cicerone imposter wrote:More good news from Reuters.
********
A Newsweek magazine poll released on Saturday showed Bush's job approval rating sinking to a record low for his presidency, 42 percent. The poll said 57 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of Iraq.
You know Americans and war. There all for it until there against it; and, then they'll tell you they were never for it.........
This maybe the total downfall
Maybe Bush will pull a last minute LBJ
At a news conference headed my Kucinich:
""I'm just getting tired of being embarrassed to be an American," one woman said."
cicerone imposter wrote:At a news conference headed my Kucinich:
""I'm just getting tired of being embarrassed to be an American," one woman said."
She was referring to Kucinich maybe? I have often felt embarrassed because of him as well...
McG, That you must convolute the statement made by that lady to blame Kucinich just goes to show how desperate many of you are.
C.I., it was a joke at Kucinchs' expense. I have always found that little troll somewhat humorous.
Why Bush will "never get it."
***********************
TRB FROM WASHINGTON
All Too Human
by Peter Beinart
Post date 05.13.04 | Issue date 05.24.04
Since the Abu Ghraib catastrophe broke two weeks ago, Bush officials have struck many of the right notes. But they have struck one wrong one over and over. "This isnot America," President Bush told the Arabic-language network Al Hurra. "This is not who American servicemen are,"
added Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with Al Arabiya, "Americans do not do this to other people."
But, of course, Americans did do to this to other people--that's why Rice was on Arabic television. We know what Bush and Rice and Armitage meant: that most Americans don't torture prisoners and most abhor what happened at Abu Ghraib. But the categorical insistence that something does not happen, right after it just did, suggests more than simply a desire to distinguish the guilty few from the innocent many. It represents an unwillingness to modify--even in the face of undeniable
evidence--the rhetoric of absolute American purity that has characterized this administration's public statements since September 11. That rhetoric was always wrong, and, until the Bush administration lets it go, it will not have fully learned the lessons of Abu Ghraib.
President Bush has always had a distinctive way of praising people. When he nominated John Ashcroft to be attorney general, Bush said the Senate should evaluate "Ashcroft's heart and his record." About ill-fated Labor Department nominee Linda Chavez, Bush spokesmen Tucker Eskew
said the president wanted to shine a "light on her big heart." When Bush first met Russian President Vladimir Putin, he famously said, "I was able to get a sense of his soul." As National Review's Rich Lowry has pointed out, these formulations make no sense: How can the Senate "evaluate" someone's heart? In politics, you judge a person's public performance; you don't--and can't--judge their essence. And, since evaluating someone's moral core is impossible, Bush's demand that others do so is really a demand that they trust his judgment. His formulations render empirical evidence irrelevant. So, in 2000, when Democrats attacked him for not urging the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse, Bush told voters not to "judge my heart based on a position on who ought to be flying a flag over what Capitol." When Al Gore criticized him for prioritizing tax cuts over health insurance for children, Bush responded, "If he's trying to allege that I'm a hard-hearted person and don't care about children, he's absolutely wrong." But, of course, no one was judging Bush's heart--they were judging his actions, which was precisely what Bush was trying to avoid.
When Bush praises the United States, he does so in similar terms. After the Florida recount, he told the The Washington Times' Bill Sammon that he would "seize upon the inherent spirit of America." In this year's State of the Union, he cited America's "good heart." As in his rhetoric about
individuals, Bush dwells on America's essence, not its actions. Our basic goodness is non-falsifiable and self-evident.
And, because America naturally does the right thing, it need not be constrained by the international rules that keep more fallible nations on the straight and narrow. Since taking office, the Bush administration has killed a proposed U.N. convention regulating the trade in small arms. It has refused to ratify a treaty banning land mines. It has wrecked efforts to enforce a treaty banning biological weapons. And it has waged a fierce campaign to exempt American troops from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court. The Bushies have threatened countries that
develop nuclear weapons with preemptive war--while simultaneously developing new classes of nuclear weapons designed not for deterrence, but for actual battlefield use. Yet they seem mystified when other countries express alarm. Don't they know that the United States would never use such weapons unless it were absolutely justified?
Bush officials deny that their refusal to submit to international treaties represents an unwillingness to be held accountable. To hear them tell it, they simply want to be held accountable by U.S. laws and institutions, rather than supranational ones. But, in truth, the Bushies are hostile to domestic oversight, as well. In 2001, the administration reversed a Clinton-era policy and encouraged Cabinet departments to, whenever possible, reject Freedom of Information Act requests. It has denied the General Accounting Office's request for documents about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. And it has opposed one bipartisan inquiry into September 11 and undermined another. The implicit rationale behind this opposition is simple: We can be trusted to do the right thing. During oral arguments in the Jose Padilla case, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested the dangers of a detention system with no judicial oversight. "Suppose the executive says, 'Mild torture, we think, will help get this information,'" she said. Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement's reply was classic Bush: "Well, our executive doesn't."
Except that sometimes it does. Americans, it turns out, are not immune to the dehumanizing pressures of war. If our soldiers, and our leaders, generally act better than those of other countries, it is not because of their inherent virtue. It is because this country's founders, realizing that Americans were deeply fallible, developed ingenious systems of accountability and oversight. Throughout U.S. history, those systems have endured and deepened. But they were horribly absent at Abu Ghraib. And the Bush administration--in the name of sovereignty, national security, and presidential power--has weakened them in the government at large.
Ironically, the only way for the United States to promote human rights after Abu Ghraib is to acknowledge that human rights and Americanism are not the same thing. We must admit what the rest of the world knows--that Americans do evil, and oppose freedom, just like every other people
on earth. What makes us different is a political system open and accountable enough to restrain our abuses and correct our course. We act better than other peoples because we realize that, in our hearts, we are no better than them. Our greatness stems from our humility about ourselves. And that is what President Bush doesn't understand, even after Abu Ghraib.
McG, Your joke backfired on you. Trust me on this one.
The NeoFascist Regime gets scarier and scarier. Repeal this ignorant dictator while there is still a chance.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0520-05.htm
Quote:Denied Entrance to Bush Event in Dubuque
by Matthew Rothschild
On May 7, George W. Bush came to Dubuque to speak at the convention center.
It was billed as a public event, but it was anything but.
Only self-proclaimed Bush supporters could get in. Republican organizers excluded even a World War II vet and the former commander of the local American Legion chapter.
This story of exclusion, broken by the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, is in keeping with other acts of suppression along the Bush campaign trail.
Bill Ward, a member of the 45th Infantry Division during World War II, went to get tickets a few days ahead of time.
Here is his account: "When I got up there, they asked to see my license and so forth, and I showed it to them. And then this young guy asked, 'Are you a Bush backer?'
"And I said, 'No, I didn't vote for him the first time, and I'm not going to vote for him this time.'
"And he said, 'Get out.'
"I said, 'I don't have to take this crap. I'm a World War II vet.' "He said, 'Escort him out.'
"I said, 'I don't need an escort. I can find my way out.'
Ward proceeded right down to the offices of the Telegraph Herald. "I was teed off," he says.
Nick Lucy is a Vietnam veteran and the past commander of the American Legion in Dubuque. "I blow taps two or three times a week for veterans," he says.
But his service and his patriotism were not enough to get him into the Bush event, either.
"One of my Republican friends, a prominent businessman, gave me two tickets," he recalls. "I promised to go because I've seen almost every President since Johnson."
But once he got to the checkpoint, the security staff said, "You're name is not on the list," he says.
Lucy explained who had given him the tickets, and he suggested that the security staff call up his Republican friend then and there.
"I don't care who you want me to call," one of the security people said, according to Lucy.
When Lucy tried to take the man's picture, "he put his notebook in front of his face," Lucy says. And then the man told the police to get him out of there, Lucy recalls.
"If we can't listen to one another, that's not going to make America better," he says.
Four members of Women in Black were also denied entrance, even though they had proper tickets. Jan Oswald was one of them.
"I went the morning they were giving out tickets," she says. "It was a two-and-a-half-hour wait in the Dubuque Building, which is downtown."
The screening process was obvious, she recalls.
"Everyone was being asked whether they supported the President, or were they registered Republicans, or would they put up a sign in their yard or a sticker in their car," she says. But for some reason, when she got to the front of the line, the woman handing out tickets let her buy four of them without any questions asked, except for the names and phone numbers of all four women, Oswald says.
On May 7, since she had a ticket, she expected to get into the event. "We walked up to the check people, and we had our drivers' licenses out and the tickets, so they looked up our names and they said we were on the list to get in. But then a gentleman said, 'You do not look like the kind of people who are here for the right reasons,' " she recalls.
"I responded, 'You know, I'm an American. I've got a ticket that matches. I have identification, and I want to see the President.'
"The man said, 'This is a private affair. You are not welcome.' At that point, he ripped up our tickets."
Her response to that?
"We told him it didn't seem like the kind of America we wanted to live in, and we walked away," she says.
Matt Trewartha is a student of political science at Northeast Iowa Community College. He stood in line for an hour and a half on May 3 to get a ticket for himself and three friends.
While there, he acknowledged to another person in line that he was not a Republican or a Bush supporter but nor was he a Kerry supporter. When he got to the front, he was told he would not be able to get a ticket because of the comment he made about not supporting Bush, he says.
"I'm a nineteen-year-old political science major, and I thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the President in my hometown," he says he told the ticket people.
But to no avail.
Trewartha then asked what he was supposed to do about the three tickets he was trying to buy for his friends.
"Well, as long as they're Bush supporters they can come on down and get their own tickets," the man told him, according to Trewartha.
Trewartha's professor of American history, Ralph Scharnau, upon hearing of his troubles, decided to give him one of his own tickets.
"The day before the event, I went back to the same office and explained the situation and asked whether I could transfer the names on the tickets," Trewartha says. "And they said it was absolutely no problem. But then someone came out and said, 'Sir, you look familiar. You were here Monday. And you couldn't get a ticket then, and you can't get one now.' I said, 'Can I at least have my ticket back so I can give it back to my professor?' And she said no."
Trewartha seethed afterwards. "I was extremely angry and quite frustrated by the whole thing," he says.
Arthur Roche is the coordinator of Dubuque Peace and Justice. He also waited in line for two hours to get his ticket. Unlike Trewartha, he got a ticket.
But he did not gain entry into the event.
"As I was approaching the gate, a guy said, 'You need to have your ID and your ticket out,' so I did that, and the woman asked to see them, so I gave them both to her," Roche explains. "She raised her eyebrows when she saw my name, and she said, 'Just a moment please,' and walked about twenty feet away to confer with three men. She and one or two of those guys came back over to me and said, 'Sir, you're not invited. You'll have to leave.' She handed me my driver's license and my ticket back, and then one of the guys grabbed the ticket out of my hand, tore it in half, and threw it in the garbage."
Roche says he tried to retrieve it, but the man said, "You can't have that. That's our property. You'll need to leave now."
Roche recalls saying, "This stinks," and he walked away.
Steve Bateman, chair of the Dubuque County Republican Party, says this screening policy was not his idea. "I wasn't in charge of President Bush coming to Dubuque," he says. "The Bush campaign ran the event."
The Bush campaign did not return phone calls for comment.
I bet they still kept the money those people paid for their tickets though. That really pisses me off.
Words don't come to me to explain how this makes me feel, or what it means. Makes me want to throw up.
Funny, that was my experience when Bill Clinton came to Albuquerque too. Only Democrats carrying Clinton/Gore signs were admitted during the campaign; afterward only registered Democrats could get into other meetings unless you lied about who you were. Must be standard politicking.
Kerry wasn't too happy about the admission to one of his events, wherein a man questioned him about some issues.
"Are you a Republican?" he charged. He wasn't interested in hearing questions from other-minded Americans. Its not one-sided. I think they're all doing this to avoid yelling matches.
Here's a quick look at where Sen. John Kerry and President Bush stand on the central issues expected to dominate the 2004 race for the White House.
Economy
Bush: The president has repeatedly called on Congress to make his tax cuts permanent, saying failure to do so would amount to a tax hike and threaten prospects for a robust economic recovery capable of generating new jobs. Congressional analysts say that making the tax cuts permanent would cost about $1.3 trillion over the next 10 years.
Kerry: Kerry has called for repeal of the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $200,000 a year, in order to pay for broad health care reform. However, he would retain the tax cuts for the middle class. He says he can halve the record half-trillion dollar budget by the end of one four-year term, even while spending $72 billion a year to extend health care to 27 million of the 40-plus million uninsured. His campaign has provided no details.
Energy and environment
Bush: Bush, who pulled the United States out of the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, believes the threat of global warming should be addressed through new economic growth and efficiency. He also favors oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and backs legislation that would seek to reduce air pollution and acid rain by offering major polluters access to market-based incentives to reduce harmful emissions.
Kerry: Kerry favors U.S. participation in an international climate change program to curb global warming and would cut mercury emissions by American utilities and plants. To encourage more renewable energy sources, Kerry wants to create a renewable energy trust fund to reduce oil consumption by 2 million barrels per day, which is roughly the amount imported from the Middle East. Kerry also backed Senate legislation to impose stricter mileage standards on gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and automobiles.
Foreign policy
Bush: After straining relations with major European allies and the United Nations over war in Iraq, Bush has shifted his foreign policy focus to the spread of democracy by pushing a Greater Middle East Initiative that would aim to resolve the region's political, economic and social problems through democratic reform. The president, criticized for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is also pursuing a policy that seeks to unravel the black market in nuclear components and block programs in North Korea and Iran, countries he has labeled an "axis of evil" along with prewar Iraq.
Kerry: While insisting he would never cede U.S. security to any other nation and would use force when required, Kerry envisions "a new era of alliances" to replace what he sees as the White House's go-it-alone approach to foreign policy. He has pledged to restore diplomacy as a tool of U.S. foreign policy, treat the United Nations as a "full partner" and pursue collective security arrangements. His inner circle of foreign policy advisers features prominent Democratic veterans, including some figures from the Clinton days.
Post-war Iraq
Bush: After seeing his plan to bring democracy to Iraq through regional caucuses scuttled by a leading Shi'ite cleric, Bush has succeeded in brokering an interim constitution for the oil-rich Arab nation and pledged to work with Iraqi leaders and the United Nations to prepare for full Iraqi sovereignty by June 30. The administration expects U.S. troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely as a security measure against insurgents and sectarian violence.
Kerry: He voted in 2002 in favor of the war against Iraq, but has since attacked the administration for misrepresenting the military threat posed by Baghdad and for mismanaging the post-war occupation. He later voted against the appropriation of $87 billion for the U.S.-led effort, a move that has led some critics, including some in his own party, to accuse him of hypocrisy.
Trade
Bush: Bush, an avowed free trader, has embarked on a series of trade agreements with countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. But his administration has also faced charges of protectionism over steel tariffs that the World Trade Organization ruled illegal, and its reluctance to trim import barriers that protect U.S. sugar, dairy and beef industries.
Kerry: Kerry has promised a 120-day review of all existing U.S. trade agreements upon taking office, and favors using the World Trade Organization to challenge China's currency practices. He also has pressed for stronger labor and environmental language than Bush has required in growing collection of bilateral free trade agreements with countries around the world.
Israel and the Palestinians
Bush: Bush, a staunch defender of Israel, backs the stalled "road map" to Middle East peace that calls for creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel by next year. The White House has also expressed concern about Israel's construction of a security barrier through Palestinian territory, ostracized Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and cautiously embraced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's proposal to dismantle Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Kerry: Kerry says he would breath new life into the moribund Middle East peace process and name a special presidential envoy to the Muslim world, who would seek to encourage moderate elements.
Reuters contributed to this report.
------
Well....? Kerry will 'breathe new life'...review trade practices...he 'envisions' new alliances... Sounds like a man on a mission...
Does any of this sound good to anyone?
PS-- I bet Dems are climbing over each other to be the Special Presidential Envoy to the Muslim world...
TENTATIVE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION SCHEDULE
New York, NY
6:00 PM Opening Prayer led by the Reverend Jerry Fallwell
6:30 PM Pledge of Allegiance
6:35 PM Burning of Bill of Rights (excluding 2nd amendment)
6:45 PM Salute to the Coalition of the Willing
6:46 PM Seminar #1: Iraq Stratergies?Voodoo/DooDoo WMD
7:30 PM First Presidential Beer Bong
7:35 PM Serve Freedom Fries
7:40 PM EPA Address #1: Mercury?It's what's for dinner!
8:00 PM Vote on which country to invade next
8:10 PM Call EMT's to revive Rush Limbaugh
8:15 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: The Homos are after your Children!!
8:30 PM Round table discussion on reproductive rights (MEN ONLY)
8:50 PM Seminar #2 Corporations: The Government of the Future
9:00 PM Condi Rice sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"
9:05 PM Second Presidential Beer Bong
9:10 PM EPA Address #2 Trees: The Real Cause of Forest Fires
9:30 PM Break for secret meetings
10:00 PM Second prayer led by Cal Thomas
10:15 PM Lecture by Carl Rove: Doublespeak made easy
10:30 PM Rumsfeld demonstration of how to squint and talk macho
10:35 PM Bush demonstration of trademark "deer in headlights" stare
10:40 PM John Ashcroft demonstrates new mandatory Kevlar chastity belt.
10:45 PM Clarence Thomas reads list of Black Republicans
10:46 PM Third Presidential Beer Bong
10:50 PM Seminar #3 Education: A Drain on our Nation's Economy
11:10 PM Hillary Clinton Piñata
11:20 PM Second Lecture by John Ashcroft: Evolutionists: The Dangerous New Cult
11:30 PM Call to EMT's to revive Rush Limbaugh again.
11:35 PM Blame Clinton
11:40 PM Laura serves milk and cookies
11:50 PM Closing Prayer led by Jesus Himself
12:00 PM Nomination of George W. Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary Overlord
Telling it like it is:
Pelosi questions Bush's competence
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday sharply questioned President Bush's competence as a leader, suggesting his policy in Iraq is to blame for the loss of U.S. lives. That assessment drew a furious response by Republicans who called on the Democratic leader to apologize.
"The emperor has no clothes," Pelosi, D-California, told reporters on Thursday. "When are people going to face the reality? Pull this curtain back."
Pelosi first delivered her comments to a California newspaper. She repeated them during an exchange with reporters Thursday -- the same day Bush was on Capitol Hill meeting in private with GOP lawmakers in a sort of pep rally for the party faithful.
Republicans effused praise for the president as they left the meeting, but Democrats were having none of it.
"The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader," Pelosi said. "These policies are not working. But speaking specifically to Iraq, we have a situation where -- without adequate evidence -- we put our young people in harm's way."
Asked specifically if she was calling Bush incompetent, Pelosi replied:
"I believe that the president's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers."
Pelosi charged the Bush administration has proved itself wrong on a number of issues with Iraq, including its initial assertions that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops and that Iraq itself could pay for much of the reconstruction effort.
"Rocket-propelled grenades, not rose petals, greeted them," Pelosi said of U.S. troops. "Instead ... of Iraq being a country that would readily pay for its own reconstruction ... we're up to over $200 billion in cost to the American people."
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blasted Pelosi, casting her comments as detrimental to U.S. troops.
"Nancy Pelosi should apologize for her irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric," DeLay, R-Texas, said. "She apparently is so caught up in partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk."
The Republican National Committee also released a written statement, saying Pelosi and other Democrats were putting more blame for the deaths of U.S. service members on Bush than on terrorists. And the statement tied Pelosi to Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
"The San Francisco/Boston Democrats led by John Kerry have now adopted 'Blame America First' as their official policy," RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said in the statement.
Pelosi did not back down, even when asked if her comments would undermine Bush's abilities as commander in chief.
"His activities, his decisions, the results of his actions are what undermines his leadership, not my statement," Pelosi said. "My statements are just a statement of fact."
At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan was asked about Pelosi.
"I just don't think that such comments are worth dignifying with any response from this podium," he said.
Many people seem to be missing the (current) message from this president; the US has the obligation to bring democracy and peace to all countries, because that's god's plan. It has nothing to do with Saddam having WMDs. The larger cause is that all humans have the right to live with the same freedoms we have in the US. I'm just wondering which country Bush is thinking of bringing peace and democracy to. It worries me a little.
But someone forget to tell the Stepford Wife, Nancy Pelosi that she is not the Speaker of the House nor the House Whip. She is the minority. And not only the minority. She is so far to the left as to make ANYTHING she says remarks not to be taken seriously.
The Handbook of American Politics- 2002-tells us on P. 180 that her Congressional District- The Eighth- takes in four-fifths of San Francisco. That fact alone places her outside of the American Mainstream. The handbook of American Politics states:
P. 181
quote
On other issues Pelosi has a perfectly liberal voting record
Anyone with a perfectly liberal voting record is suspect and not to be taken seriously.
The Washington Post, on Bush's poor standing with minorities:
Quote:President Bush's campaign advisers sat down and crunched some numbers after the 2000 election and hypothesized that, because of the growth of minority populations, if whites and non-whites voted in the same proportions they did in the 2000 election, Democrats would win the White House by about three million votes in 2004.
Why's that?
Quote:This week, Cornell Belcher, a black pollster based in Washington, D.C., who works for several progressive organizations, shared some startling numbers with me. He has been doing monthly polling in six key battleground states -- Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, Michigan and Nevada. Even as white voters nationwide have been moving toward negative feelings about the war, black voters have taken those feelings and supersized them.
Seventy-three percent of African Americans in those states disagree that the war in Iraq is worth the U.S. casualties there because the country is safer. Sixty-three percent agree that America should cut its losses and pull out of Iraq right now.
