Tag: Worst President Ever

2005: Year One

Trish

Ten years ago, what American would have believed they’d someday be living in a country that denies global warming and evolution? In 2005, nature provided all the proof of herself we need.

The Sierra Club is calling it Year One. Bill McKibben:

So far we’ve raised the temperature of the planet by about one degree, and that’s been enough to set the poles to melting and the winds to roaring. Even if, right now, we started doing all that we could to overhaul our energy economy, we’d probably still be stuck with a couple more degrees of warming, and the world would change more profoundly than at any time in human history.

…a month before Katrina hit, [the] Massachusetts Institute of Technology…published a landmark paper in the British science magazine Nature showing that in the past half century tropical storms have been lasting 60 percent longer and spinning winds 50 percent more powerful. Two weeks after Katrina struck, Science published another paper, by a Georgia Institute of Technology team, demonstrating that Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have become twice as likely in recent decades… Katrina, a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida, roared to monster size in the abnormally hot waters of the Gulf. Within a day, a million people were homeless. That’s far too many, we soon found out, for the federal government to cope with. And it’s just the beginning…

Katrina cast up ironies like so much flotsam and jetsam. The storm, for instance, wreaked particular vengeance on Mississippi, a state governed by Haley Barbour (R), who in an earlier incarnation as a GOP power broker and energy lobbyist helped persuade President George W. Bush to renege on his promise to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Thanks to Barbour and the other lobbyists-turned-administrators who throng the White House, the federal government has done exactly nothing to slow the progress of climate change. Today we’re emitting 20 percent more carbon than we were in 1990, when scientists were first issuing their prescient warnings. […]

Is Bush Worship a Cult? According to International Standards Defining Cultism, It Apparently Is

Jon Ponder

Have you noticed how hardcore Bush supporters talk about the president like he is infallible — the way the Moonies used to talk about Reverend Moon?

Next question: How do we deprogram 100 million people?

This makes me wonder – is Bushism a cult?

Check out this list of defining characteristics of a cult from the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) and decide for yourself :

  1. The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and … regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
  2. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
  3. Mind-altering practices … are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
  4. The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel…
  5. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar – or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
  6. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
  7. The leader is not accountable to any authorities…
  8. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members’ participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group…
  9. The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
  10. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
  11. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
  12. The group is preoccupied with making money.
  13. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
  14. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
  15. The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

Next question: How do we deprogram 100 million people?

Bush vs. the Bill of Rights

Trish

Funny what you see when you’re getting your oil changed: The waiting room had FOX News going, so I got a rare glimpse. The anchor, a scary-looking woman with way too much eye makeup, was trying to get the requisite two opposing sides to say that because “all” the people Bush spied on were “really bad guys” that what he did was O.K. And because Bush did the noble thing and admitted he was doing this, these “really bad guys” are going to get off on a technicality.

Illegal evidence – evidence obtained in an illegal search – is not made more legal in light of what it reveals

Our team explained that the 4th Amendment is not generally regarded as a technicality but a pretty important foundation of our society.

What he didn’t say was what I learned in Constitutional Law 101: illegal evidence – evidence obtained in an illegal search – is not made more legal in light of what it reveals. Murder cases have been thrown out over this fact. It’s not new, and it’s not directed at the Bush White House. It’s just bedrock law in America. Or it was until Bush came to town.

Bush Sees No Difference Between Real Crises And Political Problems

Jon Ponder

Up until now this president’s solution to everything has been to stare into the cameras, lie and keep on lying until such time as the political problem disappears. And now, unable to comprehend that while political crises may wilt in the face of such tactics, real crises do not, he and his team are responding to this first serious feet-to-the-fire Iraq emergency in the same way they always have — with a fusillade of silly, easily disprovable bullshit. Bush and his mouthpieces continue to try to obfuscate and cloud the issue of why we’re in Iraq, and they do so not only selectively but constantly, compulsively, like mental patients who can’t stop jacking off in public. They don’t know the difference between a real problem and a political problem, because to them, there is no difference. What could possibly be worse than bad poll numbers?

— Matt Taibi, Rolling Stone, via Firedoglake

Bush Already Knows If You’ve Been Naughty or Nice

Trish

The Washington Post is carrying Bush’s holiday greetings to Americans, which features three messages – one each for people celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa. In the future, these missives will be even more personalized…

“The season of hope and joy is upon us, although from what I hear in your phone calls to your mom, you need to get in the spirit a little more before the big visit. And quit calling Moviefone to get Christmas day showtimes – you’re going to hang out with your family and you’re going to like it.

You’ll be paying for that PSP for years, if you’re not in federal prison by then for supporting public radio, which I can’t help but notice you’ve been doing.

At this time of year, we must remember the less fortunate, which you’re going to be come January when all those credit card bills we’ve been monitoring come due. Remember, minimum payments are going to double and I’ve made it impossible for little folks like you to get bankruptcy protection. You’ll be paying for that PSP for years, if you’re not in federal prison by then for supporting public radio, which I can’t help but notice you’ve been doing.

And another thing – what’s up with buying that Al Franken book at Barnes & Noble? Your library records show you already checked it out, why do you need to own it? In the store security video, it was right next to the Bill O’Reilly book but your receipt shows you not only bought Franken, you bought the Jimmy Carter book too. You got some ‘splainin’ to do, buddy.

Let’s also ask God to protect those getting shot up in Iraq and Afghanistan for whatever reason they were supposed to be fighting over there. That reminds me – you need to use more gas and turn up the heat. Our DOT traffic surveillance cameras are in place on all major highways and bridges (I know you’ve noticed them, those little stands with the solar panels and antennas), and you’re not making enough trips – especially solo trips – in the SUV. Our economy depends on constantly increasing demand for oil, and you need to do your part until we come to drag you away in the middle of the cold, dark night.

Laura and I send our best wishes for a blessed holiday season for all Americans, and by that, I mean the ones who support us which you obviously don’t.

God Bless America! – George W. Bush”

Forget Impeachment, Let’s Have a National Recall

Trish

California might be on to something, according to syndicated columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall, who made the case for a national recall instead of impeachment, and made it before the latest round of revelations. Rall wrote last month, when we thought exposing CIA agents they didn’t like and maintaining secret torture prisons was all Bush-Cheney were up to.

To “kill the hydra,” we have to get rid of them all, and that means a new election.

…our constitutional system only allows for impeaching individuals, not whole administrations. If Cheney is indicted and forced to quit, Bush will appoint a replacement–Washington scuttlebutt points to secretary of state Condi Rice. If Bush falls, Rice ascends. If something happens to Rice, the person she chose as vice president succeeds her. All the political hacks who lied and schemed and whose incompetence led to the current crisis of leadership–Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove–stay in place. The hydra lives.

Rall rightly points out that simply impeaching Bush (and finding him unfit for office) would make no substantive change. To “kill the hydra,” we have to get rid of them all, and that means a new election.

One solution is to establish a California-style recall system on the national level. If a significant percentage of Americans loses confidence in the president and his administration to the extent that they’re willing to sign a recall petition, a special election should be held within three months. The number of required signatures should be high enough–California’s system calls for 12 percent of the number of people who cast votes in the preceding election–to ensure that recalls are only held as the result of widespread disgust among the citizenry.

To avoid disruption, the constitutional amendment creating the recall provision could prevent such elections from being held more often than, say, annually. And a recall won’t automatically result in a new party taking over the White House–just a new administration. But it would replace our current system of political stagnation with a more dynamic democracy.

“A more dynamic democracy.” I like the sound of that. Where do I sign the petition?

Retired Quakers Considered Credible Threat by Bush Spies

Trish

[Editor’s note: Two stories from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel were used in compiling this post]

A South Florida peace group is calling for a congressional investigation of domestic surveillance after finding itself a target.

The Truth Project, a group of largely Quaker retired folks, uses puppets, placards, and home-printed flyers to warn high school students about heavy-handed military recruiting efforts. Its targeting was uncovered this week in a Department of Defense document.

“I’m disabled, I’m 59 and if I’m a credible threat to the government of the United States, then either the government is terribly paranoid or terribly weak”

The 400-page document obtained by NBC described the group as both a “threat” and “credible…”

“I’m disabled, I’m 59 and if I’m a credible threat to the government of the United States, then either the government is terribly paranoid or terribly weak,” said Rich Hersh of Boca Raton…

[Michael] Foley, [associate professor of politics at Catholic University] said spying on groups like the Truth Project can be an inefficient use of government time and money. “There’s a lot of retirees, a lot of older people who are involved in protesting,” he said. “There’s not much alarming here. What do you expect Quakers to do?”

The government’s spy skills are almost as subtle as the activists are threatening.

[One member] said his group…has attracted government agents to meetings in private homes. Though the agents were disguised as anarchists, Del Papa said their footwear gave them away: Nike or Reebok running shoes, which to anarchists represent corporate greed.

“No anarchist is going to wear Nikes or Reeboks to a protest,” Del Papa said…

…several people reported hearing mysterious clicks and echoes during recent telephone conversations and noticing cars they considered suspicious pass by during meetings.

During one outdoor gathering by a Lake Worth canal, Marie Zwicker said she had seen men in a Boston Whaler cruise by, posing, unconvincingly, she added, as fishermen. “It was the wrong time of day,” she said.

Bush continues to lie, saying just yesterday that the only people being spied on were those on the giving or receiving end of international phone calls, with links to al Qaeda, or who represent a credible threat to America. He obviously can’t distinguish between someone disagreeing with him and the entire country being under attack. The man is mental and needs some serious – possibly residential – therapy.

Instead, his poll numbers shoot up with every lie, as Americans, eager for it all to go away, accept at face value both Bush lies and guys in suits fishing on a falling tide.

Bush Tried to Kill NYT’s ‘SnoopGate’ Story

Buck Banks

Get me the editor: I tell you, if George Bush isn’t trying to plant news stories in Iraq, he’s trying to kill them here in America.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter reveals in a Web-only commentary that Bush summoned the New York Times’ publisher and executive editor to try to convince them not to run the story about the administration’s illegal domestic spying program.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting,
but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.

No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law. And the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.

All of Bush’s B.S. about national security is just so much hoohah. Alter sums up the truth like this:

This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.

Dems Looking to Uncover Secret Docs Bush Uses to Justify Spying on Americans

Buck Banks

Show me the memos: My pal Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic Party, sent me an e-mail this afternoon urging me to sign the Dems’ petition to shake loose Justice Dept. memos created to cover George Bush’s lying and spying through the Freedom of Information Act. So I signed it because it just might be the first step down the path to impeachment.

Here’s what Howard wrote:

By now you have probably heard the news that George Bush is using the National Security Agency to conduct surveillance on American citizens without the consent of any court. After initially refusing to confirm the story, the President has admitted to personally overseeing this domestic spying program for years and he says he intends to continue the program.

These actions explicitly violate a law designed to protect US citizens. But the administration says that other laws somehow allow for this unprecedented use of a foreign intelligence agency to spy on Americans right here in the United States. According to reports, political appointees in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote still-classified legal opinions laying out the supposed justification for this program.

I have asked our General Counsel to draft a Freedom of Information Act request for the relevant legal opinions and memos written by that office. Since the program’s existence is no longer a secret, these memos should be released — Americans deserve to know exactly what authority this administration believes it has.

You can help pressure the administration to release these documents by signing on to our Freedom of Information Act request in the next 48 hours.
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