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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doug R who wrote (268378)	6/29/2002 6:46:38 PM
From: Frederick Smart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The Cover is OFF The Ball..... >>If you have openly dissented against this illegal administration, you—yes, you—are also in danger. George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, while issuing bogus terror warning after bogus warning, claiming that another massive attack (even involving nuclear weaponry) is just around the corner unless we give them the vast tools to fight terrorism, are putting a loaded gun to the head of every American citizen and brazenly asking, "What would you rather have—your life or your rights?" It is now unpatriotic to demand the rights we have fought for and protected for more than 200 years. With this in view, students of history should not fail to apply a comparison to what happened on September 11 with the Reichstag and Nazi Germany. In this country—in America—people are disappearing from their homes, being held incommunicado without specified duration, without charge, without judicial oversight, and without benefit of counsel. In this country—in America—political opponents of the officially sanctioned parties in Washington are being denied their right to travel, and are being put on "watch" lists. In this country—in America—the doors and windows of the Executive branch have been officially closed and silenced to the scrutiny of the people, the courts, and Congress. In this country—in America—the taxes paid by the majority of American citizens are being doled out to a small elite class of Americans. In this country—in America—there is an officially sanctioned news service that openly warns its employees to broadcast no news unless it is accompanied by sanctioned government propaganda. For those of you, like me, who have been looking forward to the presidential election in 2004 to cure the ills of November and December, 2000, are you quite certain that in this country—in America—we will have an election as designed by a democratic society, or will we have only one, officially sanctioned, candidate? In this country—in America—we can no longer presume that "it couldn't happen here." onlinejournal.com; ....and now "the great unravelling" is upon us. This is "the end of mankind's world." Before the dawn of the Kingdom of Heaven which has been with us since April 9, 30 AD when our Lord's human became divine in the glorious resurrection. These things take time. 119293!! 119293!!

To: Doug R who wrote (268378)	6/29/2002 7:45:07 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

ARAFAT CALLS FOR FAIR AND DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS IN THE U.S. Hi Doug, The Bush Hypocrisy is getting so hysterically funny that he's being mocked across the planet: [[DISCLAIMER: This piece is satire – sort of.]] yellowtimes.org ''Arafat calls for democratic elections in the United States'' Printed on Thursday, June 27, 2002 @ 14:59:39 EDT ( ) By Rahul Mahajan YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (YellowTimes.org) – Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new Chief Executive before it attempts to continue in its role as broker between Israel and Palestine. "Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim-Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87 percent of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. (1) "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn’t deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East."' (2) Hugo Chavez, elected president of Venezuela with 62 percent of the popular vote, concurred with Mr. Arafat. Chavez has long been a victim of Bush's anti-democratic attitude, as the Bush administration funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars through the "National Endowment for Democracy" to anti-Chavez forces and reportedly gave the go-ahead for an attempted military coup by those forces. (3) "After it was over and I was back in power," said Chavez, "his administration actually told me 'legitimacy is not conferred by a majority vote.' Unless, of course, it's a majority of the Supreme Court. I respect the local traditions, however quaint, of the United States, but he hardly sets the best example for the Middle East, does he? Why don't we get back to that idea of an international conference to settle the question of Palestine?" Bush was not without his supporters, however. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, elected head of a country that legally discriminates among its citizens on the basis of religious belief, forbids political candidates from advocating an end to that discrimination, and disenfranchises an entire people through military occupation, dismissed the call as "absurd." Hamid Karzai, recently "elected" head of Afghanistan by a grand council, or "loya jirga," in which a foreign body, controlled by the United States, selected delegates; unelected warlords who had ravaged the country were permitted to control the meeting and to threaten delegates who refused to vote their way; and the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, refused to allow at least two other candidates to stand for election, added his support for Mr. Bush in his hour of need. (4) Said Karzai, "In Afghanistan, we have the loya jirga. In the United States, you have your own process - as we understand, it's traditional over there for corporations to play a large part in electing officials and writing legislation. We're very interested in looking into that kind of system ourselves." Vojislav Kostunica, chosen head of Yugoslavia in an election where the United States spent an estimated $25 million to influence the results, was also keen to rush to Bush's defense, indicating that he saw no procedural problems with the 2000 elections. (5) And Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, long derided for his claim that "Asian culture" is at odds with universal human rights, added, "The elections are strictly an internal matter, and should have no bearing on the status of the United States as a broker. The Palestinians' high-handedness is a serious threat to national independence." In a surprise move, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, long an ally of the United States, supported Arafat's call, saying, "While we're at it, let's take another look at our agreement on American independence. George Washington was not only unelected, he did rather associate with terrorists. Benedict Arnold would have been a much more suitable partner for peace, n'est ce pas?" Arafat, busy working on a plan to find a new Israeli leader not tainted with the massacre of hundreds of innocents in Sabra and Shatila to negotiate with, could not be reached for further comment. (6) DISCLAIMER: This piece is satire – sort of. All the quotes have been made up. All the background facts are true, and have been footnoted for that reason. It's the kind of news piece that might appear in a world in which other countries' heads of state felt free to tell the truth about certain U.S. policies. [Rahul Mahajan is the Green Party candidate for Governor of Texas. He is a member of the Nowar Collective (http://www.nowarcollective.com) and serves on the National Board of Peace Action. His book, "The New Crusade: America’s War on Terrorism,” (http://www.monthlyreview.org/newcrusade.htm) has been described as "mandatory reading for anyone who wants to get a handle on the war on terrorism." His other work can be seen at rahulmahajan.com. This article first appeared on counterpunch.com.] Rahul Mahajan encourages your comments: rahul@tao.ca Footnotes: (1). Palestine and the Palestinians, Samih Farsoun with Christina Zacharia, Westview Press 1997, p. 284. (2). See "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," Greg Palast, Pluto Press 2002. (3). See, e.g., "Warning to Venezuelan leader," Greg Palast, BBC Newsnight, May 13, 2002, gregpalast.com. (4). See, e.g., "Stifled in the Loya Jirga," Omar Zakhilwal, Washington Post, June 14, 2002, washingtonpost.com and "Afghanistan: Gangsters, Murderers, and Stooges Used to Endorse Bush's Vision of 'Democracy,' " Robert Fisk, the Independent, June 10, commondreams.org. (5). "Milosevic, Trailing in Polls, Rails Against NATO," Steven Erlanger, New York Times, September 20, 2000. (6). See, e.g., "The Fateful Triangle: the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians," Noam Chomsky, South End Press 1999 (2nd edition). YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, yellowtimes.org. Internet web links to yellowtimes.org are appreciated. Would you like to receive select YellowTimes.org articles via e-mail? If so, you will receive an e-mail every two days from YellowTimes.org with the latest articles published on the YellowTimes.org website.

To: Doug R who wrote (268378)	6/29/2002 10:53:30 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

HITTING THE TRIFECTA: POLL REVEAL MOST AMERICANS SAY BUSH JOKE TASTELESS, OFFENSIVE msnbc.com Hitting the trifecta Bush’s favorite joke about 9/11 is not only in bad taste, it’s a lie By David Neiwert June 27 — Professional stand-up comedians know that Sept. 11 jokes are radioactive. Not even the bravest have tried to turn the deaths of some 3,000 people into a laughing matter. But President Bush has forged ahead anyway. Bush has now been telling the same, spectacularly tasteless joke to a variety of mostly Republican audiences as part of his stock stump speech for the better part of four months now. THIS IS its basic telling: “You know, when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending? I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we’d get the trifecta.” According to the transcripts, this joke usually elicits laughter from the mostly GOP crowds to whom Bush tells it. So far, the president has told the joke on the record at least 14 times. It originated, evidently, as an anecdote he told to business leaders Oct. 3 — three weeks after the terrorist attacks — when he explained his three-part reasoning for going into deficit spending. Bush appears to have added the “trifecta” joke for the first time before a group of visiting Republicans at the White House on Nov. 9. He pulled it out again for a huddle with congressional GOP leaders on Feb. 1. Since then, Bush apparently decided to make it part of his stump speech, beginning with a GOP luncheon on Feb. 27. The tellings have come more regularly, and have been largely at GOP fund-raising functions. The most recent appearance of the joke was June 14, at a reception for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign in Houston. Bush appears to give “trifecta” a sort of rueful, ironic meaning. But therein also lies the morbid edge: After all, Bush — who in the weeks preceding the tragedy faced mounting questions about his ability as well as his legitimacy, all of which vanished afterward — is possibly the only American for whom Sept. 11 was indeed a stroke of incredible good fortune. However, the real problem with the joke is that it is a complete falsehood. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" NO LAUGHING MATTER: Online Polling Results: Is President Bush's Sept. 11 'trifecta' joke in bad taste? * 19472 responses Yes - 54% \| No - 39% \| Not sure - 7% Survey results tallied every 60 seconds. Live Votes reflect respondents' views and are not scientifically valid surveys. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Bush never told any audience, or any reporter, in Chicago that he could foresee three conditions under which deficit spending might be necessary. In fact, throughout the entire campaign, Bush had been insistent that budget surpluses would continue, and only once does he appear to have told any public audience at any time that deficit spending might become necessary — a Sept. 22, 2000, interview with Paula Zahn, in which he defended his tax cuts even in the face of a “short-term deficit.” The only other times that Bush ever seems to have brought up the subject of deficit spending were those when he accused Al Gore of planning to resume the practice. When pursued by reporters, the White House press office has been unable to come up with any evidence that Bush ever made the original remarks that he claims. Jonathan Chait first pointed this out in the New Republic, and a number of other journalists have gone looking. This has made for some uncomfortable moments for the administration’s defenders. Tim Russert, on Sunday’s Meet the Press, tried to confront OMB chief Mitch Daniels about it: Russert: “Now, we have checked everywhere and we’ve even called the White House as to when the president said that when he was campaigning in Chicago, and it didn’t happen. The closest he came was he was asked, ‘Would you give up part of your tax cut in order to ensure a balanced budget?’ And he said, ‘No.’ But no one ever talked about a war, a recession and an emergency, the trifecta. … [It] was not talked about in the campaign by the president, and the White House keeps saying, ‘Oh, yes, he made that caveat.’ No one can find it.” Daniels demurred, declaring, “I’m not the White House librarian,” but claimed that he had often heard Bush make those three reservations. THE TIMELINE Bush’s story, moreover, is fundamentally false as a purely chronological matter: Bush was already facing the certainty of deficit spending at the end of the summer of 2001, well before the attacks of Sept. 11. Some $4 trillion worth of budget surplus vanished over the spring and summer that year, and budget experts sounded the alarm about looming deficits then. The Congressional Budget Office warned Bush on Aug. 29 that Social Security funds would be needed to balance the books, forcing him to abandon a campaign promise not to use the retirement fund for other government spending. Indeed, that is just what Bush proceeded to do in his actual budget, presented in January. According to the CBO, Bush’s budget plan would drain every dollar of the $527 billion surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund for the next two fiscal years even while creating a deficit. It would continue to raid the fund for varying amounts each year through 2012. Even with the fund’s help, the federal budget is expected to be in deficits through at least 2005. Most economists peg the source of these nagging deficits on Bush’s tax-cut plan, the deepest portions of which loom ahead. The administration sternly denies this. Yet it’s clear that while Sept. 11 may have deepened and broadened the budget-deficit problem, the administration was faced with chronic budget deficits no matter what. And that gets to the heart of the “trifecta” joke, whose entire purpose clearly is to blame the deficit on Sept. 11 and its aftermath. It lets Bush escape any serious questions about either his failure to balance the budget or, particularly, his campaign pledge to use the Social Security Trust Fund to pay down the national debt. The national tragedy gave him unparalleled political cover for his administration’s failures — and Bush has displayed no hesitation whatsoever about using it. Indeed, it has become his favorite joke. POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM Never mind that it is perhaps the most tasteless and insensitive joke in the annals of the presidency, or that it is ultimately a falsehood. What’s really noteworthy about Tale of the Trifecta is that the in-your-face political opportunism it represents is not out of the ordinary for this administration. Since Sept. 11, Bush and his Republican colleagues have at every turn used the threat of terrorist attacks as cover for the administration’s difficulties: Attorney General John Ashcroft attacked critics of his anti-terrorism measures in December by telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that opponents of the administration “only aid terrorists” and “give ammunition to America’s enemies.” When Democratic leaders in the Senate — particularly Majority Leader Tom Daschle — questioned Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism, they drew accusations of “aiding and abetting the enemy” and dark suggestions about their patriotism. When questions emerged in early May about what Bush and his advisers knew about terrorist threats before Sept. 11 and Democrats began pushing for an independent investigation, the administration issued a series of warnings of yet more potentially imminent terrorist attacks. The criticism largely subsided. Four days after proposing, amid skepticism, a Cabinet-level Homeland Security department, the administration announced the arrest of a man suspected of plotting with al-Qaida agents to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb” in an American city. As it happens, the arrest had occurred a month before. A POLITICAL JACKPOT There have been other, less clear incidents suggesting a willingness to use Sept. 11 and its aftermath as not just a political shield, but a weapon. This probably should not be a surprise: after all, one need only recall Karl Rove’s instructions to the Republican National Committee last January to make the war on terrorism a political issue. Perhaps because Republicans have been so open about turning Sept. 11 to their political advantage, they have created an environment in which a joke such as Bush’s “trifecta” quip seems nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, Bush keeps telling the joke even after it’s been pointed out, on national television, that he’s telling a falsehood. In the face of that kind of chutzpah, no one inside the Beltway seems capable of pointing out that the emperor’s joke has no clothes. Given the GOP’s propensity for questioning others’ patriotism, it probably isn’t politically smart for anyone working in Washington to point out that Bush might have seen a national disaster as a political jackpot. Problem is, it’s the president himself who insists on making that suggestion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Neiwert is a Seattle-based free-lance journalist. His reportage on domestic terrorism for MSNBC.com won a 2000 National Press Club award for distinguished online journalism.

To: Doug R who wrote (268378)	6/30/2002 12:33:53 AM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 769670

I found the article an incoherent loony rant. I also donot consider 911 was the result of ineptness and incompetence. The terrorists did a good job of systems analysis and kept their plans secret enough not to be detected. The simple check of locking Cockpit doors on an Airplane and a policy of not having the Captain or pilot of the plane leave the cockpit of the plane under any circumstance as is the policy in Israel would have prevented 911 as it occurred. The focus of dangers and risks was simply in the wrong areas. The security of the airlines did not see this danger. The terrorist left behind also were clueless about the resolve of America and they are and have paid a price for their evil.