The George W. Bush Administration
Posted by Tom Awtry on April 10, 2008
Keith Olbermann Special Comment Regarding FISA
Olbermann launches a scathing critique of Bush and his lies about FISA, and the fact that he wants immunity for the telecom companies that allowed him to break the law repeatedly.
Memo to right-wingers; if you’re not gonna discuss the issues in a civil manner and resort to what you people know best, i.e., name calling and snide remarks, you will be blocked and your crap will be deleted. I will not put up with such garbage on my page. If you want to discuss the issues, you are welcome to.
Video Play Lists:
News Wire & Blogs:
- Powell: Troops in Iraq must be reduced …State Colin Powell says the next president will have to realize that the United States can’t continue to sustain large numbers of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. MSNBC.com: Politics
- Powell: I Don’t Know Who I’ll Vote For …State Colin Powell said that President Bush’s successor will have to come to grips with the reality that the United States cannot continue to keep such large numbers of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. CBSNews – Politics
- Bush’s public approval reaches new low from MSNBC.com: Politics The president’s rating fell to 28 percent in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll, driven by dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy.
- Lawyers: Bush Claims Historic Level of Exec Privilege from FOXNews.com by Lawyers for the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee tell a federal judge that Bush’s refusal to let two confidants provide details about prosecutor firings shows the broadest view of executive privilege since Watergate.
- House Dems compare Bush to Nixon from Top Stories by Lawyers for House Judiciary Committee make comparison in seeking contempt ruling.
- Reid: Bush has ‘exit strategy’ for himself from Top Stories by Dems accuse Bush of delaying further troop withdrawals to hand off the conflict to the next president.
- Bush Gives Medal of Honor to Slain Navy Seals Member from NYT > Washington
President Bush awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously to a member of the Navy Seals who threw himself on a grenade in 2006 to save his comrades in Iraq. - Worst President Ever from PoliticalBase.com Blog History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.”
- Bush Says Economy Is Poised to Rebound from NYT > Washington President Bush urged Congress to resist Democrats’ efforts to pass a second economic stimulus package, asking lawmakers to give his own package “a chance to kick in.”
- No Child Left Behind needs flexibility from UPI – Top News A loophole in a U.S. education reform law, No Child Left Behind, allows schools skirt penalties, but points to the broader challenge with the law, critics says.
- Iraq Report Details Political Hurdles and Future Options from Wash Post – World News by Robin Wright A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by the same experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group concludes that political progress is “so slow, halting and superficial” and political fragmentation “so pronounced” that the United States is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a y…
- Failing to Police Wall Street from Center for American Progress by Ruy Teixeira Public opinion polls show negative reactions to Bush administration’s handling of financial market turmoil on Wall Street and Main Street.
- 81% in Poll Say Nation Is Headed on the Wrong Track from NYT > Washington
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s. - U.S. Jobless Claims Climb from CBS News.com The Labor Department reported that new applications filed for unemployment insurance jumped, leaving claims at their highest point since Sept. 17, 2005. The latest snapshot of labor activity was worse than economists were anticipating.
- White House Memo: In Economic Drama, Bush Is Largely Offstage from NYT > Washington President Bush is appearing more detached from the nation’s economic reality, focusing on foreign affairs as others speak for his administration.
- White House Ordered To Defend FOIA Claim from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 1 Apr 2008 // A federal judge Monday ordered the White House’s Office of Administration to produce information on an assertion that it is no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
- Shooting for the Stars: Ballistic Missiles by the Numbers from Center for American Progress Ballistic missiles are no longer the threat to the U.S. they once were, yet missile defense programs are still funded generously.
- COURT ORDERS NATIONAL ARCHIVES TO PRODUCE DOCUMENTS IN CREW LAWSUIT SEEKING SECRET SERVICE VISITOR RECORDS from Recent Actions Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 28 Mar 2008 // On March 28, 2008, District Court Judge Reggie Walton issued an order in CREW v. NARA, a lawsuit brought under the Freedom of Information Act(FOIA) for documents related to the National Archives and Records Administration’s role in the government’s decision that White House visitor records created by the Secret Service are not agency records subject to the FOIA.
- Close Gitmo, five secretaries of state say from UPI – Top News Closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would improve the United States’ reputation worldwide, five former secretaries of state said.
- Bush: Economy will come out stronger from MSNBC.com: Politics President Bush said Wednesday the sagging economy will “come out stronger than ever before” with the help of tax rebates from the recently enacted economic stimulus package.
- Diagnosis: Poor Financial Health from Center for American Progress by Karen Davenport
The future of Medicare has become darker and bleaker since the Bush administration took office, writes Karen Davenport. - We’ll Never Know from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 26 Mar 2008 // If you think about it, it’s amazing how completely and thoroughly information has been “managed” over the last seven years of the Bush administration. More»
- Bush’s Open-Records Order a Sham from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 26 Mar 2008 // On Dec. 14, 2005, President Bush issued an executive order that, at first glance, seemed highly out of character. “The effective functioning of our constitutional democracy depends upon the participation in public life of a citizenry that is well informed,” it began. More»
- Justices Rule Against Bush on Death Penalty Case from NYT > Washington
The president had no power to tell Texas to reopen the case of a Mexican who was condemned for murder, the Supreme Court said. - ASSOCIATED PRESS: WHITE HOUSE — COMPUTER HARD DRIVES TOSSED
from Recent Actions Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 22 Mar 2008 // White House Says Computer Hard Drives From Years of Possibly Missing E-Mail Were Destroyed. Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005. - Federal magistrate orders White House response on e-mail backups from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 20 Mar 2008 // US Magistrate Judge John Facciola Tuesday ordered [PDF text; CREW press release] the White House to explain why it should not be required to create forensic copies of all e-mails passed through computers in the
- 2 Senators Want HUD Official Out from NYT The Senators are calling for the resignation of Alphonso R. Jackson, saying they are “deeply troubled by the growing number of allegations of impropriety” against him.
- Editorial: The Cult of Secrecy at the White House from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 7 Feb 2008 // There’s no end to President Bush’s slyness in subverting new Congressional law and clinging to the secrecy that has been the administration’s executive cloak. When a vital measure to strengthen the tattered freedom-of-information law won unanimous approval by both houses of Congress, the president was forced to soften his stand and quietly sign it into law on New Year’s Eve.
- U.S. Now Among World’s Worst Surveillance Societies from ACLU Blog – Privacy & Technology by blog@aclu.org (Suzanne Ito, ACLU) We’ve been warning for some time that we are dangerously close to turning into a surveillance society. We are far from alone, of course — many other countries are grappling with the same issues brought about by the information revolution, and the same political forces unleashed by 9/11. So how are we doing in defending our traditions of privacy in comparison to other countries?
- White House Says Old Hard Drives Were Destroyed from FOXNews.com by foxnewsonline@foxnews.com The White House discloses to a federal court that old hard drives have been destroyed, in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails.
- Poll: More say government is secretive, from MSNBC.com: Politics Nearly nine in 10 Americans say it’s important to know presidential and congressional candidates’ positions on open government, but three out of four view the federal government as secretive, according to a survey released Sunday.
- Public Opinion Snapshot: The United States Needs a New Image, from Center for American Progress Conservative commentators, no longer content with the erroneous assertion that U.S. public opinion on the Iraq war has shifted, have recently turned their attention to arguing that the U.S. image around the world is actually not in need of serious repair.
- Is It Twilight Time For Conservative Cable TV Windbags? from PoliticalBase.com Blog In the same week that Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC show Tucker was canceled we learn that Fox News (yes, Fox News) has canceled John Gibson’s show The Big Story.
- Editorial: Misplaced White House secrecy from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 26 Dec 2007 // The White House filed a challenge last week to a U.S. District Court ruling that Secret Service visitor logs for the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence are public documents. Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that these records can be released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
- White House Declares Office Off-Limits from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 23 Aug 2007 // The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers.
Drug Enforcement Administration:
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Report: DEA loses guns, computers from UPI – Top News The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has deficiencies in tracking its weapons and other government property, a government report said.
Environmental Protection Agency:
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EPA in No Rush to Comply With ‘07 High Court Climate Order from FOXNews.com by foxnewsonline@foxnews.com The Environmental Protection Agency is making clear it will not be rushed into a decision on whether to regulate emissions linked to global warming, as directed by the Supreme Court.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA):
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Editorial: FEMA drops the ball in natural disaster game again from Ethics in the News Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington by rusty 31 Oct 2007 // What do you do if you are a government-run agency in need of positive press time during a time of crisis and you haven’t told anyone? Well, if you are the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it appears you just fake it and act like everything is normal.
Immigration:
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Official Had Controversial Photos Deleted, Report Says from NYT > Washington The nation’s top immigration enforcement official ordered the destruction of photographs of an office Halloween party that showed a white agency employee dressed as a black detainee, a report says.
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National Briefing Washington: Quota Limit for High-Skill Visas Is Reached from NYT > Washington Federal immigration officials said they had received enough applications for three-year visas for high-skilled immigrants, known as H-1B, to meet the quota of 65,000 for the year beginning Oct. 1. Officials at Citizenship and Immigration Services said they closed the application period, which started April 1, after the pre-set minimum of five days. The agency also received enough applications to surpass an annual quota of 20,000 work visas for immigrants with a master’s degree or higher from an American college or university. The agency has not finished counting the applications, but they are expected to greatly exceed the quotas. In coming days, officials said, the agency will run an electronic lottery to select immigrants who will receive visas, in a process that prompted calls from technology businesses to raise the visa limits.
Intelligence Communities:
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Hayden says he wants a ‘more cohesive’ CIA from UPI – Top News CIA Director Michael Hayden says he wants to build a more cohesive intelligence-gathering agency to address the United States’ terror threats.
Cabinet Departments & Agencies:
