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

To: Andrew N. Cothran who wrote (597647)	7/30/2004 1:36:09 PM
From: Rock_nj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

For Democrats, losing is much worse than for Republicans. For Democrats, the purpose of democracy is to milk government for ever more abundant benefits. Republicans in principle believe in limited government, and thus in a certain way they do even better out of power than when they must exercise it. Democrats without power suffer much more. Democrats go listless, purposeless. This paragraph proves how out of touch the writer is. The Republcians have been spending money and running deficits like drunken sailors over the past 4 years. The Republicans are feeding the pork barrel public trough like no other Congress in history. Even a Republican Congressmen lamented that his party is spending 4 Times the pork as the previous Democratic Congress. One thing the Republicans and their allies in Big Business have learned over the past four years, is that there's no place like Uncle Sam to go for unlimited money. Big Business has warmed up to government spending in a big way. Homeland Security has been a windfall for them. "Defense" spending has been a scam used by Big Business and the Republicans for decades to drain money from the public treasury. Now, they've discovered that they can do the same in other parts of government.

To: Andrew N. Cothran who wrote (597647)	7/30/2004 1:39:56 PM
From: Rock_nj	Respond to of 769670

U.S. Lacks Records for Iraq Spending Thu Jul 29, 7:04 PM ET By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - U.S. civilian authorities in Baghdad failed to keep good track of nearly $1 billion in Iraqi money spent for reconstruction projects and can't produce records to show whether they got some services and products they paid for, anew audit concludes. AP Photo Latest headlines: · Powell Vows to Stand by Iraq, Speed Up New Jobs Reuters - 2 minutes ago · Powell: U.S. Will Help Iraq Create Jobs AP - 4 minutes ago · Compromise proposed on NATO deadlock over Iraq training AFP - 16 minutes ago Special Coverage The former Coalition Provisional Authority paid nearly $200,000 for 15 police trucks without confirming they were delivered, and auditors have not located them, the report from the CPA's Inspector General said. Officials also didn't have records to justify the $24.7 million pricetag for replacing Iraqi currency which used to carry Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s portrait, the report said. The report, released in Iraq (news - web sites) late Wednesday, is the first formal audit of contracting procedures under the CPA, which oversaw billions in reconstruction spending that critics say was doled out without proper controls. The agency's defenders say it did the best it could given the pressure of operating in a war zone and trying to get reconstruction going quickly. The one-star general overseeing reconstruction contracts in Iraq said in response to the audit that the lack of documentation didn't prove the money was wasted. "We believe the contracts awarded with Iraqi funds were for the sole benefit of the Iraqi people, without exception," Army Brig. Gen. Stephen M. Seay wrote to the inspector general. The Coalition Provisional Authority ran Iraq from May of 2003 until the United States handed over power to an interim Iraqi government June 28. The CPA used seized funds from Saddam's government and oil revenues to pay for 1,928 contracts worth about $847 million, the inspector general's report said. A CPA rule issued last August called for following international law and United Nations (news - web sites) regulations while spending Iraqi money. But the CPA did not issue standard operating procedures or develop effective contract review, monitoring and evaluation, the report said. Seay said the CPA contracting office was overworked, understaffed and under constant threat of attack. The general said his office had overhauled policies and organization in recent months to do better contract oversight. The investigators reviewed 43 contracts and found 29 had incomplete or missing documentation. For each of the 29, "we were unable to determine if the goods specified in the contract were ever received, the total amount of payments made to the contractor or if the contractor fully complied with the terms of the contract," investigators wrote. For example, the official overseeing a contract for 15 double-cab pickup trucks for an Iraqi police department paid $87,500 before the trucks were delivered and another $100,000 without getting written records that the trucks arrived at the police department, the report said. The report did not say whether the trucks were ever delivered. The report also criticized the contract for exchanging Iraqi currency, which had been cited as a key success by former CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer. The Defense Contract Audit Agency reviewed the proposed contract in August 2003 and identified $5 million in possible savings. But the CPA awarded the contract at the original amount and has no documentation showing any further review of costs, the inspector general report said. Seay's response to the audit said the CPA and the new organization overseeing contracts, the Project and Contracting Office, had made changes to fix some problems such as the lack of review and monitoring. The CPA inspector general released another report earlier this week saying that the company responsible for the largest logistics contract in Iraq had lost track of more than $18 million worth of equipment including vehicles and electric generators. The report said investigators could not track down 52 of 164 randomly selected items in an inventory of more than 20,000 items overseen by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The missing items included two electric generators worth nearly $1 million, 18 trucks or SUVs and six laptop computers. Project and Contracting office officials said they easily tracked down most of the missing items, but the inspector general's investigators said they could not find the gear despite working with officials from KBR and military contracting officers. After the audit, the Defense Contract Management Agency found three of the missing vehicles in the hands of "unauthorized users" but discovered 111 vehicles had not been returned for required check-in after two weeks of use. KBR is working with DCMA to track down all of its equipment in Iraq, Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said. "The facts show that KBR has adequately managed the property for this mission by aggressively monitoring its property management functions," Hall said in a statement. story.news.yahoo.com

To: Andrew N. Cothran who wrote (597647)	7/30/2004 1:48:02 PM
From: Rock_nj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

In 2004, I see six reasons why the Democratic goose is cooked: 1. No one — neither his colleagues nor his wife nor his supporters nor he himself — has anything good to say about John Kerry except that he served bravely in Vietnam. The nearly 30 years since then have generated few boasts on his part, few commendations from others, few successes anyone can seem to remember. 2. The Democratic elite sitting in convention cannot present themselves as they are to the American people, but must stifle their deepest feelings, be silent about their most passionate aims, and hide their turbulent loathing of George Bush Republicans (lest it frighten independents with its ferocity). The Democratic elite is saying as little as possible about same-sex marriage. And guns. And very little about abortion. And not a word about total withdrawal of American troops from Iraq — quite the opposite. Democratic elites do not want the people to know what they really think. On that ground, they fear they will lose. 3. Democrats must hide from the public what they truly think about evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Catholics. They express these thoughts mostly among themselves. 4. John Kerry looks sillier in the pale blue NASA rabbit suit than Michael Dukakis did in a tank. 5. The months of April, May, and June were so heavy with bad news for George Bush — the huge Sorosian expenditures on anti-Bush ads came at him in torrents — and still he held even with Kerry in the polls. It is hard not to believe that there will be at least a slight change in the roaring winds. When it comes (and the change is already underway), it is bound to push Bush's sails steadily ahead as the weeks roll on. 6. The worst lies told by the Democrats about Bush — those of Joe Wilson, Michael Moore, and others, saying that Bush lied about Iraq — have already been proven wrong by the 9/11 Commission (which was supposed to blow Bush out of the water just before the election, but ended up destroying his worst calumniators). These lies were also proven wrong by the British inquiry. Even the Kerry Convention in Boston ended up taking the Bush strategic line in Iraq, except for one thing: Kerry is wistful about the probability of persuading France and Germany to bear some burden on behalf of liberty in Iraq. Good luck! God knows, Bush and Colin Powell tried. There are many arguements that could be made for why Kerry might lose in November. But, those points listed above or amongst the weakest I've read. More like wishful thinking from a Republican who hates Democrats and wants to see them lose. A lot of people have nice things to say about Kerry and he's a Catholic, so points 1 and 3 seem rather silly. There's a case that can be made for why Bush might lose this fall too, like bringing us to war, an unconstitutional war, on the flimsiest of pretexts and diminishing our stature in the world in the process. He can't be trusted. Bush's lies make Clinton look like a schoolboy. Those are two good reasons to vote Bush out of office this fall.