Oh my – Bush must have been far more loved by the world than Obama! I mean Bush had 30 coalition countries and Obama only has 15.
But what does that really prove?
Well the first thing it proves is that FOX can’t even comprehend the difference between a full war and a no-fly zone. Why don’t we compare like scenarios instead? How about when the no-fly zone was put into effect in Iraq in 1992? Then the first President Bush only had a coalition of 9! He couldn’t even break into double digits and the only countries actually doing anything were the US, France and Britain.
Then we get to the issue of the actual build-up to the Iraq war. I know I’ve been very busy the last few weeks, so I might have missed it, but did Obama send Hillary Clinton to the U.N. to do a presentation about WMD’s Gadhafi was manufacturing? Did we have a State of the Union address where President Obama said Gadhafi was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger? In other words – did President Obama go on a huge campaign to lie the world into war? Absolutely not!
Ex-secretary of state Colin Powell called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain how he was given unreliable information which proved key to the US case for invading Iraq, the Guardian reported Wednesday.
Powell's landmark speech to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, cited intelligence about Iraq leader Saddam Hussein's bioweapons programme gained from a defector, codenamed Curveball.
But he has now admitted that he lied to topple the dictator, in an interview with the Guardian.
"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," Powell told the British newspaper.
"The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the (report) sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN."
The entire world deserves answers to this, especially the soldiers and the families of those that died in a war based on lies. This is the greatest intelligence failure our nation and the world has ever seen, not Leon Panetta getting it wrong on when Mubarak would step down, as the right wants you to believe. This lie has cost our nation trillions of dollars and countless lives, yet our leaders are just shrugging their shoulders. W
e need a full investigation into the lies and even prosecutions. Yeah I’m pissed at George Bush and company for buying this lie, but I’m equally pissed at President Obama and his administration for not demanding answers. The blood of the fallen lies on the hands of those who bought the lies and those who ignore them. Let’s get the investigations started.
Last night’s State of the Union address by President Obama received some of the highest marks ever. One poll has 91% of the viewers approving of what the President said, while another had the approval at 84%. A vast majority of this country likes the plans the President laid out and that’s a number you just can’t ignore.
If you were expecting a moderate Obama or a bold Obama, you were disappointed, most likely, by Tuesday's State of the Union Address. In a nutshell: Obama proposed a ton of new domestic spending, promised to freeze discretionary spending (attained by savaging defense), abstained from offering specifics on entitlement reform and largely ignored major foreign policy changes. Moreover, the delivery was so listless that this State of the Union address likely garnered less applause than any address in recent memory.
I didn’t know the “applause-o-meter” was the key to success in SOTU addresses. The last SOTU address that saw poll numbers like this was in 2002, right after 9/11.
President Obama laid out a clear plan for a successful America last night. The Republicans won’t have anything to do with it simply because Obama laid it out. Numerous polls have already shown that the honeymoon is over with the Republican controlled House, and with the support the President saw from his speech, fighting the plans laid out will help keep the newly found Republican power in check. As matter of fact it could lead to a one term win for them.
Rob Diamond, a Navy veteran and Fellow with the Truman National Security Project, noticed something interesting with the Republican response to the State of the Union address:
Notice who is sitting directly behind McDonnell on his right side? You have an Army Staff Sergeant in full dress uniform. As Rob points out:
Slight problem, you see. That is probably against the law.
Look it up for yourself right here in the Department of Defense (DoD) Directive entitled "Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces." The purpose of this DoD Directive is to mirror the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in partisan political activity in an official capacity. Since a DoD Directive is considered to be in the same category as an order or regulation, and military personnel violating its provisions can be considered in violation of Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, our Republican friends may have just caused this brave young soldier to break the law. Thank you for that, Governor McDonnell.
resident Barack Obama will call in his State of the Union address for a three-year freeze on spending for many domestic programs as part of his strategy to rein in the deficit, administration officials said.
The proposal, which wouldn’t affect spending on national security, would save an estimated $250 billion over a decade and reduce the deficit by $10 billion to $15 billion in 2011, according to the two officials, who briefed reporters on the plan. Last year’s budget shortfall was a record $1.4 trillion.
Obama will unveil the plan in his address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night and include it in the fiscal year 2011 budget he’s set to deliver to lawmakers Feb. 1, the officials said.
Then you got the Republicans questioning the move:
Another senior House Democrat familiar with negotiations on the bill said no progress has been made this week on any of the key sticking points in the House and Senate bills, despite steady meetings with union leaders and the White House.
“There’s no agreement. No deal on anything. Nothing,” the lawmaker said.
The reality, said this lawmaker, is that House-Senate negotiators will need to continue working out their differences into February. Congressional leaders have been aiming to deliver a final bill to President Barack Obama before his State of the Union address, which normally takes place in late January.
It’s also creating even more tension between the House and Senate:
With all of these issues at a standstill, tensions are growing between the two chambers. Several House lawmakers have voiced frustration with Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) over concessions and special deals they cut in the Senate version.
“The Senate is just a pain in the ass to everybody in the world as far as I can tell. I’m so angry that I just wish from now on that we’d just find out what it is that Lieberman and Nelson will let us have,” the senior lawmaker said. “But we’re not giving up on anything in the House.”
“We keep hearing them squeal like pigs in the Senate that they had a tough time getting to 60,” Weiner said. “Well, it wasn’t particularly a picnic for us to get to 218. Generally speaking, the Senate kabuki dance has lost its magic on those of us in the House.”
It’s looking like the health care bill may not hit the President’s desk until after the State of the Union address:
The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a “very hard pivot” to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.
Obama has been told that disputes over abortion and the tight schedule are highly likely to delay a final deal, a blow to the president, who had hoped to trumpet a health care victory in his big speech to the nation. But he has also been told that House Democratic leaders seem inclined, at least for now, to largely accept the compromise worked out in the Senate, virtually ensuring he will eventually get a deal.
If they are planning on conference to take this long, then there must be some serious differences anticipated between the House and Senate. All I can say is “Go House!”
It’s been over a week now since some hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit surfaced showing that researches sexed up some data; something the right is calling “climategate” and proof that global warming is a hoax. Since then the right has complained nonstop about the lack of media coverage on this non-story.
Let me take a moment and remind everyone of an actual event of lying. This act didn’t involve some scientists locked up in an office somewhere, just trying to make their data show a stronger case for what it already proved. This is a case with much more dire consequences.
George Bush engaged in the biggest act of lying to the world in history. He and his administration mislead the entire planet into believing that Saddam Hussein had the weapons to destroy the planet, as well as some how being involved in the 9/11 attacks. One of the basis of their lies was even a forged document that George Bush used in his State of the Union Address, saying that Saddam was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger.
Melody Barnes, Domestic Policy Council served as chief counsel to Senator Ted Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee from 1985 to 1993. Want to get an idea of how progressive she is? Read this: In January of 2007, prior to President Bush's state of the union address, Barnes wrote this essay for the Washington Post, What a Progressive President Might Say:
Here at home there is urgent work to do to fight the historically high -- and growing -- gap between our richest and poorest citizens. While the mean income of households on the low end of the income spectrum -- the bottom 20 percent -- is just $10,655 a year, the income of the top twenty percent of households averages almost $160,000. That's 15 times as much. At the same time, according to the latest census figures, the middle class, beset with stagnant wages and mountainous debts, is shrinking. The sad fact is that one of our most cherished values as a society, namely equality of opportunity, is fading as a reality for far too many people...
During his State of the Union address, Bush was pushing Congress on a school voucher program. Today we got two different stories of Catholic schools discriminating against women (here and here). Considering how these schools always use separation of church and state to defend their actions, should our tax money go to them? Better yet - should our tax money go to funding discrimination?
We are one week away from what should be Bush's last State of the Union address. I say could be because I wouldn't put it past this asshole to try to find a way to stay in office (think Iran and WWIII).
Bush forgot about the Katrina victims in his State of the Union address. Hell - it seems like a lot of America forgot about them (and we are only 3 days from Fat Tuesday). The Democrats in the House have not forgot though. They are introducing legislation to get more help to the storm ravaged area:
House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today announced plans to introduce legislation to help cut the bureaucratic red tape and speed up funding assistance to areas in the Gulf Coast impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The legislation waives the 25 percent local funding match required under the Stafford Act and cancels the required repayment of Community Disaster Loans. Clyburn will introduce the legislation tomorrow and the Majority leadership has made a commitment to move the bill quickly through the House. In addition, Clyburn announced he will meet with committee chairmen on Friday to explore the long-term legislative issues relating to hurricane recovery.
Throughout Bush's professional life, he has ran companies into the ground and relied upon others to bail him out. Well his new business, The United States of America, is no different. He now expects the Democrats to bail his ass out on his failed fiscal policies:
When he takes the House rostrum next week for the State of the Union address, President Bush will list among his goals a balanced federal budget, a shift for a president who has presided over record deficits while aggressively cutting taxes.
Politically, analysts say, the president is calling the bluff of Democrats, who won control of Congress in part by accusing Bush of reckless fiscal policies. While Bush now shares the Democrats' goal to erase the deficit by 2012, the politically perilous work of making that happen -- cutting spending or raising taxes -- falls to the Democratic-run Congress.
"The Democrats have assailed deficits under President Bush. The White House is telling Democrats to walk the walk," said Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Budget experts and economists from across the political spectrum, including some who worked in the Bush White House, say that Bush is unlikely to offer real concessions toward a balanced budget in the plan he delivers to Congress next month.
Last week Congress passed a bill requiring the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices on Medicare. Bush already said he is going to veto this bill. So the Democrats try something to not only save seniors money, but also the government and Bush won't allow it.
The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.
Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert Novak named her in a column on July 14, 2003. Novak's column appeared eight days after Wilson alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.
The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein's government had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports, but the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives
I wish the Wilson's all the luck in the world. They more than deserve justice on this. For more info, check out Firedoglake.
