not ideal, but that should not prevent us from doing our jobs with integrity and courage. It shouldn’t prevent us from being effective, but when it comes to Congress, Inc, it mostly always does.

    Even though I am once again disappointed (but not surprised) by the antics of the House of Representatives today, I have never been in favor of impeaching Darth Cheney, only. In fact, Dennis told me a few days before he introduced H Res 333 that he was going to do so. Dennis and others have argued that if we impeach George first, then Dick will be president. Well, who doesn’t believe that Dick hasn’t been president for the last nearly seven years anyway? If Dick is impeached first, then George will appoint a new V.P. that could be just as bad, if not worse, and we all know that Congress will immediately roll over and approve George’s choice (with a few token “grumbles”). I have always been in favor of impeaching them both, simultaneously, but I am not so sure anymore. If George and Dick are impeached, then someone who is as much of a tool of the corporate establishment, Nancy Pelosi would become our president for the final months of an already catastrophic failure.

    The entire bunch of co-conspirators with BushCo, that some people call the “Democratic Leadership” need to be removed from their positions of power in the House. Particularly, Nancy and Steny need to make way for some leaders who will represent the progressive base and not abuse our commitment, passion, and organizations any longer.

    There are a few things that we can attempt to keep Dennis’ dream (and ours) alive:

    Contribute to Dennis’ presidential campaign. Yesterday, Republican candidate, Ron Paul raised over four million in one day: giving his candidacy a profound shot in the arm. Show Dennis some support and love by donating to him. He put himself in front of both sides of the aisle and that takes a certain amount of integrity and courage.

    Contact Congressman John Conyers to urge him to now do his duty to investigate the charges in H Res 333 by holding hearings and actually enforcing subpoenas.

    Call other members of the House Judiciary Committee.

    Call Congressman Jerry Nadler whose sub-committee has been using H Res 333 as seat cushions for seven months.

    Support my candidacy and other independent, progressive candidacies. If there is no good candidate in your district, run yourself, or search for one to encourage and support.

    No matter how corrupt, calculating, callous and contrary Congress seems, never give up! The establishment would love for us to go away and be silent so it can continue its raping and pillaging of everything that is important to us.

    We are awake now, and we must never go to sleep again.

    "People before Politics"
    Support Cindy for Congress!
    www.CindyforCongress.org

    Judiciary Committee should move to impeach Bush and Cheney

    MichaelMoore.com : Judiciary Committee should move to impeach Bush and Cheney

    Monday, January 28th, 2008
    Judiciary Committee should move to impeach Bush and Cheney

    By Elizabeth Holtzman for the Philadelphia Inquirer

    served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1973 to 1981

    Since mid-December, members of the House Judiciary Committee Robert Wexler (D., Fla.), Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.) have called for hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Cheney.

    This should not be surprising, given the strength of the case for impeachment. What's surprising is that it took so long for members of this committee, normally tasked with holding impeachment proceedings, to call for them.

    They face huge political resistance on Capitol Hill. But they aren't alone. Other Democratic members are joining them. Former senator and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern recently published an op-ed demanding impeachment proceedings for both Bush and Cheney. Bruce Fein, a Republican who served in the Reagan Justice Department, and many other constitutional scholars also argue for impeachment.

    There is more than ample justification for impeachment. The Constitution specifies the grounds as treason, bribery or "high crimes and misdemeanors," a term that means "great and dangerous offenses that subvert the Constitution." As the House Judiciary Committee determined during Watergate, impeachment is warranted when a president puts himself above the law and gravely abuses power.

    Have Bush and Cheney done that?

    Yes. With the vice president's participation, President Bush repeatedly violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court approval for presidential wiretaps. Former President Richard Nixon's illegal wiretapping was one of the offenses that led to his impeachment. FISA was enacted precisely to avoid such abuses by future presidents.

    Bush and Cheney were involved in detainee abuse, flouting federal criminal statutes (the War Crimes Act of 1996 and the anti-torture Act) and the Geneva Conventions. The president removed Geneva protections from al-Qaeda and the Taliban, setting the abuse in motion, and may have even personally authorized them.

    The president and vice president also used deception to drive us into the Iraq war, claiming Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were in cahoots, when they knew better. They invoked the specter of a nuclear attack on the United States, alleging Hussein purchased uranium in Niger and wanted aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment, when they had every reason to know these claims were phony or at least seriously questioned within the administration. Withholding and distorting facts usurps Congress' constitutional powers to decide on going to war.

    Can a commander-in-chief disobey laws on wiretapping or torture to protect the country in wartime?

    No. The Constitution requires the president to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Supreme Court ruled Harry S. Truman could not seize steel mills to prevent a strike, even during the Korean War. Nixon's claim of national security as a justification for illegal wiretaps was also rejected in impeachment proceedings against him.

    What then is the justification for taking impeachment "off the table"? Congressional leaders don't defend the administration, nor do they contend that its actions are unimpeachable or less serious than Nixon's. Instead they argue there is no time, or that impeachment proceedings would distract the Congress from other work, or divide the country. The subtext seems to be fear that impeachment could undermine Democratic election prospects in 2008.

    But even these "pragmatic" arguments are wrong. Let's take them one at a time:

    Insufficient time. In the case of Nixon, the House officially instructed the Judiciary Committee to act in early February 1974. The committee finished voting on articles of impeachment July 29, less than six months later. No presidential impeachment proceeding had taken place for almost 100 years, so the committee had to start from scratch, analyzing the Constitution and developing procedures for the impeachment inquiry. Now that the relevant legal spade work is done and a road map for proper impeachment proceedings exists, Congress might conduct them even faster than in 1974.

    Distraction. During Watergate, the impeachment inquiry didn't prevent Congress from getting its work done. In fact, the House Judiciary Committee also worked on other matters during impeachment, just as the Senate did during its impeachment trial of former President Bill Clinton.

    Divisiveness. True, President Clinton's impeachment was a highly partisan process that divided the country - because most Americans didn't support it. They believed his conduct was reprehensible, but not an impeachable offense. Impeachment therefore had negative repercussions for the Republicans who instigated it.

    Nixon's impeachment united the American people. The process was bipartisan, demonstrating this wasn't just a Democratic ploy to undo an election. The fairness of the process, the seriousness of purpose, the substantial evidence - all gave the public confidence that justice had been done. This reinvigorated the shared value that the rule of law and preservation of democracy are more important than any president or party.

    This value is again asserting itself in grassroots impeachment movements across America. The Vermont Senate, several state Democratic parties, and many municipal governments have adopted resolutions supporting impeachment. More state legislatures would have acted except for pressure from Washington. Many polls show a majority of Americans support impeaching Cheney (a Nov. 13 American Research Group poll says 70 percent of Americans believe he abused his office), and slightly less than a majority support impeaching Bush.

    Stonewalling such widespread public sentiment is itself divisive, leading at least half the country to feel their concerns about upholding the Constitution are being ignored. Only a serious airing of evidence in hearings would heal the split.

    Undermining election prospects. When the impeachment process began, Nixon had just been reelected in one of the largest landslides in history. Few, if any, worried about whether impeachment was a political winner for Congress or the Democrats. Public opinion simply forced Congress' hand when Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. After the Judiciary Committee conducted impartial hearings and voted on impeachment, Congress' approval ratings soared. Republicans were swamped in the November 1974 elections.

    Whether or not they bring electoral rewards in 2008, impeachment proceedings are the right thing to do. They will help curb the serious abuses of this administration, and send a strong message to future administrations that no president or vice president is above the law.

    Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman (eholtzman@herrick.com) served on the House Judiciary Committee during proceedings toward Nixon's impeachment. She coauthored the 1973 special-prosecutor statute, and cowrote (with Cynthia L. Cooper) the 2006 book "The Impeachment of George W. Bush."

    last speech: The Man Who Learned Too Little

    January 29th, 2008 2:53 am
    The Man Who Learned Too Little

    In his final State of the Union, Bush makes more empty promises.

    By Fred Kaplan / Slate

    The sad thing about President George W. Bush's eighth and final State of the Union address is that he seems to have learned so little about the crises in which he's immersed his nation so deeply.

    His first words on foreign policy in tonight's address reprised the theme of previous addresses: "We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace." He cited, as "stirring" examples of this principle, the "images" of citizens demanding independence in Ukraine and Lebanon, of Afghans emerging from the Taliban's tyranny, of "jubilant Iraqis holding up ink-stained fingers" to celebrate free elections.

    One waited for the president to invoke the lamentable flip side of these images, the retreats and retrenchments that followed (perhaps the "challenges" ahead?)—but he didn't. Is he still living in the dream world of the spring of 2004? It's a pleasant world, but it had gone up in smoke by that summer. If we were truly serious about promoting freedom, it would be useful to explore the lessons of those hopes as they were not only stirred but then crushed. As with his previous State of the Union addresses, this was not seen as a time to face reality.

    The president, once more, depicted the complex conflicts of our time as one-dimensional struggles between the forces of light and darkness. In the war on terror, he proclaimed, "there is one thing we and our enemies agree on: In the long run, men and women who are free to determine their own destinies will reject terror and refuse to live in tyranny. That is why the terrorists are fighting to deny this choice to people in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Territories."

    The question comes to mind, as it has come to mind in all of these speeches when Bush recites this argument: Does he believe what he's saying? Does he believe that the violent battles for power in these lands really come down to freedom vs. tyranny? If so, no wonder this government has had such a hard time getting a handle on these dangers, much less trying to engage them.

    He went on, "And that is why, for the security of America and the peace of the world, we are spreading the hope of freedom." Has he ever wondered why so few people in the world—not least those he aspires to help—see us that way? It is a horrible shame, a dreadful legacy of this administration, that the majority of people in so many once-allied (or at least not-unfriendly) nations, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, regard America as a bigger threat than Iran and Osama Bin Laden. To think seriously about why these views exist, to address the perception in a serious way, doesn't mean accepting their validity. Not to think seriously about this question is to perpetuate our bad image and diminish our real security.

    Maybe the president believes that saying something makes it close to true. (Some of his former aides have told me they suspect this is the case.) For instance, toward the end of the address, he said that protecting the nation's security "requires changing the conditions that breed resentment and allow extremists to prey on despair. So America is using its influence to build a freer, more hopeful, and more compassionate world." The first sentence is true, the second encouraging. What's his follow-up—what are some examples of America using its influence to this end? "America is opposing genocide in Sudan," he said. (That's nice. What are we doing?) "And supporting freedom in countries from Cuba and Zimbabwe to Belarus and Burma," he added, without saying how we're doing that or in what way any of those countries is central in the war on terrorism.

    "In the Holy Land … we have new cause for hope," the president said. His evidence: "Palestinians have elected a president who recognizes that confronting terror is essential to achieving a state where his people can live in dignity and at peace with Israel." He did not mention the election of a parliament whose leaders believe otherwise. (This is not to suggest that the Fatah president's views are worth nothing; but failing to acknowledge the Hamas-led parliament—which was also installed in power by free elections—glosses over the real complexities of the "popular will" in territories or countries without democratic institutions.)

    On Iraq, Bush had some genuinely good news to tell, but he overstated it and distorted its implications. The past few months have witnessed a dramatic decline in casualties (civilian and military, Iraqi and American). The "surge"—which Bush ordered into effect nearly a year ago, in the face of much skepticism—is indisputably one cause of these trends. But it is just one cause, and the effects being celebrated, salutary as they are, are not the effects that were intended.

    Certainly the additional 25,000 troops that the surge has brought to a few areas of Iraq—along with Gen. David Petraeus' more aggressive strategy of using them (putting troops out on the streets instead of retreating to the superbases)—have increased security in the areas they've been able to occupy.

    However, much of the reduced violence is related to the "alliances of convenience" between U.S. forces and Sunni insurgents against the common enemy of al-Qaida in Iraq. These alliances were initiated by the Sunnis and antedate the surge. There is also the matter of Muqtada Sadr's moratorium on violence (which, in fairness, might be due in part to the surge). And there is the simple fact that U.S. forces are paying insurgency groups not to attack them (a wise use of money, until it runs out).

    More to the point, Gen. Petraeus said at the beginning that there is no strictly military victory to be had in Iraq; that the point of the surge was to provide "breathing space" to Iraq's political leaders, so that, amid improved security in Baghdad, they might settle their sectarian disputes. This political settlement does not appear to be happening; the political objectives of the surge are not being met.

    President Bush said the proof of our strategy's success is that "more than 20,000 of our troops are coming home." (The congressional crowd went wild with applause.) These are the 20,000 troops that were sent over as part of the surge. The simple fact is that, by the summer, the 15-month deployment tours of the last of these surge brigades will have run out. There are no brigades ready to replace them. So, they will come home—and this would have been the case, no matter what had happened in the past year. The surge has always been short-term; that's why they called it a surge.

    As for the prospect of future withdrawals, Bush said, "Any further drawdown of U.S. troops will be based on conditions in Iraq and the recommendations of our commanders." He added, "Gen. Petraeus has warned that too fast a drawdown could result in the disintegration of the Iraqi security forces, al-Qaida in Iraq regaining lost ground, a marked increase in violence."

    Don't bet on any more troops coming home for good before Christmas. And if a reduction from 160,000 to 140,000 puts the situation back on the precipice, below which further cuts trigger disaster, then the situation cannot be considered at all stable.

    "America is a force for hope in the world because we are a compassionate people," he said toward the end of his address. We know this to be true, at least in principle. It will take another president to demonstrate it.

    Monday, January 28, 2008

    Bad Samaritans




    BAD SAMARITANS

    Chalmers Johnson on Bad Samaritans: "Ha-Joon Chang is a Cambridge economist who specializes in the abject poverty of the Third World and its people, groups, nations, and empires, and their doctrines that are responsible for this condition.

    His new book is a discursive, well-written account of what he calls the 'Bad Samaritans', 'people in the rich countries who preach free markets and free trade to the poor countries in order to capture larger shares of the latter's markets and preempt the emergence of possible competitors. They are saying 'do as we say, not as we did' and act as Bad Samaritans, taking advantage of others who are in trouble'.

    He is frankly contemptuous of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's best-seller 'The Lexus and the Olive Tree' (2000) and its argument that Toyota's Lexus automobile represents the rich world brought about by neoliberal economics whereas the olive tree stands for the static world of no or low economic growth. The fact is that had the Japanese government followed the free-trade economists back in the early 1960s, there would have been no Lexus. Toyota today would be, at best, a junior partner to some Western car manufacturer or, worse, have been wiped out.

    In Chang's conception, there are two kinds of Bad Samaritans. There are the genuine, powerful 'ladder-kickers' working in the 'unholy trinity' of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Then there are the 'ideologues - those who believe in Bad Samaritan policies because they think those policies are 'right', not because they personally benefit from them much, if at all.' Both groups adhere to a doctrine they call 'neoliberalism'. It became the dominant economic model of the English-speaking world in the 1970s and prevails at the present time. Neoliberalism (sometimes called the 'Washington Consensus') is a rerun of what economists suffering from 'historical amnesia' believe were the key characteristics of the international economy in the golden age of liberalism (1870-1913).

    Thomas Friedman calls this complex of policies the 'Golden Straitjacket', the wearing of which, no matter how uncomfortable, is allegedly the only route to economic success. The complex includes privatizing state-owned enterprises, maintaining low inflation, shrinking the size of the state bureaucracy, balancing the national budget, liberalizing trade, deregulating foreign investment, making the currency freely convertible, reducing corruption, and privatizing pensions. It is called neoliberalism because of its acceptance of rich-country monopolies over intellectual property rights (patents, copyrights, etc.), the granting to a country's central bank of a monopoly to issue bank notes, and its assertion that political democracy is conducive to economic growth, none of which were parts of classical liberalism. The Golden Straitjacket is what the unholy trinity tries to force on poor countries. It is the doctrinal orthodoxy taught in all mainstream academic economics departments and for which numerous Nobel prizes in economics have been awarded.

    In addition to being an economist, Ha-Joon Chang is a historian and an empiricist (as distinct from a deductive theorist working from what are stipulated to be laws of economic behavior). He notes that the histories of today's rich countries contradict virtually all the Golden Straitjacket dicta, many of which are logically a result rather than a cause of economic growth (for example, trade liberalization). His basic conclusion:
    'Practically all of today's developed countries, including Britain and the US, the supposed homes of the free market and free trade, have become rich on the basis of policy recipes that go against neo-liberal economics.' All of today's rich countries used protection and subsidies to encourage their manufacturing industries, and they discriminated powerfully against foreign investors. All such policies are anathema in today's economic orthodoxy and are now severely restricted by multilateral treaties, like the WTO agreements, and proscribed by aid donors and international financial organizations, particularly the IMF and the World Bank."

    Neoliberals know exactly what they are after, and know exactly how it will affect millions of people. We have seen it in practice by Pinochet and it is essentially a form of corporate fascism. Neoliberals are the organizers of global poverty. Low wages mean high profits for them. However, they forget one thing, and that is that it is the spending power of the nation that keeps the economy going. Even Bush realized that:
    AP: "The success of the federal $150 billion emergency economic stimulus plan will hinge on whether American consumers do what they do best - spend, spend, spend.
    The stimulus has been debated in Washington for more than a week as the economic outlook worsened, and now Americans are armed with specifics: Individuals will get up to $600, working couples $1,200 and those with children $300 more per child."
    A naked neoliberalism cannot but end in a global revolution. Neoliberalism is a new form of global colonialism in which sovereign nations no longer exist and corporate totalitarians decide on all issues.

    Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine shows exactly what it is all about. Watch a short film.
    11:43:30 AM

    George W. Bush, Warlord | News From Babylon

    George W. Bush, Warlord | News From Babylon


    George W. Bush, Warlord

    by Ted Rall
    December 12th, 2002

    A Presidential Impostor Turns Political Assassin

    NEW YORK--First he appointed himself President. Now George W. Bush has declared himself God.

    As Americans begin their third year of Supreme Court-ordered political occupation, Bush has just signed an impressive new executive order. You may be surprised to learn that it grants him the right to order your execution. No judge, jury or lawyer. No chance to prove your innocence. One stroke of Bush's pen, and bang--you're dead. Not even your American citizenship, according to Bush, will save your life if and when he decides to kill you. The only reason you're reading this right now--instead of meeting the Entity Formerly Known as God--is that neither Bush nor one of his "high-level officials" has yet signed a piece of paper declaring you an "enemy combatant." Once they do the paperwork, Administration officials assert, they have the right to murder you.

    Bush's secret assassination directive surfaced on Dec. 3, when reporters asked about the Nov. 3 Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) rub-out of alleged Al Qaeda operatives riding in a car in Yemen. Langley fired a Hellfire missile from a remote-controlled Predator drone into the vehicle, blowing up several men. The CIA (news - web sites) later discovered that an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, had inadvertently been killed in the inferno.

    "No constitutional questions are raised here," asserted National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), stretching credulity more than usual. Officials claim that a loophole in Bush's order authorizing the CIA to "covertly attack Al Qaeda all over the world" validates Derwish's murder. Since this sneaky directive makes exception neither for Americans nor American soil, these guys say, you and I have no more rights than the now-deceased, not-presumed-innocent Kamal Derwish.

    Your life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are now officially subject to George W. Bush's personal judgement--or whim.

    The war on terrorism isn't a war, it's a cheesy public service announcement, like the "war on poverty" and the "war on drugs." Like those old un-won campaigns, it involves no declaration of war, no defined enemy, no front. And like them it will gradually fade into embarrassing irrelevance. "Can you believe it?" future citizens will marvel. "People actually took this stuff seriously!" In the meantime, America's Gang of Four--Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft--have brilliantly exploited the nebulousness of nullity. Having no enemy means that anyone can be declared the enemy. Having no battleground means that the battleground is anywhere and everywhere. "The Bush Administration and Al Qaeda together have defined the entire world as a battlefield," writes the Associated Press' John J. Lumpkin.

    While the CIA has targeted U.S. citizens in the past, those killings were officially sanctioned only when the person in question was considered an immediate threat to American lives. Scott L. Silliman, director of the Duke University Center on Law, Ethics and National Security asks: "Could you put a Hellfire missile into a car in Washington, D.C. under the same theory? The answer is yes, you could."

    Never mind that anyone driving on the Beltway could just as easily be pulled over by the cops. Like the medieval lords who wielded the right of life and death over their subjects, our Texan warlord now claims the droit du seigneur over the American people.

    Under his legalized assassination mandate, Bush could theoretically declare the 2004 Democratic nominee an "enemy combatant," Hellfire his campaign bus and coast to reelection unopposed. It would be a heck of a lot easier than preparing for debates.

    Granted, it's unlikely that CIA missiles will begin raining down on Berkeley or other liberal burgs anytime soon. Killing Muslims, even those with U.S. citizenship, is one thing; offing "ordinary" Americans is another. As has been the case with previous Bushie infringements on fundamental civil rights--electronic eavesdropping, jailing people without trial or a visit by a lawyer--most citizens believe themselves safe simply by virtue of their not being terrorists.

    They may be right. They might be wrong. It's all in the hands of the executioner-in-chief now.

    (Ted Rall is editor of "Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists," an anthology of cartoons, ephemera and interviews with 21 of America's best editorial cartoonists. Ordering and review-copy information are available at nbmpub.com.)

    BAW: Study: Bush Administration Made 935 False Claims About the Iraq Threat, Al-Qaida Link

    BAW: Study: Bush Administration Made 935 False Claims About the Iraq Threat, Al-Qaida Link

    Study: Bush Administration Made 935 False Claims About the Iraq Threat, Al-Qaida Link

    Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008
    By: Douglass K. Daniel, Associated Press

    WASHINGTON - (AP) A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

    White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

    "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

    The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.



    null



    "It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

    Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

    Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

    The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

    "The cumulative effect of these false statements -- amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts -- was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

    "Some journalists -- indeed, even some entire news organizations -- have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.



    Friday, January 25, 2008

    Study: False statements preceded war

    MichaelMoore.com : Study: False statements preceded war


    anuary 23rd, 2008 1:59 pm
    Study: False statements preceded war

    By Douglass K. Daniel / Associated Press

    WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

    The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

    The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

    White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

    "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

    The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

    "It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003."

    Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

    Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

    The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.

    "The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war," the study concluded.

    "Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, 'independent' validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq," it said.

    Thursday, January 24, 2008

    Bush's Hei Cut: Awards Tax Break to Son of an Astor

    Print This Post

    by Greg Palast
    for The Guardian, Comment Is Free
    Monday, July 31, 2006

    brookeastorEast Hampton, New York – Anthony Marshall, the tabloids tell us, wouldn’t buy his elderly mother her prescribed medicine, locked her dachshunds in the pantry and refused to buy her hair dye or her favorite make-up. His mom is Brooke Astor, the ultra-rich socialite, now frail, helpless and dependent on her son.

    While others merely gossiped about this tragedy of dogs and cosmetics, George Bush acted. In a deft maneuver at the end of last week, Bush rammed through Congress a massive reduction in the inheritance tax. As a result of the tax change engineered by the White House, Marshall stands to save $9 million on the $45 million he expects to inherit from his mom.

    George W. Bush could feel Anthony’s pain. It’s not easy being a child of incredibly wealthy parents. Indeed, as the President noted, “death taxes” are supremely unfair to those who’ve earned these millions. As Mr. Bush often mentions, he himself worked long hours his whole life to be born into a rich family.

    Our President recently told the Detroit Economic Club that, in an era of government belt tightening, “Spending discipline requires difficult choices.” But this choice was easy as pie: the President chose to use our tax dollars to reduce the burden on the most deserving. And who could be more deserving than Barbara’s kids? The President himself, who stands to inherit well over $76 million from his parents, will save at least $12.7 million. Talk about family values!

    This year, the President’s budget eliminated the $255 paid to widows of social security recipients. But who needs a measly $255 when you’re going to save millions on the estate you inherit?

    Here’s how much your family will save, if your family is the Astors. Under current law, Anthony would have to pay the government 46% of his profits from his mother’s death, after the first tax-free $2 million. Now, Anthony will get the first five million tax-free and the tax rate on the rest is cut in half.

    Altogether, this reduction in inheritance taxes will cost, oh, a quarter trillion dollars over the next decade — $267 billion, to be exact. To pay for it, besides eliminating the $255 widow benefit, the President’s “difficult choices” included taking $12 million from the federal traumatic brain injury assistance program and $119 million from housing for the disabled.

    But cripples looking for a government hand-out should stop thinking selfishly. They should have more sympathy for the Menendez brothers, whose parents were worth $14 million. The tax laws in 1989 reduced the net sum each of the two boys stood to inherit to just $2 million each, giving the young men no choice but to kill their parents for the additional insurance money.

    Apparently, one of the single largest beneficiaries of the change will be Robert Durst. And now that he’s out of jail (he dis-membered his 71-year-old neighbor), the heir to the Durst real estate billions can look forward to a bonus of, I’d estimate, at least a quarter billion bucks from the US taxpayers. (With the extra Treasury treasure, Durst can look for his wife who is, uh, missing.)

    The President could have used the quarter trillion to buy every displaced family from New Orleans a one million dollar home. But, he reasoned, their kids would just end up paying estate taxes on it when their parents kicked the bucket.

    Several newspapers deplored the way Anthony treated the elderly Mrs. Astor. But, let me note, it was the Tax-and-Spend policies of Big Government that forced him to dilute his mom’s medicine. Let’s face it: until our President’s bold action to repeal death taxes, Mrs. Astor, hanging in there at 104 years of age, simply had no incentive to die.

    The National Association of Manufacturers, the key lobby for the end of estate taxes, wrote every Congressman, “Why on earth should good, honest, hard-working people” — like Durst, Marshall and the Menendez kids — have to pay taxes while other Americans just slack it?

    Until the Republicons took action this week, Americans have simply had no reason, said our president, to “accumulate wealth.” I know that in my own dad’s case, rather than become a multi-millionaire, he chose to work 65 hours a week in a furniture store, with no pension, just so my sister and I would never have to fear estate taxes.

    Congress’ vote last week would eliminate only 74% of the taxes on America’s wealthiest. Our President is not satisfied. Mr. Bush will not rest in peace until we emulate one of the only nations on the planet without any death taxes, Saudi Arabia. There, our president could point to the example of the billionaire bin Laden family, whose scion, Osama, unburdened by estate taxes, has donated his entire inheritance to “faith-based initiatives.”

    ************
    Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “ARMED MADHOUSE: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal ‘08, No Child’s Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.” Go to www.GregPalast.com.

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    Crooks and Liars � Olbermann On McClellan Revelations: Bush Was A Passively Involved “Liar In Chief”

    Crooks and Liars � Olbermann On McClellan Revelations: Bush Was A Passively Involved “Liar In Chief”


    Monday, January 21, 2008

    Bush's “Stimulus” Cash Giveaway

    Bush's “Stimulus” Cash Giveaway


    Bush's “Stimulus” Cash Giveaway
    By: atheo on: 18.01.2008 [23:11 ] (155 reads)

    By Mike Whitney
    (4706 bytes) [nc] Print



    18/01/08 "ICH" --- - The White House is now in full-panic mode. In fact, the falling stock market has the administration so worried that Bush will deliver a speech later today that will lay out the details of a “stimulus package” designed to rev-up flagging consumer spending. The desperation is palpable. Fed chairman Bernanke's appearance on Capital Hill on Thursday turned out to be a total bust. Bernanke was supposed to calm jittery investors with promises of rates cuts and easy credit. Instead, his gloomy predictions put the market into a tailspin sending the Dow Jone's down 306 points by day's end. Now it's up to Bush and Co. to pick up the pieces and try to restore confidence in Wall Street.

    Since we first reported on the proposed “stimulus package” (Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package” informationclearinghouse.info) the size of the rebates have increased dramatically. The Democratic-led Congress was only calling for $250 per taxpayer or $500 per married couple. Under the White House plan, taxpayers could receive rebates of up to $800 per individual or $1,600 per couple. The rebates will accompanied by additional cuts to the Fed Funds rate (estimated 50 basis points) which will provide more liquidity to the banking system and easier credit for consumers.

    The administration's desperate actions should remove all doubt that the main problem facing the economy is inflation. It is not. The moves are intended to forestall a deflationary spiral that is the logical corollary of 7 years of intensive neoliberal policies. Ironically, now that Bush has achieved his goal of crushing the middle class and destroying the foundation of America's consumer-based economy; he has decided to change directions and shower those same over-extended, subprime people with a $150 billion gift from the government. It makes no sense at all.

    The negotiations on the stimulus package have produced the Democrats first victory over Bush. The president has agreed “not to push for a permanent extension of his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.” Whoopee. Unfortunately, the Democrats don't seem to grasp how dire the economic predicament really is or they would have asked for much more. For example, they could have made the rebates contingent on troop withdrawals from Iraq or the closing Guantanamo Bay. But that would mean that the Dems actually knew something about the state of faltering economy, which they don't. They'd rather spend their time groveling for campaign contributions or applying tooth-whitener than following the collapse in the housing and stock markets.





    Earlier today, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson underlined the urgency of the situation on CBS's “The Early Show” saying:

    “What President Bush believes is that we've got to do something that is robust. It's going to be temporary and get money into the economy quickly. It's going to be focused on consumers, individuals, families — putting money in their pocket. And it's going to be focused on giving businesses the incentive to hire people, to create jobs."

    Can you sense the panic?

    It's funny in a way. The Bush administration has been warned repeatedly about the disastrous effects of their supply side theories. Of course, they brushed off their critics and carried on with the plundering until they hit a roadblock. Now they're running around in circles trying to find some way to stop the bleeding. Good luck.

    Remember the $2 trillion wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) that could be paid for with “unfunded” tax cuts to the rich?

    Remember the cuts to capital gains and corporate taxes that were supposed to “trickle down” to working class Americans creating more jobs and making us all more prosperous?

    Remember the low interest rates that were supposed to create Bush's “ownership society” that, in fact, generated the greatest speculative frenzy in real estate in American history?

    Remember Dick Cheney's brusque assurance that, “deficits don't matter”?

    Remember the myriad corporate giveaways, the lavish “no bid” contracts, and deregulated subprime shenanigans that were supposed to “grow the economy” and strengthen our markets?

    The system is failing because it was designed to fail. The impending economic crisis is no accident, but the predictable outcome of deeply flawed policies that are thrusting the country towards a 1930s-type catastrophe.

    Still, even disaster has its brighter side; like watching the most-reviled, least-credible President in American history try to stop a crashing market with his miserable offers of “cash rebates”.

    Delusional Bush as the US collapses under its debt load

    Delusional Bush as the US collapses under its debt load

    Delusional Bush as the US collapses under its debt load
    By: Econ on: 28.05.2006 [19:39 ] (16122 reads)
    Article image

    (5521 bytes) [nc] Print
    Delusional Bush as the US collapses under its debt load
    by Econ on 28.05.2006 17:36

    The phony 'war on terror' that the US cooked up to expand its hegemony will end just like the Cold War, the US will 'win' its way into bankruptcy.

    We are already seeing the US collasping internally as the US cannot even afford to rebuild its own damaged cities while waging war in Iraq.

    The US struggling to maintain domestic (debt) consumption while waging a war, running up huge deficits and CUTTING TAXES.

    Guns and butter is just not working this time around.

    Guns and butter as a means of propping up the collapsing US econony is no longer working as American consumers, businesses and the governement can no longer absorb any more debt necessary for US expansion.

    The rest of world is slowing getting rid of the worthless dollar, thesoource of US hegemony.

    The Cold War (guns and butter) defict (debt) spending left the US economy a hollowed-out financial shell with $9 trillion in debt and the US can't even afford the interest payments on this debt.

    US manufactuting was shifted to Japan in return for a few useless military bases to project US power.

    Now China has emerged as a new industrial power and the US can't prevail in a war with China, the US lost its proxy war with China, the Korean War, which ended in a stalemate at the DMZ.

    Take a look at Detroit and you will see the price Americans paid for a useless military base in Japan that serves no useful purpose, a city destroyed when all the car job left for Japan, Korea so that the US can build bases there.

    The US will never be able to impose its hegemony on North Korea.

    The US has had to subsist on boom and bust asset bubbles with the need to borrow $2 billion a day.

    It is clear that the US can't afford the 'war on terror'.

    Why are military bases needed in Iraq when the US can't even afford to rebuild New Orleans?

    The 'war on terror' has done more to make sure that rather than expand US hegemony is doing more to cause its rapid implosion.

    With the run up in oil prices to $75 a barrel, thanks to the ignorant jews and their ill-fated Iraq war that war ALONE will cost about $2 TRILLION, a number that does NOT include another war.

    Furthermore, as the US as been severly militarily, diplomatically, financially, economical and politically weakened in Iraq, Russia, Iran
    and Venezuela are enjoying their profit windfall re-arming themselves for the quicky approaching day that the hegemony implodes.

    With the worthless dollar, the source of US hegemony, plunging everyday and Iran and Russian starting their own oil bourses, you can already see the asymetrical way in which the rest of the world is slowing doing away with US hegemony.


    The US simply cannot invade every country to steal their natural resources on the guise of bringing them 'democracy'.

    Everywhere like Boliva, Venezuela, where the US is losing its hegemony all of a sudden these countries are sliding back on 'democracy', even though the leaders of the those countries were elected in fair elections in which the majority of their poor populations wanted their natural resources nationalized to prevent further exploitation of their resources in which they have yet to see any benefits.

    The US is going to have to live with 'democracy' (its euphisim for US imperialism and hegemony) being rolled back in all these places.

    It is only the ignorant jews in America who still speak of the US as a '1000-year benevolent empire' and with their self-serving flattery in their fanzines have convinced the moron in the Whitehouse to equate the Cold War (supposedly WWIII according to the stupid jews and their nomenclature) with the 'war on terror'.

    One just laughs at these ignorant jews with no military experience creating enemies for the US and then plotting a war. IT is no wonder their Iraq war will now cost $2 trillion, a price future American generations will pay.

    These ignorant jews often compare Bush to Churchill, the very man who instigated WWII (to prevent the rise of Germany) thinking it was going to preserve the British Empire, but instead he was the one who had to dismantle the British Empire as it crumbled from one war too many.

    Bush thought by invading Iraq and controlling the Middle East, that he was going to prevent the rise of China.

    By now the Super Imperial Army should have marched through Teheran, Damascus and Lebanon.

    Instead, the US military and its high tech junk are hiding out in heavily fortified "Green Zones" in Iraq waiting for a facing-saving way to leave Iraq without it looking like Vietnam II.

    The jewish logic here is simple, if the US 'won' the Cold War by driving itself into bankruptcy, deindustriailizing itself in the process and wasted its dwinding blood and treasure on an empire of now useless military bases, then the 'war on terror' is good idea.

    NO attention is paid to the economic costs of the Cold War, just as no attention is being paid the economic costs of the phony war on terror designed in part to prop up a collasping US economy through government deficit (debt) spending.

    It is clear that the US has reached the point of diminishing returns in which no matter how much they spend on the military, it is NOT going to reverse the US economic decline.

    The US is left to brandish his nuclear weapons as though that can reverse it economic decline.

    http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/89586

    Anti-war group says war crimes are "encouraged"

    MichaelMoore.com : Anti-war group says war crimes are "encouraged"


    January 20th, 2008 10:21 pm
    Anti-war group says war crimes are "encouraged"

    By Brian Dwyer / News 10 Now

    WATERTOWN, NY - "I was messed up in the head. It was okay for me. I laughed afterwards. We all did. It's just the way things go."

    Iraq war veteran Jon Turner said it was almost expected of him to pull the trigger on people who didn't need to die. So he did.

    "It was my decision," Turner said. "I made it. Now I have to live with the fact that I still see someone's eyes screaming at me after I shot them."

    But Turner says it wasn't his choice to be encouraged to do it from higher ranking officers. He and three other veterans speaking out Saturday at the Different Drummer Cafe in Watertown said committing war crimes is not only the way things go, but it's unofficial policy.

    "The killing of innocent civilians is policy," veteran Mike Blake said. "It's unit policy and it's Army policy. It's not official policy, but it's what's happens on the ground everyday. It's what unit commanders individually encourage."

    The group, part of the national organization called Iraq Veterans Against War are planning an event to be held in Washington, D.C. this coming March called "Winter Soldier" that will have veterans all speaking about war crimes they committed or witnessed during their tours of duty.

    "These decisions are coming from the top down," veteran Matt Howard said. "The tactics that we use. The policies that the military engages will create situations, create dynamics, create, ultimately, atrocity."

    IVAW hopes to have 100 veterans speak at the event. Once it ends, they'll document the testimony and package it for Congress.

    IVAW says it expects a number of veterans from Fort Drum to be at the event and it is hoping to get more veterans to attend and speak at the event and will help pay for any active duty soldier who wants to go and listen.

    Bush tanked the U.S. economy

    Bush tanked the U.S. economy

    By BONNIE ERBE
    GUEST COLUMNIST

    Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis. You don't know you're in one until you've been in it for at least two quarters (referring to a recession) or a year (for menopause). The question for me is not: Are we hitting a recession in 2008? It is: What has made the economy so buoyant that we didn't submerge into a recession several years ago?

    Wall Street giant and billion-dollar bank Merrill Lynch announced last week that the United States had entered a recession for the first time in 16 years. It was a controversial call denied by a chorus of economists who do not think we're there yet. But the announcement comes from the bank's chief American economist, David Rosenberg -- widely respected on Wall Street.

    The largest factor driving this country's economy into recession has been the Bush administration's profligate spending. Please read the following quote from the conservative/libertarian think tank Cato Institute's Web site:

    "George Bush is mired in a fiscal policy crisis worse than anyone could have envisioned when he entered the Oval Office ... This crisis is the resurgence of record federal deficits ... The deterioration of America's fiscal health cannot be blamed on ... pro-spending coalitions in the Democrat-controlled Congress -- although certainly some of the blame lies there. It is almost exclusively the creation of the Bush administration itself."

    Sound familiar? The article, which I edited heavily (taking out references that would have dated it immediately, such as the use of the term "Reaganomics"), is about George H.W. Bush, not George W. But it might as well have been about the son.

    Forget about the $127 billion surplus that President Clinton left the nation after he moved out of the White House or the fact that Clinton paid down hundreds of billions of dollars in federal debt. President George W. Bush has produced nothing but deficits since he's been in office. Last year's, at $163 billion, was the lowest in five years. But it probably would not have been if his trillion-dollar war in Iraq hadn't been paid for "off budget." That little budgetary trick by the administration means that cost isn't tallied in the deficit and debt figures.

    Then, of course, there's Bush's multitrillion-dollar tax cut.

    Here's a lesson Bush never learned and one that probably could have kept this country out of recession: You can't fight an expensive war AND cut taxes simultaneously without sending the U.S. economy into the tank.

    That is just what Bush has done.

    There are other contributing factors, of course. The housing bust has hurt this consumer-driven economy mightily. Americans felt richer and borrowed heavily against home equity at the height of the boom. These factors kept corporate profits and the economy growing.

    But the bust that has now followed was highly predictable. Real estate always runs in cycles. The last real-estate boom lasted an incredibly long five years. The president should not have been piling up irresponsible debt, knowing the crash would come at some point.

    Then there is oil. Prices have been high since Hurricane Katrina, more than two years ago. When you consider that early in Bush's first term oil was selling for about $25 per barrel, and we're now paying about four times that much, it's incredible that fact alone didn't drive us into recession territory much sooner.

    What has kept our economy growing these past few years? My theory is: immigration. When millions of people flood into this country with few possessions, buy homes and fill them with consumer goods, of course our consumer economy is pumped. But that artificial pump-up won't last forever. Unfortunately, the overdevelopment they prompt and the environmental degradation they create will.

    What's the solution? It won't be resolved with this guy in the White House. Cut defense spending. Use a pay-go system for all future domestic spending programs and tax cuts. Get the deficit down and bring the surplus back. And while we're at it, pay down the national debt.

    Bonnie Erbe is a TV host and writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail bonnieerbe(at)CompuServe.com.
    Soundoff

    Blame it on Bush !

    Bloomberg.com: U.S.

    Greenspan `Mess' Risks U.S. Recession, Stiglitz Says (Update4)

    By Reed V. Landberg and Paul George

    Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, said the U.S. economy risks tumbling into recession because of the ``mess'' left by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

    ``I'm very pessimistic,'' Stiglitz said in an interview in London today. ``Alan Greenspan really made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable-rate mortgages.''

    Stiglitz said there is a 50 percent chance of a recession in the U.S. and that growth will certainly slow to less than half of its 3 percent potential. A worldwide jump in credit costs following the collapse of the subprime mortgage market is choking off finance to American consumers.

    Greenspan, in a statement, defended his record and said Stiglitz's three criticisms are ``inaccurate or incomplete.''

    The U.S. home-price surge resulted mainly from the ``dramatic'' drop in rates on long-term fixed-rate mortgages, which itself resulted from the broader decline in long-term interest rates, Greenspan said. More than two dozen countries have experienced similar price surges and drops in long-term rates, Greenspan said. ``The forces driving the boom are clearly global in nature,'' he said.

    When the Fed held its main rate at 1 percent for a year starting in June 2003, the money supply expanded 5 percent, ``scarcely the tinder for a housing boom,'' said the former Fed chairman, who served from 1987 to 2006.

    Greenspan added that his 2001 tax-cut support was ``contingent'' on corresponding spending reductions and that he clarified his comment on variable-rate mortgages in remarks to the Economic Club of New York in March 2004. At that event, he said he meant to suggest that a ``narrow segment'' of customers might want an alternative to long-term mortgages.

    Longest Expansion

    During Greenspan's 18 years in charge of the Fed, the U.S. endured only two recessions, both lasting less than a year, and enjoyed the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. The collapse of the U.S. housing market has thrown a spotlight on the record debt levels that helped to fuel the boom.

    After the 2001 recession, the Fed cut its benchmark rate to a four-decade low of 1 percent. That move, along with a hands-off approach to regulation, has brought Greenspan under fire as the bursting of the housing bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis again threaten to sink the economy.

    `Hell of an Economy'

    ``He did an exceptional job,'' said Kevin Gaynor, the London-based head of economics and rates strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. ``You've got to fight the fire in front of you, not seven years later. Even now, with all of the subprime, this is a hell of an economy.''

    Greenspan, 81, said on Nov. 7 he predicts a ``less than 50- 50'' probability of a U.S. recession, reiterating previous remarks made in late October. Home prices in the world's largest economy haven't bottomed out, he said.

    ``There's a 60 percent risk of recession in the first or second quarter next year,'' Gaynor said. ``That risk is increasing with new data coming out.''

    Stiglitz, who stepped down as the World Bank's chief economist in 2000, and now works as an author and professor of economics at Columbia University in New York, estimated U.S. consumers borrowed up to $950 billion last year against the value of their homes to finance spending.

    ``That game is over,'' Stiglitz said. ``As house prices are going down, people are not going to be able to take more money. We are looking at a major slowdown. The impact of that is going to be a very major slowdown, maybe recession.''

    Faulting Bush

    He also faulted President George W. Bush for cutting taxes in 2001, widening the government's budget deficit and allowing political support for free-market trading to wane.

    ``The richest country in the world cannot live within its means,'' Stiglitz said. ``It's a real example of macro economic mismanagement. The working out of this global imbalance will cause global problems. The depth of the conviction on free markets in the United States is not very great. We have increased those subsidies, doubled them, under President Bush.''

    Lowering interest rates now will help the U.S. economy ``a little bit, not very much,'' Stiglitz said, adding that easing terms on mortgage loans would be like ``kicking the problem further down the road.''

    Bush, he said, left ``the standing of America around the world at the lowest it's been'' by refusing to sign up to the Kyoto treaty on global warming and by fighting the war in Iraq.

    ``It's so important for there to be a global agreement to curtail the use of oil, the use of carbon,'' Stiglitz said. ``The big failure is for the United States not to go along.''

    To contact the reporters on this story: Reed V. Landberg in London at landberg@bloomberg.net ; Paul George in London at paulgeorge@bloomberg.net .

    Recession Coming: Bad for Bush, Worse for the American People

    Recession Coming: Bad for Bush, Worse for the American People

    By Matthew Rothschild, January 2, 2008

    George Bush has been lucky, in one way.

    Well, he’s been lucky all his life.

    But he’s been especially lucky for the past six years to have presided over an economy that was growing.

    Of course, it wasn’t growing very strongly.

    And the fruits of that growth were not distributed equally by any means. “The increase in income inequality . . . was greater from 2003 to 2005 than over any other two-year period” in the past 25 years, according to Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. In 2005, the top 1% hoarded 18.1% of household income, up from 14.3% in 2003. During the same three years, 80% of households saw their share of the nation’s income drop.

    But at least we weren’t in a recession.

    Now it looks like a recession’s coming.

    The crisis in the housing market is spilling over into other sectors of the economy. Meanwhile, consumers, who are up to their necks in debt, didn’t bail out the economy over Christmas with more spending. And gas prices remain high.

    As a result, the odds of a recession are increasing by the day.

    “A ‘soft landing’ doesn't seem likely,” warns Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

    “Aside from the problems in the financial system and credit markets - which do not seem to have passed -- there is the problem of falling home prices. Just as the fantasy-based prices of the late 1990s stock market were much broader than a "tech bubble," this is not just a "sub-prime" problem. In fact, foreclosure rates on prime mortgages - borrowers with good credit - are now hitting the level of sub-prime borrowers three years ago. . . . Remember that this current economic recovery, now six years old, has been driven primarily by consumers borrowing on the rising value of their homes, and spending this cash. The big increase in residential construction, as well as the real estate and related sectors, also kicked in. All of these factors - plus the credit crunch - are now working in reverse.”

    For Bush, this is more bad news. His approval rating has been below freezing even while the economy was growing.

    In a recession, his approval is likely to go into the deep freeze.

    And that’s where it belongs.

    Unfortunately, lots of Americans will needlessly suffer along the way.

    Bush may lose a few percentage points in the polls. The wealthiest Americans might not make much money in the stock market. But millions of other Americans will lose their homes, their jobs, and their health insurance.

    Just as the benefits of a growing economy are unequally distributed, so too are the costs.

    Thursday, January 17, 2008

    Americans are being cheated by the Govern!

    Americans Are Being Cheated by the Govern


    What Americans get in return for the Tax Dollars:

    - No Free University

    - No Free Health care

    - Not enough Social Security

    All industrialized countries get free College Education and Free Health care

    and four paid week vacations.

    There is no prescriptions drug ads in TV

    Better Social Security (Adjusted by inflation)



    What is wrong with America?

    We are being screwed pretty bad:

    The American Middle Class is being extinguished by the Corporate Capitalist American Government:


    We need to bring Democracy back to America. We need changes in both parties and perhaps more political parties.


    We need to demand from our parties changes that will bring:

    Free College, Free Health Care, and very important :


    We need public Financed Elections. Stop the Candidates from taking money from Corporations!!!


    We need to increase taxes on the Wealthy and Corporations to pay the Trillion dollars American National Debt.

    That will be the only way to come out of the Hole America is in.!!!!!


    Reggae Rising

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