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Scandalous Bush administrationWednesday April 25, 2007 Back in 2000 presidential campaigns, Texas Governor George W. Bush would repeatedly raise his right hand as if taking an oath and vow to restore honor and integrity to the White House. He pledged to usher in a new era of bipartisanship. Now, with less than two years left of his second term, the Bush administration is embroiled in multiple scandals and ethics investigations. The war in Iraq still rages. Bush‘s approval ratings are hovering in the mid-30s. And Democratic-Republican relations have seldom been more hostile. Paul Light, a professor of public policy at New York University has said: "From the very beginning, this administration emphasized loyalty over competence. And at some point, that catches up with you," He said the increase in scandals and investigations also reflects the "natural decay" that happens late in a second presidential term as many experienced people have already left and those remaining start focusing on their financial futures. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged he made a mistake in helping a female friend to get transferred to a high-paying job at the State Department while remaining on the World Bank payroll. The revelations fueled calls from the bank‘s staff association for him to resign. Matteo Fontana, a Department of Education official who oversaw the student loan industry, was put on leave after disclosure that he owned at least 100,000 dollars worth of stock in a student loan company. The Interior Department‘s inspector general said Julie MacDonald, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service but has no academic background in biology, overrode recommendations of agency scientists about how to protect endangered species and improperly leaked internal information to private groups. Republicans like to emphasize that scandals happen under Democratic presidents too. But Bush‘s critics say the number of current ethics allegations is unusually high. They say evidence is strong of close links between the Bush administration and certain industries such as energy and defense. For instance, Philip Cooney, a former oil-industry lobbyist who became chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, acknowledged to a House committee last month that he edited three government reports to eliminate or downplay links between greenhouse gases and global warming. He left the government in 2005 to work for Exxon Mobil Corp. Former Air Force procurement officer Darleen Druyun served nine months in prison in 2005 for violating conflict-of-interest rules after agreeing to lease Boeing refueling tankers for 23 billion dollars, despite Pentagon studies showing the tankers were unnecessary. After making the deal, she quit the government to join Boeing. Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, became the first high-level White House official to be indicted while in office in more than 100 years. He was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in a grand jury‘s investigation of the outing of a CIA agent. Ties between Bush administration officials and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff have also taken their toll in the executive branch, as they have in Congress. Last month Steven Griles, a former oil and gas lobbyist who became deputy interior secretary, became the highest-ranking administration official convicted in the Abramoff influence-peddling scandal. He pleaded guilty to obstructing justice by lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with Abramoff. Former White House aide, David Safavian, was convicted last year of lying to government investigators about his ties to Abramoff and faces a 15-year prison sentence. Roger Stillwell, a former Interior Department official, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for not reporting tickets he received from Abramoff. And, Claude Allen, who was Bush‘s domestic policy adviser, pleaded guilty to theft in making phony returns at discount department stores. He was sentenced last summer to two years of supervised probation. Not all the administration officials who have left under a cloud have been accused of white-collar misconduct. Several Bush people left the office early to move out of the reach of law. But once the law reaches them, the true colors of the ongoing U.S. administration will be known to Americans and the World.
Wednesday April 18, 2007 The Bush administration has requested Congress to pass amendments to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that will expand the powers of the government to spy on the population in and outside the United States. Joe Kay in an article published by the World Socialist Web Site says the proposals are part of an effort to roll back provisions in the 1978 act that the Bush administration considers too restrictive. The Act was established after revelations of massive politically motivated domestic spying. It places restrictions on spying against US citizens and other residents, requiring that the government seek warrants through a court. Since 2001, the government has routinely violated these restrictions, in particular through a program of massive warrantless domestic wiretapping overseen by the National Security Agency. The new Director of National Intelligence, John McConnell, who replaced John Negroponte in February, set the tone for the proposed changes in the Act in an April 4 speech. He used the war on terror as a pretext and tacitly suggested the existing minimal barriers to spying must be torn down. There are several components to the government’s proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Under current law, the FISA court grants the government warrants to spy on individuals who the government claims are part of foreign intelligence or terrorism investigations. The proposed amendments would change this to allow warrants for surveillance of any non-citizens in the US. Another change would expand the definition of electronic surveillance to bring more types of communications under the domain of the act. The act would allow spying on all communications originating from a particular individual. Significantly, the proposed legislation would allow the government to keep and use any kind of information obtained through surveillance. Such a provision would have the effect of vastly expanding government powers to spy on anyone without a warrant. The proposed changes would shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits that arise from their cooperation with the government in handing over phone records and emails to the government. According to a summary of the changes issued by the administration, companies that cooperate with the government in the war on terror deserve protection—not litigation. This provision would protect providers from liability based upon allegations that they assisted the government in connection with classified communications intelligence activities. This section of the amendments would also apply to September 11, 2001, meaning that the several lawsuits that have been filed against AT&T and other telecommunications companies for violating the privacy of their customers would have to be thrown out. In particular, as part of the NSA warrantless domestic spying program, telecommunications companies have established close ties with the government, handing over massive databases of communications. The changes would also expand the powers of the Attorney General to order spying without a court warrant to obtain technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the control of a foreign power. In addition to these proposed changes to FISA, the Bush administration has also declared its intention to veto the Senate version of an intelligence authorization bill, on the grounds that it places undue restrictions on the executive branch. In a Statement of Administration Policy released April 12, the Director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department object to a requirement that the government provide Congress with more information on spying, detention and interrogation practices. These steps by the Bush administration indicate that it is on a renewed offensive to roll back democratic rights and expand government powers to spy on the population. This comes only months after revelations of massive illegal spying by the FBI through the improper use of National Security Letters. The administration has committed numerous impeachable offenses through the violation of existing law, including the FISA Act, and Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. And yet it faces no serious opposition within the political establishment. It is not certain that the administration will get all of the changes it wants passed by Congress, but its ability to demand an expansion of government powers is a reflection of the complicity of the U.S. political system in the assault on democratic rights. As has happened repeatedly in the past, the two big business parties will come to an agreement that further erodes democratic rights in the US. Bush Builds New Nuclear Bombs Wednesday April 11, 2007 The Bush administration's stubborn determination to prevail is evident not only in its reckless military venture in Iraq, but in its single-minded pursuit of new nuclear weapons. The U.S. government is supposed to get rid of its nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. The United States signed the agreement in 1968. In the NPT review conference in 2000, the U.S. government joined other members of the agreement in promising an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. When the Bush administration ignored these commitments and pressed hard for funding to build new nuclear weapons like nuclear bunker busters and mini-nukes, Congress dug in and rejected them as unnecessary. With some 10,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, members of Congress, both Democrats and some Republicans, seemed to feel that enough is enough. Lawrence Wittner in an article published by George Mason University says, from the standpoint of the Bush administration, there are never enough nuclear weapons—at least in its arsenal. Wittner says administration officials are now back with another U.S. nuclear weapons proposal: to build the Reliable Replacement Warhead, better known as RRW. Republican representative David Hobson says: "They've been running with RRW like you wouldn't believe," Hobson’s words hold water because he chaired the House subcommittee on water and energy appropriations, which oversees spending on nuclear weapons. He stayed at the job until this past January. The alleged reason for building this newly-designed hydrogen bomb is to maintain the reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The Bush administration has said the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile is deteriorating and needs to be replaced. But independent studies by scientific experts have shown that the stockpile will remain reliable for at least another fifty years. Not surprisingly, the plan for the Reliable Replacement Warhead has drawn sharp criticism. Daryl Kimball who is the executive director of the Arms Control Association says: "This is a solution in search of a problem, there is an urgent need to reduce these weapons, not expand them." Much the same thing has been said by members of Congress, who stress the provocative nature of the RRW. U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein is a leading critic, despite the fact that the contract for the nuclear weapon is slated to go to the Lawrence Livermore lab in her home state of California. She says: "What worries me is that the minute you begin to put more sophisticated warheads on the existing fleet, you are essentially creating a new nuclear weapon. And it's just a matter of time before other nations do the same thing." Even more worrisome is the fact that the Reliable Replacement Warhead is just the tip of the nuclear iceberg. This nuclear weapon is merely a component of a larger Bush administration plan to rebuild the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The administration calls the plan Complex 2030, and disarmament groups like Peace Action call it "Bombplex 2030". The plan calls for a massive reorganization and refurbishment of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. According to Thomas D'Agostino, the deputy administrator for programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Complex 2030 will restore America to a level of capability comparable to what it had during the Cold War. D’Agostino is a keen supporter of the proposal. Like the Iraq War, this will be a very expensive program. The Bush administration claims that Complex 2030 will cost roughly 150 billion dollars. But the Government Accountability Office considers this estimate far too low and has urged Congress to require that the Department of Energy provide an accurate accounting of the real costs. Naturally, arms control and disarmament groups are horrified by Complex 2030. Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability Susan Gordon has said: "At a time when the Non-Proliferation Treaty is in danger of unraveling, it is madness to be planning to rebuild the U.S. nuclear weapons program with new warheads and new military missions." How warmly Congress will welcome the Bush administration's plan to upgrade and expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal is anyone's guess, but the odds are that it will receive a chilly reception both from Democrats and Republicans. In addition, the plan will certainly be seized upon by other countries. The Bush administration tells other countries to stop building even peaceful nuclear installations, but at the same time, it violates the NPT. World countries would point to the RRW and Complex 2030 to reveal the Bush administration's hypocrisy. Indeed, if the Bush administration were really serious about blocking nuclear proliferation—rather than enhancing its own nuclear weapons supremacy—it would abide by the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. U.S. HAPHAZARD RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ Wednesday April 4, 2007
Leading U.S.
senators say the State and Defense departments need to work more closely
together to avoid repeating costly mistakes in rebuilding Iraq. An audit released last week says the U.S. government must learn from its multi-million-dollar mistakes of poor contract oversight and bad planning in its Iraq reconstruction effort or risk repeating them there and elsewhere. The audit is the first to list in one place the series of mistakes, delays and missed opportunities in a four-year-old Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers nearly 400 billion dollars. Stuart Bowen who is the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction has characterized the U.S. effort in Iraq as chaotic and poorly managed. Bowen has found that the Bush administration's rebuilding effort was riddled with problems. Lack of strategy and unclear lines of authority along with confusion and disarray between the Defense and State Departments are some of the Problems Bowen has listed. Bowen said the two departments must learn how to work more closely together. If the cultures of these departments prove too resistant to change, Congress should consider legislation to force better cooperation between them in running future U.S. military and civilian reconstruction efforts. The audit says, although no single U.S. agency demonstrated the capacity to manage the large and complex Iraq program alone, the unavoidably ad hoc response that sometimes ensued was less than optimal. The audit urges strengthening joint staff between the two departments. Among the findings of the audit are: --A Defense Department agency charged with running the reconstruction effort never developed a fully coordinated plan, leading to confusion and duplication of effort. A former agency official has said: “We were bumping into one another as we tried to solve the same problem” --Money flowed to reconstruction projects before procedures, training and staffing were fully in place, resulting in a lack of clearly defined authorities and little accountability in terms of how dollars were being spent. --Only three contracting officers were initially sent to Baghdad to oversee spending of reconstruction dollars. As a result, some contract files were in disarray or missing while others were stored on personal e-mail accounts and individual hard drives. --There was little oversight to ensure that companies hired to do reconstruction work operated according to international standards. In a case involving the Baghdad Police Academy, the subcontractor used cement joints to seal wastewater pipes. But the cement joints leaked, causing major interior damage to the police facilities. The failure also raised concerns about health hazards as wastewater leaked through floors, ran down halls and filled ceiling lights. Because of the substantial repairs required, some of the planned construction for the 73 million dollar project was canceled. Bowen's office released the 157-page audit in advance of his appearance last Thursday before a Senate committee hearing on the U.S. way forward in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report does not take a position on whether greater U.S. involvement in the region is needed. But it makes clear that the U.S. government must clearly rethink its approach to future efforts, whether in Iraq and Afghanistan or elsewhere. Earlier this year, federal investigators determined that the Bush administration had squandered as much as 10 billion dollars in reconstruction aid in part because of poor planning and contract oversight, resulting in contractor overcharges and unsupported expenses.
Wednesday March 14, 2007 During a 24-hour news cycle last week there were these major stories: Six of the eight recently fired United States Attorneys told Congressional committees that they believe they lost their jobs because they wouldn't play partisan politics in their handling of high profile political corruption cases. Some also claimed they had been threatened by the Justice Department not to go public with their complaints. The second story was about nine American servicemen who were killed in action Iraq. The third focused on more than 100 Iraqi Shiites who were killed by suicide bombers. At least 200 were injured. Another news item talked about seriously wounded soldiers who told Congress about the neglect, bad housing and bureaucratic nightmares they suffered as outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Two top army generals accepted responsibility and apologized to the soldiers and their families. The fifth story was about a new USA Today/Gallup Poll. According to the new poll, six in 10 Americans want Congress to set a time table to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2008. And finally, Lewis Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice in the case of the leak of the identity of a CIA operative in the summer of 2003. Any one of these stories would have been bad news for the Bush White House. As a group they represent a devastating political storm because they paint a vivid picture of corruption, neglect and incompetence. At the same time things continue to go badly in a war that a significant majority of Americans no longer supports and wants to end. It was enough to make the White House spokesman want to hide from the press. But neither he nor his boss can hide from the reality that Bush administration policies have created at home and abroad – a reality that seems about as bad as it can be but promises to get worse. The case of the eight federal prosecutors is still developing. But from testimony so far it appears they lost their jobs for political reasons. Two of the prosecutors claimed they were dismissed after they resisted political pressure to help Republicans win elections. And there is now evidence that at least three Republican members of Congress directly contacted prosecutors regarding ongoing political corruption investigations. This is ethically wrong and may even be illegal. As for the Walter Reed scandal, it has now become clear that the problems there are representing the kinds of issues that wounded veterans, particularly those with brain injuries, are facing throughout the U.S. It's also coming to light that the Department of Veterans Affairs was not prepared to deal with the soaring number of new Iraq war veterans. This is a political hot potato that has the potential to be even more damaging than the Katrina debacle. It was almost amusing to see how desperately the president wanted to turn this over to a bipartisan commission to resolve. In that new USA Today Gallup Poll, in addition to the number of Americans seeking a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, there are some other numbers that are important as well. Now only 28 percent of people believe that the war probably or definitely can be won. That's down from 35 percent in December. Finally, the Libby verdict. This trial was really about how the White House reacted in the summer of 2003 when its rationale for the invasion of Iraq was beginning to crumble. The trial showed that Libby was merely an instrument of his boss the vice president. Dick Cheney was obsessed in his desire to discredit his most dangerous critic at the time, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of the ousted spy Valerie Plame. Cheney’s credibility was on the line. He had led the charge in repeatedly citing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the invasion of Iraq. By June 2003, the World learned that Iraq did not have such weapons. Together these stories prove what we have long suspected – that for the past six years, the most toxic influence on the Bush administration has been Vice President Dick Cheney.
Wednesday March 7, 2007 There are many memos and documents inside the Bush administration that would never end up in public hands. Some of those memos are of no importance and there is no need to be out. But there are other documents that hold important information and their revelation could put on the line the lame-duck government of President Bush. Robyn Blumner, in a piece of writing published by St. Petersburg Times has given the name of a former Bush official who wrote a memo six years ago to give a kind of green light to the administration. Listen to the article that comes to you in a few seconds, to know about the official and the memo he gave to Bush people. A former Justice Department official wrote a memo in 2001 to assure Defense Department higher-ups that prisoners held at Guantanamo prison would not have access to American courts. John Yoo who helped write the memo was an engineer of the Bush administration's post-9/11 dismantling of civil liberties. One month later prisoners, captured mainly in Afghanistan, started to be transferred to Guantanamo with the idea that the men it held would be out of reach of any due process. More than five years later, a disastrous ruling by a federal appellate court has given Yoo exactly what he and his bosses wanted. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has slammed the courthouse door to the hundreds of prisoners in Guantanamo, putting them in permanent legal suffering. In a 2-1 ruling, the court said that foreign-born prisoners held by the United States in a camp that is 90 miles off Florida's coast are stripped of their rights of habeas corpus. Congress had asked for that result in an act that was upheld by the court. So what if mistakes were made and innocents were imprisoned or if abuse occurred? The new ruling says the courts will be closed to prisoners. The writ of habeas corpus is an ancient English legal principle that gives prisoners the right to claim their detention is illegal. The right is so important that the Constitution's authors included it as one of the few civil liberties in the body of the document. The U.S. Constitution says Congress shall not suspend habeas corpus except ''in cases of rebellion or invasion.'' As you can see, the Constitution does not say anything about who should enjoy this right. It is not expressly limited to American citizens, as are other rights listed in the Constitution, such as voting. And there are no territorial limits to the reach of habeas corpus articulated in the text. None of approximately 775 foreign-born prisoners who have come through Guantanamo ever landed on U.S. soil. And it was something done by design. Guantanamo was to be a prison without law and basic human rights were defeated just by landing planes in Guantanamo. To the administration's good fortune, the D.C. Circuit bought its argument that the military base in Guantanamo is not effectively American territory. The U.S. Supreme Court will undoubtedly review the circuit court's ruling. In doing so, it will have to decide whether Guantanamo is truly an American-created no man's land. But to understand the depths of hostility the administration has for the habeas right, one need only look at comments by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. In a recent Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Gonzales said, ''There is no expressed grant of habeas in the Constitution.'' He was suggesting that habeas corpus is not an individual right, since the words of the Constitution are directed at limiting what Congress can do. Thomas Jefferson said of habeas corpus that it is part of ''the creed of our political faith and should we wander from it in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety.'' We only could hope that the Supreme Court understands that these words are still applicable, although President Bush would not like them.
Wednesday February 21, 2007 When a president wins the White House, he knows he is going to be there for four years or at most eight years. That is why presidents are usually careful enough not to leave a bad name behind. President George W. Bush, the latest occupant of the White House has so far done his best to whitewash the wrongs he and his staff have committed. But it looks like that president Bush has failed to cover up all the mistakes his staffers made over the past six years. Even before his presidency is over critics are out to point finger at some of those wrongs. Reporter Carl Bernstein has focused on disinformation and misinformation of the Bush White House. Veteran reporter Carl Bernstein says the lack of truth and candor from the Bush administration is unprecedented in his experience. Comparing the Nixon administration's press relations to those of Bush, Bernstein says, "Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act.” Bernstein says the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation and unwillingness to tell the truth could be seen everywhere, a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and in the office of the vice president.” He has added: “the vice president himself is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale." Bernstein contrasted Nixon's covering up of illegal activities tied to his re-election campaign with the Bush White House's unwillingness to be truthful, both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies. He said: "This president has a record of dishonesty that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth," He added: "We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation and knowing lies from top to bottom." Bernstein blasts what he describes as "the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth." He cites attacks on Senator John Kerry, former Senator Max Cleland and even Senator John McCain . He says: "That's the real story, and that's the story that the press should have been writing," Bernstein, who gained fame with Bob Woodward for their breakthrough reporting on the Watergate scandal, was interviewed for a PBS Frontline series on the media. In an earlier interview the famed journalist said the Bush administration had done "far greater damage" than Nixon. In the PBS interview he said: ”It's very difficult, as a reporter, to get across that when you say, this is a presidency of great dishonesty, that this is not a matter of opinion, this is demonstrable fact.” Bernstein said: “If you go back and look at the president's statements, you look at the statements of the vice president, you look at the statements of Condoleezza Rice, you go through the record, you look at what counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke has written, you look at what we know -- it's demonstrable. It's fact. Now, how do you quantify it? That's a different question. But to me, if there is a great failure by the so-called mainstream press in this presidency, it's the unwillingness to look at the lies and disinformation and misinformation and add them up and say clearly, "Here's what they said; here's what the known facts were." Bernstein goes on to say that: “This is a matter of the truth, particularly about this war. This presidency is not willing to tell the truth very often if it is contrary to its interests. It is not about ideology from where I say this.” He concludes by saying that: It's about being a reporter and saying: "That's what the story is. Let's see what they said; let's see what the facts are."
Wednesday February 14, 2007 Back in November when elections for Congress were around the corner President George W. Bush had many things on his mind. One was what would happen to his White House with a Congress controlled by democrats. The President’s nightmare came true and democrats got back the control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Now democrats are busy taking issues out of the White House and poring over them to find faults. So far, they have studied a number of cases that had been privy only to the eyes of White House people. Democrats have two years to go over issues piled up at the White House over six years. Doing so, they have something in their own mind, a republican Congress may one day reveal the wrongs they may do at a White House under democrats. The rivalry between the two parties has some benefit for Americans; at least they could see what goes on inside the White House. Recently empowered congressional Democrats are pounding President George W. Bush with their most feared new weapons -- the ability to hold hearings and compel testimony. In recent days, Democrats have used hearings to accuse his administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq, cry foul over the firing of federal prosecutors and question the sanity of anyone who would send 363 tons of cash -- or 12 billion dollars -- into a war zone. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is a Nevada Democrat has said: "I think the American people are now seeing how Congress should operate, with congressional oversight hearings," Since taking control of Congress last month, Democrats have turned the Capitol upside down. With dozens of hearings, they have searched for administration skeletons and looked for possible fraud, waste or abuse of power in such matters as homeland security, disaster relief and global warming. Bush made a significant concession to Democrats now armed with subpoena power, agreeing to give selected lawmakers access to classified documents about his domestic spying program to see if it honors privacy rights. Paul Light, of New York University's Center for the Study of Congress says: "A change in party matters when it comes to exposing failures of an administration," He says when Congress is controlled by an opposing party, presidents usually are unable to enact much significant legislation in their final two years in office. But Light said the situation "does provide oversight and the development of issues for the next presidential campaign." Democrats promised stepped-up oversight when they won control of the House of Representatives and Senate in November from Bush's Republicans. Republicans deny Democratic charges that there was little oversight when they were in charge and now accuse Democrats of overdoing it. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman had four oversight hearings in one week. At one, he challenged the logic of the United States sending nearly 12 billion dollars in cash to Baghdad during the first year of the war without strict accounting of it. The California Democrat said: "Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? We have no way of knowing whether the cash that was shipped into the Green Zone ended up in enemy hands." Democrats on the Senate Armed Service Committee used a hearing with the Pentagon's inspector general to confront the administration over its decision to go to war in Iraq. The inspector general issued a report that concluded former defense policy Chief Douglas Feith helped justify the Iraq war with questionable intelligence about Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda. Committee Chairman Carl Levin who is a democrat from Michigan said: "The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation," Republicans rushed to the administration's defense, noting there were widespread disagreements about prewar Iraq's capabilities. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty denied accusations that politics was a factor in firings of seven U.S. prosecutors in the past year. He said: "When I hear you talk about the politicizing of the Department of Justice, it is like a knife in my heart," Democrat Senator Charles Schumer replied: "What I have seen happen in the Justice Department is a knife in my heart." Bush Pulls Back; Leaves behind Bushels of Problems Wednesday January 24, 2007 The latest news out of the White House says Bush is coming to his senses, but just little by little. Now Bush knows he has no Congress behind him to shore up his wrong policies, and he knows that more of his failed policies are waiting out there to gain more troubles for him. President Bush's about-face on warrantless wiretapping was the latest in a series of White House retreats and reversals. This is a different day for a president known for his stubbornness and insistence on seeing things his way. In just two months, Bush has acknowledged making mistakes in Iraq, sacked Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and given up the fight for John Bolton at the United Nations. He has promised a plan to balance the budget by 2012 - after aggressively presiding over record deficits and tax cuts. Democrats also have set such a target. Bush seems to be bending to the realities of the new Democratic control of Congress - and laying down markers to keep the last two years of his presidency from being seen as only about Iraq. Republican strategist Scott Reed said: "It appears that Bush is cleaning up a lot of the outstanding cats and dogs. I think both sides are going to try to get something done for the next year before presidential politics totally consume the country." With his eye increasingly on his presidential legacy, Bush is seeking areas where he can reach agreement with Democrats. That could include shoring up Social Security, overhauling immigration rules and reducing the country's reliance on imported oil. That may run counter to Bush's self-assured image, but it's also a recognition that Democrats are now calling many of the shots. Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas and a longtime close observer of the Bush family says: "Since he feels compelled to stick to his guns on Iraq in a way that he knows bucks public opinion and Congress, he wants to be able to point to some areas where he is doing his best to cooperate, to acknowledge the election results." The abrupt retreat from warrantless eavesdropping of calls between the U.S. and overseas appeared designed to head off certain confrontations with Congress and federal courts. After claiming for months it had the authority to order such spying, the administration now says it will let an independent panel of federal judges oversee the program. The turnabout raised fresh questions about other post September 11 anti-terror policies that appear to push the constitutional envelope, including secret CIA prisons overseas and the continued existence of the prison camp for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay. Bush was drawing criticism even from within his own party over the domestic spying program which was initiated soon after the attacks of September 11 in 2001. This past Thursday Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania said at a testy Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that: "The United States and the administration have paid a heavy price for not acting sooner to bring the terrorist surveillance program under judicial review," Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy said that, in his more than 30 years in the Senate, he never had seen a time when the constitutional and fundamental rights of Americans were more threatened, in his words “by our own government." Until the turnabout, the administration argued that the president possessed extraordinary legal powers because of the need to protect the country after the September 11 attacks. The warrantless spying program was part of a campaign spearheaded by Vice President Dick Cheney, who argued that many presidential powers had been eroded by Congress in response to the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Cheney again defended the program a few days ago in a television interview. The White House denied that Bush's recent concessions to Congress were a sign of political weakness. Presidential press secretary Tony Snow said: "A lot of people are looking for a `panic' or `failure' narrative out of this White House," A Peek Inside Bush Administration Wednesday January 17, 2007 At work or at home, sometimes you see people get back at each other for the wrong acts they have exchanged. And you may think it is limited to work or home, but the reality is, similar behavior could be seen everywhere, even at the White House, just inside the Bush administration. The barbs White House staffers throw at each other usually stay inside, unless some guy goes public or on trial to leak them out. The right time is around for one former administration official to speak out and for Americans to get an image of what goes on inside the Bush administration. Former White House aide Lewis Libby is to go on trial over the administration's response to one critic who questioned assertions President Bush made four years ago to justify waging war against Iraq. Once the right-hand man to Vice President Dick Cheney, Libby faces charges of perjury and obstruction of an investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity to reporters. Libby joins a long list of presidents' aides to face charges in the federal courthouse in the nation's capital. In earlier scandals, trials spawned more trials and long reports from independent counsels. Libby, however, probably will be the only official charged in the CIA leak investigation. His trial is unlikely to fix blame for the scandal. The trial, nevertheless, should give the public glimpses of how Bush administration insiders responded to one high-level critic -- former ambassador Joseph Wilson -- who said the president and his closest advisers distorted intelligence and lied to push the nation into war with Iraq. Wilson was the leading critic of Bush's assertion that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa. Wilson, who was sent to Niger to check the uranium story, told reporters the intelligence did not check out and the administration knew that long before Bush included the assertion in his State of the Union address in January 2003. The criticism led White House officials -- including Cheney -- to begin questioning how Wilson ended up making the trip and whether Wilson's wife was involved. Wilson’s wife was a CIA officer. In June 2003, the back-room chatter made its way into the press. Wilson says the information about his wife -- Valerie Plame Wilson -- was leaked deliberately as retaliation and was part of an effort to silence other critics in the intelligence world. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent three years investigating that allegation but filed no charges based on the leak itself. He says his work is done except for trying Libby, who resigned after being indicted in October 2005. Fitzgerald has made clear in court that he wants to keep the larger, political back story out of the trial and focus narrowly on whether Libby lied to his investigators and obstructed the case. That leaves Libby in the unexpected position of wanting to talk about the whole story of the leak and who else was involved. Libby's lawyers say Plame Wilson's identity was not disclosed because of a grand conspiracy, but rather because of political infighting among the CIA, the White House, and the State Department over intelligence failures on Iraq. Defense lawyers say the more jurors hear about that the more likely they are to believe Libby had no reason to lie and the better his chances are for acquittal. Libby plans to testify about the other things he had on his mind when Plame Wilson was outed and when the FBI questioned him. He says terrorist threats, Middle East tensions and the war in Iraq overshadowed the Plame Wilson issue and clouded his memory about how and when he learned Plame's identity. US District Judge Reggie Walton has said he will allow Libby to make that "memory defense" using summaries of classified information. But the judge had said he is reluctant to allow defense lawyers to rehash the entire scandal. Jury selection was set to begin Tuesday for the trial, which is expected to last about six weeks. The case will make history as the first time a sitting vice president has testified at a criminal trial. Libby's lawyers say they plan to call Cheney to testify in the trial. The Imperial Presidency Wednesday January 10, 2007 Observing President George W. Bush in action lately, we have to wonder if he actually watched the election returns in November. In 2002, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare American voters into shoring up the Republican domination of Congress. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidential power, chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances. The New York Times in an editorial has said in 2006, the voters sent Bush a powerful message that it was time to rein in his imperial ambitions. But we have yet to see any sign that Bush understands that — or even realizes that the Democrats are now in control of the Congress. Indeed, he seems to have interpreted his party’s beating as a mandate to keep pursuing his fantasy of victory in Iraq and to press ahead with his assault on civil liberties and the judicial system. Just before the Christmas break, the Justice Department said it intends to keep stonewalling Congressional inquiries into Bush’s inhumane and unconstitutional treatment of prisoners taken in anti-terrorist campaigns. It refused to hand over two documents, including one in which Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to establish secret prisons beyond the reach of American law or international treaties. The other set forth the interrogation methods authorized in these prisons — which we now know ranged from abuse to outright torture. Last month, Bush issued another of his infamous "presidential signing statements,". He has used such statements scores of times to make clear he does not intend to respect the requirements of a particular law. In this case, the statement suggested that Bush does not believe the government must obtain a court order before opening Americans’ first-class mail. The law is clear on this. A warrant is required to open Americans’ mail under a statute that was passed to stop just this sort of abuse. But then again, the law is also clear on the need to obtain a warrant before intercepting telephone calls and e-mail. Mr. Bush began openly defying that law after September 11 in 2001, authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on calls and e-mail between the United States and other countries. News accounts have also reminded us of the shameful state of American military prisons, where supposed terrorist suspects are kept without respect for civil or human rights. They are kept in prisons on the basis of evidence which is so deeply tainted by abuse, hearsay or secrecy that it is essentially worthless. Deborah Sontag wrote in The Times last week about the sorry excuse for a criminal case that the administration whipped up against Jose Padilla, who was once accused of plotting to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States. Padilla was held for two years without charges or access to a lawyer. Then, to avoid having the Supreme Court review Bush’s power grab, the administration dropped those accusations and charged Padilla in a criminal court on hazy counts of lending financial support to terrorists. But just as the government abandoned the "dirty bomb" case against Padilla, it quietly charged an Ethiopian-born man, Binyam Mohamed, with conspiring with Padilla to commit that very crime. Mohamed is not a United States citizen, so the administration threw him into Guantánamo. He is still being held there as an "illegal enemy combatant" under the anti-constitutional military tribunals act that was rushed through the Republican-controlled Congress just before last November’s elections. Mohamed was a target of another favorite Bush administration practice known as "extraordinary rendition" in which foreign citizens are snatched off the streets of their hometowns and secretly shipped to countries where they can be abused and tortured on behalf of the American government. Mohamed has said he was tortured until he signed a confession that he conspired with Padilla. The Bush administration clearly has no intention of answering that claim, and plans to keep Mohamed in detention indefinitely. The Democratic majority in Congress has a moral responsibility to address all these issues. Some words are circulating in Washington that the Democrats should now "look ahead" rather than use their new majority to right the dangerous wrongs of the last six years of Bush’s one-party rule. This is a false choice. Dealing with these issues is not about the past. The administration’s assault on principles continues. If the Democrats were to shirk their responsibility to stop it, that would make them no better than the Republicans who formed and enabled these policies in the first place.
Wednesday January 3, 2007
Former President Gerald Ford questioned the Bush administration’s
rationale for the U.S. invasion and war in Iraq in interviews he granted
on condition they not be released until after his death. Ford told Woodward that: “I don’t think I would have gone to war,”
Woodward talked to President Ford a little more than a year after
President Bush launched the invasion.
Obviously, Bush belongs to an ancient time when armies conquered nations
and dominated peoples. It is possible he has styled himself as another
Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte or Adolf Hitler. But he not only lacks
the military genius of those men, he does not even know how to inspire
his troops. BUSH’S NEW YEAR GIFT TO AMERICANS; MORE TROOPS IN IRAQ Wednesday December 27, 2006
There is a nasty feeling circulating inside the Washington Beltway that
President George W. Bush will attempt one final stab at the heart of the
Iraqi riddle as a last-ditch effort to regain the upper hand in the
fight for Iraq.
More U.S. troops in Iraq will translate into more deaths on both sides.
The U.S.
toll in Iraq will soar, while more Iraqi civilians will fall victim to
the wrong policies of a president who has made many mistakes over the
past six years, and is on his way to make more in coming years. Bush's plan would be to "flood" Iraq with U.S. troops. There would be American fighting troops in every way you turn. The logic is that the superior numbers of American troops will have a better handle on the situation, all while stepping up the training program of Iraqi forces. By the time Bush leaves the Oval Office in 2008, he would be handing to his successor a much more subdued Iraq. That at least is the theory; the beefing up of American troops in Iraq might seem like a good idea, but in practice, it looks very different. Furthermore, the plan comes three years too late. This is what should have happened at the outset of the U.S. military intervention in March 2003. An overwhelming military force at the beginning of the invasion would have made a big difference, then. Additional troops at that time would have guaranteed law and order. They could have prevented a breakdown of authority. There would have been no rioting, looting of museums, ministries, shops, homes and offices. Had the invading U.S. Army shown itself to be stern from the very first day, had there been ample numbers of troops to maintain law and order, it is quite possible that the chain of events would have unfolded in a very different manner. But remember, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was opposed to sending more troops. But now, more than three years down the road, injecting several tens of thousands of U.S. troops into Iraq presents more of a disadvantage. Committing tens of thousands of additional forces to Iraq may yield limited results but it also exposes so many more Americans to the inevitable daily violence that has become the norm in Iraq; the roadside bombs, attacks against American military positions that have been growing steadily month by month. Consider this: committing several tens of thousands of American troops to Iraq who are more likely than not to engage in heavy combat operations, causing more damage and casualties among Iraqi civilians will only serve to further infuriate Iraqi, Arab and Muslim public opinion, and to build more hatred towards the United States. In short, it would be counter to everything the Iraq Study Group’s report recommended. The Bush Administration: Failed Leadership, Failed SecurityWednesday December 6, 2006 Last month Americans went to polls to give President George W. Bush a strong warning, that he is not fit for president. After the November elections for Congress, people are speaking openly about Bush’s failed administration, and are calling for a new course. But the President is not listening to them and instead says he is going to hang onto his policies, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and other parts of the World. Even inside the country, Bush is not going to change his policy. Bob Burnett in the Berkeley Daily Planet has written some words on Bush, his people at the White House, and their failures there. Bob Burnett on the heels of the GOP’s resounding defeat in the mid-term elections came news that only 31 percent of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of Iraq. This will increase pressure on the new Congress to do something about Iraq. Democrats should resist the temptation for quick fixes. They must step back and acknowledge America has lost the war in Iraq and is in danger of losing the “war” on terrorism. The U.S. military has failed in Iraq. Moreover, the United States has a dysfunctional national security policy that’s not proving effective at defeating terrorism. Recently, there has been a wave of books about the failure of the Iraqi occupation. They range from Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor’s authoritative Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq to Bob Woodward’s tell-all State of Denial. These books say Bush did not send enough troops to handle the occupation and the military chain-of-command failed to recognize the rise of the Iraqi insurgency. Beyond that, the books paint an appalling picture of White House leadership. Of course, no one who studied the career of George Bush should be surprised that he was ill prepared to serve as commander in chief. Nor that Dick Cheney was poorly equipped to be Bush’s second in command. But, what’s disturbing is how weak their team has been: Apparently, Colin Powell had no influence on Bush and Cheney. It’s said that Condoleezza Rice is completely out of her league, totally unprepared for the terrorist threat and the resulting turmoil in the Middle East. And Donald Rumsfeld, supposedly the most seasoned member of Bush’s team, became increasingly dysfunctional, and turned into a man who wouldn’t hear criticism. The disturbing truth is that America is stuck with this failed leadership for two more years. This has grave consequences: the war in Iraq will probably drag on and get worse. Meanwhile, al Qaeda is making a comeback in Afghanistan and the Iraq war is fueling terrorism in the Middle East. This grim reality provides the context for the 110th Congress: a failed administration, a lost war, and an increasingly dangerous world. Thus, Democrats have two huge challenges: First, they must propose a new strategy for combating global terrorism. Then, they have to find a way to move their plan forward in the face of Bush’s unwillingness to consider anything but “staying the course” in Iraq and his national security policy. Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi promises to focus on homeland security from the beginning hours of the new Congress. The Democrats’ homeland security plan has four aspects. Many of the failures of the Bush administration will be difficult to address from Capitol Hill. This dilemma is dramatically apparent in the matter of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Democrats say they will secure loose nuclear materials that terrorists could use to build nuclear weapons or ‘dirty bombs.’ ” MIT Professor Stephen Van Evera noted, “Amazingly, in the two years after 9/11 no more loose nuclear weapons and materials were secured than in the two years prior ... This policy lapse is among the worst failures of government in modern times.” Unfortunately, Democrats can’t force the Bush administration to address the Weapons of Mass Destruction problem. The new Congress will be able to address some of the administration’s national security failures. And, Democratic leaders will have improved access to the bully pulpit. Realistically, these changes are unlikely to move the president from his dysfunctional policies towards Iraq and national security. President Bush has lost the war in Iraq and is going to lose the war on terrorism.
Wednesday November 29, 2006 The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Dick Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the “cakewalk” Adelman predicted. Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that “the president is ultimately responsible” for what Adelman now calls “the debacle that was Iraq.” Peter Baker has written an article on the issue. The Post has published the article and now we are going to repost it to you. Stay there. Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress. Bush's strained relations with his friends and allies take on an extra edge of bitterness amid the dashed hopes of the Iraq venture. Adelman said in an interview last week: “There are a lot of lives that are lost, a country that is at stake. A region at stake. This is a gigantic situation. ... This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful.” The sense of Bush abandonment accelerated with the publication of a former aide's book accusing the White House of moral hypocrisy and with Vanity Fair quoting Adelman, Richard Perle and other neoconservatives assailing White House leadership of the war. Since the November 7 elections, Republicans have pinned their woes on the president. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said: “People expect a level of performance they are not getting,” Many were livid that Bush waited until after the elections to oust Rumsfeld. Senator Arlen Specter said: “If Rumsfeld had been out, you bet it would have made a difference, I'd still be chairman of the Judiciary Committee.” And so, in what some saw as a rebuke, Senate Republicans restored Trent Lott to their leadership four years after the White House helped orchestrate his ouster, with some saying they could no longer place their faith entirely in Bush. Richard Haass, a former top Bush State Department official and now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said a radically different approach to world affairs naturally generates criticism. The willingness to break with Bush also underscores the fact that the president spent little time courting many natural allies in Washington. GOP leaders in Congress often bristled at what they perceived to be a do-what-we-say approach by the White House. Some of those who did have more personal relationships with Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld came to feel the sense of disappointment more acutely because they believed so strongly in the goals the president laid out for his administration. The arc of Bush's second term has shown that the most powerful criticism originates from the inside. The pragmatist crowd around Colin Powell began speaking out nearly two years ago after he was eased out as secretary of state. Powell’s lieutenants such as Haass, Richard Armitage, Carl Ford and Lawrence Wilkerson took public the policy debates they lost on the inside. Many who worked in Iraq returned deeply upset and wrote books such as “Squandered Victory” and “Losing Iraq”. Military and CIA officials unloaded after leaving government, and some retired flag officers called for Rumsfeld's dismissal. On the domestic side, Bush allies in Congress, interest groups and the conservative media broke their solidarity with the White House out of irritation over a number of issues, including federal spending, illegal immigration, the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Most striking lately, though, has been the criticism from neoconservatives who provided the intellectual framework for Bush's presidency. Perle, Adelman and others advocated a robust use of U.S. power to advance the ideals of democracy and freedom, targeting Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a threat that could be turned into an opportunity. In an interview last week, Perle said the administration's big mistake was occupying the country rather than creating an interim Iraqi government led by a coalition of exile groups to take over after Saddam Hussein was toppled. He said: “If I had known that the U.S. was going to essentially establish an occupation, then I'd say, 'Let's not do it, and instead find another way to target Saddam Hussein, It was a foolish thing to do.” Perle, who was the head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board at the time of the 2003 invasion, said he still believes the invasion was justified. But he resents being called “the architect of the Iraq war,”. He says his view was different from the administration's view from the very beginning about how to conduct it. TEN REASONS TO INVESTIGATE BUSH Wednesday November 22, 2006 Few elections in history have provided so clear a mandate. Democrats were largely elected on the promise to act as a strong check on Bush’s administration. But the first response of the new Congressional leadership has been to proclaim a new era of civility and seek accommodation with the very people who need to be held accountable for war crimes and subversion of the U.S. Constitution. Democratic strategists who argue for this kind of bipartisanship maintain that the American people want their political leaders to address the problems of the future. Establishing accountability will require a thorough investigation of the actions of the Bush administration and, if they have included crimes or abuses, ensuring that these are properly addressed by Congress and the courts. Such investigations may be blocked by the Democratic leadership unless American citizens and progressive Democrats in particular demand them. Here are ten reasons why they should. We have taken them for you from ZNet. The US faces a constitutional crisis that goes far beyond either partisan politics or isolated acts of wrongdoing. The Bush administration has tried to replace the constitutional rule of law with the power of the Executive branch to disregard both the laws established by the Legislative branch and the judgments of the Judicial branch. It has cloaked this power grab with a mantle of secrecy. The Democrats are in danger of walking into a death trap the Bush administration and the Republican leadership are setting for them. The Democrats won the election on ending the Iraq war and holding the President accountable. In the current courtship, they are being invited to come up onto the bridge of the Titanic and share responsibility for the catastrophe. If they do that, they will end up at the 2008 election with a disillusioned public who give them equal blame for the war and its catastrophic consequences. Defending the Constitution by investigating breaches in the rule of law will allow Democrats to appeal to new bases of support among independents and others concerned about the rule of law. It provides a way of reaching out without selling out. Bush still holds most of the institutional cards on foreign policy, especially given his claims that the President can exercise authority without Congressional constraint. Short of an unlikely cutoff of funds, he can continue to conduct foreign policy and command the military as he chooses. Congress has few direct levers to impose Democratic proposals for new diplomatic initiatives or troop redeployments. It does not even have effective institutional means to stop further Bush administration adventures. A Democratic Congress that fails to assert its rights against the President will soon find itself losing the initiative in the face of the President’s capacity to frame issues. While investigations are sometime portrayed as purely negative acts, by putting the Administration on the defensive they may actually lay the groundwork for constructive Democratic proposals. A majority of the American people want the President impeached. A mobilization for impeachment was kicked off with speeches by Elizabeth Holtzman, Cindy Sheehan, and others. Serious investigation of Bush administration is probably the only way that Democratic leaders who are reluctant to pursue impeachment can avoid themselves becoming the target of this constituency. Exposing the truth about America’s actions in the world over the past years, and holding those responsible for it accountable, is the prerequisite to setting relations with the world on a new, more constructive basis. As Philippe Sands, who is a professor at University College London and a leading international human rights lawyer, puts it, “If the United States is to re-engage effectively with the rest of the world they have to resurrect accountability for their high officials.” The US government under the Bush administration has systematically violated national and international law. If the perpetrators of these crimes are given permanent impunity with the collusion of Congress, future law-breakers will assume that they can commit similar crimes with impunity. Hearings and investigations are crucial means to establishing institutional and cultural barriers to future crimes. At the close of the Vietnam war, significant limits were established on executive authority, such as a strengthened Freedom of Information Act and a ban on assassination of foreign leaders. These were originally passed over the objection of then presidential aide Dick Cheney, and he devoted his Vice-Presidency to dismantling them. Investigation of such Executive abuses is the prerequisite for restoring public access to government information and developing new oversight mechanisms to enforce bans on torture, wiretapping, aggression, executive secrecy, and other illegal and unconstitutional executive activity. Setting the public record straight about what has happened over the past six years is essential for reestablishing discourse based on reality that can be tested by evidence and argument, rather than on fantasy propagated by national leaders and amplified by their media sycophants. 52% of Americans believe that investigating the origins of the Iraq war is a high priority and 58% want Congress to pursue contracting fraud in Iraq. But that will not automatically translate into action by Congress. Convincing the Democratic leadership to support investigations will require sustained pressure from outside groups. BUSH MEN DOLE OUT GRANTS AT ELECTION TIME Wednesday November 1, 2006 With Republican control of Congress at risk, the Bush administration is busily using the perks of incumbency to help allies from Ohio to California. Cabinet luminaries are traveling to competitive districts and hand out money while local candidates bask in media coverage. John Fortier, a research fellow who studies politics and elections at the American Enterprise Institute says: "Democrats did it. Republicans are doing it. The Whigs and the Federalists probably did it as well. It's a very old tradition," Take Pennsylvania, where Republican Representative Curt Weldon was getting some fuel last Wednesday from the Energy Department. The agency sent an assistant secretary to stand next to Weldon at a press conference, touting a local company that just scored a 6.3 million dollar federal grant. The conference comes as Weldon is under federal investigation for conflicts of interest and is facing the most formidable re-election challenge in his 20-year career. In the same state last week, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao joined another endangered Republican, Senator Rick Santorum, and thanked him for his leadership. Then she announced a 10.4 million dollar grant to help the state clean up from severe storms. Analysts have rated Santorum, the No. 3 Senate GOP leader, as among the most likely Senate Republicans to lose on November 7. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings chose the political crossroads of Ohio when she was ready to start handing out grants for teacher bonuses this week. Among other crucial races there, polls show Republican Senator Mike DeWine trailing Democrat Sherrod Brown. Spellings began her Monday, last week, by appearing in Cincinnati with Representative Steve Chabot, who is in his own election fight. To announce the 20 million dollar grant for Ohio, she stood in Columbus with Representative Ralph Regula, who oversees the House spending bill for education. The agency said the election had no bearing. But Brown didn't buy it. He said Bush and DeWine have shortchanged schools for years, and he accused them of cooking up a publicity stunt. He said it is "Cynical politics at its worst," Elsewhere in the Cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, a former Nebraska governor, has traveled the south and the Midwest to help out Republican candidates. Johanns appeared at a seminar with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who is tied with or trailing Democrat Mike Hatch in polls. Then he appeared at campaign events with Senate candidate Mark Kennedy and Representative Gil Gutknecht, whose races are viewed as competitive. All this political promotion comes in addition to President Bush's increasingly frequent forays on behalf of struggling Republicans. Democrats are expected to pick up seats on Election Day; just how many will determine the direction of Congress, and perhaps the rest of the Bush administration. They must gain 15 seats in the House to take control there, and six in the Senate. In Buffalo, even the chairman of the House GOP election effort is struggling to hold onto his seat. Representative Tom Reynolds is trying to overcome criticism that he did not act early enough to unearth the congressional page scandal surrounding former Representative Mark Foley. Last Tuesday in Buffalo, leaders of a private club and writers at the city's newspaper got unusual visits from the third-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency. The stops by Michael Morell, the associate deputy director of the agency, were arranged by Anthony Gioia, a longtime fundraiser for President Bush and a donor to Reynolds. Morell spoke about the war in Iraq and the fight against terror. CIA officials rarely make such appearances. Asked about the timing, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said there is no connection to the election. He said previous directors and senior officials have talked to editorial boards. Mansfield said: "Politics had no bearing whatsoever on Mr. Morell's acceptance of an invitation to give a speech in Buffalo or when to give it. No one dispatched him." Meanwhile, travel by the Cabinet has angered Representative Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the Government Reform Committee. He produced an analysis that says the cost of private travel by Cabinet secretaries and agency heads is more than 1.5 million dollars since 2001. He wrote White House budget chief Rob Portman and asked him to intervene. Waxman wrote: "Cabinet secretaries are currently crisscrossing the nation to make appearances with members of Congress in close races. It would be a misuse of taxpayer dollars if, as in 2004, these officials were traveling on chartered private jets." Fortier, the research fellow, said he doubts any grant announcement or campaign stop by a big name will make a huge difference in an individual race. But it can't hurt, either. He said: "For incumbents this is something they can use to combat the argument that you need change. They're saying, 'Remember that aside from all the national issues, I'm here for you. I have the ear of the president."'
Wednesday October 18, 2006 A better title for the current administration at the White House, know as Bush administration, would be the By-pass administration. Because its head, President George W. Bush and a bunch of his advisors by-pass whatever regulations and laws, which are down the road to keep U.S. officials from going the wrong way. Regulations are there to protect the rights of people, and by-passing them only means violation of those rights. But Bush people do the by-pass game through ways that appear to many legal. One needs to scratch the surface of the cover Bush has taken, to get the reality that is hidden under. The Rutland Herald has some words on the matter, stay with us and listen to them.
U.S.
Senator Patrick Leahy said on Saturday that, should he become the Senate
Judiciary Committee chairman after congressional elections this fall,
there would be far more oversight of the Bush administration than there
is now.
Without
Congress blocking the administration's expansion of executive power,
Leahy said that checking abuse of power is up to the courts. Leahy cited
several cases reining in the administration's excesses in that regard.
The senator
said: "I regret that despite our efforts to fend off the worst aspects
of the Military Commissions Act, it was adopted by the Senate."
Wednesday October 4, 2006
In
June 2005, two senior national security officials in the Bush
administration came together to propose a sweeping new approach to the
growing problems the United States was facing with the detention,
interrogation and prosecution of terrorism suspects. The New York Times
has published a report on their move, written by Tim Golden. It shows
there has been a deep gap in the U.S. administration about the way the
U.S.
deals with terror suspects. The article now hits the air to give you
more on the issue. It means Bush and his officials at the White House are moving toward more disagreement and even some quarrel. U.S. ADMINISTRATION PUSHES FOR TORTURE Wednesday September 27, 2006 In a White House press conference and in statements of government officials last week, the Bush administration mounted a new campaign of lies and intimidation to justify the rejection of international law and a government policy of torture. The World Socialist Web Site has discussed the issue in an article by Joe Kay and Barry Grey. Excerpt of this article is as follows: The US administration claims that the part of the Geneva Conventions, which sets standards for the interrogation of wartime prisoners, is too vague. The Bush administration says in order to continue a CIA detention program it is necessary to alter the US War Crimes Act and clarify the Geneva Conventions. This propaganda offensive in defense of torture has arisen because of the defection of several prominent Republican senators, who are blocking an administration-backed bill that would grant congressional sanction to the military tribunals Bush established by executive order after 9/11. The high court rejected Bush’s military commissions, which were set to begin trying detainees at Guantánamo, because they violated basic due process principles laid down by the US Constitution. The commissions would allow the use of secret evidence, coerced testimony and hearsay evidence, and even would permit trials to be held in the absence of the defendant. The court also declared that all those held by the US had to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Four Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee refused to back Bush’s bill and instead backed an alternate, somewhat less brazenly repressive measure, which was passed by the committee with the support of its Democratic members. This is what prompted Bush’s angry news conference and subsequent statements of administration officials, who declare that opponents of the administration’s bill are undermining the CIA and aiding the terrorists. One of the aims of the administration’s legislation is to amend the War Crimes Act, a US law that criminalizes war crimes, including violations of the Geneva Conventions. This law allows US courts to enforce international law and prosecute war criminals. The administration is arguing that the aim of this change is to protect CIA interrogators. In fact, the main aim would be to protect high-level officials in the Bush administration, including the president himself, from future prosecution for war crimes. The CIA program has been violating the Geneva Conventions for a period of five years, since it was first implemented under the order of the president. Therefore, the president and other administration officials have acted in violation of the War Crimes Act. According to this law, anyone who commits a war crime shall be fined, imprisoned, or even executed. A number of prisoners under the control of the CIA have been killed while being tortured. The language of the Geneva Conventions has been in place for nearly 60 years. Why is it that the language has suddenly become so “vague” that it needs “clarification”? It was not too vague during the Korean and Vietnam wars, so why is it impossibly vague now? It is clear that the administration wants to “clarify” the language in order to free American officials and operatives from its authority. Why? So they can continue torturing detainees without fear of being prosecuted for war crimes. This policy of torture is part and parcel of a policy of unbridled militarism. In the name of the “war on terror,” the US government rejected the Geneva Conventions in regard to its treatment of Al Qaeda and Taliban forces captured during the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The US government then adopted a policy of “preventive war,” which itself violates the post-World War II body of international law, including the Nuremberg principles, which reject war as a legitimate instrument of foreign policy and declare it to be justified only under conditions of genuine self-defense. In justifying its use of torture, the administration has made a series of claims of supposed plots that have been foiled. As always, no concrete information is provided to substantiate the existence of these plots, and no evidence is provided to support the claim that prisoner abuse was needed to halt them. Americans are supposed to take the government at its word—a government so steeped in lies that it feels compelled to repeat the claims that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda. The administration repeats its claims even after a bipartisan congressional panel said that there was no foundation for the claims. TOP TEN WORST BUSH PEOPLE Wednesday September 20, 2006 1. President George W. Bush. 2. Vice President Dick Cheney. 3. Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove. 4. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. 5. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. These are the top five names Cenk Uygur has put on a list of top ten worst people in the Bush administration. The list is part of an article published by the Huffington Post. It continues like this: 6. Cheny’s Chief of Staff David Addington. 7. Former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith. 8. UN Ambassador John Bolton. 9. Cheney’s former Chief of Staff Lewis Libby. 10. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Uygur says other receiving votes include Condoleezza Rice, Mike Brown, Paul Bremer and every person who ever worked in the Vice President's office. Addington and Libby are so high on the list because they were the root of all of the decisions to torture, strip away rights and ignore the US constitution and the Geneva Conventions. Along with Dick Cheney they composed the heart of darkness. But most of all, they are high on the list because they believe that an imperial executive with broad, unchecked powers is a better system than the liberal democracy. They don't believe in the rights of others, they don't believe in justice. Wolfowitz, Feith and Bolton make the list because they are the arrogant neo-clowns that got the United States into this Iraq War and would like to invade even more countries. Not only were they wrong but they bullied and intimidated the rest of the government into following the disastrous path they set. The real question is who deserves the top spot. For most of the Bush presidency, Dick Cheney has sat comfortably atop the rankings. He is the author and creator of all of the inhumane actions of the last six years. Poor Bush has easily been manipulated into almost any action Cheney has wanted him to take in that time. Cheney is the man who pulls the trigger. Bush is mainly viewed as a pitiable man who has no idea what forces put him into office and why they are directing him to do what he is doing. The thought of Bush fancying himself "The Decider" is so comically and pathetically wrong that it is hard not to feel sorry for him. This is mainly the Cheney administration. In all his lust for power, and dictatorial tendencies, Dick Cheney believes he is the only one who can protect the US. On the other hand, George Bush is not acting in the best interest of the country. He puts his own interest above those of Americans to the point where it is callous indifference. There is nothing George Bush won't do to cover up his own insecurities. The man has been an abject failure in every aspect of his life. But he buries it deep down inside. He puts on his fake swagger and pretends he earned his place in the world. He has had everything handed to him and smashed it to pieces. But a man who cared would look to do the right thing. Would look for help. Would admit he has flaws and bring in people who could help him lead. Instead, Bush, for fear of looking inward, has rejected all change and all help. His pride is more important to him than the lives of others, than the well-being of his citizens. And that is inexcusable. He thinks politics is a game. And that whoever wins the elections is the better man. But it isn't about winning elections, it's about governing. That's why he did nothing during Katrina, that's why he had no plan for post-war Iraq, that's why he stayed on vacation when he was warned Al Qaeda was going to attack inside the United States. He does not care. What is important to him is that he appears powerful and that he wins. What are not important are the consequences of his decisions. The reason Bush had no post-war plan for Iraq is the same reason he had no post-election strategy for governing - because he does not care to govern. At the end of his article Uygur congratulates, George W. Bush and tells him: “You have done what seemed impossible, become less likable than Dick Cheney. You should be proud, you win!”
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