THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT

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THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT


Our 40th Year

The San Francisco Bay Guardian this week outlines the case for impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Guardian, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, is one of the first newspapers in the country to call for impeaching the president.

The article, written by City Editor Steven T. Jones, cites top Constitutional lawyers and scholars as well as political figures to make the case that Bush and Cheney have abused executive authority to the point where they may well have committed impeachable offenses.

The article chronicles a growing grassroots movement that has largely escaped the notice of the mainstream news media. Jones' piece and an accompanying note by Executive Editor Tim Redmond, chide the leadership of the Democratic Party for its failures to press the impeachment issue.
http://www.sfbg.com/

ImpeachPAC | Electing a Congress to Impeach Bush and Cheney

ImpeachPAC | Electing a Congress to Impeach Bush and Cheney

Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping
Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2006-01-15 15:54. Impeachment in the News | Polls

For Release: January 16, 2006

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

Should Bush and Cheney Be Impeached for the Iraq War | Democrats.com

Should Bush and Cheney Be Impeached for the Iraq War | Democrats.com: "Should Bush and Cheney Be Impeached for the Iraq War
(1) In July 2002, George Bush and Dick Cheney deliberately diverted $700 million from the authorized war in Afghanistan to provoke an unauthorized war in Iraq, including a criminal bombing campaign.

(2) On March 18, 2003, Bush and Cheney deliberately lied to Congress when he claimed in writing that continued U.N. inspections would endanger the national security of the U.S. and undermine enforcement of U.N. Resolutions, and that Iraq planned or aided the attacks of September 11, 2001.

(3) By invading Iraq without any threat or just cause, Bush and Cheney launched a War of Aggression in violation of U.S. obligations under the U.N. Charter.

(4) In the conduct of the War, Bush and Cheney violated the Geneva conventions by failing to protect civilians (including journalists) and by authorizing torture of prisoners, which also violated the War Crimes Act of 1996.

George Bush, Dick Cheney, and every top official involved in these policies must be impeached and removed from office.
"

Gore Says Bush Wiretapping Could be Impeachable Offense

January 17th, 2006 3:01 am

Gore Says Bush Wiretapping Could be Impeachable Offense

Former Vice President Says Legislators From Both Parties Did Not Do Enough To Stop Secret Activities

ABC News

Jan. 16, 2006 — In an impassioned speech about President Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping program, former Vice President Al Gore said in Washington, DC, on Monday that "the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently."

Citing Bush Administration policies on torture, rendition and detentions, the winner of the 2000 popular vote said the President's "unlawful" eavesdropping program was part of a "larger pattern" of "seeming indifference to the Constitution."

Asked by ABC News following his speech whether President Bush's domestic spying program constituted an impeachable offense, Gore said it might be and pointed to one of the three Articles of Impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved against President Nixon on July 27, 1974.

"That's a legal determination for the Congress to make," Gore told ABC News. "But Article II of the impeachment charges against President Nixon was warrantless wiretapping that the President said was 'necessary' for national security."

"It can be" an impeachable offense, he added.

The domestic eavesdropping program authorized by President Bush following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, bypasses a special federal court whose approval is required under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Ever since the New York Times revealed the secret program last month, the Bush Administration has claimed that the circumvention of the FISA court was justified by arguing, in part, that Congress implicitly authorized the surveillance with the post-9/11 Authorization to Use Military Force.

Gore's speech drew fire from the president's party on Monday. Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, issued a statement criticizing the former Vice President, stating Gore has an "incessant need to insert himself in the headline of the day" and has a "lack of understanding of the threats facing America."

But Gore is not alone in arguing that the warrantless eavesdropping authorized by President Bush conflicts with existing law and hinges on weak legal arguments. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service reached a similar conclusion earlier this month in a 41-page legal analysis.

While appearing on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) said he, too, does not agree with the White House view that Congress effectively authorized the surveillance with its post-9/11 resolution.

A Partisan Problem

Sen. Specter and Gore part company, however, on the question of whether a president might possess special inherent powers as Commander-in-Chief that would make the National Security Agency domestic spying program permissible in wartime. Whereas Gore is confident that the president does not possess such power, Sen. Specter is hoping to explore the issue when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on the legality of the President's program next month.

In his Constitution Hall remarks on Monday, Gore did not confine his criticism to members of the other party. He criticized both Republican and Democratic members of the so-called "Gang of Eight" who were secretly briefed on the NSA program but did not take action to stop the President's "illegal activities."

"Though I sympathize with the awkward position in which these men and women were placed, I cannot disagree with the Liberty Coalition when it says that Democrats as well as Republicans in the Congress must share the blame for not taking action to protest and seek to prevent what they consider a grossly unconstitutional program," Gore said.

The Liberty Coalition is the "trans-partisan" civil liberties group that co-sponsored Gore's speech along with the American Constitution Society.

Supreme Court Criticism

In his Martin Luther King Day remarks, Gore also criticized President Bush for nominating Supreme Court Justices whom he believes will not serve as an adequate check on the executive.

"Whether you support his confirmation or not — and I do not — we must all agree that he will not vote as an effective check on the expansion of executive power," Gore said with respect to Judge Samuel Alito. "Likewise, Chief Justice Roberts has made plain his deference to the expansion of executive power through his support of judicial deference to executive agency rulemaking."

With regards to specific recommendations, Gore called upon congressional candidates to make the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate domestic eavesdropping an issue in the 2006 elections.

He also appealed for new whistleblower protections, comprehensive hearings in the House and Senate, and no renewal of the Patriot Act until adequate constitutional safeguards are added. He also wants telecommunications companies to "cease and desist" their "complicity" in this "apparently illegal invasion of the privacy of American citizens."

Gore's biggest standing ovation came when he said it was "simply an insult" to those who "came before us" to "imply that we have more to be fearful of than they."

In an effort to show that criticism of President Bush's spying program reaches across party lines, Gore was supposed to be introduced by ex-Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), a former House manager in the impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton. Since leaving Congress in 2003, Barr has emerged as an outspoken critic of the effect the Bush Administration's anti-terror policies are having on civil liberties.

The image of the odd bedfellows did not materialize, however, when Barr's satellite connection failed.

If You Want the Bum Impeached

If You Want the Bum Impeached...

There is no doubt that Bush has committed “impeachable offenses.” There is no doubt that millions of Americans – and tens of millions of people in other countries! – would jump for joy if he were to be impeached.

Impeachment, in short, is one way that this regime full of fascists could be driven from power.

Yet not a single Democratic Senator has stepped up to the plate on impeachment. People can debate why this is so, and should – and some of that debate is in the articles on this site. The question we address here is how to change the political equation in this country so that Bush is forced to step down.

To do that, there must be a political demand coming from the grassroots. There must be thousands, and then millions, in the streets demanding that Bush step down – and that the country change direction. “Power,” as the one-time slave and famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Without such struggle, there will be no impeachment. And without that happening soon, the momentum that currently exists to oust Bush will dissipate, and even the new outrages that have come to light will take on a patina of “legitimacy.” Millions must be awakened to the scope of Bush’s crimes and the danger of his agenda bringing need for him to go!

BUT THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO – NOW!

Nationwide demonstrations are set for January 31 – the night of Bush’s State of the Union address – to be followed by a massive demonstration in Washington, D.C. on February 4. The demand? BUSH STEP DOWN.

If you want Bush to go – if you want to see him impeached – this is where the gauntlet is. Here. Now. Pick it up.

The world can’t wait for there to be more Abu Ghraibs and Alitos. The world can’t wait, lest the controversy over Iran turn into another unjust war, perhaps even more horrendous than the one still raging in Iraq. It can’t wait as the Bush regime claims more and more unbridled power – power to spy on people, to imprison without charges, to torture – without even going through the motions of obeying the law. For more theocrats to be put into positions of power – including in the military.

Get involved. Donate. Organize. Spread the word. And be there.

The world can’t wait.

World Can't Wait | Drive Out the Bush Regime

World Can't Wait | Drive Out the Bush Regime

Al Gore: "US Constitution in Grave Danger" PDF Print E-mail

Al Gore indicted the Bush administration’s "unprecedented claims to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power." Speaking of Bush’s domestic spying program, he said that "what we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President…has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently." Gore gave four compelling reasons why we are in for "something more than another cycle of overreach and regret."

And he said this: "If the pattern of practice begun by this administration is not challenged, it may well become a permanent part of the American system."

Can you come to grips with this and NOT act? Can you know the truth of what is going on and NOT do everything you can to build the BUSH STEP DOWN protests planned for January 31 and February 4?

Shakespeare said that there is a tide in the affairs of men. With the Alito nomination, the wiretap scandal, and the new crisis with Iran, that tide is now raging. Bush will try to use his State of the Union address on January 31 to turn the current decisively his way. If there are not thousands and thousands saying BUSH STEP DOWN at the tops of their voices, he may well succeed. For us to fail to act is to invite disaster.

On the other hand, to act now – to take up the challenge – could make all the difference. There is a tide, but that tide can be turned.

If we don’t want the future that the Bush regime is jamming down our throats, we can do something about it. There are millions who are agonizing. Reach out to them. Now. Volunteer. Donate. Be there. Join us.

The world truly cannot wait. BUSH STEP DOWN.

CONTACT THE CABLE SHOWS | AfterDowningStreet.org


Impeach Pres. Bush!!!!

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/images/cbac.gif

Bush oil/biz cronies want US to assinate Venzuela's Chavez, dubbed "Operation Balboa" by Pentagon -- Chavez threat to US corporations

Bush oil/biz cronies want US to assinate Venzuela's Chavez, dubbed "Operation Balboa" by Pentagon -- Chavez threat to US corporations

From:	Bart (129.171.32.13)
Subject:	Bush oil/biz cronies want US to assinate Venzuela's Chavez, dubbed "Operation Balboa" by Pentagon -- Chavez threat to US corporations
Date:	November 11, 2005 at 8:56 am PST

The Rise Of America's New Enemy

By John Pilger

11/10/05 " -- I was dropped at Paradiso, the last middle-class area before barrio La Vega, which spills into a ravine as if by the force of gravity. Storms were forecast, and people were anxious, remembering the mudslides that took 20,000 lives. "Why are you here?" asked the man sitting opposite me in the packed jeep-bus that chugged up the hill. Like so many in Latin America, he appeared old, but wasn't. Without waiting for my answer, he listed why he supported President Chavez: schools, clinics, affordable food, "our constitution, our democracy" and "for the first time, the oil money is going to us." I asked him if he belonged to the MRV, Chavez's party, "No, I've never been in a political party; I can only tell you how my life has been changed, as I never dreamt."

It is raw witness like this, which I have heard over and over again in Venezuela, that smashes the one-way mirror between the west and a continent that is rising. By rising, I mean the phenomenon of millions of people stirring once again, "like lions after slumber/In unvanquishable number", wrote the poet Shelley in The Mask of Anarchy. This is not romantic; an epic is unfolding in Latin America that demands our attention beyond the stereotypes and clichés that diminish whole societies to their degree of exploitation and expendability.

To the man in the bus, and to Beatrice whose children are being immunised and taught history, art and music for the first time, and Celedonia, in her seventies, reading and writing for the first time, and Jose whose life was saved by a doctor in the middle of the night, the first doctor he had ever seen, Hugo Chavez is neither a "firebrand" nor an "autocrat" but a humanitarian and a democrat who commands almost two thirds of the popular vote, accredited by victories in no less than nine elections. Compare that with the fifth of the British electorate that re-installed Blair, an authentic autocrat.

Chávez and the rise of popular social movements, from Colombia down to Argentina, represent bloodless, radical change across the continent, inspired by the great independence struggles that began with SimOn Bolívar, born in Venezuela, who brought the ideas of the French Revolution to societies cowed by Spanish absolutism. Bolívar, like Che Guevara in the 1960s and Chavez today, understood the new colonial master to the north. "The USA," he said in 1819, "appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty."

At the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001, George W Bush announced the latest misery in the name of liberty in the form of a Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty. This would allow the United States to impose its ideological "market", neo-liberalism, finally on all of Latin America. It was the natural successor to Bill Clinton's North American Free Trade Agreement, which has turned Mexico into an American sweatshop. Bush boasted it would be law by 2005.

On 5 November, Bush arrived at the 2005 summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, to be told his FTAA was not even on the agenda. Among the 34 heads of state were new, uncompliant faces and behind all of them were populations no longer willing to accept US-backed business tyrannies. Never before have Latin American governments had to consult their people on pseudo-agreements of this kind; but now they must.

In Bolivia, in the past five years, social movements have got rid of governments and foreign corporations alike, such as the tentacular Bechtel, which sought to impose what people call total locura capitalista - total capitalist folly - the privatising of almost everything, especially natural gas and water. Following Pinochet's Chile, Bolivia was to be a neo-liberal laboratory. The poorest of the poor were charged up to two-thirds of their pittance-income even for rain-water.

Standing in the bleak, freezing, cobble-stoned streets of El Alto, 14,000 feet up in the Andes, or sitting in the breeze-block homes of former miners and campesinos driven off their land, I have had political discussions of a kind seldom ignited in Britain and the US. They are direct and eloquent. "Why are we so poor," they say, "when our country is so rich? Why do governments lie to us and represent outside powers?" They refer to 500 years of conquest as if it is a living presence, which it is, tracing a journey from the Spanish plunder of Cerro Rico, a hill of silver mined by indigenous slave labour and which underwrote the Spanish Empire for three centuries. When the silver was gone, there was tin, and when the mines were privatised in the 1970s at the behest of the IMF, tin collapsed, along with 30,000 jobs. When the coca leaf replaced it - in Bolivia, chewing it in curbs hunger - the Bolivian army, coerced by the US, began destroying the coca crops and filling the prisons.

In 2000, open rebellion burst upon the white business oligarchs and the American embassy whose fortress stands like an Andean Vatican in the centre of La Paz. There was never anything like it, because it came from the majority Indian population "to protect our indigenous soul". Naked racism against indigenous peoples all over Latin America is the Spanish legacy. They were despised or invisible, or curios for tourists: the women in their bowler hats and colourful skirts. No more. Led by visionaries like Oscar Olivera, the women in bowler hats and colourful skirts encircled and shut down the country's second city, Cochabamba, until their water was returned to public ownership.

Every year since, people have fought a water or gas war: essentially a war against privatisation and poverty. Having driven out President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003, Bolivians voted in a referendum for real democracy. Through the social movements they demanded a constituent assembly similar to that which founded ChAvez's Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, together with the rejection of the FTAA and all the other "free trade" agreements, the expulsion of the transnational water companies and a 50 per cent tax on the exploitation of all energy resources.

When the replacement president, Carlos Mesa, refused to implement the programme he was forced to resign. Next month, there will be presidential elections and the opposition Movement to Socialism (MAS) may well turn out the old order. The leader is an indigenous former coca farmer, Evo Morales, whom the American ambassador has likened to Osama Bin Laden. In fact, he is a social democrat who, for many of those who sealed off Cochabamba and marched down the mountain from El Alto, moderates too much.

"This is not going to be easy," Abel Mamani, the indigenous president of the El Alto Neighbourhood Committees, told me. "The elections won't be a solution even if we win. What we need to guarantee is the constituent assembly, from which we build a democracy based not on what the US wants, but on social justice." The writer Pablo Solon, son of the great political muralist Walter Solon, said, "The story of Bolivia is the story of the government behind the government. The US can create a financial crisis; but really for them it is ideological; they say they will not accept another Chavez."

The people, however, will not accept another Washington quisling. The lesson is Ecuador, where a helicopter saved Lucio GutiErrez as he fled the presidential palace last April. Having won power in alliance with the indigenous Pachakutik movement, he was the "Ecuadorian Chavez", until he drowned in a corruption scandal. For ordinary Latin Americans, corruption on high is no longer forgivable. That is one of two reasons the Workers' Party government of Lula is barely marking time in Brazil; the other is the priority he has given to an IMF economic agenda, rather than his own people. In Argentina, social movements saw off five pro-Washington presidents in 2001 and 2002. Across the water in Uruguay, the Frente Amplio, socialist heirs to the Tupamaros, the guerrillas of the 1970s who fought one of the CIA's most vicious terror campaigns, formed a popular government last year.

The social movements are now a decisive force in every Latin American country - even in the state of fear that is the Colombia of Alvaro Uribe Velez, Bush's most loyal vassal. Last month, indigenous movements marched through every one of Colombia's 32 provinces demanding an end to "an evil as great at the gun": neo-liberalism. All over Latin America, Hugo Chavez is the modern Bolivar. People admire his political imagination and his courage. Only he has had the guts to describe the United States as a source of terrorism and Bush as Senor Peligro (Mr Danger). He is very different from Fidel Castro, whom he respects. Venezuela is an extraordinarily open society with an unfettered opposition - that is rich and still powerful. On the left, there are those who oppose the state, in principle, believe its reforms have reached their limit, and want power to flow directly from the community. They say so vigorously, yet they support Chavez. A fluent young arnarchist, Marcel, showed me the clinic where the two Cuban doctors may have saved his girlfriend. (In a barter arrangement, Venezuela gives Cuba oil in exchange for doctors).

At the entrance to every barrio there is a state supermarket, where everything from staple food to washing up liquid costs 40 per cent less than in commercial stores. Despite specious accusations that the government has instituted censorship, most of the media remains violently anti-Chavez: a large part of it in the hands of Gustavo Cisneros, Latin America's Murdoch, who backed the failed attempt to depose Chavez. What is striking is the proliferation of lively community radio stations, which played a critical part in Chavez's rescue in the coup of April 2002 by calling on people to march on Caracas.

While the world looks to Iran and Syria for the next Bush attack, Venezuelans know they may well be next. On 17 March, the Washington Post reported that Feliz Rodríguez, "a former CIA operative well-connected to the Bush family" had taken part in the planning of the assassination of the President of Venezuela. On 16 September, Chavez said, "I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela. Furthermore, we have documentation: how many bombers will over-fly Venezuela on the day of the invasion... the US is carrying out manoeuvres on Curacao Island. It is called Operation Balboa." Since then, leaked internal Pentagon documents have identified Venezuela as a "post-Iraq threat" requiring "full spectrum" planning.

The old-young man in the jeep, Beatrice and her healthy children and Celedonia with her "new esteem", are indeed a threat - the threat of an alternative, decent world that some lament is no longer possible. Well, it is, and it deserves our support.

First published in the New Statesman - www.newstatesman.co.uk

No blood for burgers! | Samizdata.net

No blood for burgers! | Samizdata.net

No blood for burgers!

David Carr (London) Health

(0)

So George 'Hitler' Bush and his shadowy cabal of extreme right-wing neo-conservative warmongers are, once again, showing their contempt for the peace-loving, democratic will of the international community:

The United States is challenging a strategy by the World Health Organization (WHO) to tackle obesity.

Some scientists accuse President Bush's administration of planning to water down proposed junk food regulations, in order to protect big business.

No mention of who these 'scientists' are, mind. Perhaps they are Indyscientists.

Anyway, I support the WHO. I think it is only reasonable and fair that I should be told what I can and cannot eat by a panel of experts from Libya, Chad, Cuba and North Korea. It's for my own good!

LP: Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism (review)

LP: Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism (review)

itle: Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism (review)
Source: WND
URL Source: http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp? ITEM_ID=1283
Published: Dec 11, 2005
Author: unknown
Post Date: 2005-12-11 23:28:08 by Magician
12 Comments

Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism by Paul Sperry (Book Review)

Is the "war on terror" declared by the Bush administration just a cynical and immoral subterfuge for securing needed Mideast oil, as leftists and anti-war activists claim?

Or is America's ongoing military response to the horrendous attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, not only justified, but motivated totally by compelling national security concerns with no admixture of any other agenda, as administration cheerleaders claim?

Or, does the truth lie somewhere in between? And if so, exactly where?

"Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism" makes the unsettling case that the Bush administration, though engaged in an unavoidable and moral war on terror, also tried simultaneously to secure future energy production in the terrorists' home turf and ended up compromising America's national security interests.

While the United States was still reeling from the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, says "Crude Politics" author and investigative journalist Paul Sperry, Bush administration diplomats were resuming talks with Pakistani officials over gas and oil pipelines in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ultimately, the U.S. seized the opportunity of the war-on-terror as a reason to oust the Taliban -- the major obstacle blocking plans for the precious pipelines linking Caspian reserves to hot Asian markets. Indeed, the book documents how the Bush administration tailored the war on terrorism around oil interests in the Caspian region, and to a lesser extent, in Iraq.

With journalistic integrity and painstaking research, Sperry enlightens readers on:

* How commercial gain within the current oil-friendly administration has undermined America's war on terror

* How our safety has been jeopardized because of an overriding effort to charge ahead with a new "Silk Road" through Afghanistan and Pakistan, making the capture of Osama bin Laden a secondary concern

* The nature of war and the politics behind the major decisions being made in the current administration, including those regarding Iraq and other "axis of evil" countries

* Bush's behind-the-scenes operator for regime change in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- former energy consultant Zal Khalilzad.

Paul Sperry is a veteran Washington, D.C., investigative reporter whose reports on national security issues have been picked up by virtually every major news agency in the world. Sperry's journalistic courage and integrity are backed by years of experience, including extensive reporting and editing on national affairs, economics, manufacturing, real estate, and general business coverage. President Bill Clinton "banned" Sperry from the White House in 1999 after the reporter asked him tough questions about the Chinagate fund-raising scandal.

[truth-updates] News from TheTruthAboutGeorge.com

[truth-updates] News from TheTruthAboutGeorge.com

W's Flip Flops and Lies

The "John Kerry flip-flops on the issues" attacks have been relentless these past few weeks, but has anyone really checked Bush's record? For the most part, the media has ignored Bush's obvious flip-flops, but on August 30, Bush's statement that the war on terror could not be won caught national attention. The next day, Bush was back to his firm resolution that "we will win" the war on terror. Fortunately, people are beginning to notice this disturbing trend. The Center for American Progress has issued a series of Bush's embarrassing flip-flops on important issues:

1. Social Security Surplus:

BUSH PLEDGES NOT TO TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... "We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus." [President Bush, 3/3/01]

BUSH SPENDS SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... The New York Times reported that "the president's new budget uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes." [The New York Times, 2/6/02]

2. Abortion:

BUSH SUPPORTS A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE... "Bush said he...favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question." [The Nation, 6/15/00, quoting the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 5/78]

BUSH OPPOSES A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE... "I am pro-life." [Governor Bush, 10/3/00]

3. Weapons of Mass Destruction

BUSH SAYS WE FOUND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION..."We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." [President Bush, Interview in Poland, 5/29/03]

BUSH SAYS WE HAVEN'T FOUND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION... "David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons. And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out." [President Bush, Meet the Press, 2/7/04]

4. Osama bin Laden

BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]

BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA... "I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him." [President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]

5. Gay Marriage

BUSH SAYS GAY MARRIAGE IS A STATE ISSUE... "The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue like you're trying to get me into." [Gov. George W. Bush on Gay Marriage, Larry King Live, 2/15/00]

BUSH SUPPORTS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BANNING GAY MARRIAGE... "Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife." [President Bush, 2/24/04]

For more of Bush's troubling flip-flops visit the Center for American Progress

Michelle Malkin: NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB

Michelle Malkin: NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB

NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB

By Michelle Malkin · September 20, 2005 06:45 AM

**updated**

Another disastrous crony appointment in the making

This is Julie Myers, President Bush's nominee to head the the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.

Her nomination is a joke. A bad joke: (via WaPo)

The Bush administration is seeking to appoint a lawyer with little immigration or customs experience to head the troubled law enforcement agency that handles those issues, prompting sharp criticism from some employee groups, immigration advocates and homeland security experts.

The push to appoint Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, comes in the midst of intense debate over the qualifications of department political appointees involved in the sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina...

...After working as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, N.Y., for two years, Myers held a variety of jobs over the past four years at the White House and at the departments of Commerce, Justice and Treasury, though none involved managing a large bureaucracy. Myers worked briefly as chief of staff to Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division before he became Homeland Security secretary.

Myers also was an associate under independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr for about 16 months and has most recently served as a special assistant to President Bush handling personnel issues.

Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.

In written answers to questions from Congress, Myers highlighted her year-long job as assistant secretary for export enforcement at Commerce, where she said she supervised 170 employees and a $25 million budget. ICE has more than 20,000 employees and a budget of approximately $4 billion. Its personnel investigate immigrant, drug and weapon smuggling, and illegal exports, among other responsibilities.

Myers was on her honeymoon and was not available to comment yesterday. Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, cited Myers's work with customs agents on money-laundering and drug-smuggling cases. "She's well-known and respected throughout the law enforcement community," Healy said. "She has a proven track record as an effective manager."

Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco. And I can tell you that contrary to the Miss Mary Sunshine White House spokeswoman's comments, rank-and-file DHS employees and immigration enforcement officials are absolutely livid about Myers' nomination.

This e-mail I received last week says it all:

As you probably know, this is the largest investigative arm of DHS and the second largest Federal investigative agency after the FBI. ICE’s critical homeland security mission is directed at all Customs and Immigration violations occurring in the interior of the U.S. These are the officers that have to respond to calls of illegal aliens, drug loads with a border nexus and the detention and removal of all illegal aliens place in removal proceedings. ICE accounts for close to 80% of all arrests made within the FBI’s joint terrorism task force. ICE criminally prosecutes more individuals than any other Federal agency.

My point is, ICE is the lead agency to proactively prevent terrorism in the U.S. Ms. Myers, although learned, has barely the legal requirement to be nominated as the AS for ICE. The law requires 5 years of managerial experience and 5 years of law enforcement experience. Ms. Myers is 35 and has worked as the following(estimates): private attorney 2 years; AUSA EDNY 2 years; Deputy Asst Sec Treasury 2 years; Chief of Staff for Michael Chertoff at Main Justice 2 years; Starr Commission 1 year; Director of Commerce’s Export Control agency 2 years; and the White House Personnel 2 years. The most direct law enforcement experience is supervising 250 Commerce Special Agents which pursues similar violations on export control as ICE. Roughly 11 years of experience to lead the 12,000 law enforcement officer ICE agency. You decide if this is sufficient. I can guarantee you that she would never have been nominated to run the FBI, DEA or Secret Service. It’s almost like the old INS days where they just throw out the political favors. Maybe she’s getting the job because she’s tight with Chertoff. Maybe it’s because she’s the niece of General Myers (Chair Joint Chiefs of Staff). Who knows, but I guarantee you this, the next time some illegal aliens commit a terrorist act on U.S. soil, people are going to be scrutinizing her resume.

Sorry to ramble but unfortunately the majority of DHS is being run by hacks, snot nose youngsters who couldn’t find an illegal alien in Tijuana, and other “connected” people with no knowledge, experience, or business being in the Homeland Security sector. I guess it’s a good resume line to have these days.

Indeed.

Bush cronies hit jackpot in Afghanistan, Iraq

Bush cronies hit jackpot in Afghanistan, Iraq

Bush cronies hit jackpot in Afghanistan, Iraq

Hi Pakistan
Nov. 5, 2003

WASHINGTON: Some 70 US companies with good connections to the Bush administration have won at least eight billion dollars worth of reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past two years, an independent research group said on Thursday.

"This is all outrageous," said Charles Lewis, executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity (CPI), the organization that carried out the investigation.

"The last time I checked, in this democracy we are supposed to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people, not public officials protecting private companies behind closed doors," he said.

According to the six-month probe by the centre, the 70 firms donated more money to the presidential campaign of George W. Bush than they collectively did to any other politician over the past dozen years.

The investigation, which examined contracts awarded in 2002 through September 2003, provides the most complete list to date of US contractors in the two nations that were invaded by the United States in its self-styled 'war on terror'.

The study does not look into dozens of subcontracts. The findings that came out in a brief report, 'Windfalls of War: US Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan', show that Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the subsidiary of the giant US oil field services firm Halliburton, was the top recipient of federal contracts for the two countries, worth more than 2.3 billion dollars.

Vice President Dick Cheney led the Houston-based corporation prior to being chosen as Bush's running mate in August 2000. Cheney still receives a six-figure deferred annual compensation from Halliburton that the company says is not affected by current business decisions.

Halliburton said on Wednesday that its revenue rose to 4.1 billion dollars from 3.0 billion dollars in the third quarter as a result of government work by KBR. KBR's no-bid contract with the US Army Crops of Engineers to modernize Iraq's oil industry has been under fire from many congressional Democrats and civil society groups who say the deal illustrates favouritism in the Republican administration.

The San Francisco-based Bechtel Group, a leading engineering company and a major government contractor, also with high-ranking ties, was second with awarded contracts worth 1.03 billion dollars.

Bechtel's CEO Riley Bechtel was appointed in February by Bush to the President's Export Council, an influential economic advisory panel. Another company with ties to the administration that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan is Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

It received seven contracts in Iraq, one of them to help rebuild the country's media, a deal estimated to be worth 38 million dollars in year one but perhaps more than 90 million dollars in 2004.

David Kay, the former United Nations weapons inspector who was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to track down weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is a former vice president of SAIC.

The CPI, which prides itself on "public service journalism" and says it does not accept funding from corporations, labour unions or governments, said its research also found that dozens of lower-profile but well-connected companies also won big in the reconstruction bonanza.

The top 10 US contractors in Iraq include International American Products, Perini Corporation and Contrack International. "Their tasks ranged from rebuilding Iraq's government, police, military and media, to providing translators for use in interrogations and psychological operations," said the report. "There are even contractors to evaluate the contractors."

The centre says that nearly 60 per cent of the 70 companies had employees or board members who either served in or had close ties to the executive branch for Republican and Democratic administrations, for members of Congress of both parties or at the highest levels of the military.

It also found that nearly every one of the 10 largest contracts awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan went to companies employing former senior government officials with close links to those agencies or to Congress.

Using an analysis of campaign finance records, the findings show that the top 10 contractors were also long-time political donors. The companies gave nearly 11 million dollars to national political parties, candidates and political action committees since 1990.

"Indeed, most of the companies that won contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan were political players," says the report. Among individual candidates that received money from those contractors, Bush collected more money than any other, a little more than 500,000 dollars.

According to the investigation, Iraq outpaced Afghanistan, once ground zero in Washington's war on terrorism, as the locale for contracted work. The centre says at least 5.7 billion dollars in government funding went to US contractors in Iraq. Nearly one-half of that, 2.7 billion dollars, went for work in Afghanistan.

The centre's team of journalists, researchers and former media officials complained that they had to wrestle the information in the report from the administration.

The group had to rely on 73 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and appeals to demand information from the Pentagon, the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The centre filed suit in the US District Court in Washington, D.C., against the State Department and the Army after both agencies failed to cooperate fully with its request for information as outlined under the FOIA.

In a statement, the centre charged that USAID and the Pentagon went as far as to initially omit the largest contracts they had awarded in Iraq from the information provided to the investigation - contracts to Bechtel and to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary.

The CIP warned that because of such secrecy shrouding contracts in Iraq, and because of official reluctance to share information, the total value of contracts awarded for reconstruction work in Iraq and Afghanistan may be actually much larger than what is publicly known. Experts say such findings are disturbing and illustrate how US policy in Iraq is in fact counter-productive.

"Both US and Iraqi interests would be better served if the management of reconstruction funds served as a concrete demonstration of how to create a capable post-war state rather than a secretive contracting operation," said Gayle Smith of the Centre of American Progress, a liberal think tank here.

"The mere perception that US contractors with ties to the Bush administration are profiting from their connections damages support for the operation in Iraq and at home." -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.