New American Dark Ages
Think Progress » 452: Number of days President Bush has spent at his ranch in Crawford, TX. His stay there this past weekend with the the Danish prime minister marked Bush’s 70th visit as president. President Ronald Reagan, one of the modern presidency’s most “famous vacationer[s],” spent just 335 days at his ranch in Santa Barbara, CA.
Think Progress » Bush incoherently praises Odierno for ’snatching defeat.’
President Bush thanked Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who until recently served as the No. 2 commander in Iraq, for his service in Iraq. In attempting to apply the phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” Bush offered this nonsensical praise for Odierno:
I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who were trying to defeat us in Iraq.
Think Progress » Bush incoherently praises Odierno for ’snatching defeat.’
Think Progress » KBR Dodges $500 Million In Social Security And Medicare Taxes In Cheney-Backed Scheme
No private contractor has financially profited from the Iraq war more than Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), which until last year was a subsidiary of Halliburton. The firm currently has more than 21,000 employees in Iraq, and between 2004 and 2006, received more than $16 billion in government contracts — far more than any other corporation.
Yet KBR hasn’t been passing on these enormous profits to American taxpayers or even its own employees, thanks to a plan that Vice President Cheney helped establish. Today, the Boston Globe reports that KBR has avoided paying more than $500 million “in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies” based in the Cayman Islands. …
KBR’s practices are extreme, even compared to its competitors. Other top Iraq war contractors — including Bechtel and Parsons — pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for their employees.
The Bush administration has aided this tax dodging. One of KBR’s shell companies is Overseas Administrative Services, which was set up two months after Cheney became Halliburtion’s CEO in 1995. Since at least 2004, the Pentagon has known about KBR’s practices, but chosen to ignore the issue.
Of course, KBR is more than happy to claim workers as its own in one instance: when seeking “legal immunity extended to employers working in Iraq.”
Two Three more examples of Duhbya’s fecklessness. He doesn’t know irony when it spews from his own mouth. peace, mjh
Bush Condemns Leaders Who ‘Sit Down At The Table’ And ‘Have Pictures Taken’ With ‘Tyrants’
In yesterday’s news conference, President Bush sharply attacked Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) argument that the president “should never fear to negotiate” with America’s enemies. Bush told reporters:
It will send a discouraging message to those who wonder whether America will continue to work for the freedom of prisoners. It will give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity. […]
Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him. He gains a lot from it by saying, look at me, I’m now recognized by the President of the United States.
Perhaps Bush forgot all the times that he sat down and had his picture taken with leaders of questionable human rights credentials:
Bush urges Turks to end offensive in Iraq quickly – Yahoo! News
“The Turks need to move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out,” Bush told a White House news conference. …
Turkey’s military General Staff General Yasar Buyukanit was quoted by Turkish television as saying: “A short time is a relative concept, it could be one day or one year.”
Bush urges Turks to end offensive in Iraq quickly – Yahoo! News
‘U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders,’
Bush told Bob Geldof in a new Time interview. Geldof noted that if the President happened to apply this thought to Iraq, it “would have profound implications on the man’s understanding of how the world functions.” During the interview, Bush also insisted, “I think history will prove me right,” regarding his efforts to rid the world of “tyranny.”
Think Progress » ‘U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders,’
Remember when conservatives lambasted lenient liberal judges? Remember when conservative rage over judicial judgment lead to mandatory sentencing? Get tough on crime! Do the crime, do the time! Three strikes and you’re out!
Let us also remember when conservatives preached about personal responsibility. And their endless fear over society devolving into chaos.
We need to remind ourselves of these conservative values because conservatives themselves can’t recall them. (Studies do indicate that living in constant fear does affect memory.) Case in point: Conservative objections to a murderer being sentenced to two whole years in prison. Gasp, the horror, the injustice!
It seems that it is better than OK — it’s laudable — to chase someone down the street and kill them on the *suspicion* that they broke into your car. Hell, it’s in the bible, right? That’s why we have guns, right? Well, as long as you’re white and a family-values poster child.
peace,
mjh
Cal Thomas’ website has been revamped and I don’t know what to think about the graphic below (compare it with the graphic at the top of this page).
More importantly, I visited Calcified Cal’s site looking for his latest column in which he excoriates senseless captialism, even as he continues to love Republicanism and loathe Democrats. Talk about disconnects. That’s almost as looney as Duhbya’s belief that Republicans will sweep the House, Senate and Whitehouse in the fall. Guffaw, snort, haw-haw, ROFLOL! Wait, a minute — maybe Diebold will make that happen. peace, mjh
Cal Thomas Official Web Site – ECONOMIC WOES
Some of the lust for bigger and better is human nature, but a lot is the result of consumerism. The Timex watch is no longer enough. We now must have a Rolex, though both accurately tell time. The adequate low-end automobile is insufficient. We must trade up to a luxury car with numbers and letters on the rear that mean nothing, but convey “status.” And the house we are living in, which would have been more than adequate for our parents and certainly our grandparents, must be upgraded to larger digs in order to impress, if not growing families, than enlarged egos. [mjh: I think that should be ‘then’.]
When none of this brings the promised happiness and fulfillment, we turn to drink, or pills, or counselors, or divorce court and seek significance in new things and relationships on what quickly becomes a personal boulevard of broken dreams. …
When wants and needs are confused, desires become entitlements and politicians are afraid to tell people what they need to hear. Instead they tell them what they want to hear. Anger and envy result, as well as frustration with a political system that was not designed to indulge its citizens in their lusts or subsidize their greed.
Who will tell us that unending and expanding prosperity with home values constantly rising and a citizenry always able to afford them is a fantasy that is bound to end in heartache for those who buy into it?
The economy isn’t bad. We are bad for believing that more is better and the most is best. We have an abundance of things, but a deficit of character. The economy is a false god, a golden calf. When this false god doesn’t deliver, we complain to politicians who are happy to accept our faith in them to give us what we want — if we will only pledge to them our allegiance at election time.
Speaking before the Republican Governors Association yesterday, President Bush took a moment to predict the future, claiming Americans will ultimately be thankful for his foreign policy decisions:
I believe 50 years from now, people will look back at this period of time, and say, thank God the United States of America did not lose its faith in the transformative power of liberty to bring the peace we want for our children and our grandchildren.
The notion of the public thanking the almighty for Iraq is becoming increasingly popular with Bush cronies. Karl Rove said last week, “I think that people will look back at the Iraq war and say ‘Thank God, he [Bush] had the courage to do what he did.’”
Think Progress » Bush: America will ‘thank God’ for Iraq in 50 years.
