George Bush

The last decade is by no doubt the Bush decade since he held office for 4/5 of it, so the fact that we had zero net job creating during the decade should really stick to his legacy. To put it in visual terms, check out this graph:

You can only blame 9/11 for so much of it. We did see an economic turn around after the attacks, but those were quickly erased by the lack of attention the Bush administration gave to Wall Street’s fraudulent activities, which resulted in the most job loses in decades. Way to go Bush!

To keep the record straight on the details about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, I want to do a quick recap:

• In 2007, under Bush, two of Abdulmutallab co-conspirators were released from Gitmo and sent to Saudi Arabia. (source)
• Abdulmutallab was given a visa to the United States in June 2008, despite being on the terrorist watch list because he “attended a reputable school” and “had money” (source).
• This past summer House Republicans kept stalling a bill to give more money to the TSA for extra screening and bomb detecting devices. (source)
• Currently the appointed head of the TSA is held up in Senate by Republican Jim DeMint (source)

And somehow all of this is Obama’s fault.

I want to clear this up right now. I called for Janet Napolitano to either resign or be fired today and I still stand by that. Her comments yesterday showed an individual afraid to take any responsibility and we can not tolerate that. Will any of the blogs on the right try to hold Republicans accountable for their contributions to this? Any at all?

If we want to be serious about fighting terrorism we must stop using it as a political tool. If we don’t do that then al Qaeda will continue to have victories. It’s enough of these childish “it’s his fault” games. Both parties and administrations have some fault in this, and to deny that is to treat terrorism like a childish game.

The news of the “attempted bombing” of a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit yesterday has brought out the craziness of the right, and nothing is crazier than this statement from Pete Hoekstra:

So if we are considering what happened yesterday a terrorist attack, then does that mean Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, was also a terrorist attack? That really puts a crimp in the argument that Bush didn’t have a terrorist attack since 9/11.

Republicans are already going into the reflex reaction of blaming President Obama for this. Instead of being realistic and looking at what happened, or didn’t happen, they want to jump into politics while terrorism still thrives. Let’s be honest here. We are using the same airline security measures that were implemented under Bush, so if they want to blame Obama then Bush should get just as much blame. President Obama has done nothing to relax security measures or even remove them.

The big news is that the pressure is on for President Obama to reverse himself and start looking into the allegations of law breaking by the Bush administration:

Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Fox News Sunday called it a “big problem.” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, on “This Week” on ABC, agreed that the secrecy “could be illegal” and demanded an inquiry.

Mr. Obama said this weekend that he had asked his staff members to review the mass killing of prisoners in Afghanistan by local forces allied with the United States as it toppled the Taliban regime there. The New York Times reported Saturday that the Bush administration had blocked investigations of the matter.

When Obama said he wouldn’t look backwards I had a feeling this would happen. Just the things we learned were being done by Bush through media leaks and whistleblowers was appalling. Once Bush didn’t have control over the government anymore and people could talk more freely, then it only made sense that we would find out all the previous revelations were only the tip of the iceberg. Let’s pull this band aide off quickly and get the truth out there. Once that happens then we can move forward.

From The Nation:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

And where are we now? 103 dead in Mexico, and 20 cases popping up almost instantly in the U.S.  The entire world is on edge worrying about a global pandemic, and if that comes to fruition, then it will become a massive hit on the already teetering economy.

But stories like this should come as no shock. We saw the exact same thing when Katrina hit. The Republicans believe that the public should be prepared, but the government doesn’t have to do anything. Just like when they said “it was the people’s fault for staying in Louisiana”, and wouldn’t cast any blame on a government that couldn’t be bothered to leave their vacation.

Let me give you a contrast of then and now. After Katrina hit, Bush’s aides worked to keep him away from the television. They finally put together a sampler video of news coverage (mostly of FOX coverage) showing what had happened. This was more than a day after people started drowning. Bush just couldn’t be bothered on one of his multiple vacations.

How is President Obama responding?

President Barack Obama took advantage of the summer weather in Washington on Sunday to play a round of golf.

Before he left for the course, Obama received an update on the swine flu virus, said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin.

Obama is getting some time for himself, but still staying in the loop about what is happening.

So we have a Democratic President who is being pro-active in the face of catastrophe, as compared to the Republican President who was reactive at the best. Hopefully people will remember this.

Last week we saw lots of conspiracies the right has been pushing about Obama’s trip over seas. One that really amazed me was the entire “Obama bowing” before King Abdullah. The right went viral on it (and still are). As matter of fact the idiots over at Hot Air have even put together a video:

Don’t you love that title; “A Tale of Two Bows”.

Well guys, I happened to find a bow you could also add into the mix:

George Bush bowed, held hands and kissed this man, yet the Republicans had no problem with that at all. The hypocrisy they show runs so deep, but I just love yanking the tinfoil off their silly little heads.

(h/t LGF)

The right wing has been touting out this graphic today as proof that Obama is destroying our government through spending:

Now they are saying that Obama is projecting a $1.75 trillion dollar deficit this year. Drudge has had this graphic on top of his blog and even right wing bloggers are on the “apologize to Bush” band wagon:

Will those who accused Bush of being a big spender now apologize?

<p>I admit I am not some big fiscal mind, but I like to think I make up for my economical short falls by exhibiting something I like to call common sense.

Again – the $1.75 trillion deficit is a projection for the current fiscal year, which began September 2008. What’s that mean? Well when the current budget actually drafted and voted on, President Obama was actually candidate Obama in a Democratic primary. That also means the $1.5 trillion spent so far on TARP and the stimulus was not included.

But it seems like something else may have been missing. What could that be?

Oh yeah – President Bush also constantly kept Iraq and Afghanistan out of the budget so he could tout out how great he was doing. Then come a month or two later he told Congress he needed an “emergency supplemental”. I guess Bush thought that both wars would magically end in those couple of months, but was slapped with some harsh reality they weren’t?

Obama is being honest about where the money is going and for that the right has to attack him. This is exactly the kind of dishonesty I have been talking about today that will lead the Republican Party into the abyss. Instead of acting like Obama is spending us into oblivion, they should be saying “it’s great he is trying to reduce the deficit next year, but maybe we should look at what else can be cut to reduce it more”.

Be honest Republicans and you might have a chance. Again, I am just some common Joe living in the mid-West who happens to try and give things a common sense look. That is what most Americans will do and they will quickly see through your games of distortion.

It turns out that peanut company has a history of problems, but see if you can notice something interesting here:

As far back as 2007, salmonella-laced products were shipped by a Georgia peanut company that knew the peanuts probably were tainted and sometimes after tests confirmed that contamination, inspection records show.

Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers' health.

Food and Drug Administration officials earlier had said Peanut Corp. of America waited for a second test to clear peanut butter and peanuts that initially were positive for salmonella. But the agency amended its report Friday, saying that the Blakely, Ga., plant actually shipped some products before receiving the second test and sold others after confirming salmonella.

In 2007, the company shipped chopped peanuts on July 18 and 24 after salmonella was confirmed by private lab tests, the FDA report said. Peanut Corp. sold products "on or after the positive salmonella results were obtained."

[SNIP]

Problems at the plant are not new. FDA inspectors found in 2001 that products potentially were exposed to insecticides, one of several violations uncovered during the last visit federal officials made before the current food-poisoning scare, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press.

So they had problems in 2001, Bush’s first year in office (and we don’t know exactly when, so it could have been when Clinton was President), but then the government didn’t check up on them again. They had problems in 2007, but it seems as though the government acted out of some sort of good faith. Now Bush is out of office and we find out this place is killing people.

Thankfully President Obama has ordered a full review of the FDA. We had so many problems under Bush when it came to food safety that it has to be more than just a case of bad luck. If it does turn out that people were dying because George Bush wanted to be the buddy with industry, then he should be charged with negligence in all the deaths and illnesses this lack of oversight has caused. Of course that would mean going against the Republican motto of “screw the people, save the corporations”.

This is a Bush administration official with direct knowledge admitting that we torture detainees:

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

The indictment is now writing itself. There is already talk of Bush, Cheney and a bunch of other current and former administration officials facing war crime charges in Europe. For use to restore our standing in the world, Europe shouldn’t be put through the hassle. Our nation should be the one to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. No leniency or anything – give it all to them. These are criminals that should not be allowed to walk.

On a related note, the evidence handling practices when it comes to detainees is in such chaos that it would give merit to any regular case being thrown out in our courts.

Bush addressed the nation a bit ago about the failure of the bailout bill. If the purpose of his speech was to instill some confidence into the market, a safe assumption given the timing of this speech, he failed miserably.

(video just uploaded so might take a few to process)

This is the look of a guy who has been beat down hard. At least put on a poker face and talk about how America can face any obstacle and overcome it. Lie if you have to, but this little spectacle did nothing but hurt today.

Bush has hit a new low in the approval ratings game - 19%. Even worse is the American view on the economy.

• Bush's Handling Of The Economy: Approve - 17% Disapprove - 76%
• National Economy: Getting Worse - 82% Getting Better - 0%
• 68% say the economy is in recession.
• 64% rate the economy as terrible

These are some very depressing numbers. We need to make sure Americans know that McCain will be the exact same as Bush.

The Bush administration is taking control of Freddie and Fannie. Funny - I always thought the government controlling private industry was considered socialism?

He is worse! George Bush just said in a news conference he will not be going down to the Gulf until after the storm. He doesn't want his trip to impede any of the massive operations underway. Does John McCain follow that same track of rational thinking? Hell no:

Mr. McCain plans to go to Jackson, Miss., which is inland, with his wife, Cindy, and his newly-selected running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, his campaign said. Mr. McCain will take only a small pool of reporters, and will tour a hurricane center with Gov. Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor.

As compared to the Obama response, which is people before politics:

Senator Barack Obama said that he had talked to the Louisiana governor and other officials. He added that he was monitoring the storm, but was planning no tour of the coast because he wanted to stay out of the way.

So John McCain is not the same as Bush. Bush at least has shown some common sense in the response to this mother of all storms. John McCain has seen a photo-op.

It's official - Bush and Cheney are skipping the convention due to Gustav. Schwarzenegger is also canceling now due to a budget stand off in his state.

Bush must have been bored Presidenting at the Olympics, so he had to start fidgeting with the American flag:

Replace Bush with Obama and then imagine the 24/7 outrage we would hear and see from the right, as well as the media.

(h/t Jed Report)