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Tuesday, April 21. 2009
Imagine the national uproar had President Bush — like President Obama is currently doing — decided not to prosecute lawyers who approved torture of prisoners held by the U.S. Government.
The cry would have been deafening. Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would have been rapped as a political hack, one responsible for the politicization of the Justice Dept.
 Of course, the above is pure fantasy. Torture did happen in the Bush Administration, approved at the highest levels of government. Gonzales was nothing more than an embarrassing political toady who tarnished the reputation of the Justice Dept.
That was supposed to change. Redemption was said to be at hand when Obama was elected President of the U.S. He would restore trust. After all, he promised “change.”
By failing to pursue the legal stiffs who besmirched the honor of the U.S. by okaying waterboarding and the like, Obama breaks his oath with the American people. We deserve better.
Obama appears to be backtracking today from his promise not to press charges against a Bush Administration tainted with torture. C’mon, Barack, show some backbone. It’s wishy-washy to say you worry about the political “impact of high-intensity hearings.” We’ve been through much worse. Watergate immediately comes to mind.
Obama should be more worried about the damage he will do to this country’s image worldwide, if the evil-abettors are let off the hook. Cleansing is needed. The world is watching.
If Obama caves, it’s up to AG Eric Holder to step up to the plate. That would surely invigorate the Justice Dept. and send a signal to the rest of the world that America is back in the morality game.
The Justice Dept. should not be a subsidiary of the White House, as it was during the Bush years.
Obama is a smart guy. This blogger hopes his talk of no prosecutions was just a trial balloon, floated to gain reaction.
The people have spoken. It’s time to puncture the balloon and move to put the U.S. government on a higher moral ground.
( Image via)
Tuesday, December 30. 2008
P.T. Barnum believed there’s a sucker born every minute. As '08 closes, one wonders whether the exiting Bush Administration played Americans for the ultimate suckers, steamrolling Congress with the $700B bailout package for the banking industry.
 Joshua Holland, writing on AlterNet, believes the “credit crunch” was a myth used to sell a trillion-dollar scam. He says Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s Troubled Asset Relief Program “was sold to Congress and the public based on the Big Lie.”
There is no question the economy is in the tank, but it is not because banks didn’t have money to lend. The economy tanked, according to economist Dean Baker, because the $6T housing bubble and $8T stock market bubbles burst.
People felt broke after their imagined wealth went poof. They pulled in their horns.
Wrote Holland:
“Much of the economic growth of the Bush era existed on paper only, built on the rise of a massive bubble in real estate values rather than growth in productive industries. When all the ephemeral wealth vaporized—and with the economy shedding jobs like a dog with dermatitis---consumers stopped buying and businesses, anticipating a long slowdown, stopped seeking the loans that they might have otherwise tapped to expand their operations.”
Holland notes that consumer dollars drive 70 percent of the U.S. economy. Much of that spending was financed by people taking chunks of equity out of their homes. “People might have been eating in fancy restaurants, but they were essentially eating their living rooms to do so,” he wrote.
Financial sanity finally prevailed. Banks stopped making loans because nobody was asking for them. Though mortgage rates plummeted, the number of applications fell in lockstep. That, to Baker, is the “most glaring refutation of the claim that people are unable to get credit.”
The specter of a banking collapse was largely concocted. Bankers rejoiced as federal funds flowed to the banks, which in turn, used the money to shore up balance sheets and fund war chests for future acquisitions. Fortified by those taxpayer dollars, bankers used the “crisis” to lay off thousands of taxpayers.
It’s now up to President-elect Obama to clean up the mess. His $750B public works plan to revitalize the economy is based on building real things like roads and bridges. That's a far cry from smoke and mirrors of the past eight years.
Holland isn’t very far out on a limb with the idea that the trillion-dollar bailout was the exiting Bush Administration’s parting gift to the financial sector. After all, the White House sold the public a war based on the phony threat of weapons of mass destruction. Team Bush pushed the idea of Al-Qaida “sleeper cells” in the U.S. to win support for the Patriot Act.
A trillion-dollar scam is little more than a walk in the park for these guys.
(Barnum/Tom Thumb image: George Mason Univ.)
Friday, September 12. 2008
That hissing sound you hear is the final air escaping from the balloon of the Bush Administration. The White House imploded this week as the bad news piled up.
• The President finally committed to redeploying troops from Iraq to Afghanistan after top military commanders conceded that the U.S. might not be winning the battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. On a similar line, news surfaced that the President has finally okayed Special Forces raids into Pakistan, the country where Osama bin Laden is thought to be living since early 2002. Better late than never. Don’t think so.
 • The Pentagon couldn’t decide on the $40B aerial tanker competition that was waged between Airbus' parent/Northrop Grumman and Boeing. That tanker was once called vital to the upgrade of the Air Force’s refueling fleet. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has washed his hands of the matter, punting the tanker decision to the next Administration.
• The virtual fence that was to be erected on the U.S./Mexico border, a high-tech showcase pitched to thwart illegal immigration, is now kaput. The fence was the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s “Secure Border Initiative.” Cost overruns and delays are responsible for its demise. Dept. of Homeland Security estimates that the cost of SBI could triple from its current $8B outlay though 2013. Even worse, the 670-mile long physical fence is now $400M over budget. The Administration can’t even monitor construction of a real fence. We used to put men of the moon.
• The cronyism of the Bush Administration was on full ugly “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” display with a report of sex, drugs and rock & roll at the Minerals Management Service. Those dedicated public servants who are responsible for overseeing leases with oil companies, had sex with energy company executives, enjoyed drinks at industry functions, smoked pot and snorted coke. High in the Rockies at MMS' headquarters, staffers were living the high life indeed. The Interior Dept. inspector described a “culture of ethical failure” at MMS. The report also scolded MMS staffers for not maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with energy officials. No pun intended.
• Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual teeter on the edge. Questions about the prospects of American International Group arise. Those financial disasters follow the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Is the federal government going to bail-out every company that comes before it with a tin cup? Stay tuned.
• The photo-op from hell capped a busy week. The President shared the stage with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraq mess, at the unveiling the 9/11 Pentagon memorial. That image crystallizes all this nation has lost in lives, treasure and global status during the eight years of the Bush Administration.
January can’t come soon enough.
Monday, May 19. 2008
The White House PR machine is running on fumes these days. Things are so bad for President Bush’s PR team that it just flat out ignored the Commander-in-Chief’s visit with Saudi Arabia King Abdullah.
 The White House website, which typically trumpets all “achievements” of Bush, has nothing to say about Bush’s visit to the King’s ranch on May 16. Could it be that the PR pros are embarrassed by the image of the American President going cap-in-hand to beg the Saudis to pump more oil to alleviate price pressures on gas! You can bet the ranch on that.
Luckily, Reuters and the Associated Press reported on the tete-a-tete, which featured Bush and Abdullah strolling hand-in-hand. There’s no image yet of the two leaders exchanging the region’s ritual double-kiss of manly affection.
Abdullah and Bush last shared a peck in January when Bush dropped by the King’s place to pick up his “King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit” (Bushie, You are doing a heckuva job!) and bend a knee before the monarch in another futile plea to raise production.
The White House site posted a boilerplate “fact sheet” on May 16 about “strengthening diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.” It talks about nuclear cooperation and about how Saudi Arabia is working day and night to make sure that its people never again hijack commercial jets and smash them into U.S. landmarks, such as the former World Trade Center in New York.
The White House website has news of the President’s sessions with leaders from Iraq, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Israel, but nothing about Abdullah. It may be mute about the snub from Abdullah, who knows it is up to the U.S. to devise an energy policy to slash its independence from his oil. [Democrats pander just as badly as Bush when they threaten to withhold arms sales to the Kingdom unless it jacks up production by a million barrels per day.]
You know things are bad for Team Bush when reports surface that even ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson is bad-mouthing Bush’s visit with the King as a policy that is “terribly upside down.”
Tillerson believes U.S. policymakers are two-faced when they urged the Abdullah to ramp it up while the same strategy is not followed here.
Rex, of course, wants the U.S. to open up Alaska, Malibu Coast, Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Everglades and mid-town Manhattan for intensive oil and gas development.
This blogger votes for alternative energy production, efficiencies, conservation and improved gas mileage over Rex’s rigs in Central Park.
Wednesday, May 14. 2008
While many say President Bush gives Fillmore, Buchanan and Hoover a run for their money as the worst ever commander-in-chief, America thirty years down the road may come to appreciate the greatness of Dubya.
 Ross Douthat, writing in The Atlantic, believes the people of 2038 may want to carve a likeness of Bush’s noggin onto Mount Rushmore. [An image of Bush standing before Mount Rushmore is artwork for his June column.]
Though Bush’s current 31 percent approval rating is his all-time low, Douthat believes the Administration’s Iraq policy may be vindicated if the place turns out to be “stable, democratic and at peace with its neighbors” thirty years from now. His point: “When things turn out in the long-run—and especially when we can claim the credit—Americans tend to forgive their leaders for the crimes and errors of the moment.” For instance, few remember Teddy Roosevelt's bloody occupation of the Philippines because "despite our crimes the Philippines turned out well enough in the long run."
This country also thinks highly of “activist” leaders, such as Bush who launched two wars and embarked upon a global war on terror.
Douthat notes the sometimes impressive, but "oft-erratic" Truman is rated more highly than the “even-keeled” Eisenhower. He wrote:
“John F. Kennedy is hailed for escaping the Cuban missile crisis, which his own misjudgments set in motion, while George H.W. Bush, who steered the U.S. through the fraught final moments of the Cold War with admirable caution, is caricatured as a ditherer who needed Margaret Thatcher around to keep him from going wobbly.”
The author concedes it is hard to remember that Bush was once popular even among liberals in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He is leaving either Obama or McCain a “fragile truce in a wrecked, misgoverned country."
As the President prepares to return to Crawford, he can take solace that every tarnished Presidential reputation “eventually finds someone willing to defend it.” In other words, it may take 30 years for the U.S. to overlook the horror of the last five.
Douthat’s point is predicated on the belief that future Presidents will “stay the course” in Iraq. That 's a shaky position especially if Obama wins and Congressional Democrats are free to follow the will of the people and pass legislation to withdraw from Iraq without the threat of a veto.
If you agree with Douthat that the Bush White House years may one day be considered golden, you will love his new book, “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.” That's another tough sell.
(Photo: Corbis via The Atlantic)
Tuesday, April 29. 2008
The Bush Administration today suffered its biggest loss on the environmental front as U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that the Interior Dept. must follow existing law and decide whether or not the polar bear is an endangered species due to climate change. That's right. The Government must follow the law. How refreshing.
 The polar bear is the iconic image of global warming. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have skillfully reinforced that point with heart-tugging visuals of bears leaping from one shrinking ice floe to another in desperate attempts to stay alive. Elementary and high school students throughout the U.S. have adopted the polar bear as the “poster animal” of warming. The U.S. Geological Society has validated the threat to the bears, reporting that two-thirds of them will vanish by 2050 if predictions of future melting sea ice hold up.
Yet it took a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for Biological Diversity to get today’s decision that Interior must rule by May 15 whether the bears should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The Interior Dept. has missed various deadlines and wanted another delay until June 30 to gather more information about the bears' plight.
This blogger believes that like everything else in the Bush Administration, energy development explained Interior’s foot-dragging. Interior is home to the Minerals Management Services, which has been selling off Alaskan oil and gas leases to energy companies. Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips were among giants that bid $3.4B for Alaskan oil leases in February. That bidding including a habitat for one of two of Alaska’s polar bear populations, and is undeveloped land not seen in any area of the U.S., according to Shell executive Annell Bay. Conservation groups -- to no avail -- protested that bidding, saying Interior had not made its decision on the fate of the bears. That now looms.
If Interior rules the bears are threatened, they will be the first species designated as a potential victim of global warming. That decision would be pretty embarrassing to the global warming deniers that dominate the Administration. It also will signal that -- in the waning days of the Bush Administration -- things are changing for the better in D.C.
(Photo: Climate Progress)
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