Posts filed under ‘George W. Bush and Co.’
Dana Perino Thinks She’s an Expert on Truthiness?
A few minutes ago I received this tweet from OWillis:
You will recall that Dana Perino was George W. Bush’s press secretary.
I could guess, but I wasn’t positive who Perino was talking about, so I asked:
(Carney, as in Obama’s press secretary.)
This is Willis’ reply:
The reason I care is because Dana Perino knows a thing or two about saying untrue things. She’s in the stratosphere on that front:
This would be Perino on November 24, 2009:
“We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.”
(Video via.)
So, the next time you see Dana Perino sitting on her high horse, passing judgment on Fox “News,” remember this video.
Gadhafi ♥ Condi
Love this, our Tweet of the Day (yeah I know, it’s from yesterday):
If you don’t get it, go here.
No to Corporate Personhood!
I am so proud of my town. I don’t care if I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get to the polling place this November because I can’t wait to vote against the fascist notion that corporations are people and money is speech:
Boulder voters will weigh in on corporate personhood
Boulder voters will get to voice their opinion this fall on whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended to make it clear that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.
Talk about judicial activism. There has never been such a blatant act of judicial activism as the corporate personhood ruling handed down by the corporatist Republicans who sit on our present day Supreme Court. (Thanks W.)
Wingers Defend Raising the Debt Ceiling
Here is a collage of Republicans defending raising the debt ceiling in 2002 and 2004 (h/t Think Progress). This is the same crowd that railed against raising it over the last couple weeks.
Obama, Just Show This Graph
That was a pitiful speech you gave last night Obama. I mean, we’ve heard it all before: “Bipartisan.” “I’m confident.” “Our friends across the aisle.”
Next time, just stand there and point to this graph:
We have to raise the debt ceiling to pay for Bush’s spending; for things we’ve already committed to; things we’ve already put on the credit card. Say that.
Fox: No Terror Attacks on American Soil During the Bush Administration
Talk about the mother of all attempts to re-write history, check out what Fox’s Eric Bohling said yesterday:
Fox News host Eric Bolling pulled a Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday, asserting that there were no terrorist attacks on “American soil” during President Bush’s term in office.
Giuliani famously made a similar assertion in early 2010, saying, “we had no domestic attacks under Bush.” Of course, the 9/11 attacks happened under Bush.
[...]
Panelist Bob Beckel said that the former president had used fear-mongering around the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. As he attempted to continue his point, Bolling cut him off and started to move on to the next segment.
America was certainly safe between 2000 and 2008,” he said. “I don’t remember any attacks on American soil during that period of time.” Nobody on the panel challenged this comment.
The outrageous thing about this is not only what Bolling said, but that NOBODY ON THE PANEL CHALLENGED IT!
Fox bills panelist Bob Beckel as one of their “liberals.” Yeah, right. He’s such a flaming liberal that he sat there and said nothing instead of freakin’ jumping up out of his chair with flames coming out of his ears. Yep, Beckel is exactly the kind of pansy, suck-ass, wimp-shit “liberal” they love on Fox.
Florescent Light Bulbs and “Big Government”
You’ve probably heard about the Tea Party obsession with florescent light bulbs. They claim a new law that goes into effect next year banning the old bulbs and paving the way for the use of more florescents, was, according to Michele Bachmann, an example of reach by President Obama: “we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which light bulbs to buy.”
Despite the frenzy,
House Republicans on Tuesday failed to stop the enactment of new energy-saving standards for light bulbs they portrayed as yet another example of big government interfering in people’s lives.
The GOP bill to overturn the standards set to go into effect next year fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The vote was 233-193.
And here’s a hugely relevant fact that the screamers on the right would rather their flock not know:
The standards have not been particularly contentious before now. They were crafted in 2007 with Republican participation and signed into law by President George W. Bush. People seem to like the new choices and the energy savings they bring, polling finds.
Geezus. They are SO fucking deceitful.
Dick Cheney — Here’s $8,000 — Keep Yourself Alive (Good Luck)
Former vice president Dick Cheney is trying to avoid a sixth heart attack – with the help of a battery-operated turbine.
Powered by battery packs strapped to Cheney’s chest, the ‘Left Ventricular Assist Device’, a turbine implanted near his heart’s major chamber, pumps blood into his aorta and circulates it throughout his body.
Fitted a year ago after his fifth heart attack, its rotor spins between 8,000 and 10,000 times a minute, lifting the strain on his weakened organ.
In a rare outpouring Cheney hailed advances in American medical science.
‘I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate to live in a place and a time when all that was going on,’ he todl [sic] the Wall Street Journal.
So, how much does all of this cost Dick? Hundreds of thousands of dollars?
After all, your Paul Ryan wants us peasants to get by on an $8,000-a year health insurance stipend.
Yo, Dick, try doing that and we’ll talk again in six months.
WHERE ARE THE “JOB CREATORS?”
George W. Bush gave the “job creators” a tax cut because he said they’d create jobs if he did.
U.S. stocks posted broad losses on Friday as Wall Street dealt with a dismal June jobs report that showed hiring crawled to a near standstill last month.
[...]
June’s unemployment rate rose to 9.2% from 9.1%, versus the decline to 9% economists had expected.
SO WHERE ARE THE DAMN JOBS?!
Republicans Voted to Increase the Debt Ceiling Seven Times Under Bush II
OK. So. The Republicans have convinced us (with lots of help from the “liberal media”) that raising the debt ceiling will mean the end of the world, right?
All you need to know as to what a crock of shit that is is (1) they voted to raise the debt ceiling seven times under George W. Bush:
(2) Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt, (3) George W. Bush doubled the national debt and (4) a $3 trillion tab for Bush’s unfunded wars still remains (and it’s climbing, unfortunately).
Thanks to Crooks and Liars for assembling all this info (there’s more here) but really, do we need a gargantuan post to make the point that in reality Republicans don’t give a damn about raising the debt ceiling ah, except that is, when their guy isn’t the one doing it?
If we had a real “news” media around here, we’d all know this stuff.
Sorry Wingers, Bush Wasn’t Instrumental in the Death of bin Laden
Adam Sewer over at ThePlumLine eviscerates the Republican argument that torture and Bush’s “policies” were at the heart of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden (emphasis added):
What is notable however, is that the major distinction between Obama and Bush that has formed the basis of GOP criticism of Obama — the President’s rejection of torture — has proven so decisively wrongheaded. Conservatives attempting to attribute successfully killing bin Laden to torture are merely attempting to take credit for what President Bush pointedly failed to do. Far from yielding the necessary intelligence, the two al Qaeda suspects who were waterboarded pointedly resisted identifying the courier whose activities lead to the U.S. discovering Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. The pro-torture argument ignores the obvious — that if torture was so effective, bin Laden would have been dead long ago. Bin Laden was found through years of painstaking intelligence gathering, not through the barbarous methods supported by many Bush apologists.
One cannot discount how shattering the Obama administration’s killing of Bin Laden has been to the self-image of conservatives who have convinced themselves of that the fight against al Qaeda hinges not just on torture, but on how many times the president says the word “terrorism,” or on Obama’s refusal to engage in juvenile expressions of American toughness.
While we’re far from the moment where terrorism ceases to be a threat, what torture apologists fear most now is a future in which al Qaeda is destroyed without the U.S. embracing the war-on-terror “dark side” that’s become central to their identity. Indeed, having rejected torture, Obama has nevertheless lead the country to its greatest victory in the fight against al Qaeda.
The part I highlighted is the elephant in the room. If torture was/is so effective, why wasn’t bin Laden killed or captured years ago? Too bad the “liberal media” isn’t asking that of the parade of former Bush people who’ve been on teevee for the last week selling their line of bull.
Rightie Spin on the Death of Osama bin Laden
Rightie spin on the death of Osama bin Laden in 140 characters or less:
Makes total sense huh?
Dumb is cool.
Geezus.
Brent Bozell: Bush “Deserved” To Kill bin Laden
My God. The sense of victimization felt by righties knows no bounds:
Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center is complaining that former President George W. Bush should have more credit than Obama for killing Osama bin Laden because Bush wanted it more. In a column for MRC, Bozell lambasts Obama because he described his administration’s fruitful efforts to locate and kill bin Laden and for being “rude” by not hailing Bush. In a show of incredible partisanship, Bozell says that the news of bin Laden’s death would’ve been better if it occurred during Bush’s presidency rather than as a result of the Obama administration’s successful operation: “My one regret is that Bush 43 didn’t get this scalp,” Bozell writes, “he deserved it more than anyone.”
More on Brent Bozell here. He’s a real piece of work.
Somebody Waterboarded Donald Rumsfeld
Looks like Donald Rumsfeld got a dressing down by GOP spinmeisters for telling the truth:
AP
Rumsfeld on Monday:
“The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”
Rumsfeld today:
I’m told there was some confusion today on some programs…suggesting that I indicated that no one who was waterboarded at Guantanamo provided any information on this. That’s just not true. What I said was no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo by the U.S. military…Three people were waterboarded by the CIA…and then later brought to Guantanamo. In fact, as you point out, the information that came from those individuals was critically important.“
What’s going on here is that Republicans are trying to lay a historical foundation — albeit inaccurate — so the Bush administration’s illegal use of torture harsh interrogation is thought of as something that lead directly to the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, thus justifying it.
Condoleezza Rice Goes on Fox, Proves She’s Insane
Never mind if you’re left, right, in the middle, to the center, a Libertarian or a whatever, you have got to admit that this statement by Condoleezza Rice is insane:
BRIAN KILMEADE ([Fox]CO-HOST): The president in his speech — did a great job on his speech Sunday night — talked about coming together like we did on 9/11, he wants to see it happen again. Do you think a nice gesture would be to invite President Bush out on Thursday when he comes down to Ground Zero to greet the families?
RICE: Well, obviously, I’ll leave that to the two of them and to the administration. But President Bush had at Ground Zero probably the most important moment maybe in American history.
(Emphasis added — obviously.)
Wow. Condi would like to think she’s a part of “probably the most important moment maybe in American history.”
Yo, “liberal media:” You might want to think for a sec the next time you put Ms. Rice on as an “expert.”
She. Has. Issues.
Obama Invites George W. Bush to Go With Him to Ground Zero?
MSNBC is reporting that President Obama invited George W. Bush to go with him to Ground Zero on Thursday — the site of the former World Trade Center in NYC — but Bush declined.
WHAT?
Obama, say it ain’t freakin’ so already.
Bask in what you did. Do. Not. Share. It. With. The. Party. That. Is. Trying. To. Destroy. You.
My God.
Un. Believable.
Where’s Obama’s Codpiece?
Where’s President Obama’s codpiece?
He doesn’t need one. He doesn’t have to stuff a sock down his pants to look and be tough.
I don’t agree with everything Obama has done — to say the least — but I do respect that he wears his socks on his feet, not around his dick.
Why Did George W. Bush Close the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit?
It will take time (natch — frustrating as it is) for the details to emerge but this is a big part of the puzzle of what’s gone on in the last seven or eight years:
The Big Republican Lie (of The Week): Torture Got Bin Laden
Andrew Sullivan has posted a short and sweet expose about how Republicans manufactured the lie that George W. Bush’s decision to torture “detainees” in the “war on terror” resulted in the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.
His conclusion:
What really broke the case? From the NYT:
Operation Cannonball, a [2005] bureaucratic reshuffling … placed more C.I.A. case officers on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan. With more agents in the field, the C.I.A. finally got the courier’s family name. With that, they turned to one of their greatest investigative tools — the National Security Agency began intercepting telephone calls and e-mail messages between the man’s family and anyone inside Pakistan. From there they got his full name. Last July, Pakistani agents working for the C.I.A. spotted him driving his vehicle near Peshawar.
Old-fashioned, painstaking, labor-intensive intelligence work. The American way. We never needed to stoop to bin Laden’s standards to get bin Laden. We needed merely to follow our long-tested humane procedures.
If you have time, take a look. We musn’t let the GOP re-write history.
Bush: I Don’t Give a Rat’s Ass About Osama bin Laden Anymore
Remember this? Six months after 9/11 George W. Bush blew off Osama bin Laden: “I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on it, really, to be honest with you.”
(Via.)
Mission Accomplished — the Iraq War Declared a Success
Happy Sunday and happy May 1.
Per President George W. Bush, the invasion of Iraq was a success, a fait a complis, as of this day in 2003.
Eight years ago:
Mitt Romney Unaware We’re in at Least Two Wars
The United States is currently involved in at least two wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — and maybe three: Libya. But Mitt Romney (where has he been the last ten years?) spaced them out in an op-ed published today in the New Hampshire Union Leader:
Barack Obama is facing a financial emergency on a grander scale. Yet his approach has been to engage in one of the biggest peacetime spending binges in American history. With its failed stimulus package, its grandiose new social programs, its fervor for more taxes and government regulations, and its hostility toward business, the administration has made the debt problem worse, hindered economic recovery and needlessly cost American workers countless jobs.
Maybe the Mittster thinks it’s politically advantageous to ignore the two wars George Bush got us into but is it worth looking like a complete idiot in order to do so?
Apparently.
(Oh, and he’s treating the readers of his op-ed like idiots too.)
Our Soldiers Died for This?
George Bush, you asshole,
take a look at this headline: Street Protests Banned in Baghdad:
Iraq has decided to officially ban street protests in the capital Baghdad and limited approved demonstrations sites to three soccer stadiums, a security official said on Wednesday, according to reports.
“We have specified Al-Shaab, Kashafa and Zawraa stadiums as permitted sites for demonstrations in Baghdad instead of Ferdus or Tahrir squares,” the capital’s security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said at a news conference televised by state broadcaster Iraqiya TV.
The decision follows after regular demonstrations were held in Bagdad with thousands of people protesting against government corruption, poor basic services and unemployment.
“Government corruption, poor basic services and unemployment?” Bush, you created a hell hole when you invaded Iraq. The people there aren’t happy and nearly 4,500 of our kids have died ah, freedom is on the march what again?
March 19, 2011: The Eight-Year Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq
President George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January, 2003:
“British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”
Eight years of untold death and destruction and billions and billions of dollars, based on lies.
President Obama Endorses Torture
The Obama of March 13, 2011 is not the guy I voted for. IMHO, he isn’t the guy the Norwegian Nobel Committee voted for either when it awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize:
Where is the proud, principled Obama of 2008 and early ’09?
By firing PJ Crowley for the offense of protesting against the sadistic military treatment of Bradley Manning, the president has now put his personal weight behind prisoner abuse. The man who once said that forced nudity was a form of torture, now takes the word of those enforcing it over a distinguished public servant.
[...]
As commander-in-chief, Obama is directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of an American citizen. And Crowley’s firing will make it even less likely in the future that decent public servants will speak out against such needless sadism.
More tomorrow.
Americans: No to Another Bush Presidency
Looks like W ruined it for the whole family, at least for the foreseeable future:
There’s been a lot of talk in the last few weeks pushing Jeb Bush as a candidate in 2012 but there’s just one problem: a plurality of Americans say they would definitely not vote for another Bush for President in the future.
44% of voters in the country say there’s no way they’d support another Bush Presidency. Only 14% say they’d definitely favor one, and 39% say they’d consider it. The Republican base is decently open to the idea of another Bush- only 10% distinctly rule out the possibility. But a majority of Democrats at 73% and most notably a majority of independents at 50% shut the door to another President Bush.
President Proposes a 22% Increase in Funding for Clean Energy Technology
The President,
announced the Advanced Energy Initiative and proposed a 22 percent increase in funding for clean energy technology research at the Department of Energy. The Initiative supports new transportation and power technologies that will help achieve significant reductions of oil imports, lead to substantial reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and increase economic and energy security. We will change how we power our homes and offices by increasing investments in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy. We will also change how we power our cars by improving batteries for hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with corn-based ethanol by 2012, and by accelerating the development of zero-emission cars that run on hydrogen.
That would be President George W. Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address.
George W. Running Scared
Nothing will come of this, of course, but I get a bit of satisfaction seeing W., (1) inconvenienced, (2) lose a speaking fee, and (3) getting a taste of how much he is despised in some parts of the world:
President George W. Bush has canceled an event in the famously neutral country Switzerland because of expected protests to his presence there.
Bush was supposed to give the keynote address at a Jewish group’s charity gala on Feb. 12 in Geneva.
Leftist groups had planned to protest the visit, according to news agencies. But several human rights groups had also filed criminal complaints against Bush, demanding that he be taken into custody if he stepped on Swiss soil and investigated for allegations of ordering torture.
A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament also demanded last week Bush’s arrest on war crimes allegations if he came to the country, according to Reuters.
