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Guest Post: George W. Bush’s “Growth” Strategy
Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics
George W. Bush’s “Growth” Strategy
George W. Bush is back. And he’s got a plan!
From the NYT:
Two months from now, he plans to publish a book outlining strategies for economic growth. And on Tuesday, he made a rare return to Washington to promote freedom overseas.
Freedom overseas? Yes — it would be nice to be free of George W. Bush’s destructive and costly neocon agenda (and I know many people overseas agree) but sadly the current White House occupant seems to be following the same authoritarian script; Bush hit Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama seems intent to expand the wars into Pakistan and Yemen.
On the economy, let’s judge him on his record:
That doesn’t suggest that Bush has anything much to add to the conversation. But that doesn’t mean I think he should shut up and go away.
Here are a few prominent questions that George W. Bush might want to consider answering before slinking off back to Crawford:
- Why did you ignore the CIA’s warnings in the summer of 2001 that al-Qaeda could strike “imminently”?
- Why did you pledge in the 2000 election debates that you were against nation building, and then embark on not one but two nation-building programs in Iraq and Afghanistan?
- You increased the Federal debt by 86%; to what extent do you accept the blame for America’s debt troubles?
- You reappointed Alan Greenspan as the Fed Chairman; to what extent do you accept that his easy money policies caused the bubble that burst in 2008?
- Were the 2008 bailouts of well-connected banks and financial corporations engineered by your administration compatible with a supposedly “free-market” “capitalist” system? Doesn’t bailing out banks create dangerous moral hazard?
- How can a nation simultaneously claim to be a liberator while also practising torture?
- You swore to uphold the Constitution, yet passed the PATRIOT Act that authorised warrantless wiretapping, and mass surveillance in contravention of the Fourth Amendment. Do you realise that you violated your oath of office?
That would be a great start. There are, of course, swathes of other questions (including much, much darker ones) that many wish George W. Bush could be made to answer. But there is no real accountability in America today. He can go back to his ranch and his presidential library and act like a carpetbagging good old boy, while kids in the middle east continue to have their limbs blown off, and while the nation remains smothered under a mountain of debt and authoritarian creep.
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Well... until a better son comes along.
Hey Mitt... where have you been all this time?
I cringe to think that we will look at W's time at the helm of the USS Fascist as the "good old days."
pods
I think a lot of people already do... which is even more sad...
I certainly miss the special brand of comedy GWB brought to the White House. I thoroughly enjoyed his speeches while oscillating between gales of laughter and vein popping rage. No such oscillation with Obama and Romney just the latter.
Why did Bush Jr. award George Tenant the Medal of Freedom after the biggest intelligence screw up in American history?
that's what you do in corporate America when you want to get rid of someone, you dress up their resume and shove them out the door.
for keeping his mouth shut about what really went on.
interesting that the stock market sold the W presidency from inauguration day until 2003 and the buildup to war in Iraq. Bob Novak once told him to "build an economy that will help business, and forget the LIBERAL stock pickers.." by then Bush had backtracked on all his campaign promises. the only lie he didnt' sell us was hope and change.
new-clear and 'conomy, with a silent E were his best malapropisms, because they revealed more about his policies than anything. Obama was allowed to serve in his abscence, (or until another member of the cabal is appointed). the Bush twins said famously to the Obama twins, "enjoy your time in the WH, FOUR YEARS goes by quickly".
his most famous economic policy was the "Ownership Society", or the housing bubble. Congressional types took the heat, McCain insisted that FNM loans were not guaranteed by the taxpayers. won even Obama hasn't told that big a whopper!
Him and Blair on a lamp post, surronded by yelling folks with pitchfolks, job done move on. The pair need neither my historical consideration or vague consideration , political scum the pair whom history will judge scornfully.
Bush is a mighty genius compared to the pencil-necked statist twit occupying the White House right now.
Bush was a buffoon and a national embarrassment.
Consume feces and perish.
are we arguing which brand of feces smells worse... or fertilizes best?
not me -- they both stink.
Yes I thought Bush was the monkey-faced functional retard who was so embarrassingly stupid that couldn't get out of his own way, yet he managed to do all this damage without one peep of opposition of the geniuses on the left.
Both of them together couldn't figure out which end of a shovel you're supposed to stick in the ground.
Give them a weedwhacker and they'd chop their own ankles off.
What we fail to remember is 9/11 and how it affected all decisions of our gov't from the President, to Congress, to economic decisions made in the attempt to prop up our markets. 9/11 happened just 8 months into the Bush presidency and was very effective at changing the complete landscape.
Your argument sort of hints that the reaction was natural and uncontrollable. How GWB made it into the end of the world created a largely self-inflicted wound that then in turn led to terrible decision making. They couldn't resist the opportunity to capitalize on fear and a direct attack and made one of the biggest bogeymen the US has every known which then allowed the rest to follow.
Dude...
The world trade center was bombed right in front of every american with access to a television.
what should the response have been?
Al Gore would have spent the rest of his time in office seeking meaningful dialog with every scumbag nation/dictator/organization on the planet. Congress would have spent years investigating nothing. There would have been an air war somewhere. We probably would have been hit somewhere else by whomever, and the process would continue.
I know... the CIA did it. sounds great except there is no proof of such a thing. Funny thing for me is- the guy I was picking up for work when the planes hit and I were joking within a half hour that people would soon be blaming the CIA.
If ever there was a time for a nation to lash out militarily that was it. The only question is where should we have hit. We did hit Afghanistan, but thats probably not where the money for the op came from. Saudi Arabia is probably who we should have went after, but Bush chose Iraq. It is an easy argument to make that iraq was the wrong decision, but if we just held congressional hearings and acted like victims that would have been far worse. Personally I think retalliation should have have been brutal, vicious, messy and most of all quick.
10 years is far too long.
Bush is absolutely responsible for Bawney Fwank and loose credit for buying a house, Fannie Mae and Freddie's lunacy, the Bernankenstein, Trayvon and that "white guy" Zimmerman, Manning leaving the Colts, and the "torture" of 3 that were responsbile for the deaths of 3,000 (but omigosh, the US Navy has been torturing for decades since we went thru similar "tortures" on the waterboard at survival training and I spilled my guts and confessed that my commanding officer was Dave Feduck)
Dubya = fucking felon, should be drawn and quartered
Dubya = fucking felon, should be drawn and quartered
Mi nombre es Jorge Arbusto. No entiendo, no habla ingles. Vivo en Paraguay.
No sé nada, no leo nada. Me gusta joder las ovejas.
GWB and every other mediocre president get a pass now that Commrade O has shown us how bad a president can really be.
Seriously incompetance and stupidity are far better then intellectual manevolence.
Jeez. Time warp alert! Bush bashing dead ahead!!
I won't dignify all these political questions with answers (and you haven't missed on every point) but will only say I am sorry that NONE of the Presidents elected in your lifetime (past or future, I might add) have or will share your global politic. Sorry about that. Regarding the above comment.... What makes you think Bush ignored the CIA's warnings? Anyone with an ounce of on the ground knowledge (admittedly, there aren’t many) knows that we were prepared for an event on "9-11." Unfortunately, we felt the attack would come on foreign soil (embassy buildings, military installations, etc.). We had Seal teams, Rangers... in the weeds all over the globe EXCEPT where the attacks took place. Unfortunately, any ‘CIA warning’ (or otherwise) left out that little part about the attack being on domestic soil. No one's perfect.
So on this one I'll leave it with, you're uninformed. Moving on....
That's kinda weird.
Despite being so well-prepared, there's that hilarious recording of an air-defense officer saying, "There are 2 fighters deployed right now. All we have to do is send them back to get armed and fueled and they're good to go."
you have a lot of reading to do
Hell yes the US gov corporation was prepared for 9-11. How do you think they pulled it off so well?
Bush the Jeb is next...V.P. Nod coming or maybe Sec. Of State...Only way they can sneak another Bush in the W.H.
I love the Bush Tourette's Syndrome.
We're 3.5 years into the new regime and we have:
- Jon Corzine stealing borrowing billions and running around without a care in the world
- Ben Bernanke operating as a political arm of the government-slash-Goldman Sachs, helping support trillions in new deficit spending for shovel-ready jobs (oh, wait -- there aren't any of those) while sending billions to the PDs
- Tim Geithner, the most egregious hack of a Treasury Secretary ever, saying that he knows the Obama plan is unsustainable and even the most modest cuts suggested by the Ryan Budget, well, in his words, "we just don't like your plan".
- Dodd and Frank, rather than serving time in prison, instead crafted -- wait for it... -- financial reform!
- Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars stolen borrowed to send to Obama campaign bundlers like those backing Solyndra, First Solar, Fisker, NRG Solar, etc. etc.
- And, best of all, the terrorist surveillance programs, Gitmo, and foreign kinetic actions are still ongoing!
And all of this is Bush's fault, right? What is this, a comedy routine?
Sure, Bush sucked, but Obama's 1,000 times worse, because he's intends to destroy the country. It's called the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we're watching it unfold right now.
While it's obvious that Obama's reign is a disaster, how can anyone think that a president that allowed 3,000 people to be murdered on 9/11 to allow him to go to war against a country that had nothing to do with it, kill over a million innocent people and drag America into bankruptcy is not as bad?
Obama is just continuing the Bush policy of stealing all the wealth of the American people and giving it to a select group of financial industry criminals.
Personally, considering our recent Presidents, I think the best possible thing is to have them do progressively less and less over time.
Eventually they will just ring a gong once a year to kick off National Freedom Week Celebration! ®
No shit. Its called limited government. Its all in the Constitution. That's what that whole Tea Party thing was about .
Fuckin genius...
Whoosh.
What silly ass excuse would Obama have if Bush had not gone before him???
Bush ia a progressive but I will take Alito and Roberts over Kaegel and Sodomeyer any day.
Hey Buddy! Don't you listen?! There is no difference between left and right! Right Aziz? Sodomayor and Kagan are the same as Alito and Roberts.
of course: /sarc/
This is soooo last decade. Are we going to start seeing posts about the Y2K problem?!
The Y2K problem became the Mayan Calendar problem. Where you been the last 2 years?
That was my point...
George Bush made the Mayan Calender.
Well sure I'd be happy to answer your questions right here:
1) I didn't actually know what "immanently" meant at the time.
2) Those examples you gave were nation re-building. Whole nuther thang.
3) Why would you expect anyone least of all me to accept responsibility for someone else's bad investment choices? If America went into debt then America can pay its way out of debt. That right there is the American way.
4) Well I appointed Alan because he lets me win him at golf. And I don't know about that other business you mentioned. The bubble-thing. Sounds silly to me. Let's try and keep this serious okay?
5) My administration did not bail out any banks. That would be communism. My administration soundly regulated and monitored the banking system and sometimes that costs money, but the American people expect us to do a good job.
6) I don't know how any nation could be like that, actually. Except maybe Libya. So it's kind of a hypothetical.
7) Passing the PATRIOT Act was the patriotic thing to do. What is wrong with you people? Can't you read? Right there, here I'll spell it out for you ... P-A-T-R-I-uh-I-T-uh-R. Patriot. Right there. Now let's see how you handle that.
Next question. What you got for me? Come on sumthin hard now.
How do you pronounce N-U-C-L-E-A-R? (in Engrish)
What's worse: a dumb corporate schill doing evil shit as president, or a smart corporate schill doing evil shit as president?
nice point of view
Slinking off too Crawford???
He has owned Crawford since 1999. He has lived there up until the end of 2008. The only thing living there now are bugs, reptiles, birds and weeds. Not W. W is in Big D, Suckas. You fell for that Cowboy Schtick. Just like the next guy said was born in America. Suckas!!
Why is it that W is the only one in his family that sounds like a redneck? Hmmmmmm....
The neocons would love to resurrect George W. Bush. His new book is the opening salvo to push neocon, self-interested economic dreck.
You have to remember it was either him or Al Gore... so there you go
Hmmm... another pencil neck Odumbo supporting shithead that bought into the 2 party (really one playing both sides to keep the sheeple confused & amused) system. What a waste of 0's & 1's
I think that you mean GWB will be publishing a leaflet; dubya don't do books, even a librarian couldn't help him with that...wonder if he'll mention any of his nucal-ear aspirations!
I liked Ike.
The rest should be drawn and quartered. Kennedy meant well, and got shot for his trouble, I guess Ike knew how far he could go and live to retire.
They have all been disasters, but since Capn Ron they get worse with each new administration. The only way to continue the trend is to elect Mugabe in November.
http://www.whale.to/b/starvation_of_germans.html
Yeah, I heard of that. They denied the prisoners shelter. food and blankets but that was before he was el presidente. And noone knew it at the time.
Even Ike was an asshole, too. We can't elect anyone that isn't evil, it would seem.
Well, this should answer at least two of those questions:
Other People's Money: 9/11
When the BCCI investigation reached closer to President Geo. H.W. Bush's White House back in the late '80s, early '90s, Bush appointed Robert Mueller III to be the chief of the DOJ's Criminal Division to manage the BCCI probe --- or more accurately, to deflect it away from the Bush administration and narrow the scope of the investigation.
Four days prior to 9/11/01, President Geo. W. Bush appoints Robert Mueller III to be director of the FBI -- perfect timing and what a pedigree Mueller possesses.*
One day prior to 9/11/01, the Pentagon's comptroller announces that $2.3 trillion cannot be accounted for.**
Six to seven hours prior to the events of that 9/11 morning, sometime between 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM (EST) a group email is transmitted to the DIA's financial management staff to attend an emergency meeting that very morning at their Pentagon offices --- located at the Pentagon's west wall.
One staff member will fortuitously oversleep, viewing the email late and consequently arrive late -- just in time to view from afar the plane crashing into the super-reinforced west wall, severely injuring or killing almost the entire financial management group of the DIA, and those computer systems involved with discovering said missing funds; apparently data backups aren't the order of the day?
That very same morning on 9/11/01, the National Reconnaissance Office's (NRO) ops center would be evacuated due to an exercise simulating an attack by suicide aircraft flying into that facility. (Sound vaguely familiar?) Therefore, no one was on hand to manually task their recon satellites on the airspace above NYC and the Pentagon.
Thanks to further expansion of the Web over the Internet (2003 - 2005), cached pages of dramatically increased data transmission and EFTs, originating from three firms residing in the two WTC towers to offshore locations, could be accessed.
Shortly after 9/2001, in early 2002, an explosive growth occurs in offshore hedge funds.
Background research on those unfortunate passengers aboard the involved airliners (victims who were certain to die that day) indicated that some of the pax fall into three unique groups, along with three unique individuals aboard.
The three groups: (1) developers of remote piloting hardware and software; (2) individuals involved in the creation of a terrorist scenario remarkably similar to that which occurred on 9/11/01 (among that group of victims was an Israeli counterterrorist expert and one of the airliners' pilots, a former career Naval officer); and, (3) some of the individuals involved with the investigation into Flight 800's demise.
The three individuals: (1) wife number three of the solicitor general, who would quickly move on to wife number four once the insurance settlement came through (death by opportunity?); (2) a lady attorney, rumored to be involved with a senior married partner of the conservative and politically-connected law firm which successfully defended Fox News on several cases of fictionalizing the news (death by opportunity?); and, (3) a physicist with the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Directed Energy Section.
[We are not suggesting any of these victims were aware of the events to transpire on 9/11 --- this appears to be a highly compartmentalized operation.]
Intensive pattern analysis, link analysis, and link and group analysis indicates the five principal players involved: the Blackstone Group, Veritas Capital, AIG, the office of the VP, and the office of the SecDef.
Some time prior to 9/11/01, a financial news announcement would explain an investment by AIG in the Blackstone Group (source document of transaction, along with hard copy source documents of thousands of ongoing SEC investigations resided in the destroyed WTC Building 7 – no source docs, case closed!). The amount of AIG’s investment was approximately the final insurance payout amount to the property management/RE firm for the WTC destruction (classic paper money false transfer and money laundering scheme, relatively simple --- for a far more circuitous, and commonplace, accounting scheme, please see Retirement Heist, by Ellen Schultz, p. 209 on “leveraged ESOPs”).
The mortgage owner of record for WTC Building 7: the Blackstone Group.
The firm awarded the $1 billion captive insurance fund management contract by Bush’s FEMA, for settlement with WTC victims’ families: the Blackstone Group.
The firm which negotiated the largest and quickest real estate deal in NYC history, the WTC lease transfer from the Port Authority of NY and NJ to Silverstein Properties and Westfield America, Inc.: the Blackstone Group.
During the week prior to 9/11/01, the fiber optic installation firm, EurekaGGN, installed dark fiber in the top floors of the two WTC towers (they had the contract for cabling the entire WTC), utilizing a method to pump the fiber optical cables through existing HVAC vents running beneath each floor.
[To reiterate: the west wall of the Pentagon had been reinforced, according to Structure Magazine, which also posed the question as to why only one wall and a plane crashes into it. Fiber optic is being installed, but never verified as to being operational, in the WTC towers, and planes crash into them --- access, access, access!]
Technical details not widely known: two of the four airliners involved didn’t appear on the FAA Flight Registry which logs all commercial flights, per standard procedure, as they were reserved as DoD Special Charters, meaning that each plane must seat those reserved for DoD personnel, and must depart at the schedule time, but any remaining seats may be filled commercially.
Aircraft pointedly flew to shadow zones – where radar coverage was obscured due to topography and ATCC limitations – where the transponders were then powered down – normally, they would have triggered ATCC radar indicators (highly doubtful those Saudi Arabian hijacker cutouts would have known these recondite details?); and recovered black box data, obtained through FOIA requests, give no indication of any hijacking taking place (and yes, there does exist a governmental database of black box hijacking data for comparison purposes).
There were over 1,000 other “coincidences” which took place that morning, all tracking back to the five principal players.
Recap: $2.3 trillion announced unaccounted, and DIA’s financial management group is almost entirely wiped out, along with involved computer systems, dramatically increased data transmissions and EFTs out of WTC towers in preceding 12 hours, and people and computer systems involved are killed and destroyed, with explosive growth in offshore hedge funds occurring shortly thereafter.
Veritas Capital, owner of Raytheon subsidiary which employed those remote piloting hardware and software developers and subcontractors aboard some of those airliners involved in 9/11, and Veritas Capital makes some incredibly prescient defense industry investments shortly prior to 9/11/01.
Increasing the awareness of evil….
*Robert Mueller III, FBI director, is the grandnephew of Richard Bissell, one of the three top CIA types who President Kennedy fired. Mueller’s wife is the granddaughter of Charles Cabell, another of those three CIA people JFK had fired (the third was Allen Dulles, who would later manage the Warren Commission!
**
http://www.financial-edu.com/history-of-credit-derivatives.php
2002
-Rise of Hedge Funds: Number of funds increases from 4000 in 2002 managing $2 trillion to 8000+ managing $4 trillion. This creates intense demand for new structured products with higher yields.
+1
Nice summation. I believe the 911 'attack' is the key to all the shit they've pulled since. If you go back to the Kennedy era you will have to jail the entire federal establishment.
Good idea.
On November 22, 1963, the US Government was overthrown by the CIA and a group of wealthy connected individuals who had run the OSS in WW2.
911 marked the turn in the road towards incipient fascist control of the federal government with the collusion of these two groups and The City of London.
When the next turn in the road happens, Fiat will crash, FEMA camps will be filled with all those on welfare. Troublemakers will be re-educated or red-flagged.
TPTB will issue a one-world electronic currency.
There will be blood.
Additional sources:
http://letsrollforums.com/april-gallup-suing-rummy-t18347.html?s=90a1a9a6457753b84ffdc63d1362b260&p=162189
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ___
APRIL GALLOP, for Herself and as Mother and Next Friend of ELISHA GALLOP, a Minor, No. _____________
Plaintiff, Jury Trial Demanded
vs.
DICK CHENEY, Vice President of the U.S.A., DONALD RUMSFELD, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, General RICHARD MYERS, U.S.A.F. (Ret.), and John Does Nos. 1– X, all in their individual capacities, Defendants.
…..
4. In the attack on the Pentagon, in particular, plaintiff avers that the official story, that a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon and exploded (causing the plaintiff’s injuries), is false. In fact, the bombing was accomplished another way, so as to limit the damage, protect the defendants, and only make it appear that a plane had been crashed into the building. This claim is supported by data from the plane’s supposed “black box”, released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which indicate the plane passed over the building at very low altitude, just as an explosion and fireball were engineered by other means, a planted bomb or bombs and/or a missile. This is supported by the lack of any photographic evidence of a wrecked airliner at the Pentagon, compounded by the record of reported refusal by the U.S. Department of Justice to release some 85 video tapes from surveillance cameras in locations at or near the Pentagon, which it has declared exempt from Freedom of Information Act disclosure.
……..
38. The returning plane, according to the official version, struck the Pentagon just above ground level. There it disintegrated — even maybe vaporized, according to some accounts, at least in part — but, paradoxically, also plowed inside. Had it simply flown straight into the top of the building rather than making its improbable spiral dive, there would have been far greater damage and loss of life. Had it turned only 150-180 degrees, it could have smashed into the East side of the building, where the office of defendant Rumsfeld was publicly known to be located on the third floor, looking out at the river, with the Joint Chiefs and other high officials all nearby. In contrast, the ground floor area that was blown up held offices like the one plaintiff worked in, many of them empty for a remodeling project, which was said to have included reinforcement to protect against attack. Another part of the destroyed space held financial records.
And below, Richard Paul’s audio production of the survivor’s recollections (including DIA Financial Mgmt. personnel)
http://www.prx.org/pieces/1141-we-were-on-duty
Obama’s Rather Impressive List Of Accomplishments By Tim Powers
http://www.westernjournalism.com/obamas-rather-impressive-list-of-accomplishments/
Whoever said that Obama hasn’t acomplished anything in his first term?
WHAT AN IMPRESSIVE LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS!…
First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States. First President to violate the War Powers Act. First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. First President to defy a Federal Judge’s court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law. First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party, a violation of the U.S. Constitution. First President to spend a trillion dollars on ‘shovel-ready’ jobs when there was no such thing as ‘shovel-ready’ jobs. First President to recommend changing our National Anthem as it portrays and promotes violence and is warlike in its theme. First President to cancel the National Day of Prayer Breakfast and activities. First President to initiate a Cash for Clunkers Program to clean up exhaust that adds to global warming, then extended it because it was so popular — wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters. First President to bypass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat. First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions. First President to demand a company hand over $20 billion to one of his political appointees. First President to terminate America’s ability to put a man in space. First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present. First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it. First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke out on the reasons for their rate increases. First President to tell a major manufacturing company which state they are allowed to locate a factory in. First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN). First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago. First President to fire an inspector general of Americorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case. First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office. First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 90 to date. First President to pledge complete transparency while campaigning, then hide his medical, educational,and travel records. First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it. First President to go on multiple global ‘apology tours’. First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends; paid for by the taxpayer. First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife. First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense. First President to repeat the Holy Qur’an and tells us that the early morning Islamic call to worship is the most beautiful sound on earth. Now it is up to us Freedom-loving Americans to see to it that he is voted out after his FIRST term. May God bless America again. Stay safe, and be aware of your surroundings.Good list Thumbs to you!
The article was not about Obama, but thank you for playing.
Of all the items listed, the one I agree with is the item about replacing the current national anthem. Most sporting events I watch (NASCAR, footbal mostly) start with it. I've heard it mangled far too often to enjoy hearing it sung. I'd prefer God Bless America or America the Beautiful, although the ACLU would have a fit. Even My Country Tis of Thee would be better, although it would get confusing to anyone watching the podium ceremonies at the end of a Formula One race.
I'll agree to keep the Star Spangled Banner only when we are again the home of the brave and the land of the free.
You left out "crackhead" and "gay."
Ultimate nightmare scenario for a peaceful planet: Bush Mcain Romney Netanyahu
I totally got this...
Answers:
1,2,4 and 6: 'Because someone else was telling me what to do.'
3,5,7: 'Actually Congress passed those things, I just approved them...Because someone else was telling me what to do.'
It ain't a dictatorship...it's an oligarchy. GWB was just too damn stupid to know what was going on...as opposed to BHO who is smart but doesn't give a shit as long as he walks away with a pile of $$.
Crawford? Bush lives in Dallas along with most of the Texas Energy Mafiosos and Military Industrialists. Yes they all live in the Dallas-Ft Worth area. The Bush administration was extremely successful at making Mega Billionaires out of Texas millionaires.
Nothing good ever came out of Texas.
It's like that old saying: "Texas is a mess".
Not that Bush is blameless, but after 3.5 years, his photo negative could start taking some responsibility.
Sooooooo, who do we direct our anger at and point to for blame in our current state of “the downfall of America”?
Obama’s favorite whipping boy to redirect attention and focus from his devastating few years as President of the U.S.A. have worked fairly well for the left. But, to look at what appear to be obvious mistakes during the Bush Administration, these two stand out, and are not mentioned above.
As far as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, the execution of getting the bad guys and protecting the Nation is in question but then again, America voted for Obama to get us out, and for whatever reason, we are still there and paying with a large amount of money and injured for life troops, not to mention the ‘being dead for life’ troops.
But as our house burns down, first things first. What mistakes did Bush make that need to be rectified and made right? Has Obama done it?
It may be that George Bush needs to be crucified, but if so, there needs to be three men on that hill along with him. The initials are Clinton and Obama.
There is no doubt that our current problems need to be addressed and inspected part by part, but what we really need to focus on is who has the compass to start the process to get us out of here.
I don’t see the person and if there is a compass, it has not been shown.
Bush tried several times to reign in fan and fred -- the real culprits behind the crisis -- and congress blocked it.
Regardless, the government is broken, only thing any of the fucks care about is keeping their personal gravy train running.
Yeah, if you remember the congressional hearings, they focused on racist lenders not wanting to give blacks and hispanics loans because ... well.... they were racist and didn't want black and hispanic money. So said barney frank and maxine waters and crew.
how soon we forget the details sometimes... I don't remember any of the repubs talking about racist lenders... doesn't matter they are all the same. Maxine waters, Tom Coburn. Barney Frank, Jim DeMint. Yeah, they're all the same... sarc
The causes of today's problems stem from:
1. Bushes commitment to extraordinary malinvestment with borrowed money... the wars.
2. Coincidentally cutting taxes and selling the sheeple on the very attractive idea that they wouldn't have to pay for 1.
Clinton is blameless, he actually balanced the budget (almost) and raised taxes accordingly.
Obama has simply continued the Bushsters policies and added on some local malinvestment as well. The MSM and partisan types spend most of their hot air trying to convince the undecided that there are huge differences between the parties. There is not on any matter of substance. Only the Libertarians and RP have a rational plan to address these fundamental issues. They are marginalized as "kooks".
someone ate my doggie...damn that bush
Have we found any WMD yet? Bummer, that was supposed to be an easy find.
Red Meat! LOL!
If one were to give GWB the benefit of the doubt, which I might have done before I 'woke up', one would guess that he must have been shown the JFK assassination footage after being sworn in. That would spane it.
http://my.spill.com/photo/president-george-w-bush-thanks?context=user
I think they show that to all of them, just in case they get any ideas.
Agree with all points except that "water boarding" = torture. Just about every service member has to go through this nowadays. Just like we had to go through standing in a room full of tear gas while having a conversation with drill instructors. No fun. But torture?
Like I said, agree with all the other questions w/ obvious answers.
stupid comment. Holding my breath under water can cause me great discomfort, but no big deal as I know I can stop it before I drown. I suffer pain and discomfort when I work out in the morning -but I keep doing it anyway- no pain, no gain.
It's that "Murkin exceptionalism" thingie again. It's only torture if the bad guys do it to us.
Nope. Torture is painful and causes physical damage. Torture is having your fingernails ripped out. Torture is having your skin flayed from your body. Torture is being burned alive . Water may be scary to some, but it only gets you wet and irritates the nostrils in that process.
Yeah, I was voting against him when I went all hopey-changy back in 08. Little did I know we would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. So sheeple-ish of me.
Dear John
I have one name to lay on you bro, LBJ. Do some serious research here and then write this hmm stuff.
C
LBJ ? yeah, like he was a sexual predator rapist, murderer, crook, was involved with the kennedy assasination and cover-up? All true. One of the most evil men of the 20th century - Granted he was no Stalin or Mao, or Pol Pot -but definitely in the top 10 of sociopathic, psychpathic scumbags of the century.
In LBJs favour, he voluntarily stepped down from office instead of running a Rovian scorched earth campaign. He was later seen attending anti war rallies and died (apparently) of guilt.. he came to appreciate the magnitutude of his own folly.
Ah, but without constitutional restraints, LBJ may have been a Pol Pot.
Meanwhile, The Gay president is a potted pol.
1 ) Always Concerned , Congress..Ties hands Of GWB
2) Responding to terrorism..Cleaning out rats nest
3) Congress..Ties hands Of GWB..Dah 8 years of 1/3 to 2/3 control at best ..Congress writes checks
4)easy money policies caused the bubble ??? Congress and redlining
6 to ten same dead song...
find a new story
The Bush family have only one strategy MOAR LEBENSRAUM!!
I read this site, rarely is there a blatant political hit piece like this. I like the fact ZH allows ALL opinions, but this is just cover for obalmer. You watch, axelrod will take this and provide blanket coverage for him. Bush was a dolt for certain, don't get me wrong, but Bush was derailed by 9/11.
Regardless of fault, that "mission" was planned for a long time, and it's well known had intergovernment agencies been communicating, the odds of success would have gone down. 9 months into a term to have that happen, I'm not certain all blame lies with W, he did not have a lot of time to correct the things the previous administration did. Remember mr document stuffer Sandy Berger stealing documents from the archves, I think that tells you something right there.
So, obalmer can now quote this site and use it for his relection. It's good news for him.
Some of what you say is true , but the fact remains--Bush is a traitor who should be hung for treason. granted, Obama, Hillary and many others should swing along side him. I will be going to my 10th straight Texas republican State convention this week as a delegate- Thank God Ron Paul speaks on Thursday-that POS Santorum gets the headline speech.
And zo, grasshopper, you seek to counter the evil of the Red Shield Society?
When you can grab the fiat from my hands, you will be .... Kung Fu Libertarian.
Soon, it will be time for u to go.
Some of what you say is true , but the fact remains--Bush is a traitor who should be hung for treason. granted, Obama, Hillary and many others should swing along side him. I will be going to my 10th straight Texas republican State convention this week as a delegate- Thank God Ron Paul speaks on Thursday-that POS Santorum gets the headline speech.
Bill Clinton, the last 3 PMs of England, the last 2 Fed Chairs, 4 living members of the Supremely Out-of-Control Court from 2000, the last 3 Secretaries of Treasury, assorted American and British Generals, some very well known bankers to this site....Send them to China with their gold bullets....Almost forget, leaders of the Congress going back to 2000
the biggest question of all to my mind is, 'Why is the linear regression line leading toward an economic collapse and totalitarian state an uninterrupted line through numerous congressional leaders and presidencies, first initiating then signing caustic legislation during recess or dark of the night just prior to leaving office?'
who the hell is truly pulling the strings, the machiavellian's or radical community organizers? or is the answer just YES?
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper."
- President George W. Bush
Are you worser off today as a resultering of Obama - or underer Bush.
8. Are you surprised to see that your successor is 50 times worse than you?
Blah blah blah.
Systems are always perfectly designed for the results they obtain. The personalities that inhabit different offices within them are interchangeable and, except at the margin, irrelevant. Elections are no longer able to bring change in direction; only change in velocity.
http://static7.businessinsider.com/image/4cf94ce849e2ae7e1b010000/george...
You took your eye off the ball.
Bush baby and Cheney chicken-hawk should be charged with genocide war crimes, period!
These "Federalist" scumbags !!!
...and obama kony with murder. the fascist regime of democrats and their lackey repubs must be overthrown and inprisoned.....oh thats right its ok because its a democrat dog eating racist hatemonger...pathetic democrat poofer
When he said "growth" he meant Mexican Socialist Growth, he wasn't referring to "economic growth" or "per capita growth", or income growth, or even "American" growth, just Mexican growth.
Broke, indigent, diabetic, obese, uneducated Mexican growth.
Waste of time. If you give someone the license to kill, don't complain when you end up dead.
YAWN...who cares.
Dubya = lol
baby bush is a murderer.....he, senior, cheney, rumsfeld, and a host of other political celebrities were the authors and commanders of the attack on the usa on 9/11/2011....
al qaeda is a database of mercenaries which the bush crime syndicate calls upon to carry out assassinations, mayhem, and destruction....the beltway murderer was most likely another bush operation
George Bush is penning a book? On economics? Is it a "graphic novel"? Can we color in the pictures?
Tyler, perhaps you'd be kind enough to tag these questions onto the bottom of your list when you get your audience with the Chimp.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32782623/ns/us_news-911_eight_years_later/
1. In the school, when Bush was told by Andrew Card: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack", everyone commented on Bush not 'doing' anything - i.e. not 'moving' into action. A more important question would have been: Why didn't Bush SAY anything? More specifically, why didn't he ASK anything?
After all, if he had no foreknowledge of the event, how would he know the extent of the attack without asking ???
He did not ask Card ANY questions. He did not give any orders. He did not know the nature of the attack (i.e was it nuclear, biological, chemical or conventional). It could have been an attack of acne for all he knew. He did not know the scope of the attack (i.e. One city or many? By air, land, sea or all of the above?). He did not know who (which group or country) was attacking, whether it was known if there would be more attacks, what military response, if any, had been planned or taken; who was co-ordinating that?
Not one single fucking question.
To fully appreciate Bush's moronic error, which exposes his lie about being ignorant of any foreknowledge, imagine sitting in your kids' school during a PTA meeting and someone comes and tells you that your (wife, kids, house or car) is being attacked - and then you NOT asking a single question of the messenger like, 'WHERE' or 'BY WHOM' etc.
It's absolutely impossible to not immediately seek more information from a messenger about a disaster when you only get a 'headline' from them. There is only one situation where you might not say a single word and that is if it wasn't a surprise but was expected.
2. When Bush was later asked why he didn't get up and do something, he said it was because he didn't want to alarm the children.
Since when have a group of 2nd graders been 'alarmed' when a non-family member leaves the room? What a crock!
Kids spend every day watching adults entering and leaving rooms without giving them an explanation about where they're going and/or why. If you weren't suspicious before about Bush lying through his teeth about 9/11, then this rushed and stupid answer should have sealed it.
3. If he was so concerned for the kids, why didn't he immediately get them out of the building? The details of his trip to that school were made available to anyone via the Whitehouse website which shows all the President's public engagements well in advance. So how did he know that there wasn't another Jet headed for the school from, say, Tampa International Airport which is only a few minutes away by air. Probably less than 5 minutes at 300/400+ m.p.h. Perhaps, you may say, it's because Bush is an idiot but the Secret Service would have recognised that potential danger.
4 Why didn't the supposed terrorists wait just another hour or two to hit the WTC when the buildings would have been full. Not only that but every single trader in the world would have hit the SELL button at the same time.
We are led to believe that these terrorists carefully chose the targets to impact the 'pillars' of US Imperialism.
So, we're supposed to believe that these terrorists were savvy enough to circumvent the best defence systems in the world - and know that the WTC represented a financial pillar of US Imperialism - but were ignorant of the financial markets' opening times ?? - when the attack would have caused the most disruption ?? - make me laugh!
The same thing has happened on almost every single terrorist activity since. The shoe bomber, the underwear bomber etc. These events always conveniently happen on holidays when the markets are closed. How very considerate of Al Qaeda.
So the last question is:
5. Why have these real terror attacks and supposed threats always occurred when the markets are closed? Maybe they hate our freedom but respect the opening bell as 'off-limits' !
9/11 - Before US markets opened
UK 7/7 bombing - After UK markets are closed.
Shoe Bomber - Richard Reid - Saturday before Christmas Day 2001.
Underwear Bomber - Umar Abdulmutallab - Christmas day 2008
Time Square Bomber - Faisal Shahzad - Saturday May 1st 2010
You could also ask :-
why were the steel beams from 9/11 smuggled out of the country within 2 weeks instead of being forensically examined? When no skyscraper before or since has collapsed from fire alone.
Because if you scrapped off the residue you could trace where the specially enginered plastic explosives were made.
duplicate
I know that he read that book about the story that Moby Dick was based upon. But, he never realized that HE was in fact Captain Ahab, the EVIL magician who led the entire community that he was responsible for to its DOOM!
But, mostly I think you can only ask "W" about changing the oil on a '57 Chevy. Ask Cheney the hard questions.
What a political hack piece. I began following this blog because it has some serious insight and commentary - and up till now, mostly even-up - left, right and center. But this piece leaves me (and I can also see others as well) very dissapointed. "Guest post" or not, it makes an impression with your readers. Is the cat out of the bag, or was this a lapse of judgement on the editor's part? I'll be happy to write a "counter" piece if you decide you want to give a little equal time. neil@tellmygov.com BTW: www.TellMyGov.com is where this piece belongs in the first place. (Sorry, no IPO just yet)
Knee jerks have a hard time getting that both parties of the duopoly are corrupt. Its not like Obama gets off easy on this space. Its good that ZH helps the sheeple realize that both sides are owned.
'Zactly. Those who defend one side of the coin and demonize the other are clueless. O'Roma or Bomney, they are both the same. Choose your poison. Literally.
I blame NORAD
1. Why did you ignore the CIA’s warnings in the summer of 2001 that al-Qaeda could strike “imminently”?
Define ignore. Was failure to ground commercial aircraft that summer ignoring al-Quaeda? Was failure to institute the TSA and 3-hour long lines through scanners that summer, when no such event as 9-11 was in passengers' psyche, cansidered ignoring the threat?
2. Why did you pledge in the 2000 election debates that you were against nation building, and then embark on not one but two nation-building programs in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The Soviets had their Vietnam in Afghanistan. We (possibly foolishly) we could make them like us if the political class and their economy were more dependent on the West.
3. You increased the Federal debt by 86%; to what extent do you accept the blame for America’s debt troubles?
Subtracting the revenue shortfall from the dot com bubble burst and the recession 9-11 threw us into, I'll have to take the blame for new structural deficits due to wars and medicaid D.
4. You reappointed Alan Greenspan as the Fed Chairman; to what extent do you accept that his easy money policies caused the bubble that burst in 2008?
The world's perception was that Greenspan was smarter than me. On what grounds was I supposed to object to his tenure and hope to maintain confidence in the economy? Of course, citing the housing bubble collapse today is 20/20 hindsight.
5. Were the 2008 bailouts of well-connected banks and financial corporations engineered by your administration compatible with a supposedly “free-market” “capitalist” system? Doesn’t bailing out banks create dangerous moral hazard?
Yes, it does. But monetary policy is set by the Fed as empowered by Congress. I'm just glad the next Great Depression cannot numerically be shown to have begun on my watch.
5. How can a nation simultaneously claim to be a liberator while also practising torture?
It's hard to be a liberator hiding in bunkers from IED's and from folks who believe killing as many Americans as possible will destroy our will to fight, and who believe kiling as many civillians as possible is all that will get us out of those bunkers. We extracted information to turn the tide and protect soldiers on the ground. Did I order a Code Red? Damn straight I did!
6. You swore to uphold the Constitution, yet passed the PATRIOT Act that authorised warrantless wiretapping, and mass surveillance in contravention of the Fourth Amendment. Do you realise that you violated your oath of office?
My legal staff said it was not a violation of either the Constitution or my oath of office. Nor did Congress seriously consider impeachment based on alleged Constitutional violations. We'll just have to disagree on that.
Fascist. 1, the buck stops with you; 2, imperialistic fascist propaganda; 3, what do we have to gain from your war mongering?; 4, in hindsight, you were owned by banksters; 5, Again, you were owned by banksters, as is Obama. You take pride in your can kicking; 5 (part 2), neocon propaganda. Ever seen "The Hurt Locker"?; 6, The buck stops with you douchebag
"Ever seen 'The Hurt Locker'?"
Despite watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang several times (once on Blu Ray) I can't get any of my cars off the ground at my ranch.
And keep off my boy Obama. He's such a likeable fella.
Baaaah. Baaaaaaaaaaah. This hay is good.
Dewd, if Pipelineistan was Communism's Vietnam, with a collapse into holographic Democracy in the late 80s, why haven't the United Sheeple of America devolved into pretend Communists, yet?
/sarc
Wait. Now I can see why they didn't call it the Declaration of Dependence.
--
Side note, whilst drunk off my ass, on many occasions, I would ask various maidens working in service industry jobs what they thought of the symbolism on the US dollar...
"BAAAAAAAH. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!", was the reply.
Good country, here. You are as free as you have money for a defense attorney.
/sarc
now we know who's who, no?
Ah, W....
Bless his soul, it take a real kind of special person to be without a doubt the worst two term president in the history of the Union...
History will not be kind to the Bushes....
GW was simply doing what he was ordered to do.
Disobey orders and u wind up like Jay eFin' Kay.
Leave him be. He's still busy trying to 'smoke out' that Osama Bin Laden dude.
in general, i think we're f*cked.
More Monday morning quarterbacking by another in a seemingly endless stream of egghead academics.
4 years later, still beating a dead horse.
This one's easy - GWB and Obie work for the same employer.
Right?
Good, another book for the pyre when this bitch implodes.