A sad revelation in the autobiography of Tom Ridge, the inaugural Homeland Security Chief:
Tom Ridge confirms a long-held suspicion among Bush critics, writing in his new autobiography that he "was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over."
While it is good on Mr. Ridge, someone long respected for his political honesty, to have resigned, as well as to follow one of the unwritten rules of politics by not revealing this until after the Bush administration ended, it is a sad day for Republicans that we find ourselves seeing that some liberal conspiracies were true.
It is also unfortunate, because this blog now finds itself complimenting President Obama for keeping the Terror Alert level out of the news and downplaying it (while not taking away the transparency.)
Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/Politicizing_the_terror_alerts.html?showall
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Obama Uses Religion To Promote Health Care
"We are God's partners in matters of life and death"
The President said this during a call with Rabbis concerning his health care plan. The obvious question, "Isn't this what liberals got angry with Bush and Huckabee over?"
This blog had a problem with the undue self-confidence that Bush had when he was sure he was doing God's work and with Huckabee for saying that his surge was supported by God, and we certainly have a problem with this bull. Who do you think you are, Mr. President?
Also, interesting note on the rationing front: Ben Smith points out that this is from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that also says it is decided "who shall live and who shall die." Obviously not intentional, but that just walks into the hands of the Right.
The President said this during a call with Rabbis concerning his health care plan. The obvious question, "Isn't this what liberals got angry with Bush and Huckabee over?"
This blog had a problem with the undue self-confidence that Bush had when he was sure he was doing God's work and with Huckabee for saying that his surge was supported by God, and we certainly have a problem with this bull. Who do you think you are, Mr. President?
Also, interesting note on the rationing front: Ben Smith points out that this is from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that also says it is decided "who shall live and who shall die." Obviously not intentional, but that just walks into the hands of the Right.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Moral hazard, anyone?
In reference to a new New York program funded by federal stimulus cash (with a little extra from George Soros) that gives $200 for each kid under the premise of back-to-school shopping:
"It's free money!" said Alecia Rumph, 26.
Now, there were definitely worse uses of the stimulus cash around the country, and not being a New York citizen, this blog will not attempt to question the choice.
However, this shows the problem with Obama's promises of everything for everyone with no consequences. Bush did it with his "Go shopping!" request after 9/11, and if someone doesn't step in, it's only going to get worse.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/08/12/2009-08-12_billionaire_feds_give_out_175m_to_aid_neediest_students_around_the_state_its_fre.html
"It's free money!" said Alecia Rumph, 26.
Now, there were definitely worse uses of the stimulus cash around the country, and not being a New York citizen, this blog will not attempt to question the choice.
However, this shows the problem with Obama's promises of everything for everyone with no consequences. Bush did it with his "Go shopping!" request after 9/11, and if someone doesn't step in, it's only going to get worse.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/08/12/2009-08-12_billionaire_feds_give_out_175m_to_aid_neediest_students_around_the_state_its_fre.html
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Leahy Blocking Anti-Drug Cartel Funding For Mexico
The release of a report that would free up more than $100 million in U.S. aid to Mexico to combat drug cartels has been delayed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.
Mexico has not met all of the conditions for aid, specifically the prosecution of police and military officers who violate human rights, Leahy said in a statement released Wednesday.
The money in question is part of the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year program, aimed at fighting drug cartels that the Mexican government says are responsible for more than 10,000 deaths since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006.
The Merida Initiative aid from the United States was authorized to help Mexico with counternarcotics, port and airport security, technology, and training and strengthening of law enforcement institutions.
Most of the aid was released without conditions, but the agreement stipulates that 15 percent of the aid will be withheld until the State Department gives Congress a favorable report on Mexico's human rights record.
The Washington Post reported that the State Department was prepared to present a favorable report ahead of President Obama's visit to Mexico this weekend, but Leahy rejected the report.
So, when Congress wants to spend billions in earmarks and pet projects, they threaten to override a presidential veto in order to get him to ignore it. But for $100 million in what was one of the few successful Bubama initiatives, one that is making progress towards the goal of creating security on both sides of the southern border, and one that is already approved by Congress and the State department, Sen. Leahy will use his (ridiculous) committee authority to block it single-handedly by not letting the report be accepted before the whole Senate.
Yeah, makes sense he is from Vermont, where his colleague is an actual, admitted Socialist and they are as far away from border reality as possible. Maybe he should move to Texas for a few months.
Source: CNN
Mexico has not met all of the conditions for aid, specifically the prosecution of police and military officers who violate human rights, Leahy said in a statement released Wednesday.
The money in question is part of the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year program, aimed at fighting drug cartels that the Mexican government says are responsible for more than 10,000 deaths since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006.
The Merida Initiative aid from the United States was authorized to help Mexico with counternarcotics, port and airport security, technology, and training and strengthening of law enforcement institutions.
Most of the aid was released without conditions, but the agreement stipulates that 15 percent of the aid will be withheld until the State Department gives Congress a favorable report on Mexico's human rights record.
The Washington Post reported that the State Department was prepared to present a favorable report ahead of President Obama's visit to Mexico this weekend, but Leahy rejected the report.
So, when Congress wants to spend billions in earmarks and pet projects, they threaten to override a presidential veto in order to get him to ignore it. But for $100 million in what was one of the few successful Bubama initiatives, one that is making progress towards the goal of creating security on both sides of the southern border, and one that is already approved by Congress and the State department, Sen. Leahy will use his (ridiculous) committee authority to block it single-handedly by not letting the report be accepted before the whole Senate.
Yeah, makes sense he is from Vermont, where his colleague is an actual, admitted Socialist and they are as far away from border reality as possible. Maybe he should move to Texas for a few months.
Source: CNN
Friday, July 31, 2009
Americans Still Not Willing To Make Choices
Since the stimulus package, Americans have seemed to understand that it is better to ride out a recession than to pour out what little is left in the federal purse. Unfortunately, they continue to refuse to accept, to fix the hole Presidents Bubama (as in, Bush & Obama) have torn in the budget, that they will have to take some combination of spending cuts and tax raises.
A new CBS News/New York Times poll shows 53%-31% refusing to take cuts in services (that number increases to 42% if you let them only cut "a few things"), with 56%-41% opposing tax hikes.
The good news, politically, is that people are (slightly) less willing to accept an increase in taxes than they are to letting go of some domestic/economic aid. That will help Republicans in 2010, and especially 2012, when the President is forced to make some tough choices.
Unfortunately, this crisis is not about politics. It is about an American government that is threatening to lose all sense of fiscal reality and fall into a debt trap that would ensnare every citizen, and probably the entire world. The next Republican leader will hopefully be the one who can combine conservative austerity measures with the Roosevelt-Kennedy skill at rallying the country behind a necessary cause. And he is probably going to have to raise taxes too. It is impossible to know who that is (David Petraeus, if he chose to enter politics, comes to mind), but for the sake of everyone, pray they're out there.
A new CBS News/New York Times poll shows 53%-31% refusing to take cuts in services (that number increases to 42% if you let them only cut "a few things"), with 56%-41% opposing tax hikes.
The good news, politically, is that people are (slightly) less willing to accept an increase in taxes than they are to letting go of some domestic/economic aid. That will help Republicans in 2010, and especially 2012, when the President is forced to make some tough choices.
Unfortunately, this crisis is not about politics. It is about an American government that is threatening to lose all sense of fiscal reality and fall into a debt trap that would ensnare every citizen, and probably the entire world. The next Republican leader will hopefully be the one who can combine conservative austerity measures with the Roosevelt-Kennedy skill at rallying the country behind a necessary cause. And he is probably going to have to raise taxes too. It is impossible to know who that is (David Petraeus, if he chose to enter politics, comes to mind), but for the sake of everyone, pray they're out there.
Monday, July 20, 2009
$23 Trillion
A series of bailouts, bank rescues and other economic lifelines could end up costing the federal government as much as $23 trillion, the U.S. government’s watchdog over the effort says – a staggering amount that is nearly double the nation’s entire economic output for a year.
If the feds end up spending that amount, it could be more than the federal government has spent on any single effort in American history.
In fact, $23 trillion is more than the total cost of all the wars the United States has ever fought, put together. World War II, for example, cost $4.1 trillion in 2008 dollars, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Even the Moon landings and the New Deal didn’t come close to $23 trillion: the Moon shot in 1969 cost an estimated $237 billion in current dollars, and the entire Depression-era Roosevelt relief program came in at $500 billion, according to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research.
The annual gross domestic product of the United States is just over $14 trillion.
In addition, TARP proves to be the perfect example of how giving government power will inherently lead to further (undemocratic) expansion.
Originally, TARP was intended, Barofsky writes, to facilitate “the purchase, management, and sale of up to $700 billion of “toxic” assets, primarily troubled mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.”
But that plan was soon rejected, and the TARP instead became a grab bag of bailout initiatives, including bailouts for GM, Chrysler and auto parts suppliers as the federal government struggled in real time to contain a spiraling economic disaster.
Barofsky reports that TARP has come to include 12 separate programs that include a total of as much as $3 trillion.
God bless George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I'll be over here, listening to Morrissey and slowly becoming an anarchist.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html#ixzz0Lpgw44MW
If the feds end up spending that amount, it could be more than the federal government has spent on any single effort in American history.
In fact, $23 trillion is more than the total cost of all the wars the United States has ever fought, put together. World War II, for example, cost $4.1 trillion in 2008 dollars, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Even the Moon landings and the New Deal didn’t come close to $23 trillion: the Moon shot in 1969 cost an estimated $237 billion in current dollars, and the entire Depression-era Roosevelt relief program came in at $500 billion, according to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research.
The annual gross domestic product of the United States is just over $14 trillion.
In addition, TARP proves to be the perfect example of how giving government power will inherently lead to further (undemocratic) expansion.
Originally, TARP was intended, Barofsky writes, to facilitate “the purchase, management, and sale of up to $700 billion of “toxic” assets, primarily troubled mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.”
But that plan was soon rejected, and the TARP instead became a grab bag of bailout initiatives, including bailouts for GM, Chrysler and auto parts suppliers as the federal government struggled in real time to contain a spiraling economic disaster.
Barofsky reports that TARP has come to include 12 separate programs that include a total of as much as $3 trillion.
God bless George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I'll be over here, listening to Morrissey and slowly becoming an anarchist.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html#ixzz0Lpgw44MW
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Proper Republican Response to CIA Revelations
CIA Director Leon Panetta's recent admission to members of Congress that the CIA kept a program secret from everyone, including Congress, under orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney has brought the expected witch hunt from the left and cries of witch hunt from the right. This would be my response:
1) Let's call a spade a spade. The level of executive privelage used by the second Bush administration clearly went beyond what was necessary to keep us safe. There is a difference between using military commissions to keep secrets uncovered about terrorist activities and resulting from ongoing investigations, vs. hiding certain executive/intelligence activities because they were probably illegal.
2) An investigation here is appropriate. This is different than the liberal attempt to haul everyone who ever spoke to the former President concerning waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation and its potential illegality. Those are policies that have since been abolished by the new administration, and crafting a legal opinion (such as what John Yoo and other lawyers did) or carrying out activities that you were told were legal (such as what the CIA operatives involve did) should never be considered wrong. That was their job, and they were told by every one of their superiors that they were doing it properly. In this case, there is the potential for blatent, knowledgeable violations of the law.
3) As mentioned above, this investigation should not touch the CIA operative who carried out this operation, if they were simply told by their superiors that it was legal and had no reason to suspect otherwise.
4) As believers in limited, constitutional government, we should be apalled that the Vice President, a position that exists, even in the new, expanded government, solely to break tie-votes in the Senate and advise the President/lead Presidential commissions, was issuing commands such as this.
5) While this should be carried out in a way that is as transparant as possible, the specifics of this program should not be revealed to the public until it can be confirmed that it was illegal. We also shouldn't jump to conclusions about the legality of this. While morally we can be opposed to the VP having such powers and select committees not being briefed, this may have been within the realm of the law. Whether we like this or not, we need to remember that.
Relevant Link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24821.html
1) Let's call a spade a spade. The level of executive privelage used by the second Bush administration clearly went beyond what was necessary to keep us safe. There is a difference between using military commissions to keep secrets uncovered about terrorist activities and resulting from ongoing investigations, vs. hiding certain executive/intelligence activities because they were probably illegal.
2) An investigation here is appropriate. This is different than the liberal attempt to haul everyone who ever spoke to the former President concerning waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation and its potential illegality. Those are policies that have since been abolished by the new administration, and crafting a legal opinion (such as what John Yoo and other lawyers did) or carrying out activities that you were told were legal (such as what the CIA operatives involve did) should never be considered wrong. That was their job, and they were told by every one of their superiors that they were doing it properly. In this case, there is the potential for blatent, knowledgeable violations of the law.
3) As mentioned above, this investigation should not touch the CIA operative who carried out this operation, if they were simply told by their superiors that it was legal and had no reason to suspect otherwise.
4) As believers in limited, constitutional government, we should be apalled that the Vice President, a position that exists, even in the new, expanded government, solely to break tie-votes in the Senate and advise the President/lead Presidential commissions, was issuing commands such as this.
5) While this should be carried out in a way that is as transparant as possible, the specifics of this program should not be revealed to the public until it can be confirmed that it was illegal. We also shouldn't jump to conclusions about the legality of this. While morally we can be opposed to the VP having such powers and select committees not being briefed, this may have been within the realm of the law. Whether we like this or not, we need to remember that.
Relevant Link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24821.html
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