Anti-terrorism agency threw $461,745 party, report says Associated Press

Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a “lifetime achievement award” for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. …

The investigation by the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, and failed to provide adequate justification in more than a third of the 88 cases examined.

The report said lower-level employees were shortchanged, with a far lower percentage receiving bonuses.

In today’s paper, a Bush supporter writes the following — compare it to the exchange cited AND to the truth that follows. mjh

Kerry says that Bush says things, but the president never said those things. — Bush supporter

washingtonpost.com: Third Presidential Debate — President Bush and Sen. John Kerry

Kerry: Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, “Where is Osama bin Laden?” He said, “I don’t know. I don’t really think about him very much. I’m not that concerned.”

We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: Gosh, I just don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama bin Laden. It’s kind of one of those exaggerations.

Of course we’re worried about Osama bin Laden. We’re on the hunt after Osama bin Laden. We’re using every asset at our disposal to get Osama bin Laden.
—
[I]n a news conference on March 13, 2002, Bush said when asked about the search for the al Qaeda leader: “So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him. . . . We haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”
—

This isn’t some obscure point. Bush’s comments in March 2003 were shocking and widely reported. Now, Bush lies (“I never said…”) and his followers believe him as gospel. You can’t break that cycle of ignorance. mjh

ABC News: Injured Iraq Vets Come Home to Poverty By BRIAN ROSS, DAVID SCOTT and MADDY SAUER, ABC News

Following inquiries by ABC News, the Pentagon has dropped plans to force a severely wounded U.S. soldier to repay his enlistment bonus after injuries had forced him out of the service.

Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon’s own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty.

Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards.

“Oh man, I felt betrayed,” Johnson said. “I felt, like, oh, my heart dropped.” …

Many of the severely wounded soldiers returning from Iraq face the prospect of poverty and what they describe as official indifference and incompetence.

As Oprah Slaps Bush / With 30 states poised to smack down women’s rights again, the one true savior emerges By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Here’s the bottom line: 50 million eligible women didn’t vote in 2000, and 22 million of them were single and nearly every one of them probably thought their vote doesn’t matter and it isn’t really worth it and who cares anyway because no matter who wins, everything’s still pretty much run by rich powerful men anyway. …

[W]hat so many women don’t seem to know. That the Bush administration has already, in just a few short years, managed to roll back a truly astounding number of their basic rights, making it more difficult, for example, for doctors to perform abortions, or making it illegal for schools to discuss contraception or for hospitals to discuss pregnancy-termination options.

From demeaning and ineffectual abstinence-only programs to biased counseling to cutting all funding for international women’s health organizations that provide care to poor women in third-world nations (hell, Bush hacked that one away in his first month in office), Dubya has done more than any president in the last 100 years to smack women upside their sexually empowered heads. … Bush has already upheld the ban on abortions for servicewomen stationed overseas, even if they were raped, even if they pay for it themselves. …

Hello, 1950s. Hello, coat-hanger surgery. Hello, millions of despondent daughters of uptight parents. Hello, dead or mutilated teenage girls who suffer botched procedures. Hello, a fresh national nightmare, revisited, regurgitated, reborn. And hello again to smug right-wing males who’ve wanted to put women back in their place for the past 50 years. Check that: 200 years. Check that: forever.

Just a silly nightmare? Utterly impossible? A ridiculous liberal daydream? Not even close, sweetheart.

It’s all about the Supreme Court, of course. Fact is, our next president will almost surely get to appoint a number of new high-court justices to replace those who will likely retire after enduring Bush’s toxic first term. They hung in there, these few — especially stalwarts Sandra Day O’Connor and moderate, pro-choice John Paul Stevens — hoping to disallow the nation’s highest judiciary from becoming overly stacked with homophobic self-righteous right-wing neocon wingnuts (hi, Justice Scalia!) who would have us revert — morally, sexually, spiritually, misogynistically — to 1953. Check that: 1853. Check that: 1353.

With the exception of nearly useless neoconservative sycophant Clarence Thomas, not a single justice now serving on the court is under 65. Many insiders say Stevens, O’Connor and bitter old man William Rehnquist (almost 80) are all likely to retire before 2008. BushCo’s chosen replacements could easily tip the scales of the court the other direction, from its very precarious 5-4 progressive tilt to a very sneering 6-3 conservative one, a court that would then very easily overturn parts or even all of Roe v. Wade. Talk about a malicious legacy.

It gets worse. It gets nastier, more widespread. Because should Shrub swipe another term, he will also be on his way to naming more federal trial and appeals judges — hundreds, by most counts — than either Clinton or Reagan, the last two-term presidents. Bush could, in short and for all intents and purposes, stack the nation’s courts with enough neoconservative, antichoice, antiwomen crusaders to make Strom Thurmond giggle in his grave.
—
Reproductive Rights Steadily Eroded in the States

A majority of state legislatures, along with both houses of Congress and the White House, are allied against a woman’s right to make personal and private decisions about her reproductive life. A lone appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court — one more Supreme Court justice who will not affirm Roe v. Wade — is all it would take to bring victory to those who will deny women this fundamental human right.

Kerry: We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: Gosh, I just don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama bin Laden. It’s kind of one of those exaggerations.

Of course we’re worried about Osama bin Laden. We’re on the hunt after Osama bin Laden. We’re using every asset at our disposal to get Osama bin Laden.

In a news conference on March 13, 2002, Bush said when asked about the search for the al Qaeda leader: “So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him. . . . We haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”

I guess Bush was just exaggerating during the debate.

BUSH: Bob, we relied upon a company out of England to provide about half of the flu vaccines for the United States citizen, and it turned out that the vaccine they were producing was contaminated. And so we took the right action and didn’t allow contaminated medicine into our country.

We’re working with Canada to hopefully — that they’ll produce a — help us realize the vaccine necessary to make sure our citizens have got flu vaccinations during this upcoming season.

Actually, the British stopped that company from exporting; the US did not. As for Canada, we don’t trust them with pills.

I believe the role of government is to stand side by side with our citizens to help them realize their dreams, not tell citizens how to live their lives.

Except to deny a woman’s right to choose or everyone’s right to marry.

He talks about PAYGO. I’ll tell you what PAYGO means, when you’re a senator from Massachusetts, when you’re a colleague of Ted Kennedy, pay go means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends.

Note Bush’s odd use of PAYGO (perhaps it’s a term of art) — sure sounded like a blunder.

You know, there’s a main stream in American politics and you sit right on the far left bank. As a matter of fact, your record is such that Ted Kennedy, your colleague, is the conservative senator from Massachusetts.

That first sentence is so tortured (‘right on the far left bank’ — and is that some allusion to French?). Does Duhbya believe he sits in the middle of the mainstream? He’s wrong on the far right bank. Hell, he can’t see the water from where he is. And you had to see the smirk on his face as he made his ‘conservative senator’ joke. He must be used to his crowds roaring laughter at that. He looked hurt that it wasn’t the big hit it usually is.

[O]ne of the reasons why there’s still high cost in medicine is because this is — they don’t use any information technology. It’s like if you looked at the — it’s the equivalent of the buggy and horse days, compared to other industries here in America.

So very inarticulate. Can’t even use cliches correctly.

BUSH: In all due respect, I’m not so sure it’s credible to quote leading news organizations about — oh, nevermind.

Another strange “I’m so clever” moment complete with smirk or shrug.

we’ve unleashed the armies of compassion…
we’ll continue to rally the armies of compassion…

Kerry stayed pretty consistent in all 3 debates, though he may have been less agressive in this one. I at least wanted him to call Bush on the flu misstatement/lie.

The following exchange may best represent the difference between the two men. mjh

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, new question, two minutes.

You said that if Congress would vote to extend the ban on assault weapons, that you’d sign the legislation, but you did nothing to encourage the Congress to extend it. Why not?

BUSH: Actually, I made my intentions — made my views clear. I did think we ought to extend the assault weapons ban, and was told the fact that the bill was never going to move, because Republicans and Democrats were against the assault weapon ban, people of both parties.

I believe law-abiding citizens ought to be able to own a gun. I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don’t get in the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.

But the best way to protect our citizens from guns is to prosecute those who commit crimes with guns. And that’s why early in my administration I called the attorney general and the U.S. attorneys and said: Put together a task force all around the country to prosecute those who commit crimes with guns. And the prosecutions are up by about 68 percent — I believe — is the number.

Neighborhoods are safer when we crack down on people who commit crimes with guns.

To me, that’s the best way to secure America.

SCHIEFFER: Senator?

KERRY: I believe it was a failure of presidential leadership not to reauthorize the assault weapons ban.

I am a hunter. I’m a gun owner. I’ve been a hunter since I was a kid, 12, 13 years old. And I respect the Second Amendment and I will not tamper with the Second Amendment.

But I’ll tell you this. I’m also a former law enforcement officer. I ran one of the largest district attorney’s offices in America, one of the ten largest. I put people behind bars for the rest of their life. I’ve broken up organized crime. I know something about prosecuting.

And most of the law enforcement agencies in America wanted that assault weapons ban. They don’t want to go into a drug bust and be facing an AK-47.

I was hunting in Iowa last year with a sheriff from one of the counties there, and he pointed to a house in back of us, and said, “See the house over? We just did a drug bust a week earlier, and the guy we arrested had an AK-47 lying on the bed right beside him.”

Because of the president’s decision today, law enforcement officers will walk into a place that will be more dangerous. Terrorists can now come into America and go to a gun show and, without even a background check, buy an assault weapon today.

And that’s what Osama bin Laden’s handbook said, because we captured it in Afghanistan. It encouraged them to do it.

So I believe America’s less safe.

If Tom DeLay or someone in the House said to me, “Sorry, we don’t have the votes,” I’d have said, “Then we’re going to have a fight.”

And I’d have taken it out to the country and I’d have had every law enforcement officer in the country visit those congressmen. We’d have won what Bill Clinton won.
—
washingtonpost.com: Third Presidential Debate — President Bush and Sen. John Kerry
Transcript: Third Presidential Debate
Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.
October 13, 2004
[with factchecking]

FactCheck.org – New And Recycled Distortions At Final Presidential Debate

Bush said most of his tax cuts went to “low- and middle-income Americans” when independent calculations show most went to the richest 10 percent.

National Rifle Association Endorses Bush

The National Rifle Association endorsed President Bush for re-election on Wednesday, promising millions of dollars for ads, phone banks and other get-out-the-vote efforts.

“The Supreme Court is going to be crucial to the future of the Second Amendment, and President Bush will appoint justices that respect the Bill of Rights,” NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre told The Associated Press in a phone interview before announcing the endorsement at a news conference in Duluth, Minn.
—
Kerry (at the 3rd debate):

“I am a hunter. I’m a gun owner. I’ve been a hunter since I was a kid, 12, 13 years old. And I respect the Second Amendment and I will not tamper with the Second Amendment.”

Column:Bush policies not conservative – Daily Lobo – Opinion by Dane Roberts, Daily Lobo columnist

In 2000, I called myself a Republican, supported George W. Bush’s candidacy, and even traveled to Washington to witness his inauguration. Come Election Day 2004, I ardently hope he is not re-elected.

While my dismay with Bush drove me away from the Republican Party, many more voters retain their party affiliation but will not vote for Bush on Nov. 2. Many of us are wondering how any Republican, moderate or otherwise, can muster any enthusiasm for Bush.

The best justification for being a conservative has always been a healthy suspicion of government size and power. By this standard, Bush fails.

The most frightening thing about the Bush administration, and the first thing that sent red flags up for me, is the penchant for excessive secrecy. Bush’s White House was unusually secretive even before Sept. 11. Since then, it has been brazenly hostile to the principle of open government, from stonewalling the Sept. 11 commission to encouraging government agencies to deny requests under the Freedom of Information Act whenever possible.

John Dean, former counsel to Richard Nixon, knows something about secrecy in the White House and calls Bush’s “the most secretive presidency of my lifetime.” The government has become significantly less accountable to the American people as a result of Bush’s term in office.

Furthermore, Bush’s record in expanding the size of government is closer to the biggest of the big-government Democrats than that of any Republican president. …

What happened to the Republican Party of 2000 that called a balanced budget a “moral imperative?” What happened to the Bush of 2001 who said, “We will pay off $2 trillion of debt over the next decade” and “future generations shouldn’t be forced to pay back money that we have borrowed”? …

The truth is, Bush’s campaign is as un-Christian as any. Karl Rove, Bush’s political strategist, is the dirtiest player in American politics. In previous races, he’s tried to undermine his political opponents by starting rumors of homosexuality and insanity.

Many Republicans have caught on to all this and will be voting Kerry this November. Though he’s not a perfect candidate, a Republican-led Congress would oppose his spending proposals in a way they haven’t been able to with Bush. Most importantly, Kerry would save the Republican Party from itself, stopping Bush from leading the party further down the path of his irresponsible policies.

Republicans Against Bush