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Politics : Bush Administration's Media Manipulation--MediaGate? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (4177)	7/9/2005 2:33:26 AM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9838

Because they have OCCUPIED an WHITE ANGLO CULTURE ON AN ISLAND NEXT TO THEM FOR 100's OF YEARS...... BRITS OUT.... get a CLUE.... another war of RELIGION....Catholic OCCUPIED COUNTRY by the BRITS PROTESTANTS

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (4177)	7/9/2005 9:16:04 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 9838

Open Letter to George W. Bush by Ralph Nader On June 28, 2005 you addressed the nation in prime time about the situation in Iraq. You called the casualties, destruction and suffering in that country "horrifying and real." Then you declared: "I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it," you asserted and went on to explain your position. My question to you is this: "Who is doing the sacrificing on the US side besides our troops and their families and other Americans whose dire necessities and protections cannot be met due to the diversion of huge spending for the Iraq war and occupation?" Let's start with the wealthy. In the midst of the ravages of war, you gave them a double tax cut, pushing these enormous windfalls through Congress at the same time as concentrations of wealth among the top one percent richest were accelerating. You also cut taxes for the large corporations that benefit most from arcane, detailed tax legislation. Many of these corporations have profited greatly from the tens of billions of dollars in contracts which you have handed them. Companies like Halliburton, from which Vice President Dick Cheney receives handsome retirement benefits, keep getting multi-billion contracts even though the Pentagon auditors and investigations by Rep. Henry Waxman have shown vast waste, non-performances, and not a little corruption. Not much corporate sacrifice there. You and Mr. Cheney need to be reminded that your predecessors pressed, during wartime, for surcharges on corporate profits of the largest corporations. As Rep. Major R. Owens pointed out recently in introducing such legislation (H.R. 1804), the precedents for such an equitable policy, at a time of growing federal deficits, occurred during World War I, World II, the Korean and Vietnam wars. Ponder the difference. Past Presidents increased taxes on the large companies as a way of spreading out the economic sacrifice a little. Instead, during record, even staggering big corporate profits, you reduce their contributions to the US Treasury and military expenditures. Where is the presence of the sons and daughters of the top political and economic rulers in the Iraq theater, where they can see the suffering of millions of innocent Iraqi people? You can count on the fingers of one hand the number of family members serving over there among the 535 members of Congress, and the White House. No specific data is available for the families of the CEOs of the Fortune 500. But we can guess that very few are stationed in and around the Sunni triangle these days. Can't get much tennis, golf or sailing in, if that were the case. How often have you extolled the patriotic sacrifice of members of the armed forces, the Reserves and the National Guard? How often have you praised their work as the highest form of service to their nation, its security and future. Well, what about your daughters' having this sublime opportunity to be on the receiving end of their father's encomiums? Remember Major John Eisenhower, among others. In an earlier unanswered letter, I urged you and Mr. Cheney to announce that you would reject the tens of thousands of dollars in personal tax cuts that passage of your tax cut legislation for the wealthy would have accorded both of your fortunes. Recusing yourselves would have conveyed the message that it is unseemly to sign your own personal tax reduction. It would also have furthered the principle of the moral authority to govern. Well, you did sign your own tax cut, while tens of thousands of Americans had to leave their employment and small businesses and go to Iraq at a reduced pay and worrying about inadequate protective equipment and insufficient training. Those rulers who send young men and women into undeclared wars on platforms of fabrications, deceptions, and cover-ups do not have proper incentives for responsible and effective behavior and politics. Some degrees of shared sacrifice provide prudent restraint against the manipulations and recklessness of politicians and the supporting avarice of their fellow oligarchs. Without some measure of sacrifice, programs are misdesigned to pursue stateless terrorists in ways and areas that actually produce recruitment opportunities for more such terrorists. Note your own CIA Director Porter Goss's testimony before the Senate earlier this year. But the resulting warmongering, where the "intelligence and the facts" are fixed to the policy, became unsavory re-election strategies in 2004. You have often told us that you want to nominate federal judges who believe in a strict construction of the Constitution. How about a President who believes in the strict constitutional authority of Article One, Section Eight which gives Congress and Congress alone the power to declare war? Requiring a declaration of war, together with legislation requiring, upon such a declaration, the conscription of all eligible members of Congressional and White House families would assure that only "unavoidable and necessary wars" are declared and fought. Sincerely yours, Ralph Nader

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (4177)	7/12/2005 4:35:25 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 9838

they are tearing EACH OTHER apart now...why?....THE TRUTH CAN NOT AND WILL NOT BE TOLERATED BY BUSH Lawmaker punished for being right July 11, 2005 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST During an official Fourth of July celebration at the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson bumped into each other. They are both steadfast Republicans, devout Catholics and congenial gentlemen, but to onlookers, it looked like an uneasy encounter. That's because Smith was right about a $2.6 billion shortfall in veterans benefits, and Nicholson's Bush administration was wrong. Being right can hurt in Washington. It drove Smith out of the House Veterans Affairs Committee chairmanship, and it now may cost him becoming International Relations chairman. Nicholson represents an administration that operates on the principle that being in power means never having to admit being wrong. There is no sign of any Bush official or House Republican leader apologizing to Smith. Smith, 52 and in his 13th term, knows politics is not beanbag. But his misfortune suggests the GOP's congenital fault is not being too conservative but trying to be too orderly. While often making principled stands on unpopular issues, the White House and House leadership often seem most interested in making the trains run on time. That entails stifling dissent such as Smith's. Actually, Smith is no maverick. He is not part of the tiny liberal Republican clique that regularly opposes Bush and House leadership. He is center-right, as reflected by his voting record: 62 percent conservative (American Conservative Union rating) and 36 percent liberal (Americans for Democratic Action rating). He is really more conservative than that as a dependable vote for Bush's priority items, such as cutting taxes and war in Iraq. He is a militant social conservative, battling abortion. Smith's problem has been failing to salute smartly when the leadership gives an order. That is the demand of Tom DeLay, the most effective majority leader in my 45 years of House-watching. DeLay found it intolerable that Smith functioned not as an obedient Republican soldier but as a fervent advocate of former U.S. foot soldiers. At the end of the last Congress, the DeLay-headed leadership purged Smith from the Veterans chairmanship and from the committee itself for wanting $2.6 billion more for the Veterans Administration. Smith's vindication came June 28 when the Bush administration admitted that its estimate of 23,553 veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan for medical treatment fell far short of the real number: 103,000. The VA's reason was that it relied on two-year-old assumptions. The administration estimated its need for additional funds, coincidentally or not, at Smith's $2.6 billion. Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana, who was leapfrogged by the GOP leadership over two more senior congressmen to replace Smith as chairman, at first followed the party line by saying the shortfall could be covered by shifting funds. However, Buyer quickly had to change his position and say more funds were needed, just as Smith had insisted all along. Before Congress adjourned for its Independence Day recess, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi led a parade of Democrats chiding the administration for its blunder. There will be more of the same when the 2006 VA appropriations bill comes up for votes the week of July 25. Republicans have been silent, but some in the House were smirking over Smith's vindication. There is little doubt Smith would easily have defeated Buyer had there been an open vote of the House Republican Conference without intervention. Similarly, Smith would be the conference's most likely choice for the International Relations Committee chairmanship against two other well-regarded conservatives, Reps. Dan Burton of Indiana and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. But the choice will be made by the DeLay-dominated Steering Committee, and so Smith is a long shot. If Smith is too independent to be a Republican committee chairman, a consolation prize might be a little commendation from the administration. None has come so far. According to all sources, the shortfall fiasco was not discussed at that Fourth of July chat between Smith and Nicholson. An orderly Republican Party does not dwell on mistakes, even to figure out what went wrong.