West Virginia Blue
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How about that great win by the USA Olympic mens basketball team? Super game by LeBron James. I've been really enjoying the Olympic Games, from the spectacle of the opening ceremonies to the excitement of women's handball matches. (Watching these sports that get little attention here in this country makes me miss the old Wide World of Sports, which used to cover everything from these type of events).
I was embarrassed, though, by the behavior of George W. Bush. The camera kept cutting to a petulant, immature spectator, who kept glancing at his watch, tapping his small American flag on his leg like an ill-behaved child.
I went over to a neighbors last night to play Wii (for the first time. Freakin great console). He was in the military and served this country with pride in Afghanistan between 2001-2003. Anyways, we watched Phelps win the gold and started talking about how awesome the opening ceremony was. I asked if he saw clips of President Bush at the opening ceremony.
He said that he has been embarrassed by our president multiple times, but that Friday night took the cake. He became livid while talking about Bush checking his watch, looking bored, and the now infamous, tapping the American flag on his knee. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for him. Now, if a democrat had done that, imagine the ads and comments that would have been said.
He said that until that moment, he was undecided between McCain and Obama. However, he can no longer support the Republican party and those who back-up our president on a consistent basis.
Zagunis won the first U.S. gold medal of the Beijing Games, leading an American sweep Saturday in women's saber fencing. Zagunis took the gold with a 15-8 victory over Sada Jacobson, who won the silver. Becca Ward took the bronze.
Before the fencing medals were awarded, the Americans had been shut out of Olympic medals, trailing the likes of Cuba, North Korea, Taiwan and Uzbekistan in the overall standings. Then the saber trio went to work, moving the U.S. to the top of the table with three medals.
The right-leaning Politico reports Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Ron Suskind's new book contains even more bombshells than his previous two books on the administration:
A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.
Suskind writes in "The Way of the World," to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery - adamantly denied by the White House - was designed to portray a false link between Hussein's regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.
The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion."
George W. Bush wanted to be a "war president." Instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, we invaded Iraq. If you want more lies and unnecessary wars, vote for John McCain and rubberstamps like Shelley Moore Capito. If you think the country deserves better, vote for Barack Obama.
Ineffective Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has done a lot of double-talking over the past seven years, but this ad from the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund sums up best the latest snake oil she's trying to sell us.
With our economy sinking and oil prices soaring, George Bush is offering snake oil: a plan to sacrifice more of our coasts to oil drilling on the chance it will produce a few weeks' worth of oil and reduce gas prices by a few pennies a gallon...in 2028. Imagine America forever tethered to Bush's failed energy policy. It's like giving him five more terms.
It's a cruel Shell game. And BP game. And ExxonMobil game. Over the past five years,
the number of domestic drilling permits has nearly doubled. But because of rising worldwide
demand, oil prices have skyrocketed. More drilling off our coasts is not the answer. Once
destroyed they can never be replaced. The only winners will be the oil companies.
Want gas at $1 a gallon? America needs a bold new approach to energy, from more fuelefficient
vehicles to plug-in hybrids and electric cars. A cleaner electric grid powered by renewables. Existing technologies could have us driving at the equivalent of a buck a gallon for gas!
Tell your Representative and Senators to stop the giveaway of our coasts. Tell them you won't
stand for billions more for oil companies-and snake oil for the rest of us.
Shelley Moore Capito won't even require oil companies to drill on federal land where they already have leases, but she's wanting to give Big Oil new drilling rights that won't benefit us.
spruceshoe highlighted Capito's bogus claims the other day:
On the same day she voted against the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act. This is the bill that would have actually required the Secretary of the Interior to enforce use it or lose it.
On July 15, 2008, Shelley said:
"With gasoline at more than $4.00 per gallon, West Virginians aren't concerned about Republican solutions or Democrat solutions," said Capito. "They simply want real solutions to address our energy challenges.
If we really need the independence Shelley; why do you keep voting against opportunities to have the debate and force the oil companies to produce more domestic oil now?
spruceshoe pointed out how Capito lied - again - to her constituents. When you're selling snake oil - be it false claims about offshore drilling to false claims about votes to false claims of being "independent" - you can't tell the truth. Otherwise no one would buy it.
Is ineffective Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito afraid to be seen with her good friend of the past 7 years, George W. Bush? Did she ask him to stay away as she runs against a tough challenger, Anne Barth, and Capito tries to distance herself from her past rubberstamp support of Bush's extreme rightwing agenda?
In what has become something of a Fourth of July tradition, President Bush traveled to West Virginia - the fourth time in his presidency he has gone there on Independence Day.
Mr. Bush marked the occasion by promoting something he had lately stopped talking about - victory in Iraq.
Despite being saddled with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, President Bush got a warm welcome today in Martinsburg. It was an invitation-only crowd, mainly West Virginia Air National Guardsmen and their families.
Mr. Bush made no mention of the fact that he served in the Texas Air National Guard at a time when the nation was mired in the Vietnam War.
I appreciate Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito. I appreciate her service; I appreciate her love for the great state of West Virginia. Thank you, Shelley Moore. (Applause.)
Today is the day we gather with our friends and family and give thanks to the United States of America; give thanks to the fact that we are citizens in a free land. (Applause.) I give thanks to Shelley Moore Capito for serving the people of West Virginia so well in the United States Congress. (Applause.)
I was greeted by your Mayor today -- I'm honored the Mayor, Mayor Danny Jones took time to say hello. Mr. Mayor, thanks for having me here, and thanks for serving your community. (Applause.) I know, you want me to tell him to fill the potholes. (Laughter.) I appreciate the President of the Charleston City Council, Councilman Tom Lane for being here, as well. Thank you, Councilman. All those who work hard for the people of Charleston. (Applause.)
We've got a lot of state and local officials. I'm honored you all are here. Thanks for inviting me to this beautiful capitol. I appreciate the planning committee for this independence weekend celebration. You know, it takes a lot of effort to put one of these deals together, and a lot of people have been working hard to do so, starting with Spike Maynard, who is the co-chairman and the Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. (Applause.) I told the judge I liked being in the presence with somebody who doesn't try to re-write the Constitution. (Applause.)
I appreciate Mr. Sam Hindman, who is the retired publisher of your newspaper. He's a leader in your community. He's been a community leader for a long time. Thanks, Sam, for your hospitality. I want to thank my friend, Bill Raney, President of the West Virginia Coal Association, for being here, as well. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. (Applause.) Thank you. Well, thank you, Shelly*, and thanks for that warm welcome. I'm really proud to be in Jackson County, West Virginia. (Applause.)
Today we mark the 226th birthday of the United States of America. Last year I spent my first Independence Day as your President in Philadelphia. This year I get to spend it in Ripley, West Virginia. (Applause.)
Shelly told me about the 4th of July celebration. She said I needed to come and meet the town. It looks like most of you showed up. (Laughter.) I appreciate your hospitality. I appreciate all the hard work that went into making this 4th of July celebration such a fantastic gathering of our fellow Americans. And thanks for having me. (Applause.)
I want to thank Shelly Moore Capito for her friendship and her leadership in the halls of Congress.
But no Bush for Capito this year on July 4th. With his popularity around 25 percent, she doesn't want voters to remember she's been supportive of his unpopular programs every step of the way.
Soon we'll be able to celebrate our independence from both of them. Capito came in with Bush, she needs to go with him.
"And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me." - Matthew 25:40
WASHINGTON - The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The C.I.A. is still authorized by President Bush to use a number of secret "alternative" interrogation methods.
snip
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after reviewing the 1957 article that "every American would be shocked" by the origin of the training document.
"What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions," Mr. Levin said. "People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don't need false intelligence."
Brad from SadlyNo! compiles the 10 worst George W. Bush moments for Alternet.
In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration's 10 greatest moments -- disastrous failures, all -- is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush's memory before we go to bed every night.
Narrowing down the Bush administration's various debacles to a mere 10 was no easy fete. In fact, I expect that many people will express dismay that their least favorite moment was left off the list. "How could commuting Scooter Libby's sentence not even make the top 10??!!" I can hear some of you shrieking already. Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, I tried to rate each Bush disaster by two main criteria: its body count and its damage to the country's reputation. So while Bush's awkward groping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be personally humiliating to everyone, it doesn't have the same heft as, say, the Iraq War.
Via CA Berkeley WV in the comments, this story by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker:
L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in the President's war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
snip
None of the four Democrats in the Gang of Eight-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, and House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes-would comment on the Finding, with some noting that it was highly classified. An aide to one member of the Democratic leadership responded, on his behalf, by pointing to the limitations of the Gang of Eight process. The notification of a Finding, the aide said, "is just that-notification, and not a sign-off on activities. Proper oversight of ongoing intelligence activities is done by fully briefing the members of the intelligence committee." However, Congress does have the means to challenge the White House once it has been sent a Finding. It has the power to withhold funding for any government operation.
The Bush and Cheney administration have long wanted a war with Iran. As I wrote in April 12, 2006:
Sy Hersh talked tonight on Air America as he described Bush's Messianic vision that this is something he is meant to do.
Bush, according to Hersh, sees war with Iran as a chance to solve a long-term problem for future presidents. Since he does not face re-election, Bush can go to war with Iran even though it is unpopular.
But would Bush really want to go to war? Isn't that something sane leaders avoid?
I believe sane leaders do avoid it, but Bush really does want this war.
Even before the Iraq invasion, the word going around Washington, D.C., was "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad.the real men want to go to Tehran." I can't remember if it was the Washington Post that quoted an official saying that or another publication, but the quote made the rounds in the defense sector. (It was reported in Newsweek: see hour's comment below.)
So Sy Hersh was talking tonight about that Messianic vision that Pentagon insiders are worried about.
''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .
''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say.
A reasonable person would look at the military quagmire that is Iraq and say that would spell the end of military adventurism for the U.S.
But we're not discussing a reasonable person. We're talking about George W. Bush, who really believes the situation is going well in Iraq.
In my opinion, war with Iran has been always part of their plan regardless of the situation in Iraq. It's been on their agenda and they act on their program no matter the situation. The delay probably has been caused -- and this is slightly informed speculation on my part -- for the need to re-stock J-Dams. They began to run out of the so-called "smart bombs" in Afghanistan, had to work frantically to rebuild supplies in time for Iraq, and since then have continued to drop bombs because of the insurgency which has kept them from getting to the necessary levels needed for Iran. Iran is a much bigger country, the military has not been as depravated by years of sanctions and so there are going to be more targets and the need for more J-Dams and other guided munitions than in any of our previous wars.
So combined with Bush's sinking poll numbers and his Messianic complex, I think we're looking at war in Iran.
I've thought it before, and I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.
Judging from what Hersh says, there's already military action ongoing.
If Senator Rockefeller isn't doing everything in his power as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to stop it, when even Robert Gates and Admiral Fallon don't see an Iran war as necessary, I'd like to know why he isn't.
Seven months before our next president gets sworn into office, the Senate's longest serving member offers an engaging book encouraging him to avoid the disastrous missteps of the current administration.
Byrd urges the new president to show humility, to talk and negotiate with foreign leaders and to help create a peaceful and environmentally friendly world.
"Bush is a man who seems to be the center of his own universe. He seems to have learned little of human nature and even less of human history over his lifetime."
Byrd decries the use of fear to manipulate people.
"The American people and, yes, all too many of their political leaders have been manipulated and controlled in recent years through the most shameless use of fear this country has ever seen."
Byrd writes that Bush is far worse than Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., the long-disgraced senator whose "reign of demagoguery in the 1950s did not threaten the Constitution as directly as what we have endured of late."
The National Energy Assistance Directors Association released a new energy costs survey last week, and the report found that Bush's high energy prices are squeezing nearly all households nationwide, with low-income families and individuals are being hit the hardest.
...According to the U.S. Census 2005-2006, West Virginia was ranked 48th in per-capita income.
Low-income households typically spend a greater percentage of their income on utilities than those in higher income brackets, and as prices rise, they are having to make increasingly difficult choices in order to keep the lights shining, the water flowing, and the stove running.
...Although Shelley Capito is from West Virginia, it's likely that she's aware of the problem, especially now that she's making over 9 million bucks a year and has
moved to Washington D.C. to be closer to her hedge-fund hubby.
It must be those secret, magical REPUBLICAN FAMILY VALUES that helped her personal assets to jump from around $3 million to well over $9 million in just two years while earning under $200,000 yearly as a congressional representative.
As home energy and gasoline prices increase, low-income households (under $32K a year) are
having to make serious cutbacks on basic necessities in order to make ends meet.
...Since our household per-capita income (back in 2005/'06) was only around $38,000, that leaves an awful lot of our fellow Mountaineers at dire risk.
On Jan 12, 2007 Rep Capito voted against requiring the federal government to negotiate with drug companies for the prices of drugs covered under Medicare (H.R. 4)/ Roll Call 23. This went directly against the expressed will and intent of our WV legislature, who, in both houses, had concurrently passed a bill to do essentially the same.
And although I'm certain there's some reason why she'd do such a thing, it curiously has never occurred to our local media to even ask her what her reasons were. So now, it's gotten down to either buy fuel, food, or medicine.
And thanks to our local media's lack of concern, we're left to try to piece together what we know.
For years many of us on here have referred to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as unindicted war criminals. Now a retired major general agrees:
The profiles of these eleven former detainees, none of whom were ever charged with a crime or told why they were detained, are tragic and brutal rebuttals to those who claim that torture is ever justified. Through the experiences of these men in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, we can see the full scope of the damage this illegal and unsound policy has inflicted-both on America's institutions and our nation's founding values, which the military, intelligence services, and our justice system are duty-bound to defend.
In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. And the healing professions, including physicians and psychologists, became complicit in the willful infliction of harm against those the Hippocratic Oath demands they protect.
After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.
The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government.
But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution.
Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has no trouble supporting war criminals.
John McCain says he's not running for George W. Bush's 3rd term.
You will hear from my opponent's campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I'm running for President Bush's third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it's so important to repeat that idea over and over again?
snip
I have worked with the President to keep our nation safe. But he and I have not seen eye to eye on many issues. We've disagreed over the conduct of the war in Iraq and the treatment of detainees; over out of control government spending and budget gimmicks; over energy policy and climate change; over defense spending that favored defense contractors over the public good.
I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding where the previous strategy had failed miserably.
Where would people get the idea that McCain is running for Bush's 3rd term?
John McCain.
The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I have been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. So, have we had some disagreements on some issues - particularly domestic issues? Yes, but I will argue my conservative record of voting with anyone's, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. And I am particularly talking about the war on terror, war on Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline, a number of other issues; I strongly disagree with any assertion that I have been more at odds with the President of the United States than I have been in agreement.
So why is McCain disagreeing with himself and lying now about his support of Bush? He should give us straight talk and not double talk.
Despite everything Bush supporter Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito has done for him, Mr. George W. Bush's approval rating is now at 25 percent.
President Bush's approval rating is at its lowest level to date. Just 25 percent of Americans approve of the overall job Mr. Bush is doing as President, an all-time low for him and among the lowest approval ratings ever recorded for a President.
Sixty-seven percent disapprove of the job Bush is doing - the highest such figure in CBS News polls since he assumed office.
Only Presidents Nixon (24 percent) and Truman (22 percent) have seen polls showing job approval ratings lower than 25 percent during their presidencies, according to Gallup Polls. President Carter's all-time low was 26 percent.
But Capito's still president of the George W. Bush Fan Club:
By 3 p.m. Monday, before a security sweep was done and six hours before the State of the Union address was scheduled to begin, all the prized seats - the aisle seats - were taken.
snip
"On the way in, I always like to wish the president luck, or I say, 'Go get 'em,'" Capito said. "On the way out, it's always, 'Great speech.'"
The poll also found Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain 48 to 42 percent. That of course leads the media to point to "troubling signs." I predict that Obama will widen the lead with the post primary bounce as Clinton supporters come home to the Democratic Party and independents realize that despite the media's portrayal of him as a Maverick, McCain really is just more of what we've had for the past 8 years.
I recently mentioned elsewhere how interesting it is how the members of George W. Bush's administration have used the word "traitor" in describing former White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
While it's easy to assume they're using it to demonstrate his betrayal of trust to Bush, another meaning of the word - and the one I suspect they mean - is someone who commits treason.
The people in his administration see Bush as king. In the past, kings were referred to as the living embodiment of the state. If you look at how they have said Bush is above the law and whatever the president says makes it legal, they don't see Bush as president. They see him as king, God's representative here to rule over us. So many of them have said that they believe God put Bush in power at this time that what we're dealing with is not an administration, but a cult.
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