Thank George W, Again

by Abby Zimet

Just As We Suspected Dept: The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has updated a widely cited chart to show that Bush-era tax cuts to the rich and two ill-advised wars - not the economic downturn - are primarily responsible for the massive debt now driving Republicans to cut health, education, social services and every other remotely useful program. As usual, the visuals speak louder than any numbers.

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238 presidential scholars: Bush worst president in modern history, period.

It's one thing for a coterie of liberals at a late-night Washington soirée to say that George W. Bush was the worst president in their lifetimes.

It's another thing when the same is said by the nation's 238 leading presidential scholars, who have been polled annually for the last 28 years.

President Bush ranked worst among modern presidents -- and the fifth worst in history, according to the poll by the Siena Research Institute. Ranking first? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the country from 1933 until his death in 1945.

President Roosevelt served four terms, the longest of any president in history. US presidents became limited to two terms after US states ratified the 22nd Amendment to the US constitution in 1951.

President Barack Obama, who hasn't yet served a full term, rated 15th.

Remembering George W. Bush

All quotes 100% authentic, and courtesey of George W. Bush.

"I think we can agree. The past is over."

"I have learned from mistakes I may or may not have made."

"It was just inebreating what the Midlands was all about then." (A slip on exhillerating)

"It's clearly the budget. It has a lot of numbers on it."

"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."

"Will highways on the internet become more few?"

"Like your neighbor just like you like to be liked yourself."

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? Laura and I really don't realize just how bright our children is."

"I was raised in the West. The West of Texas. It's pretty close to California. More so than Washington, D.C. is close to California."

"I propose that every city have a telephone number 119 -- for dyslexics who have an emergency."

"There ought to be limits to freedom." Said about parody websites of him.

"I believe that we are on an irreversible trent toward democracy and more freedom- but that could change."

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared.'"

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."

"I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future."

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the poles."

"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about, in terms of not having it."

"We are ready for any unseen event that may or may not occur."

"For NASA, space is still a high priority."

"We have a firm committment to NATO; we are a part of NATO. We have a firm committment to Europe; we are a part of Europe."

"Who is to blame for riots? The rioters are to blame."

"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."

"Quite frankly, teachers are the only proffession that teach our children."

"It isn't pollution that's ruining the environment; it's all the impurities in the air and water that's doing it."

"It's time the human race entered the solar system."

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.

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Spain Investigates What America Should

A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay.

If arrest warrants are issued, Spain and any of the other 24 countries that are parties to European extradition conventions could arrest these six men when they travel abroad.

Does Spain have the authority to prosecute Americans for crimes that didn't take place on Spanish soil?

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Spain may open torture probe of six Bush officials

A top Spanish court has moved toward starting a probe of six former Bush administration officials including ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in connection with alleged torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, The New York Times said on Saturday.

The criminal investigation would focus on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic justification for torture at the U.S. detention camp in Cuba, the Times said.

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Randi Rhodes: Time to investigate the Bush admin

Why The Republican Party is Bad for America #27

"The legislature's job is to write the law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law."

-George W. Bush, November 2000, after the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Florida must recount its votes

Why The Republican Party is Bad for America #25

In his memoir 'The Audacity of Hope', Barack Obama, tells of an encounter with George W. Bush at a meet-and-greet at the White House. The president shook his hand warmly, then "turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president's hand."

35 Articles of Impeachment

Bush Against JC

Former Bush donors now giving to Obama's campaign

Beverly Fanning is among the campaign donors who'll be joining President Bush at a gala at Washington's Ford's Theater Sunday night, but she says that won't dissuade her from her current passion: volunteering for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

She isn't the only convert. A McClatchy computer analysis, incomplete due to the difficulty matching data from various campaign finance reports, found that hundreds of people who gave at least $200 to Bush's 2004 campaign have donated to Obama.

Continued...

Our President

Gasoline prices are highest in Hawaii, closing in on $4 a gallon. President Bush said, "See, I told you it wasn't only in our country!"

-David Brenner

Olbermann Fact Checks Bush Speech

Bush, Not a Good Steward of Our Nation

With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Continued...

Bush's War

From the horror of 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq; the truth about WMD to the rise of an insurgency; the scandal of Abu Ghraib to the strategy of the surge -- for six years, FRONTLINE has revealed the defining stories of the war on terror in meticulous detail, and the political dramas that played out at the highest levels of power and influence.

Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga unfolds in the two-part FRONTLINE special Bush's War, airing Monday, March 24, from 9 to 11:30 P.M. and Tuesday, March 25, 2008, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings). Veteran producer Michael Kirk (The Torture Question, The Dark Side) draws on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism -- more than 40 FRONTLINE reports on the war on terror. Combined with fresh reporting and new interviews, Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history.

Bush legacy: Setting a standard in fear-mongering

Richard A. Clarke is former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council

When I left the Bush administration in 2003, it was clear to me that its strategy for defeating terrorism was leaving our nation more vulnerable and our people in a perilous place. Not only did its policies misappropriate resources, weaken the moral standing of America, and threaten long-standing legal and constitutional provisions, but the president also employed misleading and reckless rhetoric to perpetuate his agenda.

This week's State of the Union proved nothing has changed.

Besides overstating successes in Afghanistan, painting a rosy future for Iraq, and touting unfinished domestic objectives, he again used his favorite tactic - fear - as a tool to scare Congress and the American people. On one issue in particular - FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) - the president misconstrued the truth and manipulated the facts.

Let me be clear: Our ability to track and monitor terrorists overseas would not cease should the Protect America Act expire. If this were true, the president would not threaten to terminate any temporary extension with his veto pen. All surveillance currently occurring would continue even after legislative provisions lapsed because authorizations issued under the act are in effect up to a full year.

Simply put, it was wrong for the president to suggest that warrants issued in compliance with FISA would suddenly evaporate with congressional inaction. Instead - even though Congress extended the Protect America Act by two weeks - he is using the existence of the sunset provision to cast his political opponents in a negative light.

For this president, fear is an easier political tactic than compromise. With FISA, he is attempting to rattle Congress into hastily expanding his own executive powers at the expense of civil liberties and constitutional protections.

Continued...

NY Times Editorial: The Abuse of Executive Privilege

Sunday 01 July 2007

After six years of kowtowing to the White House, Congress is finally challenging President Bush's campaign to trample all legal and constitutional restraints on his power.

Congressional committees have issued subpoenas for documents and witnesses in two major cases and have asked for the first - and likely not the last - criminal investigation of an executive branch official who might have lied to Congress.

Predictably, the White House is claiming executive privilege and refusing to cooperate with the legitimate Congressional investigations, one springing from Mr. Bush's decision to spy on Americans without a warrant and the other from the purge of United States attorneys.

The courts have recognized a president's limited right to keep the White House's internal deliberations private. But it is far from an absolute right, and Mr. Bush's claim of executive privilege in the attorneys scandal is especially ludicrous. The White House has said repeatedly that Mr. Bush was not involved in the firings of nine United States attorneys. If that's true, he can hardly argue that he has the right to conceal conversations and e-mail exchanges that his aides had with one another and the Justice Department.

When the White House refused last week to even account for the documents it was withholding and why, as presidents generally have done in these cases, Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, rightly denounced this arrogance as "Nixonian stonewalling." He pointed out that every president since World War II has at some point complied with Congressional requests or subpoenas for testimony by members of the White House staff or other presidential advisers.

Mr. Bush's claim of executive privilege may be somewhat stronger on the spying program, since he personally issued the order to start the wiretapping. But executive privilege cannot be used to cover up actions and policies that involve an outright violation of the law, as the spying program did.

Nor can it be used to shield an official who might have lied to Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate Brett Kavanaugh, a former White House official who told a Senate hearing on his appointment to a federal judgeship that he was not involved in forming rules on the treatment of detainees. Recent press accounts suggest that he was.

The White House has predictably accused the Democrats of being soft on terrorism for opposing illegal wiretapping and of partisan politicking in their attempt to get to the bottom of the attorneys scandal. This is the point when we used to wearily watch as Congress bowed and backed out of the room. But lawmakers finally seem determined to do their duty. Partly that's because tough-minded Democrats are now in charge, like Senator Leahy. But even some of Mr. Bush's Republican enablers on Capitol Hill seem to be losing patience.

Last week, three Republican senators, including the highly partisan Orrin Hatch, voted to issue subpoenas for records relating to Mr. Bush's decision to authorize the tapping of Americans' phone calls and e-mails abroad without legally and constitutionally mandated warrants. Only three Republicans actually voted against the subpoenas. (Three others did not register a vote.) Not long ago, those same nine Republicans would not even allow Senator Leahy to hold a roll-call vote on issuing subpoenas connected to the attorneys scandal.

If the White House continues to defy Congress, the Senate and the House could file criminal contempt charges. It's a strong measure, but lawmakers should not be afraid to take it, as they have done 10 times since 1975 under both parties.

Last week, in a bit of especially mendacious spin, Tony Fratto, the White House deputy press secretary, responded to the subpoenas on the illegal wiretapping by saying, "It's unfortunate that Congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation."

Actually, Mr. Bush chose that route long ago by defining consultation as a chance for lawmakers to hear about decisions he had already made, bipartisanship as a chance for Democrats to join Republicans in rubber-stamping those choices and Congressional oversight as self- serving and possibly seditious. At this point, confrontation is far preferable to the path the Republican majority in Congress chose for so many years - capitulation.

Another Poll Reflecting Bush Administration is a Failure

CBS News Poll:

HOW IS THE WAR GOING?

Well 22%
Badly 77%

U.S. TROOP LEVELS IN IRAQ SHOULD

Increase 11%
Keep the same number 17%
Decrease 26%
Remove all troops 40%

DIRECTION OF THE COUNTRY

Wrong track 75%
Right direction 19%