Well it looks like Dick(head) Cheney is up to his "higher than thou" and "wasn't me" antics again. The Associated Press writes that Cheney feels that President Bush should not have to apologize for not foreseeing the U.S.'s current economic, and that the no one at the CIA participated in any illegal activity of interrogating detainees of war time prisons in Iraq or Guantanamo.

First of all, Mr. Cheney is only the vice president, thus his points of view only really matter when the president concurs with them. Sorry, there are no points for second place. It's also worth noting that Cheney is correct in that Bush should be sorry for not foreseeing the economic crisis, simply because he didn't have to. He created it. It's would be ridiculous to think that people could be expected to foresee there own performances. Thus, his boss should apologize for what he produced, not what he could not predict.

One could also approach the CIA's illegal actions in the same manner. Cheney is correct again, in that the CIA's agents did not participate in illegal operations in detaining suspected terrorists in prison camps throughout the Middle East, including Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, and of course the Bush Administration's safety, Cuba. Recalling that the Pentagon hired corporate mercenaries to carry out logistical operations, those operations once delegated to military personnel, which included interrogations. These interrogations involved not just the illegal mistreatment and torture of detainees, but some were killed without proof of their guilt or association with terrorist cells. So, in a way the CIA is not the only institution to point a finger at, but let's also throw some fingers in the direction of your good old buddies at Haliburton/KBR, or whatever ass-covering name it is nowadays.

I Can't Get No, Stimulation

The U.S. government is an absolute disgrace. We've got Republicans calling us to action to help the economy, then they decide they don't want to move forward with it. We've got presidential debates postponed, now it's going to happen. We're getting promises of lower taxes for the middle class, yet we're being expected to bail out big companies with our tax dollars. Democrats didn't trust Paulson on the bail out plan, yet they will move forward on implementing an unpopular plan, yet it is the "responsible" thing to do (Demolition accomplished).
I was watching on C-Span over the weekend, representative after representative, approach the podium with out-right anger at how this economic bail out plan is being managed by a select group of Congress, and then being brought to the floor for approval, without any discussion over it 110 page subject matter, and the laws it outlines. It's an absolute disgrace to America's ideals, and the way government should be run based on our Constitution. It's sad to witness a hand-picked group of Senators, Bush administration figures, and Representatives, go over a resolution, and walk out and tell the American public that this deal is ready to go. It's not a deal if there's no one else to make a deal with.
Here's a solution for you! Why don't you bail me out? Why don't you bail out all those people who are swamped in debt, because of these outrageously high markets. Why don't you bail us out by giving us jobs that give us reasonable pay, that would allow us to keep us afloat? Why don't you give us some reasonable health care, so that we don't have to shovel out thousands of dollars a month, which could be money used to put back into our debt, or put into investing? You don't do this, because it wouldn't make sense to you. Because you don't know what it's like to have empty pockets, and a pain in your body, you can't take care of, because there's no money to go to the doctor. You don't have a clue what it's like. All you know is how to keep those poor suffering CEO's afloat, so that they'll have enough money to pay for their country club dues, get medical coverage for their pet dogs, and mold their aging ugly wives with out-patient surgeries.
I received a letter from my Senator this weekend, after having spent a good 3 hours writing her a well thought out letter, and she had the nerve to send me back a form letter, which was probably sent out to the rest of her constituency, pacifying me, and telling me that everything will be okay, once we pass this bill, and take care of our poor Wall Street. Senator Feinstein said that she "received from Californians more than 50,000 calls and letters, the great bulk of them in opposition to any form of meeting this crisis with financial help from the Federal Government." That's a lot of people, not even considering those who are opposed who didn't write her. She also stated that "this isn't just about Wall Street." I could not agree with her more. It's a crisis at the individual level, where people are swamped with debt from all angles, and the only solution the government has is to bail out those who inflated the American financial system in the first place. Bailing out Wall Street, therefore won't work, because the Fed has decided to place yet another band-aid on a system that is financially, and internally bleeding. There solution is offer more credit to the existing credit, on top of debt. Money has become a ghost.
President Bush keeps hanging this fear over us, that the economy will destroy itself if this plan does not get approved by Congress, yet the fear has been there for a long time. We knew about our problems long before you did, Mr. President. I fear the only threat that exists now, is your administration's dangerous mismanagement of our economy.

You Can't Run, Then Don't

Granted there is a major crisis occurring in the U.S., but McCain's move to suspend his campaign, and bypass the presidential debate is in very bad taste, as far as leadership is concerned. How about, when you become president, and we go to war, you just suspend your presidency when you see fit. Mr. McCain, we want to hear what your thoughts are on topics, especially now, in a time when a firm sense of leadership is most important.
These days, I wouldn't think that a politician in one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, could not correspond with Washington via email, or phone, or Blackberry device. But, oh yeah! I forgot, McCain, can flip barbecue ribs, but he can't click send for an email. (watch this!)
On a separate note, regarding the financial crisis. Have you ever experienced trying to contact congressional members online. I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon, submitting messages to congress via web forms, and more than three quarters of them were restricted by zip code. So, in other words, if you don't live in that congressional district you can't inform members of Congress of anything. I don't desire a response, so there is no taxpayer money going into dealing with my email, and it cost near nothing to receive an email. So, why is contacting our government so restricted? The email address of a Senator or Congress person is not private information, and should be made readily available for any American citizen.
So what I was forced to do was look up the coverage area of each member's district, locate a city, and find a business address that was located within this district, and use that zip code. I had to reference three separate sites to do so (conservativeusa.org of all sites; good old faithful, Wikipedia, the U.S. Postal Service, and lastly, Google maps). The first site, lists all the Senators and Representatives of the current Congress. In Wikipedia, you can search for a state's district, simply by putting in, for example, "Alaska's 1st congressional district", and it will return a plethora of info, and a map. From there I picked a city name, and went to Google maps to find a business that was located in that district, copy and paste it's street address into the USPS's zip code finder, along with state and city name, and it will return a proper zip code for the congress person's district. Sorry folks, spamming is nearly impossible, but if you have the time, I would definitely follow through with some emails to the only people in our government who can actually listen to us.
Okay, so back to my rant on McCain. Bush made the request to have McCain and Obama come back to Washington to has out some ideas on moving Paulson's grand scheme to save our economy forward. This is the most absurd political maneuver I have ever witnessed, and not only is it disruptive to the process of selecting a new president, but it is evident that Bush, and McCain, are completely incapable of running a nation based on slew of mixed messages, unstable political stances, and the inability to aptly inform the American public what their true intentions or plans are. In an interview with Katie Couric, Palin, stated, "'America may find itself on' the road to 'another Great Depression.'" (Couric, Letterman too much for McCain and Palin). Then last night with McCain, when asked about Palin's statement, he responded, "I, I don't know if, if, if it's exactly the depression...". Come on! What the fuck is going on here? Do these candidates even communicate with each other? I, mean, really, if they did, maybe they could actually get their stories straight, and deal with the real issues, not ones that don't even exist.
The only consistent politician in this mess, the only figure who has acknowledged the failures of our current government, and the out of touch ideologies of the Republican right wing, that has destroyed our nation's welfare to thrive, is Obama. It is evident because, McCain, has not only bailed on his constituents, but has advertised himself as a person, who can only get the job done when the circumstances are beneficial to his political needs, and not the needs of the people. The debate should go on. Why would McCain suddenly bail on Letterman, and instead do an interview with Katie Couric? Because, McCain, and his GOP vote thieves, probably thought that since Couric is a morning show host, and most at-home moms are watching at that time, then it would make sense to grab hold of that demographic in the evening, and present himself in a better light, pulling the old female card again. I loved Letterman's reactions. How do you blow off Letterman?
Anyhow, I'm done griping for today. I just wanted to note this mess. You conservative big boys can dodge the truth all you want, but sooner or later it will come to the surface, and people will not tolerate your scheming, the secrecy, and the candy-coated baloney you keep dishing out.

You've Been Had

Obama said something that made a huge amount of sense, today, "the American people have been suffering long before Wall Street has." This couldn't be made clearer to the current leadership, who has devastatingly ignored the real problem that the U.S. was and is currently facing. All of this could have been avoided, but when the wealthy in this country are not effected, and the wealthy are so closely tied in with the political elite it is no wonder no one in the U.S. congress, the presidential administration, or the treasury couldn't accept or acknowledge the looming financial crisis that has slammed us hard.
It is worth noting that the current Bush administration has, since 9/11/2001, has governed with the drive of its own interests, committing it's political maneuvers to high level secrecy, without an ounce of regard for the American people and its well being. Now in an attempt to secure our financial crisis, Congress has made an attempt to shore up this crisis, by obliterating party lines, and seriously taking care of this matter once and for all. But, yet again, the Bush administration has not offered up any information regarding its approach to salvaging flailing Wall Street firms, and members of Congress are still in the dark, on both side of the aisle, to boot.
So, the U.S. Treasury is planning to buy up bad mortgages with a estimated value of 2 trillion dollars, and will implement a ban on short selling of financial stocks. The ban is a great idea, because it is definitely a Wall Street trait of abusing financial security and is representative of its ability to abuse the markets. This may work or it may not, but the point is that this was an administrative decision to put a proxy in place to shore up the crumbling walls of big financial firms on Wall Street, at the cost of the American taxpayer. Congress (in other words your voices in government), had no say in the matter.
With all the sympathy from Obama and McCain (not both Congressional members) about how much middle America is suffering and is in financial dire, yet the government insists on shoveling more money into failed business ventures, not because the failure was circumstantial, but because that failure was a product of cheating the American people out of their hard earned money, and the government blatantly wants to foster that with financial rescue.
It's not the smaller number of investment firms with larger amounts of financial debt, but the folks at the bottom end of the market, the taxpayer, the individual investor, the homeowner, who need the bailouts, and may make up a smaller dollar amount of the nation's debt. Yet the government wants to shove 2 trillion dollars into bad mortgages, that will undeniably force a raise in taxes for the individual American.
America's outstanding credit in 2006 reports by the U.S. Census shows that American consumers owe $2,405,000,000,000.00. The financial market's outstanding credit comes in at a whopping $14,129,000,000,000.00. Now I'm willing to bet that those numbers have since increased, and the ratio of difference has, if not remained the same, has also increased. And one could only assume that the best way to approach fixing the market is putting cash into the lower of the two, since it would be a more feasible strategy toward economic stabilization, and let the money trickle up.
There is no financial backbone in America. The value at the top is so ridiculously inflated, that Americans are not capable of reaching for a balance that isn't justifiably within reach. It is so inflated that practically is fictional and non-existent. Those who owe will owe forever because the final balance keeps moving upwards, and continues to be pushed away by the actions of the Federal government. Those who owe are losing jobs, losing investments, face mediocre salaries, and higher costs, and will await an increase in taxes. With that we are expected to pay back on ever-inflating balance sheets. How much more can we possibly endure?
How's this? Why don't all Americans withdraw all of their investments, and use the tax from that to dump back into Wall Street? There's really no difference between that and having to pay more taxes further down the road, which is money that could be placed into a thriving market's investments. This way we could benefit from a thriving market, and not continue to lose our money to bad decisions, and a corrupt corporate America, and government.

The Global Bloc

Okay, I got two wonderful bits of information for you guys today. First off, I read an interesting article from former CEA chairman N. Greg Mankiw (however you pronounce that), who conveniently slipped an op-ed piece into the New York Times today, regarding the similarities of Obama's tax policies to those of George W. Bush. Now I'm not really up on my high level economics lately, but it seems that this article was a bit of a reach a former White House economic adviser to slam Obama on his tax policies, being that Bush was such a screw up, Mankiw sets Barack at his level, stating that he has "embraced a central element of the Republican agenda", regarding corporate dividend tax.
So now that I've made up my mind about who I want to vote for, some economic guru comes along, and casts a shadow of doubt on my prospects, and for what reason? Now, for some of you not up on their Economics 101, based on the Wikipedia, dividend tax "is an income tax on dividend payments to the stockholders (shareholders) of a company." In other words, the profit made by stockholders on stock, is taxed on top of tax deducted from the company's profit. So, now that that is laid out for you, in 2003, Bush proposed to Congress to eliminate dividend tax, saying, it was a form of "double taxation", and that it would cause our economy to falter.
Now, Mankiw, is stating in his piece that in 2008 Obama plans on proposing "only a modest increase in the top tax rate, to 20 percent from 15 percent." He goes onto say that this would appeal to Bush's policy.
I simply am not getting this. If Bush planned on cutting the dividend tax, and then moved Congress forward with bills to do so, how is that following in the footsteps of a president, whose policies from every angle have sent the economy into a downward death spiral. The increase would put more pressure on those who reap heavily from investments (mostly upper middle class, and the rich), not those who are poor, and in most cases don't even own stock. Obama plans to draw from sources that have resources of money. It is a way to open up the economy from the top, instead of throwing a tax blanket over the general revenue base in the U.S.
Also noted, in an LA Times blog entry, it links to an Obama campaign plan document, that lays out in print, that even though he is raising the dividend percentage to 20%, "the rate on dividends will be 39% lower than the rate president Bush proposed in 2001." This is a smarter way to deal with the upper echelon of taxpayers, who have over the past eight years played an unfair game of fiscal irresponsibility, costing the middle class, and the poor more than they could pay out to the government (reflections of Enron and Anderson Consulting). There is absolutely no connection between Obama's plan for policy, and Bush's policies that have proven a failure to the American people. Mr. Mankiw, you are an outright propagandist, and you have sold out your own people for the sake of having another hack elected to office, John McCain.
I also wanted to address something I've been noticing over the past year or so, and that is how much effort the Bush administration has put into trying to pull the wool over our eyes, when it comes to globalization. In The World is Flat by Tomas L. Friedman, I found a passage that struck me, stating, "At the precise moment when the world was being flattened…requiring some very important adjustments in our own society and that of many other Western developed nations-American politicians not only were not educating the American public, they were actively working to make it stupid." Is that not a slap in the face as a wake up call or what? On this note, I shouldn't single out the Bush administration, because it had a lot to do with our Congressional leaders as well, who fought ferociously to keep the Republican bills to pass that fostered NAFTA. Then to come full circle, in this passage in Friedman's book, our good friend Mankiw shows up having been lambasted by the media, and his own administration tucking him away from the media, for supporting the gains that could be made from outsourcing, which would be a major part of NAFTA, and a "manifestation of the gains from trade that economists have talked about..."
I for one support outsourcing, and I see it as a way to open our country up to some new business and manufacturing concepts and applications. We are flailing in a sea of offshoring and outsourcing, and our leaders, Republican and Democrat, have purposefully set the course for hiding globalization from the American public. Why? Is the conservative wing and wealthy Democrats of the U.S. attempting to stay ahead of the rest of the competition, by eliminating public knowledge of the globalization effort, of which corporate strongholds in the U.S. are taking full advantage, by outsourcing jobs, offshoring production, and benefiting from these elements? It seems that the political/economic right in the U.S. does not follow a fair policy of capitalism, and by not leveling the playing field for all entities in America, it seems they are controlling the economy (a.k.a. Communism).
Call it what you will.

Stop This Train

I have come to the final conclusion, that the past eight years have been an outright lie. The Bush Administration, has undermined the American public for the purposes of financially furthering their political bedfellows, and all the while unregulated big business has swept this nation into a financial abyss, and now after it being too late, the Bush administration has decided to focus on helping big business survive.
Why is this the wrong approach? Why does this further the explanation for why the Bush administration is servicing the corporate elite, and his wealthy minions? It is because it serves the rich. It is basically a system of giving more money to the rich, and putting more value in the dollar at a point in the economic equation that doesn't foster the value of it. It is an outrage that Congress, and the Bush administration have come to the conclusion that handing financial support to a system that purposefully drove the U.S. dollar off the charts, by implementing high risk loans to customers they knew could not support it. These were people who innocently wanted to live out the American dream of owning a home, and got that promise with a loan that ended up cheating them out of it, and all of their money. And for all you altruists out there, who say, "If you can't afford the loan, then don't take one out!", well I all I have to say is you're ignorant, and you should know that these poor people were intentionally sold out, so that the loan companies could make more money, by raping the interest system. Basically there were no statutes for loan practices, so these companies had a nice big legal team to inundate consumers with page after page of lingo that even the smartest home buyer wouldn't understand, but they would take the loan anyway, because it "sounded so good", and that American dream was waiting on the other side of that loan.
Now the government, the same government that turned a blind eye to these loan companies when it came to their dirty practices, are now funneling financial rescue to them. Does this make sense at all to you? Of course it does at first. But, no it's the most insensible thing I've heard of. Wouldn't it make more sense to bail out the loan consumer. It would only help the economy more to aid those who owe money, and filter it back into the economy, rather than give it to a corporation that vacuums it up, and only serves itself (and of course in whatever politicians' pockets they reside).
The Bush administration is made up of a bunch of elitist hacks, who only are in power because of political favors, and the status of having gone to an Ivy League school. You're a bunch of spoiled rotten mishaps. In all reality, you're a bunch of liars, and failures, and it is shocking that you haven't completely destroyed our nation already. I look forward to this administration as being marked in history as the worst political leadership ever. Serve the people, and not yourselves. That's what republican means. It's a simple equation of success.

It Was about Oil!

So it was no surprise to me, after finishing an article from the New York Times today, regarding 4 major oil companies ready to lay down some bargaining deals to Iraq's Oil Ministry (Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back, New York Times). Did we not see this coming? In my view it sort of puts this whole Middle East debacle into the frame that it has been about oil all along, and our U.S. military has made way for big oil. Our addiction to oil and money, has made us blind to the truth and subservient to big oil.
For years the Bush administration has been telling us that the war in Iraq was not for oil, but to combat terrorism. I feel that if it wasn't about oil, then why was this even a matter. Did the U.S. government know that there is more oil to be had in Iraq all along? And if so, why wasn't the American taxpayer informed of this, the true investor of not just the war, but big oil's speculating? Instead we find out about oil companies nearing contract agreements, just over 200 days before Bush leaves office, during a presidential election, and during a fuel crisis in our country. There are two concerns that should be brought here, is that why were the people of the U.S. lied to, and does this administration think it would be smart to place 4 major U.S. oil companies in a area of the world lacking any form of stable security? The article quotes Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil, having said, "Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security...". Should this take place simply for the benefit of big business, and for political gain?
It seems to most people, that this may be the U.S. government's move towards globalization, yet it has chosen to ignore oil rich countries such as Venezuela, due to political differences. So the global efforts can be tossed out the window. Even Iran! We fail to effectively negotiate with that country, yet they reside over one of the world's largest oil supplies. It is evident that if the U.S. can't have it for its own, then they don't want it all, and will lie to it's own nation and the world in order to have energy on its own terms. Because of all other options available around the globe, it is obvious that the Bush administration has supplied an avenue for oil to gain with minimum loss at the cost of the American taxpayer, and driven by money, via private military contractors, in order to continue forward with only U.S. interests, and not those of the world.
So, most would look at this and say, so what! Well consider the point that the Bush administration has pushed Iraq to accept an international Hydrocarbon Law, that would facilitate Production Sharing Agreements for oil companies (Today's Must Read, TPM Muckraker). Mr. Bush, you have woven a tangled web against yourself, on this point, because if this war wasn't about oil, why were you pushing a law that would give oil companies an advantage in bidding on oil contracts in Iraq? Just as a note, for the sake of strengthening the point here, these agreements are meant to take control away from the government that hosts the oil resources, and in fact countries like Russia and Venezuela are reluctant to use them, in order to have more control over their own energy resources.
This is a very bad move by big oil, and once news spreads throughout Iraq, would it not have a counter-effect to what we've been trying to stabilize in Iraq? Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr outright do not support any of these production-sharing agreements, because they are very unclear to their people, have no grounding in Iraqi governance, and they fear would undermine Iraq's sovereignty (Followers of al-Sadr join opposition on draft Iraq oil law, Forbes). This move to seek contracts at this point could have the potential to frustrate a lot of Iraqis, and may set our security efforts a few steps back in the area, at a time when we are making progress.

Why Corporate America is Unpatriotic

Just got through an article in the New York Times today investigating the firing of an Army financial overseer, who was let go because he refused to approve a $1 billion payment on poorly documented invoices produced by KBR a Houston based military contractor (Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir, New York Times). What struck a chord with me on this story is that the Pentagon argued that the overseer was not released from his duties because of the refusal, yet after letting him go, they reversed his decision to not follow through with payment. Their explanation for this decision was that they felt if they failed to make good on their payments to KBR, the company would limit it's services to the government. KBR even stated this off the record to the New York Times, stating that "if it was not paid, it would reduce payments to subcontractors, which in turn would cut back on services."
First off, why is the Pentagon so dependent on infrastructure support given by an independent private entity, which apparently has no common interests with the American people, because if it did, wouldn't they make an effort to adjust their reception of payments from the U.S. government? A government who symbolizes disagreement of the Iraq war as dissent, and a metaphor for being unpatriotic, yet this same government, cowers at the threat of a private corporation that holds the withdrawal of dependable military support over our heads, if we don't make good on our million dollar payments. Who's unpatriotic, here? Who in fact seems to be not our troops.
Now, setting the question of patriotism aside, KBR not only has the inability to effectively invoice their services, so the Pentagon doesn't have to second guess itself, but they've also have been involved in tax evasion back in March of 2008. The Boston Globe reported, that the U.S. Defense Department knew that KBR was avoiding taxes, by "declaring its American workers as employees of Cayman Islands shell companies" (Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore, Boston Globe). The DOD justified this tax evasion by stating that by KBR not having to pay taxes to Social Security and Medicare, this would lower the cost of their services to the American government. This is absolutely outrageous, and is a slap in the face to the American taxpayer, who currently has no equity in their Social Security system, which is failing, and as President Bush has been quoted to say, "will be bankrupt by 2042" (Partisan Social Security Claims Questioned, Washington Post). So not only is KBR draining out tax dollars, and the Pentagon, through dodgy accounting, but also has decided that it's fair not to contribute to the welfare of American citizens, by dodging its responsibility to pay employment taxes. That's not their money, and so they have no right to decide whether they should pay it or not. Especially when they hold $16 billion dollars worth of military contracts.
Adding more salt to the taxpayers' wounds, KBR has continued this game of beating the system, and draining our defense department of money in more ways than one, yet the Bush administration, and the Pentagon refused to acknowledge this corporate wrong-doing.
Research this matter for yourself, and you'll see an ever-present pattern of our governement pouring billions of dollars in to private contracts without pressing the contractors to be fiscally responsible with reporting their costs, and closing the loops in the tax evasion practices of these companies. It's very unpatriotic to steal money from a country you "support", and continue to take more and more, when our troops can barely arm themselves, and cannot practically benefit from a hearty paycheck at the end of the day. You call this war patriotic?

Just Leave: Liars in Office Not Wanted

Well they're at it again, the Bush administration has there thumb in yet another conspiratorial pie. The Associated Press reported today, that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan claims that the Bush administration went to any length to propagandize the efforts to go to war in Iraq. Now the popular media, instead of questioning the administration, instead sweeps it's short nets out to grab some Bush political insiders to downplay McClellan, in not only his claims, but also his character. I mean, really people, who would sit down to write a book in order to destroy their character, and what publisher in his ir her right mind would publish such garbage.
It's an utter outrage that the Bush administration can walk away from so much controversy, and not only have nothing to say about it, but go out and deface everyone who's against their policies, immoralities, and corrupt agendas. Writing a book is not easy, and writing a book about the corrupt behaviors of one of the most powerful men in the world is no laughable matter. Yes, most people would claim that it's political insanity/suicide to do so, but McClellan really doesn't have much to lose. Did Bush forget that Mr. McClellan jumped the administration's ship, resigning as press secretary back in Bush's midterm race. He left the Bush administration. Ask yourself why anyone would leave such a prestigious position, when there were no fingers pointed at him, and he wasn't involved in any scapegoat plot. Yet to this day 5 years later we still don't know why he left. Maybe we'll find out in the book. Wait, I know why! He left because he realized that as long as he worked for a war mongering liar of an administration, he could not sleep at night, nor live with his lies to the public. He was the mouth of the president to the press and the public. That's a lot of people to relate a lot of lies and propaganda to.
McClellan was the press secretary who had to deal with the question of whether Lewis Scooter Libby and cohorts (including Cheney and Rove), exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame. Every time this question was put forth, the secretary and staff agreed not to discuss it further. That was his job to discuss it with the press, not for the president's staff to block that transaction.
I applaud McClellan for putting forth this information; a true firsthand account of who the real president is, a liar and a thief of American freedom. Fear lies at the root of Bush's campaign for freedom. Fear of terrorists, and death. What is so free about that, and what does any of my freedom have to do with a bunch of in-fighting extremists of whom I never hear about or see, or feel threatened.
Today, I then discovered that CNN's Jessica Yellin, reported (here also) to have experienced pressure from her executives at ABC News and MSNBC to promote press that would boost Bush's approval rating, and support the argument to go to war with Iraq, even though, in her words, she was reporting things contra to what her executives were pushing for, and that she was not allowed to publish anything that was against the Iraq war, and slandered Bush's political reputation. This goes beyond propaganda, and says to any person in their right mind, that corporate media executives have an underlying agenda to scam the American public. Even if they aren't linked to Bush's media monster, they still have been associated with his policies of persuasion through controlling the free press. Not every single news network in the country could possibly propagandize in favor of Bush's policies just as a favor.
Also worth noting is McClellan's interview today on the Today show, where Katie Couric kept asking him repeatedly, why the book was released now, one week before it's planned release. His response was atrocoius and yet another right-wing plant to destabilize the Democratic candidate Barack Obama. In summary McClellan responded to the question stating that he wanted people to learn from prior historical mistakes, and then he went on to compare Bush's entrance to the White House was representative of Obama's platform of change. He said, that Bush had the intentions of change, but instead was swayed by the political whirlwind of Washington. Sound like old GOP bridges never burn, and this book release is yet another GOP undermining of what the people really want in this country. Don't tell us what we want, give us what we need, and get out of office, Bush!

The Administration of Bullies

In recent talks with Israel and Hamas, Jimmy Carter has taken steps to alleviate the pressures between Israel and Palestine. The New York Times today (link), has reported that the Bush administration is distancing itself from these talks, and will not acknowledge the results of it based on the fact that the administration labels Hamas as a terrorist organization. This has been a long standing platform of the Bush administration, and seems to be a common theme in their foreign policy practices.
Going back to the pre-invasion Iraq, two administration advisers (link) brought intelligence to the table stating that Iran was willing to work with the U.S. in eliminating insurgents from not only Iraq, but Afghanistan, and acknowledged that they would not be directly involved with terrorist entities in the Middle East. Yet, the administration ignored these promises of commitment, and went forward with plans to invade Iraq, ignoring all domestic and foreign attempts to avoid a war through diplomacy.
With the current administration dissuading former president Carter to continue talks with Hamas, is a clear sign that they do not want to carry out negotiations, simply because they've been labeled as a terrorist organization, yet Hamas has participated, and the Bush administration refuses to do so.
To add to this administration's role as international playground bully, Reuters has reported (link) that Carter in fact never received a warning from Rice at the State department, and he stated that she is "not telling the truth". Carter is making an attempt to lead Hamas leaders into talks, so as to quell tensions with Israel, and get peace in that area of the globe back on track. The Bush administration, by lying, is not being accountable for anything involving these talks, and refuses to do anything about it, but let tensions reside between Palestine, and Israel.


Citations:

• The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know
• Administration Disavows Carter’s Trip
• Carter says Secretary Rice "not telling truth"