Category: White House

“George Bush Is A Genius!”

January 1, 2008
EconomyHumorIraqWhite House
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We all thought George Bush had no idea what he was doing. Little did we know he knew exactly what he was doing:

Thanks to Politics After 50 for pointing the way to this wonderful segment from the comedy of Bremner, Bird and Fortune, a satirical British television program.

Of greater concern, and not-so-funny, is an “oil revenue law that the American government is forcing down the throats of the Iraqi people, which will of course give the Americans control of most of the Iraqi oil.”

Check out HandsOffIraqiOil.org for information on that.

Iraq – Actually Twice As Bad

December 30, 2007
CongressIraqRepublicansWhite House
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Leave it to the Republicans to finally let the truth slip out.

Iraq is twice as bad as any of us thought.

For years now — yes, years — I’ve been using the National Priorities  Project as the quintessential barometer for how much the United States is spending in Iraq.  Turns out the NPP was wrong, by half.

No fault of their own.  The NPP says the United States is spending $275 million per day.  The truth is closer to $480 million per day.  That is, if you believe the Republicans.  I have the Bad Astronomer to thank for this woeful news.  Once again, he has “one-upped” the Liberal bloggers.

He cites Senator Ted Stevens in the Washington Post.  Stevens actually used the revised figures to demonstrate the need for more money.  According to Stevens:

The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism — nearly $15 billion a month — came last week from one of the Senate’s leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.

“This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month,” Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70 billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008 spending legislation to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, as well as counterterrorism activities, for the six months from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 31 of next year.

So it’s even worse than we all thought.

So, where does that leave us with the numbers?  Do we actually know how much money we’ve spent in Iraq?

Our national debt right now is estimated to be at $9.127 trillion.  We have lost 3901 American soldiers in Iraq.  At least 80,137 Iraq civilians have been killed, although some estimates put the total much higher than 100,000.  And somewhere between 23,000 and 100,000 American soldiers have been wounded in Iraq.

Are all of these numbers not related to each other?  What possible solution can we count on while many of the most prominent members of Congress are running for President?

Does anybody care about this crisis?  Or is it all just useful for the current campaigns?

Thank You, Wil Wheaton

December 27, 2007
CongressDemocratic NewsElectionsPhilosophicalWhite House
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Wil Wheaton discusses just about anything on his blog, WWdN: In Exile. The one-and-only former Wesley Crusher is a Democrat, and a smart one at that.

I’ve shared before my dissatisfaction with the Democrats in Congress, their incredible failure to lead, and everyone’s dreams of living on Pennsylvania Ave. Too many of them are infatuated with the presidency, and the new Neverending Story is the campaign. Meanwhile, Congress simply cannot lead.

Hats off to Mr. Wheaton for his clarity. I couldn’t have said it better myself:

It is outrageous that Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden are asking for our votes, but are unwilling to provide leadership now. If they won’t stand up for the principles we all hold dear when they’re trying to earn our votes, how can we expect them to do it once they’re in the White House? Leadership is doing the right thing when it’s risky and when it’s unpopular. (And how depressing is it that upholding your oath of office is risky and unpopular? How doubly depressing is it that the only people who think that — and the only people being listened to — are Joe Klein, the DLC consultants, and the rest of the pundit class?)

Well, as a complete idiot once said: Fool me once, can’t get fooled again.

Amen.

Wheaton says he is inspired by John Edwards, and likes Chris Dodd. Even my Republican friends are saying we need a Democrat in ’08. But we need one who wants to work — not one who wants the White House. Showing leadership over the past several months would have been good, instead of having wet dreams about renting out the Lincoln Bedroom.

Cheney On Fire

December 19, 2007
RepublicansWhite House
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I know, it’s too easy.

The Washington Post reports:

A two-alarm fire broke out on the White House grounds Wednesday morning, sending 1,000 federal workers scurrying for safety and damaging Vice President Dick Cheney’s ceremonial suite in the historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street from the West Wing.

Mr. Cheney was not there when the fire started about 9:15 a.m.; he and President Bush were in the White House Situation Room for an intelligence briefing. The two were informed of the blaze when they returned to the Oval Office, and later went outside together to shake the hands of firefighters who had responded.

And later:

The building’s centerpiece is the second-floor ceremonial office of the vice president, with two Belgian black marble fireplaces and wooden floors designed in a geometric pattern of mahogany, white maple and cherry. The office was used by 16 secretaries of the Navy beginning in 1879. In 1929, after a Christmas Eve fire damaged the West Wing, President Herbert Hoover moved in.

It’s too easy. Cheney was burning old CIA tapes. Cheney was incinerating files. Cheney was cleaning house, setting fire to all the “real” tapes out of Guantanamo.

The conspiracy theorist in me really believes that Dick just had someone torch the joint.  But the realist knows somewhere inside that the fire started for other reasons.

Or did it?

It’s far too easy.

What Can Boy George Say Now?

December 8, 2007
LegalPhilosophicalRepublicansWhite House
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So the President had no idea that the CIA had these torture-tapes? Really?

According to Dana Perino, the President “has no recollection” that he ever saw these tapes:

Q Thanks. On these CIA videotapes, did either the President or Vice President or Condoleezza Rice, when she was National Security Advisor, or Steve Hadley, see them before they were destroyed?

MS. PERINO: I spoke to the President, and so I will have to defer on the others. But I spoke to the President this morning about this. He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday. He was briefed by General Hayden yesterday morning. And as to the others, I’ll have to — I’ll refer you to the Vice President’s office and I’ll see if I can get the others.

Q Was there any White House involvement in approving or commenting upon their destruction?

MS. PERINO: As I said, the President has no recollection knowing about the tapes or about their destruction, and so I can’t answer the follow up.

Perino darts the question as to whether the President would support an investigation. Then, we get Good Ol’ Boy George once again. Is this President embarrassed? Is this President angry at CIA Chief General Hayden? Not Boy George:

Q Dana, is this something that you would characterize the President’s feeling about — is this something that’s sort of seen as understandable, or is this something that you’re embarrassed about?

MS. PERINO: I would say that the President supports General Hayden. General Hayden made a statement yesterday to his employees in which he said that the decision was made by the agency, it was made in consultation with the agency’s lawyers. And he said — and I quote — that “the tapes posed a serious security risk and were they ever to leak, they would permit identification of your CIA colleagues who had served in the program, exposing them and their families to retaliation from al Qaeda and its sympathizers.”

He has complete confidence in General Hayden and he has asked White House Counsel’s Office, as I said, who is already in communication with the CIA General Counsel as the CIA Director continues to gather facts. As you know, General Hayden wasn’t there at this time, either.

The President has “complete confidence in General Hayden.” Of course! Wait for it.  You know it’s coming… “You’re doing a heckuva job, Haydie!”

Now let’s see if Congress has any at all. Senator Dick Durbin has called for the Justice Department to investigate. Full-steam ahead with that one.

Can Anybody Really Touch the C.I.A.?

December 8, 2007
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I have to admit this one makes me worry. I’ve always had the idea — no doubt based on superstition and fear — that the C.I.A. was untouchable. I mean, who could possibly go after the C.I.A., really?

So the old chaps were destroying tapes. Takes me back to the 70s, it does.

According to the latest in the NYTimes.com:

White House and Justice Department officials, along with senior members of Congress, advised the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 against a plan to destroy hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda, government officials said Friday.

This one really has me worried. I don’t recall anyone ever really successfully going after the C.I.A. Have you? They really worry me. I’m convinced they operate outside of any laws we know of. Therefore, I want to see Congress really go after them … that is, if Congress is still working for us.

Today’s Washington Post says President Bush (All Praise His Holy Name) was unaware of these tapes, but was aware in some fashion:

The White House said that President Bush was unaware of the tapes or their destruction until this week, but administration sources acknowledged last night that longtime Bush aide Harriet E. Miers knew of the tapes’ existence and told CIA officials that she opposed their destruction.

So, somebody knew something, but we’re not quite sure who knew what, and we’re pretty certain the President knew nothing.

That sounds about right.

The real question is, “Does Congress have any balls to go after this?”

Really, that is what should be our concern.

Are we simply going to listen to Harry Reid ramble on about generalities? Or will someone attempt to really find out what happened here?

Listen: I really hope this is the “Land of the Free,” and “Home of the Brave.” I don’t want to go to sleep thinking that this is really the “Land Ruled By The C.I.A.” and “The Men In Black,” whoever the Hell they are.

“Give me liberty,” or something….

The First Amendment Tasered

September 22, 2007
ConstitutionDemocratic NewsRepublicansWhite House
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I’ve been considering the Tasering of student Andrew Meyer during an appearance by Sen. John Kerry at the University of Florida since I first heard about it.  Some of the first accounts sought to discredit Meyer right away, asserting that based on videos he had posted previously on You Tube, this may have been a stunt.

Nevertheless, here was a man Tasered in the United States of America.  As a refresher, here’s the Amendment placed First in the Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Now, freedom of speech does not mean that we get to say what we want to say where we want to say it all the time.   If I started shouting the the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, as did this “Christian” person when a Hindu chaplain was invited to pray, I would be removed.  And, no, this is not a violation of my right to free speech.

But tasering someone asking a question?   This is troubling.

The weird right has sought to criticize Senator Kerry, and that’s just wrong.  He was completely innocent in this case.  This was a choice of the police.

Joe Conason comments on the tasering in Salon.com, making reference to the recently unearthed “how to stop free speech” manual from the White House:

As Matthews noted on Tuesday evening, the Bush White House standardized those methods for squelching speech in a manual for presidential advance teams. “By the way, 80 percent of the country disagrees with him,” Matthews quipped, “so you’ve got to have this manual handy.” Then he quoted a telling section: “If demonstrators appear likely to cause only a political disruption, it is the advance person’s responsibility to take appropriate action. Rally squads should be dispatched to surround and drown out demonstrators immediately.”

That October 2002 manual — obtained in heavily redacted form last June by the American Civil Liberties Union in the course of litigation against the Bush administration — includes copious instructions for ensuring that dissension need never be seen nor heard. Its repetitive themes include “the best method for preventing demonstrators,” “deterring potential protestors from attending events,” and “designat[ing] a protest area … preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.” Potential protesters are to be ignored only “if it is determined that the media will not see or hear” them.

Unfortunately for the White House, such strategies are patently unconstitutional and violate several provisions of the Bill of Rights. It is unlawful to bar individuals from public events because they have the wrong bumper stickers on their cars, or wear the wrong T-shirts, or belong to the wrong organizations, or have written the wrong letters to the editor of their local newspaper, as the president’s advance agents have repeatedly done over the past six years.

This will be a country in recover for some time after these Bush Republicans are gone from the White House.  They’ve done more damage than trash the economy, the dollar, and raise the national debt to an obscene $9 Trillion and counting.

Patriot Act Unravels

September 6, 2007
CongressRepublicansWhite House
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Some of the most controversial portions of the U.S. Patriot Act have been declared unconstitutional.  Thursday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero is a setback for the Justice Department, but quite a victory for the ACLU, which filed the lawsuit.

The Washington Post reports:

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York said the FBI’s use of secret “national security letters” to demand such data violates the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers, because the FBI can impose indefinite gag orders on the companies and the courts have little opportunity to review the letters.

The secrecy provisions are “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values,” Marrero wrote. His strongly worded 103-page opinion amounted to a rebuke of both the administration and Congress, which had revised the act in 2005 to take into account an earlier ruling by the judge on the same topic.

The ACLU should be commended on this one.  The slippery slope to from freedom to tyranny chosen by the Bush Administration is not worth the price.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling. “We are reviewing the decision and considering our options,” said spokesman Dean Boyd.

But Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit in the case, said the ruling “is yet another setback in the Bush administration’s strategy in the war on terror and demonstrates the far-reaching efforts of this administration to use powers that are clearly unconstitutional.”

Let’s hope it’s not the last setback for the Bush Administration.  The rest of us have suffered far too many.

US Official: “There will be an attack on Iran.”

August 20, 2007
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The neo-cons are having wet dreams about attacking Iran, and they’re stepping up the rhetoric.

According to an article in yesterday’s Time Magazine,  the Bush Administration is planning on putting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the terrorism list.  The article by Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, gives every indication that the Bush Administration intends to go forward with some type of attack in Iran, “an awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will,” and actually believe that taking out the IRGC will pave the way for Democracy in Iran, and help stabilize Iraq.

And, dammit, we’ve heard that all before.

From the article:

As with Saddam and his imagined WMD, the Administration’s case against the IRGC is circumstantial. The U.S. military suspects but cannot prove that the IRGC is the main supplier of sophisticated improvised explosive devices to insurgents killing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And later:

A second part of the Administration’s case against the IRGC is that the IRGC has had a long, established history of killing Americans, starting with the attack on the Marines in Beirut in 1983. And that’s not to mention it was the IRGC that backed Hizballah in its thirty-four day war against Israel last year. The feeling in the Administration is that we should have taken care of the IRGC a long, long time ago.

So, take out the IRGC, and we’ll have regional stability at last.

But what if that doesn’t happen?

And what do we do if just the opposite happens — a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it’s not even a consideration. “IRGC IED’s are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran.”

Yet another half-baked casus belli from the neo-cons an “W”.  Will they finally be sending their own children to fight this one?

Ranch Dressing

August 18, 2007
StrangeWhite House
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President Bush's Ranch DressingAustin American-Statesman reporter Marques G. Harper irked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, and President Bush, no doubt, for awarding the president the “Walker, Texas Ranger” ranch clothing prize. Salon.com drew our attention to this. According to an article in the Washington Post:

What really gets George W. Bush riled up? Calling him a fashion victim.

Last week, Marques Harper of the Austin American- Statesman wrote a short piece about the president’s sartorial style on his Texas ranch, where Bush is spending a two-week vacation. The article was reprinted Tuesday in a Waco, Tex., paper, and the leader of the free world was not pleased.

Harper received a phone call that morning from White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino, who, Harper told friends, said the president read the article and was unhappy about the way he was portrayed.

On this trip, President Bush wins the coveted award for US Prez. who has spent the least time at the White House, rivaling only Governor Blagojevich of Illinois in time spent away from his respective capital.

According to Harper’s article, which requires a free subscription to view:

Bush has two distinct looks when he’s in Texas: the ranch-hand man and the crisp appearance of a ranch owner. In recent months, with his sliding popularity, he’s opted to look more like “Walker, Texas Ranger” than a sweaty, tough ranch hand.

“As he loses popularity, his image is more and more critical,” said Sara Canaday, an Austin-based communication and image consultant. “He’s being advised wisely. He’d better step it up. He wants to have this sort of bravado image when he’s on that ranch.”

When things really fall apart, bring in the fashion consultant!

It’s tough times at the White House on the style front. According to The Washington Post, signs have appeared at numerous White House entrances in recent days, reminding staff members and others that proper attire must be maintained. That means no jeans, sneakers, shorts, miniskirts, T-shirts, tank tops or flip-flops.

Harper’s piece ends with a bit of advice for the First Vacationer:

With only one presidential summer left in Crawford after this, perhaps it’s time for Mr. President to line up work for life after the White House. Here’s a thought: Follow the lead of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who is the new face of luxe brand Louis Vuitton.

In his Western duds, Bush easily could model for Ralph Lauren. But if his popularity is still low through the end of his presidency, he could always try Wrangler.

Time for Queer Eye for the Travelin’ Guy.