When George W. Bush was appointed president, he, like all federal officials, took an oath of office in which he swore to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States." In fact, I even heard him recite that oath with my own ears, and he actually got all of the words right.
Imagine my shock, then, to have come across two astounding quotes attributed to the same George W. It is not possible that he actually said these things, yet the editor of Capitol Hill Blue, a highly respected, politcally agnostic, publication, cites three solid sources who were all present at a meeting in the Oval Office when the words were uttered. Apparently, Republican leaders told Bush that his stubborn, unyielding push to get the most onerous provisions of the Patriot Act renewed without protection for civil liberties was likely to alienate the Conservative wing of his party that was stilled miffed over his candidacy of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Justice. W's unbelievable response was: "I don't give a Goddamn, I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
An aide to the President then made the following point: "Mr. President, there is a valid case that some of the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution." Whereupon it was reported that Bush screamed: "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face; it's just a Goddamned piece of paper."
All this occurred before the stunning revelation that Bush has since 9/11 personally and secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read emails of people within the United States without obtaining judicial search warrants as specifically required by law.
Bush sought to justify his unconstitutional and perhaps criminal actions with the usual rhetoric about his being the Commander-in-Chief whose duty it is to defend America from another terrorist attack. He has used the same logic to explain why it is OK to hold prisoners for years without charging them with any crimes and without allowing them access to legal counsel. He has had no problem with condoning torture, and, in so doing, thumbing his nose at U.S. and International law. He has encouraged the Pentagon to amass personal files on millions of American citizens, the military to spy on innocent Americans and the FBI to get into bank statements and other financial records in secret.
This administration, as everyone knows by now, came to Washington with a far-reaching agenda. But when a president swears an oath ("so help me God") to uphold the Constitution and then waives that Constitution when it gets in his way, then it's time to revisit the 'I' word. Impeachment is a serious matter; so is the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The irony of all this is, of course, that George Bush is big on democracy in Iraq while showing outright contempt for it here at home.
When the great abdicators, otherwise known as Congress, return to Washington in January, I trust they will educate W. on the significance of the Constitution and what it has meant to this country for over 200 years, and what it means for him personally to disregard it. My only regret is that should Bush be kicked out of office, we'd be stuck with the snarling Cheney. Great dilemmas never cease.
03/26/2006
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
FOLLOW THE PRE-9/11 MONEY
Government agencies were created to regulate certain industries in order to protect the American people. But as most of us know by now, they do the opposite: they protect the various industries they were meant to regulate. (By the way, if you're looking for a conspiracy with a capital "C," look no further).
In assessing the so-called "Phase Two" of the investigation into 9/11 and how the Bush administration handled ("managed") the intelligence they received from the CIA, one unanswered question seems to stand out in its total disregard by the SEC, the agency responsible for looking into it. I am referring to the suspicious options trading that occurred just before 9/11.
Someone purchased a very large number of put options on various airline stocks just days before the tragic event. You buy put options when you hope, or in this case KNOW, that certain stocks are going to go down. It is a highly leveraged way to make a lot of money if you're right.
But when you buy or sell options on an options exchange, there is a paper trail. The transactions can be traced back to an individual or an entity. If you discover only an entity, who was acting on behalf of some anonymous individual(s), you can almost always determine who those individuals were with proper investigation.
As far as anyone knows, the SEC or, for that matter, the CIA, have never even looked into this incredibly serious and likely revealing matter. Or, if they have, they are keeping the relevant information from the American people. It is part of that "C" word, a conspiracy between the administration and the agency or agencies with oversight powers into this specific area, in order to keep this vital secret to themselves.
By stonewalling this crucial piece of evidence, it allows us with vivid imaginations to arrive at no other conclusion than the likelihood that the buyers of these damning put options were the Bush administration's "friends" in Saudia Arabia.
It is one thing for speculators to make money by guessing a market's movement correctly. But it is a very different kettle of fish when individuals, armed with inside information into an impending horrific event, make windfall profits off the backs of mass murder. Someone should demand that the SEC fulfill its mandate and get to the bottom of this onerous act instead of covering up what might be an embarrassment to the administration.
Purchasing those put options was a crime. If we knew who bought them, we would know a whole lot more about 9/11 and what the Bush administration knew and how they handled that information as they moved relentlessly forward towards a war in Iraq.
11/06/2005
In assessing the so-called "Phase Two" of the investigation into 9/11 and how the Bush administration handled ("managed") the intelligence they received from the CIA, one unanswered question seems to stand out in its total disregard by the SEC, the agency responsible for looking into it. I am referring to the suspicious options trading that occurred just before 9/11.
Someone purchased a very large number of put options on various airline stocks just days before the tragic event. You buy put options when you hope, or in this case KNOW, that certain stocks are going to go down. It is a highly leveraged way to make a lot of money if you're right.
But when you buy or sell options on an options exchange, there is a paper trail. The transactions can be traced back to an individual or an entity. If you discover only an entity, who was acting on behalf of some anonymous individual(s), you can almost always determine who those individuals were with proper investigation.
As far as anyone knows, the SEC or, for that matter, the CIA, have never even looked into this incredibly serious and likely revealing matter. Or, if they have, they are keeping the relevant information from the American people. It is part of that "C" word, a conspiracy between the administration and the agency or agencies with oversight powers into this specific area, in order to keep this vital secret to themselves.
By stonewalling this crucial piece of evidence, it allows us with vivid imaginations to arrive at no other conclusion than the likelihood that the buyers of these damning put options were the Bush administration's "friends" in Saudia Arabia.
It is one thing for speculators to make money by guessing a market's movement correctly. But it is a very different kettle of fish when individuals, armed with inside information into an impending horrific event, make windfall profits off the backs of mass murder. Someone should demand that the SEC fulfill its mandate and get to the bottom of this onerous act instead of covering up what might be an embarrassment to the administration.
Purchasing those put options was a crime. If we knew who bought them, we would know a whole lot more about 9/11 and what the Bush administration knew and how they handled that information as they moved relentlessly forward towards a war in Iraq.
11/06/2005
BUSH SHOPS WHILE NEW ORLEANS DROPS
The only reason we have a Federal Government is to protect the citizenry. Otherwise, there would be no point in having a government at all.
The aforementioned government has focused for years on three likely catastrophes: a terrorist attack in New York City or Washington, D.C., a major earthquake in San Francisco and a powerful hurricane making a direct hit on New Orleans with the accompanying disastrous flood. With that premise as a backdrop, it is inconceivable that Bush had no plan for getting people out of New Orleans just as he has no plan for getting our troops out of Iraq. It is one thing for the local and state authorities to issue a mandatory evacuation order. But if you have no means of evacuation, then you depend on your elected government in Washington to have some ideas on how to get you out of "harm's way."
The military should have been in there before the storm struck with whatever heavy machinery was necessary in order to evacuate those people too old, too weak and too poor to reach safety on their own. Remember, this was one of the three main events the government was anticipating for years.
And where was Bush this time? No, not in the school house, but rather flying out to San Diego to buy a guitar. The poor, black people in New Orleans simply did not matter to him or any of his cronies. All the after-the-fact flying into the region hit by the hurricane is nothing more than political maneuvering for damage control. Anyone not blinded by right-wing ideology can see through that charade. Finally, the Bush people, who talk about nothing but terrorism, have obviously been asleep at the switch when it comes to Mother Nature, the greatest terrorist of them all. And don't look now, W., but She has avian flu waiting in the wings.
Instead of spending most of the year trying to privatize Social Security (which is just round one in the Conservative's long-term goal of eliminating all entitlement programs), George Bush should have had his priorities on straight. A vaccine to protect Americans and the rest of the world from the possibility of a deadly avian flu pandemic would be far more worthy of a leader than trying to undue the safety net for people near the end of their lives.
President Bush has been a great embarrassment to this country, and his administration has done incredible damage both here and abroad in such a brief period of time. It is hard to believe that we have another three years to endure this ongoing fiasco.
10/07/2005
The aforementioned government has focused for years on three likely catastrophes: a terrorist attack in New York City or Washington, D.C., a major earthquake in San Francisco and a powerful hurricane making a direct hit on New Orleans with the accompanying disastrous flood. With that premise as a backdrop, it is inconceivable that Bush had no plan for getting people out of New Orleans just as he has no plan for getting our troops out of Iraq. It is one thing for the local and state authorities to issue a mandatory evacuation order. But if you have no means of evacuation, then you depend on your elected government in Washington to have some ideas on how to get you out of "harm's way."
The military should have been in there before the storm struck with whatever heavy machinery was necessary in order to evacuate those people too old, too weak and too poor to reach safety on their own. Remember, this was one of the three main events the government was anticipating for years.
And where was Bush this time? No, not in the school house, but rather flying out to San Diego to buy a guitar. The poor, black people in New Orleans simply did not matter to him or any of his cronies. All the after-the-fact flying into the region hit by the hurricane is nothing more than political maneuvering for damage control. Anyone not blinded by right-wing ideology can see through that charade. Finally, the Bush people, who talk about nothing but terrorism, have obviously been asleep at the switch when it comes to Mother Nature, the greatest terrorist of them all. And don't look now, W., but She has avian flu waiting in the wings.
Instead of spending most of the year trying to privatize Social Security (which is just round one in the Conservative's long-term goal of eliminating all entitlement programs), George Bush should have had his priorities on straight. A vaccine to protect Americans and the rest of the world from the possibility of a deadly avian flu pandemic would be far more worthy of a leader than trying to undue the safety net for people near the end of their lives.
President Bush has been a great embarrassment to this country, and his administration has done incredible damage both here and abroad in such a brief period of time. It is hard to believe that we have another three years to endure this ongoing fiasco.
10/07/2005
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
DEBT BUBBLE IS READY TO BURST
In case you haven't noticed, one of the things the Bush administration does is lie a lot. We all know by now that Iraq was and is a lie. And good people die not in service to their country, but in service to that lie. But what most Americans don't understand is that the lies told about our economy may ultimately be even more painful.
Anyone with a pulse and a hint of respiration knows that the government's Consumer Price Index is a monthly lie. If you're one of those kinds of people who have to engage in such frivilous endeavors as eating, driving, heating your home, educating your children or seeking out healthcare --- in other words, anything you really need in this world --- then you know such neccessities have been going through the roof.. And yet miraculously the CPI indicates that inflation is very much under control.
Why do they lie about the CPI? Because to tell the truth about inflation would cause a catastrophic chain of events that would start off by spooking the bond market which in turn would crash the housing market which in turn would tank the stock market and the U.S. dollar which in turn would crush the economy. But far more sinister is the fact that the government has to pay a cost of living increase each year to anyone receiving Social Security. That increase is tied directly to the year-over-year CPI. Enough said about that. It's a plain old fashioned disgrace.
So how do they get away with it? Because politicians and journalists are, for the most part, deaf, dumb and blind about economics. And since journalists have become the public relations arm of the Federal Government, all the Bushies have to do is feed them the seed in the form of monthly reports on the economy,
and these investigative detective writers obediently regurgitate them on to the written page without ever questioning their veracity.
And so Americans are told that we are living through a "Goldilocks economy" when in truth we are on the precipice of an unprecedented debt bubble that will burst at any time.
08/19/2005
Anyone with a pulse and a hint of respiration knows that the government's Consumer Price Index is a monthly lie. If you're one of those kinds of people who have to engage in such frivilous endeavors as eating, driving, heating your home, educating your children or seeking out healthcare --- in other words, anything you really need in this world --- then you know such neccessities have been going through the roof.. And yet miraculously the CPI indicates that inflation is very much under control.
Why do they lie about the CPI? Because to tell the truth about inflation would cause a catastrophic chain of events that would start off by spooking the bond market which in turn would crash the housing market which in turn would tank the stock market and the U.S. dollar which in turn would crush the economy. But far more sinister is the fact that the government has to pay a cost of living increase each year to anyone receiving Social Security. That increase is tied directly to the year-over-year CPI. Enough said about that. It's a plain old fashioned disgrace.
So how do they get away with it? Because politicians and journalists are, for the most part, deaf, dumb and blind about economics. And since journalists have become the public relations arm of the Federal Government, all the Bushies have to do is feed them the seed in the form of monthly reports on the economy,
and these investigative detective writers obediently regurgitate them on to the written page without ever questioning their veracity.
And so Americans are told that we are living through a "Goldilocks economy" when in truth we are on the precipice of an unprecedented debt bubble that will burst at any time.
08/19/2005
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM?
Wait a minute! Someone high up in the Bush administration commits a felony (in the name of revenge) by using the press as a public relations arm of the Executive branch of government, and we're only concerned about journalists being able to protect their sources?
The lives of Valerie Plame and her associate undercover agents were placed in great danger. Why hasn't the press gone after the story in the Woodward and Bernstein tradition instead of whining about their rights of protection.
Talk about a conflict of interest. The law is clear on this issue: the journalists cannot protect their sources when those sources are committing a felony which goes by the name of "treason." It makes them assessories to the crime. And as for Novak, he belongs in one of those stylish orange suits.
Come on, you guys, stop being used by the Bushies, and start doing some good old fashioned investigative journalism.
07/07/2005
The lives of Valerie Plame and her associate undercover agents were placed in great danger. Why hasn't the press gone after the story in the Woodward and Bernstein tradition instead of whining about their rights of protection.
Talk about a conflict of interest. The law is clear on this issue: the journalists cannot protect their sources when those sources are committing a felony which goes by the name of "treason." It makes them assessories to the crime. And as for Novak, he belongs in one of those stylish orange suits.
Come on, you guys, stop being used by the Bushies, and start doing some good old fashioned investigative journalism.
07/07/2005
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
ONE GROUP IS SHOPPING WHILE THE OTHER IS DROPPING
Acting in total secrecy the Bush administration tells the press what it wants to print and keeps the rest to itself on the familiar grounds of "national security." The mainstream press, now mostly owned by Corporate America, has become nothing more than the public relations arm of the Executive branch of government.
The American people are not even in the game. The "haves" are too busy satisfying their material lust to even notice that the Country has slipped into a savage political and economic bear market. The "have nots" are too exhasted from working two or three jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. And the gap between the two ever widens.
So if you're wondering why no one is out on the streets demonstrating as our country loses its good jobs and goes ever deeper into debt, you need only understand that one group is shopping while the other is "dropping."
06/21/2005
THE BUSH MAN HAS SOLD US DOWN THE RIVER
Has the Bush administration got you properly worried about terrorism? Well, if you really want something to worry about when it comes to terrorism, look no further than to Nature. Possibly coming at us is an avian flu pandemic potentially capable of killing tens or even hundreds of millions of people on the planet including, for example, you and me. So far this disease has been 50-70% fatal to those who have contracted it.
Certainly, you say, the drug companies are competing with each other to come up with a vaccine to protect us against such a formidable calamity. But you would be wrong. Apparently, there is not sufficient profit in producing flu vaccines. They're just not particularly interested.
Well, then, the Federal Government, whose only reason for existence is to protect the citizenry, will come to our defense. Wrong again. Read this Executive Order signed by our compassionate Conservative president:
Executive Order: Amendment to E.O. 13295 Relating to Certain Influenza Viruses and Quarantinable Communicable Diseases
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 361 (b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 264 (b), it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Based upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Surgeon General, and for the purpose set forth in section 1of Executive Order
13295 of April 4, 2003, section 1 of such order is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection: "(c) Influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza viruses that are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic."
Sec. 2. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 1, 2005
So you see, when it comes to the mother of all terrorism, Mother Nature, the Bush man has sold us all down the river.
11/05/2005
Certainly, you say, the drug companies are competing with each other to come up with a vaccine to protect us against such a formidable calamity. But you would be wrong. Apparently, there is not sufficient profit in producing flu vaccines. They're just not particularly interested.
Well, then, the Federal Government, whose only reason for existence is to protect the citizenry, will come to our defense. Wrong again. Read this Executive Order signed by our compassionate Conservative president:
Executive Order: Amendment to E.O. 13295 Relating to Certain Influenza Viruses and Quarantinable Communicable Diseases
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 361 (b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 264 (b), it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Based upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Surgeon General, and for the purpose set forth in section 1of Executive Order
13295 of April 4, 2003, section 1 of such order is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection: "(c) Influenza caused by novel or reemergent influenza viruses that are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic."
Sec. 2. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
April 1, 2005
So you see, when it comes to the mother of all terrorism, Mother Nature, the Bush man has sold us all down the river.
11/05/2005
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