The Bush Legacy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eih67rlGNhU&feature=related

CA's Proposition 8: A Tempest in a Teapot

Proposition 8 is irrelevant. Marriage is a religious sacrament. Religions, protected by State and Federal constitions, remain free to marry whomever they wish.

(As both Federal and State constitutions bar States from endorsing religion, states should stop issuing marriage licenses.)

The collection of legal obligations currently associated with marriage can already incorporated in a Declaration of Civil Union. As Proposition 8 affects only the issuing of marriage licenses by the State, Gays in California remain free to combine a religious marriage with a civil union.

The pig got up and slowly walked away

The negative attacks on Obama remind both McCain and Craig Unger (author of House of Bush, House of Saud) of the negative attacks on McCain by Bush adherants in the 2000 primary. As Unger notes on p195, these include assertions that “McCain’s wife had mob ties, McCain had illegitimate children, a “black” child (Obama??), an abortion in his family, .... and opposed breast cancer research.”

The wording changes; the meaning remains the same

The wording changes; the meaning remains the same.

"House Nigger"
changes to
"Oreo"
changes to
"Liberated but not Liberal"

Bush Had No Plan to Catch Bin Laden after 9/11

recall
1. saudi arabians finance attack on twin towers.
2. bush vows to confiscate saudi arabian bank accounts
3. taliban halts growth of poppies
4. bush invades afghanistan (allegedly in pursuit of Bin Laden)
5. poppy growth and opium production resume.
6.http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=1722
7. bush has yet to confiscate financeers' bank accounts.

Tent cities spring up across the nation!

How about using $700 Billion for building homes for the homeless, plus safe schools, as well as replacing old water towers and sewer pipes. Labor free simply by bring troops back from Iraq to do the work. (Oops, I forgot we pay all those troops and their CEO generals, even if only the generals have post-mission medical benefits.)

The Pentagon Bailout Fraud

See http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174982/chalmers_johnson_the_pentagon_bailout_fraud

Books and DVD's about the war in Iraq

Gladiator at Law by Fredrick Pohl. Its highly prophetic opening chapter describes the war in which the last country in the world, Uttar Pradesh if I remember correctly, agrees to accept U.S. advertising.

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein details U.S. foreign policy from its undermining of democracy in the Congo to Hurrican Katrina and Iraq.

Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson describes the effect on other countries of the U.S. policy of establishing airbases and golf-courses in every nation in the world.

A Solitary War by Heraldo Munoz describes the pressures the US put on other UN nations to get them to join its war in Iraq.

The Fall of the House of Bush by Craig Unger details the lies the Bush administration told the US public (and General Powell) to get them to endorse the war in Iraq.

The film, Control Room, shows how the U.S, military retaliated against the Al-Jazeera network for putting pictures of dead civilians and g.i's on the air. "It gives the wrong picture of the war," one general said.

Which reminds me: Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.

Good news for CEO wives

The recent 700 billion dollar bailout of the banking industry means your husband will get his golden parachute and you can keep your head up amid your Cayman neighbors.

Welcome to Zimbabwe

US plans to print 700 billion in additional currency in bank bailout. The resulting depreciation in the already depreciated US dollar will necessitate a rise in food prices and inflation at a record rate. In the worst case, senior can switch to dog food and those already eating dog food can die thus easing the burden on social security and Medicare which McCain plans to cut anyway.

Book Review: A Garden of Vipers

When I first read the description on its book jacket, "plunged into a world where truth is weakness, deception is admired, and death is just another cost of doing business," I thought, oh boy, another book about the Bush administration. But while the villians in this detective novel are spoiled rich psychotics, they live in Mobile Ala and generally only kill one person at a time. This is the Jack Kerley's third novel in the series and is every bit as exciting as its predecessors. Still, I kind of miss the political infighting which characterized The Hundredth Man, his first.

military takeover in 2011

It doesn't really matter who wins the election, the Manchurian Candidate or the Pretty Boy. Both seem reluctant to express the awful truth: real unemployment (counting workers who no longer are looking for jobs) is running well above 15%. Once, the military and the contractors return from Afghanistan and Iraq, unemployment will exceed 30%. Look for a military takeover in 2011.

Bush's Contributions to the World Economy

There has much been so many negative comments about Bush's destruction of the US economy, that we thought it time to set the record straight. Under Bush's leadership:

o The economy's of China and Vietnam have known unprecedented growth.

o Though profits plummeted and thousands of minority youths were thrown out of work after the Taliban destroyed Afghanistan's poppy fields, prompt action on Bush's part restored heroin production, profits are up for Bush's campaign contributors, and urban youth can again make a living selling crack and smack on street corners and school yards.

o Realizing that cutting taxes for the rich would not be successful unless there were huge profits for the rich to avoid taxes on, Bush sent hundreds of thousands of troops to Iraq. Not only have contractors profited there in the absence of oversight, but the oil companies have profited in three different ways:

1. The demand for oil has doubled due to the need to transport troops and equipment. This had led both to higher sales and higher profits per sale.
2. Taxpayer-paid service men and contractors have replaced oil company personnel in guarding oil fields and pipe lines.
3. To get US troops to leave, the Iraqii government has been forced to sign long-term contracts with the oil companies at ruinously low prices, thus ensuring that all profits on Iraqii oil will go to the oil companies.

o Deposits in Switzerland, the Cayman islands and other safe havens for excess profits have doubled.

Don't Blame the Manchurian Candidate

Those who would throw brickbats at McCain for dumping his wife and the mother of his children after getting out of prison, then marrying some rich bitch who would further his political career, should remember that after five of indoctrination at Communist hands he was merely doing what he'd been programmed to do. It's the Communists' next post-hypnotic suggestion, we ought worry about.

(Maybe Bush really was in the Air National Guard and got shot down over VietNam. How else to explain both Vietnam and China experiencing such never-before-seen prosperity as they have under Bush's leadership?)

McCain and Keating fooled you once

Remember Lincoln Savings? When McCain and Keating fooled you the first time, it was shame on them. If you let them fool you again, then shame on you.

It's all about the oil, stupid

http://www.truthout.org:80/article/time-iraq-war-oil-profits-taxes

http://www.truthout.org/article/time-iraq-war-oil-profits-taxes-part-ii

McCain the Manchurian Candidate

Those who've seen either version of the film, The Manchurian Candidate, or who've read the book, know that it concerns a G.I. taken prisoner in the Korean War who is brainwashed by the Chinese. Does the same plot apply to an airman taken prisoner in the Vietnamese War who is brainwashed by the Chinese? Those familiar with McCain's platform know that the answer is "yes." His desire to perpetuate the disasterous policies of the Bush-Cheney government which have left hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work or on the military dole can only further push America into a major depression leaving us vulnerable to a takeover by Beijing.

Even the American military are divided, some top officers believing that the threat posed by the Chinese can only result in still larger budgets and others who believe that things may already have gone too far and we can only lose such an encounter. Do the 35% of the U.S. population who remain Bush loyalists really want to serve as slaves when the Chinese arrive? Or do they picture themselves serving as overseers in a slave economy?

Why The Media Demands A Single Candidate

"Clinton should step down," read the headlines. "She should step down," repeat the columnists, the talk show hosts and TV's talking heads.

But why? At least three answers underlie this latest dictate of the Media's bosses, an oligarchy of a few very rich men. Their reasons are not generally publicized, but a trip to the 13th floor and an insertion into the mind of one of the privileged few revealed all.

"Stop Edwards: Too often when the Democrats are divided, they've settled on a compromise candidate. Senator Edwards is no compromise. He's little more than a communist, an #$% robin hood, and he'll cost this country a fortune. (O.K., so all #$% politicians cost taxpayers a fortune; this latest #$% has left the U.S. bankrupt; but at least he left my off-shore accounts alone.)

" Trim costs: Having to send out two teams of reporters and cameramen is costing us a fortune. (Note to self for future reference: We could save even more if there were only a single party. We could cut back on our political donations, too.)

"Admittedly, we'll lose some money in the short run, since the audience for the Democratic convention will drop off to nothing. (Come to think of it, we don't actually get paid for showcasing those conventions, it's just another of those worthless public services we do to show our hearts are in the right place. Could we drop them from our schedule entirely?) But in the long run, once the public starts to ignore the conventions, we can get back to electing a candidate the way it ought to be done, in a room full of cigar smoke and good old boys."

Phillip Good, formerly known as #6 of the Berkeley Barb, is the author of Common Errors in Statistics (and How to Avoid Them).

Civil War in Ecuador?

Now that the President of Ecuador has ejected a US airbase, we can count on the CIA doing another Kenya or another Congo, depending on whether they sponsor a civil war or an assassination.

Boycott Beijing Sponsors

Please Boycott the sponsors of Beijing Olympic games.

Send our athletes, but fans stay home.
Don't travel to China.
Avoid purchasing Chinese-made goods.
Don't purchase Samsung, Coca-Cola, Lenovo, or GE products.

How Republican appointees spend your money

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040908O.shtml

What's the difference between Moslems and the U.S. Military?

What's the difference between Moslems and the U.S. Military?
In Iraq, there isn't any as far as women are concerned. See

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040908J.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040208N.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040408M.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030308H.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031508Y.shtml

Want a Job? Benefits? Join the Military

Under Bush, the nation has launched the largest program of welfare for the otherwise unemployable. (And by not enforcing the laws against illegal immigrants, Bush has assured that few citizens will have any other choice than to enlist.)

Read

The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why?

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21201

Why Kenya?

Kenya suffered in the previous century under British tyranny, why is the U.S. now involved? Demonstrating its dissatisfaction with President Mwai Kibaki's administration, the U.S. backed Kenya's political opposition, and, when they failed to win the election, supplied the arms that underlie today's atrocities. But why? Kenya has no oil and poses no economic threat to the United States. But readers of Chalmer Johnson's Nemesis will understand that the US wants an air base there (here, there and everywhere). Kibaki (sensibly) refused to allow the camel's nose in his country's tent. He wants to play hardball does he? So we give him hardball. I don't like us.

The Wages of Peace

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031708O.shtml
Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier write for The Nation: "The economic consequences of Iraq run even deeper than the squandered opportunities for vital public investments. Spending on Iraq is also a job killer. Every $1 billion spent on a combination of education, healthcare, energy conservation and infrastructure investments creates between 50 and 100 percent more jobs than the same money going to Iraq. Taking the 2007 Iraq budget of $138 billion, this means that upward of 1 million jobs were lost because the Bush Administration chose the Iraq sinkhole over public investment."

And For Vice-President, the nominee is ...

Bush's selection of Cheney as is his vice-president was a stroke of genius as it made Bush assassination proof. We use this same criteria in advising Obama to select Edwards as his vice-president with Janet Napolitano, the Governor of Arizona, as a possible alternative, while for Clinton, the choice of Obama as her VP is obvious.

US Cannot Manage Contractors in Wars, Officials Testify on Hill

With even more U.S. contractors now in Iraq and Afghanistan than U.S. military personnel, government officials told Congress yesterday that the Bush administration is not prepared to manage the contractors' critical involvement in the American war effort.

At the end of last September, there were "over 196,000 contractor personnel working for the Defense Department in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Jack Bell, deputy undersecretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness.

Contractors "have become part of our total force, a concept that DoD [the Defense Department] must manage on an integrated basis with our military forces," he also said in prepared testimony for a hearing yesterday of the Senate homeland security subcommittee. "Frankly," he continued, "we were not adequately prepared to address" what he termed "this unprecedented scale of our dependence on contractors."

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and William M. Solis, director of defense capabilities and management for the Government Accountability Office, testified that not enough trained service personnel are available to handle outsourcing to contractors in the wars.

Solis said a military officer with a Stryker brigade deployed in Iraq had told the GAO about a contractor that had mishandled security screenings of Iraqis and foreigners. In the end, Solis said, the officer used his own personnel to accomplish the task, diverting staff from "their primary intelligence gathering responsibilities."

Retired Army Gen. David M. Maddox, who has studied the contracting effort in Iraq as a member of an Army-appointed commission, said in his statement that it "has not fully recognized the impact of a large number of contractors" and "their potential impact to mission success."

Maddox said the Army had five general officer positions for career contracting professionals in 1990 but has none today. The two-star general who runs the Joint Contracting Command for Iraq/Afghanistan, Maddox said, is an Air Force officer.

Maddox added that 3 percent of Army contracting personnel are active-duty and that the acquisition workforce shrunk by 25 percent from 1990 to the end of fiscal 2000. While the contracting workload has increased sevenfold since 2000, he said, about half of the military officers and Army civilians in the contracting field "are certified for their current positions."

Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), the subcommittee's chairman, noted that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has reported that $10 billion of about $57 billion in contracts for services and reconstruction in Iraq "is either questionable or cannot be supported because of a lack of contractor information needed to assess costs." He added that more than 80 separate criminal investigations are underway involving contracts of more than $5 billion.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a subcommittee member who has investigated the contract issue during her trips to Iraq and Kuwait, stressed that "if people are not fired or demoted or if there is not a failure to promote in the military because of massive failure of appropriate oversight and management, things will not change."

But when she asked Bowen and Solis if they knew of anyone who had been fired or denied promotion because of contracting mistakes disclosed in more than 300 reports over five years, they said they knew of none.

By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post -------

Bush economic stimulus

Bush administration vs U,S, veterans

7 ex-POWs, pilots who were shot down and brutalized by Saddam Hussein's regime, are suing the Iraqi government for damages.

The Bush administration is denying their lawsuit, claiming that the money would place a financial burden on the Iraqi government and strain the relationship between Iraq and the United States.

Is this administration more loyal to a corrupt foreign government than to our own troops who were prisoners of war?

This administration has no shame, loyalty or compassion for those who are fighting to protect our country.

Mike Lockridge

Mission Viejo