VERIZON SPYGATE, JUST THE FACTS

NSA'S DATA MINING PROGRAM

BREAKING UPDATE 6/7/13 12:56

The group called "Anonymous" leaks NSA Documents.

Maybe, just maybe. if House Republicans had voted to repeal the PATRIOT Act 37 times. Then the NSA looking at your phone records would not be an issue.

Hot off the heels of the revelation that Verizon has been supplying the National Security Agency (NSA) with phone records for all domestic calls, the Washington Post reveals the NSA and FBI are data mining the servers of nine technology companies, “extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.”

Companies participating in the program are obliged to accept “a directive” from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence to open their servers to the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit. In exchange, the companies receive immunity from lawsuits.

The broad, top secret program, code-named PRISM, was established in 2007 with Microsoft as its first partner but now counts Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple among its membership. Twitter is notably absent from the list.

PRISM appears to closely resemble the warrant-less surveillance orders issues by President Bush after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks rather than a dragnet data collection operation, but the NSA has the capability to search through the company’s servers for whatever it likes. To collect data, analysts in Fort Meade key in search terms designed to produce an “at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s ‘foreignness.’”

But even when meeting that relatively low threshold, by its very nature the system likely collects information about Americans who have had communications with the target, and analysts are trained to chain through two degrees of separation of contacts from the initial target. This chaining means that many Americans are likely the subject of “incidental” surveillance.

Analysts have access to Facebook’s “extensive search and surveillance capabilities” while the Skype partnership allows for monitoring of any combination of “audio, video, chat, and file transfers”, and Google allows surveillance of “Gmail, voice and video chat, photo libraries, and live surveillance of search terms.” The career intelligence officer who leaked documents about the program to the Washington Post noted “they quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type.”

Apple and Facebook have both denied participation in the program, with Apple saying they've “never heard” of it, and Facebook flatly denying they provide “any government organization with direct access” to their servers. Google has been slightly less clear, but told Washington Post they lack a back door for the government to obtain access to private user data and care “deeply” about the privacy of users.

An internal presentation on the operation obtained by the Post claims PRISM is the most frequent contributor to the President’s Daily Brief, saying it was cited in 1,477 articles last year and accounts for nearly 1 in 7 intelligence reports within the NSA. A parallel initiative also revealed by the Post, codenamed BLARNEY, is an ongoing data collection program that gathers “metadata” such as address packets and device signatures as it streams past choke points in internet infrastructure.

Additionally, since the writing of this blog:

Amie Stepanovich, Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Domestic Surveillance Project noted that the 51 percent threshold reportedly used by NSA analysts not only “leaves a lot of room for error” initially, but combined with the chaining effect and how studies of private data brokers have shown that innate qualities like “foreignness” are often quite difficult to determine, the chance of an American citizens’ data being incidentally caught up in the program could actually be “incredibly high.”

The Washington Post has now backtracked on their claims that government had direct access to servers, editing their report to include more responses from companies and this statement: “it is possible that the conflict between the PRISM slides and the company spokesmen is the result of imprecision on the part of the NSA author. In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing ‘collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,’ rather than directly to company servers.” This change only strengthens the argument that the NSA had access to copies of the data.

The National Security Agency and the FBI don't bear all the responsibility for the revelation that Verizon is turning phone records over to the government. That responsibility lies with the members of Congress who voted for the PATRIOT Act, as well as extensions of it and the provisions related to collecting those records. Over 100 people currently serving in the House and Senate voted for the original Act in 2001. Last year, over 300 voted to extend a key provision.

The problem with all this is again, this is a by-product of G.W. Bush regime. Where was the anger in 2001 [and 2011] when congress passed this and Bush signed into law? Who's to blame ?

At the end of the day, in this time of terror, this is a necessary evil. I personally do not feel violated that my phone numbers are monitored - what should be more irritating is that Facebook, Google and others monitor your activities much more than NSA, where is the outcry over this?

This is the sign of the times - of a post 9/11 country, while you may find it intrusive, I find it acceptable, for the failure not to monitor, is just another invitation to another horrible terrorist act on this great land.


NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

SCANDALS AND CONSPIRACIES

Since the election of President Obama, the American Taliban has been OCD [Obsessive-compulsive disorder] with scandals and conspiracies. The list of darts to throw at the President on any given day is a plethora if you are a GOPer.

If you spend every hour of your working life inventing new ways to attack Barack Obama or the government [or both], this is a very good week for you — or at least it should be. After wallowing through the deserts of Benghazi and Fast and Furious for four years, trying to extract any tiny drop of scandal from stone, now suddenly comes gold from the heavens, courtesy of the IRS and its misguided attempt to prevent political groups from taking advantage of the non-profit tax code. Then, even before your salad is done, the Department of Justice snoops on reporters. Hallelujah to the Republican God Ronald Reagan! The Promised Land of Impeachment can’t be far off.

Three scandals in a period of seven days, the mother load has cometh for the American Taliban.

Unfortunately, as with most of these stories, same ole shit just a different political party. Before we start urinating our pants and dancing in the streets with "we got him this time", let's autopsy what we know.


REV AL

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

THE COLBERT REPORT

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

BENGHAZI:

As we have written over the past few weeks, Benghazi is the story that never was. Yes 4 Americans died, and that is a tragedy, but making up shit so that you have something against the President doesn't work, because as always, facts out trump bullshit any day of the week. 74% of the American Taliban think that Benghazi is worse than Watergate and Iran - Contra. The kicker to this stat is - that 39% of the 74% cannot tell you where Benghazi is. Really? If your going to call bullshit, shouldn't you at least know where bullshit is?

In breaking news: the Benghazi "Scandal" - Jack Tapper of CNN exposed ABC - as an email found by Tapper shows that ABC edited their content to make the President look bad. Here is the Tapper release as it was sent out last night.

This latest bit of information shows just how low the American Taliban will go to discredit the President, and this disgusting signal, is as disturbing as the party itself. Of late, the American Taliban's motto is, if we can't hit the goal, move the goal post so that we can hit the target. A disgusting pattern of shoot first and ask queries later.

Epic Failure by the American Taliban!


ASSOCIATED PRESS

Let's be clear readers, jeopardizing National Security is a dangerous game to play, [First amendment to the constitution or not]. On MSNBC last night Rachael Maddow explains the complexities of "freedom of the press"

Pay attention to the Maddow clip below:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

IRS

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Taken from a mentor of mine, Jared Bernstein

Nope, I'm not going to defend the IRS, which appears to have acted in ways wholly inconsistent with their mandate for unbiased investigations into, in this case, whether certain political groups should receive tax-exempt status. It is unclear how high up the chain of command these untoward actions went, but this morning's news suggests it wasn't just a few rogue auditors in Cincinnati.

The problem wasn't that the agency scrutinized these so-called "social welfare" organizations -- as I'll emphasize in a moment, tax law in this area is an accident going out to happen. It's that they violated neutrality, investigating conservative groups by searching on "tea party" and "patriot."

Republicans will of course try to pin this on the president, despite the fact that since Nixon used the IRS to target his enemies, the president's been barred from even discussing this kind of thing with the agency.

No, the problem here isn't the president. It's the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and subsequent tax law written by Congress that gives these groups tax exempt status (under rule 501(c)(4)) as long as most of their activities are primarily on educating the public about policy issues, not direct campaigning.

Of course, the ambiguities therein are insurmountable. Many of these groups, especially the big ones, spend millions on campaign ads mildly disguised as "issue ads," and under current law they can do so limitlessly and with impunity.

According to today's NYT:

The tax code states that 501(c)(4)'s must operate "exclusively" to promote social welfare, a category that excludes political spending. Some court decisions have interpreted that language to mean that a minimal amount of political spending would be permissible. But the I.R.S. has for years maintained that groups meet that rule as long as they are not "primarily engaged" in election work, a substantially different threshold.

Nowhere do the rules specify what "primarily engaged" means...

Again, I see no way that a government agency could fairly interpret and enforce these instructions. What is "primarily engaged"-at which point does an issue ad cross the threshold into campaign ad -- what kind of "education" is GPS Crossroads providing and how is it promoting "social welfare?"

Weirdly, the IRS hasn't seemed particularly interested in going after the big fish here, like Rove's Crossroads GPS on the right or Priorities USA on the left. Instead, they appear to have systematically targeted small fry on the far right. If so, not only is that clearly biased and unacceptable -- it's also ridiculous given the magnitude of the violations of tax exempt status by these small groups relative to the big ones.

At the end of the day, we should really ask ourselves what societal purpose is being served here by carving out special tax status for any of these groups. If anyone can show me any evidence that the revenue forgone is well spent, that these groups are making our political system and our country better off, please do so. If not, then no one's saying shut them down -- they've got a right to speak their minds. But not tax free.

Fact: Mitch McConnell used to be suspicious of the same 501(c)(4) groups that the IRS targeted.

Dear Tea Baggers, It sucks when you're unfairly treated because of prejudices about your name and appearance - see how things tend to come full circle?


All three of the scenarios above also happened on G.W. Bush's watch. The problem with the comparisons are, that under Bush, not a republican raised an eyebrow to complain, to impeach, nor did they attempt to drag any senior government official through the mud.

Benghahzi, Bush had thirteen type Benghazi's under his watch.

Bush wires taps country.

IRS attacks NAACP under George Bush.

When the IRS targeted Liberals.


If I had advice to give to the tea baggers, I would say - number one rule in maintaining your narrative in a political stance, Stop accepting new information when the tide of facts turns contrary to your agenda.

At the very least the American Taliban suffers from Bushnesia, at its worst, they are the diabolical party that we see on Cable news on a nightly bases, lying, deceiving, hypocrisy of the highest order. The key to all these "scandals and conspiracies" is to dissect facts from bullshit, let the whole story play itself out before jumping the C&S freight train!

The IRS has always been a deviant entity, whether under Democratic rule or the American Taliban - freedom of press, its been a source of problematic issues since our countries inception, hence why the founders addressed it in the first amendment.

At the end of the day the American Taliban has what they want, "lame street medias" attention, Obama is engaged and taking action. The time for the narrative of "media bias" is no more, at least for the IRS and AP stories.

A saying here at the NFTOS horseshoe is "what these scandals need are a good conspiracy theory".



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

BUSH v. GORE REGRETS

Former Supreme Justice Sandra Day O' Connor

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the conservative retired justice who provided the fifth vote to install George W. Bush as president, is now having second thoughts about that decision:

Looking back, O’Connor said, she isn’t sure the high court should have taken [Bush v. Gore].

“It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue,” O’Connor said during a talk Friday with the Tribune editorial board. “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’”

The case, she said, “stirred up the public” and “gave the court a less-than-perfect reputation.”

“Obviously the court did reach a decision and thought it had to reach a decision,” she said. “It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn’t done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.“

If nothing else, Bush v. Gore demonstrates how justices who are determined to reach a certain result are capable of bending both the law and their own prior jurisprudence in order to achieve it. In Bush, the five conservative justices held, in the words of Harvard’s Larry Tribe, that “equal protection of the laws required giving no protection of the laws to the thousands of still uncounted ballots.”

The Court’s decision to hand the presidency to Bush stunned many legal observers, some of whom were O’Connor’s fellow justices. Retired Justice John Paul Stevens once recounted a story where he ran into fellow Justice Stephen Breyer at a party while a relatively early phase of the case was pending before the Court. According to Stevens, “we agreed that the application was frivolous.”

Indeed, Bush’s own lawyers were skeptical of the legal theory that ultimately made up the basis of the Court’s decision in Bush. As Ben Ginsberg, a top lawyer on Bush’s presidential campaign, explained in 2006, “just like really with the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have some fundamental philosophical difficulties with the whole notion of Equal Protection.”

And, yet, O’Connor and four of her fellow Republicans joined together to embrace a particularly aggressive reading of Equal Protection — at least so long as it could put George W. Bush in the White House.




NFTOS
STAFF WRITER

THE IRAQI WAR TEN YEARS LATER

THE LIARS OF WMD

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Iraqi war, we post a letter from a dying soldier to G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

—Tomas Young

While these two heartless souls continue to declare ignorance on the subject at hand, Americans now know that these two bullshitted their way, often and frequently into the Iraqi war.

Read the book "Hubris, the inside story of spin and scandal and the selling of the Iraq war" by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. You can also watch the MSNBC HUBRIS documentary in it's full entirety below:

HUBRIS

“Making up a reason to invade a country is the easy part,” Mr. Cheney said. “Sticking to a pretend story for ten years—that is the stuff of valor.” ~ Andy Borowitz.




NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

NATHAN SPROUL

NATHAN SPROUL GOP VOTER FRAUD MAN OF THE YEAR

The election fraud we told you about on Friday's blog includes some pretty serious allegations about the voter registration fraud being perpetrated by Republican-paid people, and there's a history of unethical practices by one Nathan Sproul.

Let it be known, none of the voter ID laws that The American Taliban has been pushing lately would have stopped anything like this. It's time for Fux Ewes, Faux News or whatever they're called today to air the error of their parties ways.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Denial is not the only river in Egypt. ThinkProgress covered Sproul and his work for the coal industry back in 2009. The post goes through his greatest hits, including evidence that his firm systematically suppressed Democratic voters on behalf of the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential team and deceiving voters during registration drives in 2006.

Don’t forget that Nathan Sproul got his start in the early ’90s as one of the ringleaders of the Arizona branch of the Christian Coalition. If that doesn’t brand him as a Kool-Aid drinker, I don’t know what will.

Sproul has a pathological history of voter fraud allegations, this is not his first nor shall it be his last, unless he is found guilty of these felonies. He has been accused of tampering with Democratic voter registration forms over several election cycles across multiple states. Nathan Sproul, today's worst person in the world, and American's number one committer of voter fraud.



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

KNUCKLE DRAGGERS

THE GOP CIRCA 2012

The GOP and its radical ideology/mentality are very Neanderthal-ish, so much so that even today, circa 2012, these troglodytes if you will, still think its cool and OK to roam the planet and have their knuckles dragging the pavement. 

Mitt Robme and Lying Ryan are proposing the query, "are you better of today than four years ago"?

NFTOS has found a treasure of gold with a little help from Ed Shultz of MSBNC fame.

The below clip is almost to the day exactly four years old. This frantic speech from G. W. Bush was given from the White House September 24th, 2008.




Now you tell me, are we better off than four years ago?

NFTOS

Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

Why Is G.W. Too Blame You Ask?



Sixty-eight percent of Americans — including 49 percent of Republicans — say President George W. Bush is responsible for the state of today’s economy, a new Gallup poll finds.

Indeed, the country is still reeling from Bush’s disastrous economic stewardship. His irresponsible tax cuts and deregulatory policies have contributed significantly to the slow recovery and are partly responsible for the nation’s economic plight. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Deregulated Wall Street: It was a great time to be a Wall Street executive during the Bush administration. Sweeping financial deregulation helped build the housing bubble and allowed financial institutions to pursue risky trades unchecked. In fact, Bush eliminated the rules that allowed Wall Street to cause the financial crash that plunged the nation into the Great Recession.

2. Cut Taxes For The Wealthy: The Bush tax cuts — over 50 percent of which benefited the richest 5 percent of American taxpayers — cost about $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were enacted. Ten years later, Bush’s tax cuts are still the main driving factor of the national debt:

3. Ran Up A Tab On Two Wars: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the country trillions of dollars. Combined with Bush’s tax cuts, war spending was a main factor in blowing up the deficit and spending the surplus accumulated under Clinton. Lawmakers now use the deficit as an excuse for inaction.

4. Left Homeowners In A Lurch: While Bush was happy to help out the banks in the wake of the housing crisis, he did little to assist struggling homeowners. Hope For Homeowners, Bush’s proposal to assist those struggling with their mortgages, was a colossal failure; in its first six months, it helped just one homeowner renegotiate his mortgage. Many mortgage holders — 15.7 million or, one in three — are still underwater today.


5. Weakened Workers: Bush weakened worker safety regulations and collective bargaining rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department of Labor throughout his time in office. Today, corporations are back to making record profits, while workers’ incomes are falling.



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

George W. Bush Most Disliked POTUS Of All

The Baffoon/Stooge Named George W. Bush

George W. Bush’s favorable rating lowest of any living president, poll shows

President George W. Bush had a low favorable rating when he left office, and he's still not popular, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Thursday. In fact, he's the only living president with a favorable rating that's under 50 percent.

The polls shows that 43% of people questioned had a favorable opinion of Bush, with 54% saying they had an unfavorable view. That's the same favorable rating Bush had in 2010 in CNN polling, but it is up from his mid-30's favorable rating during 2009.

How might this play out in this year's presidential election? "Don't be surprised if the Obama campaign mentions the name of George W. Bush at every opportunity, and don't be surprised if that strategy works," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

When respondents were asked whether they are better or worse off than they were four years ago, they split, 44 percent to 43 percent. But when asked if they are better or worse off than they were "when Bush was president," 47 percent say they are better off compared to 41 percent who say they are worse off, the poll found.

Here's how the other living president's stack up: Bill Clinton, a 66 percent favorable rating and a 31 percent unfavorable; George H.W. Bush, a 59 percent favorable rating and 34 percent unfavorable; and Jimmy Carter, 54 percent favorable and 30 percent unfavorable.

The CNN poll was conducted by ORC International, with 1,009 adult Americans questioned by telephone from May 29-31. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.



NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

GEORGE W. BUSH THE SECOND?



The Dummest POTUS of Our Time

It is not unusual for people to emulate their heroes and attempt to equal or exceed their achievements that are successful. There are problems, though, when a politician strives to imitate a previous politician’s tactics and accomplishments especially if the politician’s agenda turned out to be disastrous. Willard Romney has demonstrated time and again that he intends to equal the accomplishments of George W. Bush in every area and particularly in giving incredibly large tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of the economic health of the nation. However, as catastrophic to the economy and nation’s deficit as giving trillions away to the rich is, Americans should be mortified at Romney’s intent to repeat Bush’s war-mongering that will cost taxpayer dollars, military hardware, and countless lives.

This column has reported for months that Romney is anxious to start a war with Iran and that he persists demeaning the President’s Middle East policies and particularly that President Obama has abandoned Israel. Romney’s close ties to Benjamin Netanyahu are common knowledge, and his delusional belief that his Mormonism qualifies him as a latter-day Jew in latter-day American Israel, although not common knowledge, are driving him to believe Iran must be attacked to preserve Israel and by Romney’s twisted beliefs, America. However, his cult beliefs aside, he is emulating Bush’s “crusade” against Islam and based on his choice of foreign policy advisors, he informs his intention to initiate a “substantial war” with Iran if he wins the presidency. Although Romney avoided ever mentioning Bush throughout the Republican primary, he intends to return to Bush’s America as a unilateral interventionist state despite Americans’ weariness of over ten years of war.

Romney is a foreign policy dolt, and to make up for his lack of experience he assembled a foreign policy team that includes Bush neoconservative advisors that are war-hawks, to the right of Bush, and closely aligned with Israel’s right-wing war-mongers. Romney’s rhetoric during the primary insinuates he will use cowboy diplomacy as a first option, reset President Obama’s foreign policy by refusing to negotiate, return to Reagan-era antagonism towards Russia, and begin an economy-killing military buildup at home. The Washington Monthly called Romney’s proposed foreign policy vision the “more enemies, fewer friends doctrine” that portends a rapid return to the Islamic nation-destroying Bush doctrine President Obama inherited and corrected with diplomacy and measured use of force. A foreign policy expert at the Cato Institute, Christopher Preble, said a Romney presidency is “likely to be in the mold of George W. Bush when it comes to foreign policy if he were to be elected.”

What Americans should be most alarmed at is Romney’s foreign policy advisors that include eight neoconservatives from the Project for a new American Century (PNAC) who signed a letter urging both the Clinton and Bush administrations to attack Iraq, and John Bolton, the man who “never met a war he didn’t like” who told Israel before the Iraq invasion that Syria, Iran, and North Korea would be the next American targets. Bolton has pushed Israel to drag America into another costly war on Islam, and campaigns for Romney as a proponent of war with Iran. When he endorsed Romney, Bolton said “Mitt Romney will restore our military, repair relations with our closest allies and ensure that no adversary—including Iran—ever questions American resolve,” and Romney responded with “John’s wisdom, clarity and courage are qualities that should typify our foreign policy.” Bolton’s wisdom and courage are non-existent, but he does exhibit the clarity of a warmonger who will never be in harm’s way except when facing questions on why he and his cohorts pushed for a war with Iraq when there was no evidence to remotely suggest Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, a nuclear program, or assisted Al Qaeda in the terror attacks of 9/11. Another Romney advisor and a founder of PNAC, Eliot Cohen, labeled the war on terror “World War IV” and contended after 9/11 that Iraq was an “obvious candidate, having not only helped Al Qaeda, but…developed weapons of mass destruction,” and in 2009 urged President Obama to “actively seek the overthrow of Iran’s government.”

Willard Romney has spent a major portion of his campaign reiterating a PNAC white paper’s contention he first revealed in a speech at the Citadel that President Obama believes “there is nothing unique about the United States” and “issued apologies for America” and other hawkish and prohibitively costly proposals such as increasing the number of Navy warships, placing a defensive missile shield over Europe, stationing two aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran, and increasing the size of the military by 100,000 troops. A senior fellow at the New America Foundation said that Romney’s Citadel speech was “was one of the most inchoate, disorganized, cliché-filled foreign policy speeches that any serious candidate has ever given” demonstrating Romney is following his neocon war council’s recommendations that are Bush’s cowboy diplomacy to the extreme.

Of the 40 members of Romney’s foreign policy team, 70% were instrumental in pushing America into the Iraq war and Cato Institute expert Preble said “I can’t name a single Romney foreign policy adviser who believes the Iraq War was a mistake” despite the mountain of evidence it was a calculated disaster; over two-thirds of Americans believe that invading Iraq was a mistake. Like most of Romney’s foreign policy positions, he chooses to align himself with neoconservative warmongers and Americans who believe so strongly in their distorted vision of American exceptionalism that they share his belief that the United States has divine right to impose its will, death and destruction, and pro-Israel stance on every country in the world including Russia, but particularly Islamic nations. In fact, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post in March, Romney wrote regarding war with Iran that, “Either the ayatollahs will get the message, or they will learn some very painful lessons about the meaning of American resolve.” So, if Willard wants a war with Iran and will increase the size of the military by 100,000 troops, he can prove his resolve by sending his 5 sons as the front line of an invasion force and if he is ill-prepared to do that, he is just another chicken hawk and a coward draft dodger like one of his warmonger heroes Dick Cheney.

America cannot return to George W. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy of bomb first and never negotiate any more than Romney’s version of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Another war and increasing the military budget will decimate the economy to prove that America is exceptional if one believes Romney and his warmonger foreign policy team. He plans to spend at least 4% of GDP on defense that is a 38% increase over President Obama’s budget, and according to Merrill Goozner of the Fiscal Times, “Romney’s proposal to embark on a second straight decade of escalating military spending would be the first time in American history that war preparation and defense spending had increased as a share of overall economic activity for such an extended period,” wrote Merrill Goozner in the Fiscal Times. “When coupled with the 20 percent cut in taxes he promises, it would require shrinking domestic spending to levels not seen since the Great Depression—before programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid began. Such cuts, would likely throw the U.S. economy back into deep recession.” Even Grover Norquist and the Cato Institute urged Congress to make serious Pentagon cuts and it led to a manic pushback from the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute who echo Romney’s belief that drastically increasing defense spending is necessary to keep American exceptional.

It is exceptional lunacy to return to Bush-era warmongering as much as exceeding his tax cuts for the wealthy that together portend a devastating blow to the economy and fragile recovery President Obama has lead with spending on Americans instead of another war. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a candidate emulating a previous politician’s agenda and policies, but Romney’s choice of George W. Bush is remarkable; no, stunning that he would choose the worst president in America’s history who presided over two unnecessary and unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts for the wealthy, and destroyed America’s reputation around the world. However, that is the path Willard envisions for America and not only is he a chicken hawk coward; he will be the undoing of the economy and any goodwill President Obama has fostered from America’s friends and enemies alike. If Romney were not a coward, he would campaign as Bush incarnate and promise voters to exceed Bush’s malfeasance and record of unprovoked war and economic destruction that he promises to repeat if he wins the White House.




NFTOS
Staff Writer
Steve "Damn Nazi Liberal" Chevapravatdumrong

What's In A Resume You Ask

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Resume
George W. Bush
Crawford, Texas 76636


Objective

To be a fry cook at Burger King


Education (caution language)

I wasn’t the best college student around (understatement) and I ranked 894 out of 899 at the Naval Academy. I earned a 1206 on the SATs. (1200 are you kidding me 1200 won't get you into community college, never mind Yale), so I wonder how much influence my dad had with getting me into Yale?

Past Work Experience

•Ran for congress and lost.

•Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.

•Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

•Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.

•With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas

•Worst POTUS in United States History

Accomplishments in Previous Positions

 •Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the    Union.

•Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money. 

•Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.  

•Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my     father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

 •Attacked and took over two countries.

•Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.

•Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.

•Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period. •Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

•First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

•First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

•First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.

•After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

•Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.

•In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.

•Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.

•Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

•Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.

•Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.

•Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.

•Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

•Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.

•Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.

•Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

•Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.

•My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.

•Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).

•First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.

•Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.

•First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.

•Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.

•Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.

•First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.

•First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board. 

•Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.

•Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.

•Withdrew from the World Court of Law.

•Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

•First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).

•All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.

•My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

•Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.

•First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

•First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)

•First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.

•Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).

•With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.

•Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

•First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.

•Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

•Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.

•Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'

•Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.

•In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.

•Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.

•In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.

•Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

Records and References

•At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available)

•AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.

•Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.

•All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

•All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

•All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

•Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review

•For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

And you teabaggers are going to bitch about a birth certificate? Really, could a man of "Muslim" faith possibly have done any worse?

By the way we have posted this many times, but just to irritate the righties:

For you Birthers out there

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

Speaking Of WTF Moments "Do as I Say...Not As I Do!

Whoever dreamed up the phrase "An Elephant Never Forgets" must have had end stage Alzheimer's!

Two former "torture" lawyers to George W. Bush agree that POTUS is mad with power.

President Barack Obama has finally done something that makes even the Bush administration attorneys who helped craft the legal rationales for torture, warrantless wiretapping, and indefinite detention tremble with fear: Last week, he made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Quotes below sourced by "motherjones".

"David Addington, the former legal counsel to then-Vice President Dick Cheney who helped construct the legal justifications for Bush-era torture policies, argued the president had the "inherent" authority to ignore federal law when spying on American citizens, and put forth the novel view that the vice president's office is not a part of the executive branch and therefore not subject to congressional oversight, told the New York Times that Obama's recess appointments were "flabbergasting and, to be honest, a little chilling."

"John Yoo, the former attorney with the Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel who suggested the president could order a child's testicles crushed, massacre a village of civilians or unilaterally suspend free speech in the event of a terrorist attack, also fears for the future of the republic if the president is able to bypass Senate procedural gimmicks meant to block recess appointments. At National Review, Yoo attacks Obama for his "abuse" of executive power in appointing Richard Cordray to head the CFPB."

David Addington

As counsel to the Vice President, Addington's duties involved protecting the purported legal interests of the Office of the Vice President, despite the only duties actually given the U.S. Vice President under the United States Constitution are to be first in line to succeed the President in the event of his or her death, or a statutorily-defined inability to effectively discharge the powers of the office, and to be the presiding officer of the United States Senate, with the duty to cast a deciding vote in that body in the event of any tie votes among the members of the Senate itself.

Addington, known as the The "invisible hand" served as the ramrod driving the Bush administration's most secretive and controversial counterterrorism measures through the bureaucracy. David Addington was a key advocate of the Brown v. Board and more than 750 other signing statements the administration has issued since taking office--a record that far outstrips that of any other president.

Quoting NFTOS Edito-In-Chief Roger West:

"Name one significant action taken by the Bush White House after 9/11, and chances are better than ever that Addington had a role in it. In national security circles, Addington was viewed as such a force of nature that one former government lawyer nicknamed him "Keyser Soze," after the ruthless crime boss in the thriller The Usual Suspects. "

Perhaps David Addington’s greatest objective throughout his service with the U.S. government has been the vast expansion of executive power that has enabled the governmental infraction of human rights. With a 20 year career history in national security, Addington has helped profile the Bush administration’s strategy in the war on terror including a narrow interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and a stalwart belief that the powers of the presidency are the only solution to national security-the administration’s default excuse for the use of persecution and other war crimes. This has entailed a very broad interpretation of U.S. law prohibiting torture, allowing the president to override or ignore laws put in place to criminalize the act. This became especially germane following the 9/11 attacks, evidenced by an Office of Legal Council opinion disallowing Congress to place any limits upon the president’s response to terrorist threats, essentially handing the president unlimited powers.

NFTOS Editor-In-Chief West goes on to say:

"Addington was the "vice president's point man". Cheney tried to increase executive power with a series of bold actions -- some so audacious that even conservatives on the Supreme Court sympathetic to Cheney's view had rejected them as overreaching."

International War Crimes: In March 2009 Baltasar Garzón, a Spanish judge who has considered international war crimes charges against other high-profile figures, considered whether to allow charges made by Gonzalo Boye, a lawyer who once defended MIR and ETA, to be laid against Addington and five other former officials of the George W. Bush Presidency. Judge Garzon did not dismiss the complaint, but instead ordered the complaint assigned by lottery to another judge, who will then decide whether to pursue the complaint or not. Spanish Attorney General Candido Conde-Pumpido "strongly criticized" the proceedings, labeling them a legal "artifice." Pumpido recommended against prosecution due to lack of material responsibility on the part of the American officials.

John Yoo

John Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration, he became known as the author of the Torture Memos on the use of what the CIA called enhanced interrogation techniques.


Regarding torture of detainees and children of detainees: After he left the Department of Justice, it was revealed that Yoo had authored memos, including co-authoring the Torture Memo of August 1, 2002, defining torture and American habeas corpus obligations narrowly. In addition, a new definition of torture was issued. Most actions that fall under the international definition do not fall within this new definition advocated by the U.S. Several top military lawyers, including Alberto J. Mora, reported that policies allowing methods equivalent to torture were officially handed down from the highest levels of the administration, and led an effort within the Department of Defense to put a stop to those policies and instead mandate non-coercive interrogation standards.

Regarding the Fourth amendment: Yes teapublicans there are more than two amendments.Yoo also authored the October 23, 2001 memo asserting that the President had sufficient power to allow the NSA to monitor the communications of US citizens on US soil without a warrant because the fourth amendment does not apply. Or, as another memo says in one of its footnotes, "Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations." That interpretation is used to assert that the normal mandatory requirement of a warrant, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, could be ignored.

Unitary executive theory: Yoo suggested that since the primary task of the President during a time of war is protecting US citizens, the President has inherent authority to subordinate independent government agencies, and plenary power to use force abroad. Yoo contends that the Congressional check on Presidential war making power comes from its power of the purse, and that the President, and not the Congress or courts, has sole authority to interpret international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions "because treaty interpretation is a key feature of the conduct of foreign affairs". His positions on executive power are controversial because the theory can be interpreted as holding that the President's war powers place him above any law.

But the sad thing is, John Yoo and David Addington are not good people to make these arguments. Watching two men who argued for years that the president could pick and choose which laws to follow and then have them complaining over Obama's recess appointments as an abuse of power is so absurd that one practically has to reach far into fiction land to find parallel analogies. If we could only get Lex Luthor's feelings on financial regulation or Emperor Palpatine's thoughts on the importance of checks and balances.

"Do as I say not as I do" comes to mind, "pot and kettle" also enters the grey matter as well, but overwhelmingly, hypocrites seems to be the best fit here!

NFTOS

BUSHNESIA...DO YOU SUFFER FROM IT?

Bushnesia - Like amnesia, but this mental disorder only seems to effect those of the republcian persuasion.

Many people developed this disorder late in 2008, early 2009 and it continues to spread today. Most if not all of the people with this affliction are republicans, teapublicans, teabaggers, righties and bush supporters. They complain about the huge national debt and the economic disaster that hit during the Bush Administration and then they blame President Obama for the bad effects or after birth of Bush's heinous deeds.

The tea party was founded by people who were upset about out of control government and the huge national debt, however due to bushnesia, they misdirected their anger at Obama rather than the true source of the problem: George W. Bush and pro-rich Republicans!

Republicans have every right, of course, to admit their error and work to undo the deficit they helped create. But instead, today’s GOP leaders act as if the Bush years are irrelevant to America’s debt problem, and they largely defend the tax cuts and wartime spending that helped cause it, lets also not forget Freddie, Fannie, and Wall Street. It’s the same ideological double flip the GOP did in the Gingrich years, when Washington Republicans reinvented themselves as deficit hawks and pretended the Reagan administration had never happened.

Bushnesiac - A republican, , teapublican, teabagger, rightie who is very quick to blame all of the United State's current economic, social, health care, international standing, and military problems on President Barack Obama, conveniently forgetting the past  years of failed policies that brought us to this point.

 So I was wondering this morning, when someone would recognize this condition called Bushnesia or Bushnesiac?

This Bushnesia epidemic is spreading faster than plague did in Stephen King's "The Stand". "Captain Trips' or "Project Blue" spread throughout America in 19 days. You shall also find many Randall Flagg, types in the republican tea bag arena, (also known as "the Dark Man" or "the Walkin’ Dude", whom is the main antagonist of the novel—more (or less) than a man, he is the embodiment of evil, an antichrist-like being whose goal is destruction and death.) I can name many Randall Flaggs in this new teapublican regime.

Take Bill Looman III of the last link for instance. Mr. Looman "wants to take his country back - via militias, "the oath keepers" and PAST (Patriots Against Socialist Takover). Mr. Looman is a prime example of a brain dead human suffering from Bushnesia. (here is a little more on this most dangerous tea bagger). God forbid this idiot get out from under a rock and look at the facts on his beloved George W. Bush.

Its often easy to find a Bushnesiac on facebook, just look for the person posting in all caps with horrific spelling and grammatical errors. Their are several groups out there willing to try to eradicate this God awful disease. Americans Against the Tea Party, 1,000,000 Strong to Help Improve Tea Party Patriots' Spelling and Grammar and finally my favorite I F**ked You ALL, but thanks for blaming it on the black guy. Like any diabolical disease, we can be assured that this one shall not go away anytime soon.

Is Bill Looman a innocent businessman or violent militia member? NFTOS says the latter, but which ever the case this maroon suffers from and is they very epitome of a Bushnesiac.

Like the saying goes "we survived the buffoon (G.W. Bush), you will survive Obama".

Criteria in deciding whether George Bush was a failure or not should include his resume, which includes, disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. George Bush however, is a rare bird in presidential history - why? He has FUBARED badly in every one of these key areas.

I am astonished that so many people still support a president who has screwed up so many things. The following is just a short list:

Emergency Management: They completely failed to manage the first large-scale emergency since 9/11. Despite all their big talk and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on homeland security over the past four years, this administration proved itself stunningly incompetent when faced with an actual emergency.

Outed CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Katrina relief: Eleven thousand spanking new mobile homes sinking into the Arkansas mud. Seems no one in the administration knew there were federal and state laws prohibiting trailers in flood zones. Oops. That little mistake cost you $850 million -- and counting.

Medicare Drug Program: This $50 billion white elephant debuted by trampling many of those it was supposed to save. The mess forced states to step in and try to save its own citizens from being killed by the administration's poorly planned and executed attempt to privatize huge hunks of the federal health safety net.

Social Programs: It's easier to get affordable -- even free -- American-style medical care, paid for with American dollars, if you are injured in Iraq, Afghanistan or are victims of a Pakistani earthquake, than if you live and pay taxes in the good old U.S.A. Nearly 50 million Americans can't afford medical insurance. Nevertheless the administration has proposed a budget that will cut $40 billion from domestic social programs, including health care for the working poor. The administration was quick to say that those services will be replaced by its "faith-based" programs.

Presided over the loss of approximately three million American jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.
Over seen an economy in which the stock market suffered its worst decline in the first two years of any administration since Hoover's.
 
Taken, in the wake of the terrorist attacks, the greatest worldwide outpouring of goodwill the United States has enjoyed at least since World War II and squandered it by insisting on pursuing a foolish go-it-almost-alone invasion of Iraq, thereby transforming almost universal support for the United States into worldwide condemnation.
 
Misled (to use the most charitable word and interpretation) the American public about weapons of mass destruction and supposed ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and so into a war that has plainly (and entirely predictably) made us less secure, caused a boom in the recruitment of terrorists, is killing American military personnel needlessly, and is threatening to suck up all our available military forces and be a bottomless pit for the money of American taxpayers for years to come.
 
Failed to follow through in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are regrouping, once more increasing the threat to our people.
 
Insulted and ridiculed other nations and international organizations and now has to go, hat in hand, to those nations and organizations begging for their assistance.
 
Completely miscalculated or failed to plan for the personnel and monetary needs in Iraq after the war, so that he sought and obtained an $87 billion appropriation for Iraq, a sizable chunk of which is going, without competitive bidding to Haliburton, the company formerly headed by his vice president.
 
Inherited an annual federal budget surplus of $230 billion and transformed it into a $500+ billion deficit in less than three years. This negative turnaround of three-quarters of a trillion dollars is totally without precedent in our history. The ballooning deficit for fiscal 2004 is rapidly approaching twice the dollar size of the previous record deficit, $290 billion, set in 1992, the last year of the administration of President Bush's father and, at almost 5 percent of GDP, is closing in on the percentage record set by Ronald Reagan in 1986.
 
Cut taxes three times, sharply reducing the burden on the rich, reclassified money obtained through stock ownership as more deserving than money earned through work. The idea that dividend income should not be taxed-what might accurately be termed the unearned income tax credit-can be stated succinctly: "If you had to work for your money, we'll tax it; if you didn't have to work for it, you can keep it all."
 
Severely curtailed the very American freedoms that our military people are supposed to be fighting to defend. ("The Patriot Act," one historian noted, "is the worst since the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams.")
 
Called upon American armed service people, including Reserve forces, to sacrifice for ever-lengthening tours of duty in a hostile and dangerous environment while he rewards the rich at home with lower taxes and legislative giveaways and gives lucrative no-bid contracts to American corporations linked with the administration.
 
Given an opportunity to begin to change the consumption-oriented values of the nation after September 11, 2001, when people were prepared to make a sacrifice for the common good, called instead of Americans to 'sacrifice' by going out and buying things.

Proclaimed himself to be a conservative while maintaining that big government should be able to run roughshod over the Bill of Rights, and that the government must have all sorts of secrets from the people, but the people can be allowed no privacy from the government.

Never before have we seen Presidential failure on such a grand scale. Each president, before, that has been considered a failure had at least prevailed in one area of the criteria. Bush, has prevailed in Zero.

I appreciate passion and patriotism, but we're talking about judging the worst President and administration of our lifetime. Just as every president in history has been judged to either be a successful president or a failure.

If you fail to recognize, acknowledge, and or blame George W. Bush for the above issues and your current woes, then you suffer from Bushnesia, and you are a Bushnesiac!


NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West