I always knew she was the cool one...

After dozens of agonizing and horrific generations of Bush family members, one of them finally - mercifully - breaks the mold and does something compassionate, reasonable, positive, and with people's best interest in mind.

Tom Ridge (Homeland Security top dog) admits Bush/Cheney used color-coded terror chart for political gain! ..and y'all called Mike Moore crazy!

More evidence Bush & Cheney lied to you about terror alerts ("gasp!") and the possibilities of getting attacked here at home, for NOTHING more than political gain! Yes, unfortunately, making up shit and falsifying intelligence (like they did for the wholly unnecessary Iraq war) on a seemingly daily basis, trumped serving American citizens for the good of the country. It's really a shame that 58 million of y'all voted for them. Some of y'all have come around and realized what terrible assholes Bush/Cheney are, others...not so much. Well, read this little summary here of Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge's new book (and any links in the piece you feel like clicking on), and learn something new, perhaps. People always ask, "how; why would Bush/Cheney lie to us like this?" Well, one answer is this: "Because they're aware how effective it is; they know damn well how gullible & ignorant you are."

Tom Ridge: I Was Pressured To Raise Terror Alert To Help Bush Win
by: Rachel Weiner
Posted: 08-20-09
Huffington Post

In a new book, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reveals new details on politicization under President Bush, reports US News & World Report's Paul Bedard. Among other things, Ridge admits that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004.

Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

click here for rest of article, and highlighted links.

FINALLY: Prosecutors Will Question Karl Rove on US Attorney Firings

About time. I sincerely hope we can get to the bottom of this mess someday. There is no doubt in my mind Rove/Bush broke the law when it came to these firings. There is so much more to this story than most people are aware of. The 'magically-missing' emails had to do with these firings, and the real reason behind the firings is quite disturbing: some of the fired prosecutors claimed they thought the real reason they were fired, was because they were not pursuing and prosecuting voter fraud in their states. Here's the rub: there was no voter fraud in those states. Bush, Rove, other top dog scum corrupt republicans were forcing prosecutors to 'find' voter fraud cases and trump them up by the dozens, so they would have a good foundation and argument/reason to pass anti-voter fraud legislation; legislation, which (based on whatever myriad of ID-ing mandates implemented) would disenfranchise a great many democrats from voting (minorities, elderly, the less-educated, et al). If this prosecution heats up, I will be posting much more on this story. I have lots of well-sourced information backing up this claim. - sj

Prosecutor To Interview Rove Today, Sources Say

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 15, 2009

Karl Rove will be interviewed today as part of a criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the presidency of George W. Bush, according to two sources familiar with the appointment.

Rove, a former senior aide to Bush, will be questioned by Connecticut prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy, who was named in September to examine whether former Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006.

Robert D. Luskin, an attorney for Rove, declined to comment. Tom Carson, a spokesman for Dannehy, also declined to comment.

Dannehy has operated mostly out of the public spotlight, issuing subpoenas for documents through a federal grand jury in the District. But in recent weeks, she has interviewed other government aides, including former White House political deputies Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor.

Dannehy also has reached out to representatives of former senator Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and his chief of staff, Steve Bell, to determine whether New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias was removed improperly.

The firings were the focus of a lengthy report released last fall by the Justice Department's inspector general and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility. Investigators there uncovered improper political motivations in the dismissal of several of the nine fired federal prosecutors.

But the department's own probe was thwarted in part because its investigators did not have the authority to compel testimony from Bush White House advisers and lawmakers.

Legal experts say that a particular source of interest for Dannehy will be statements that officials made to the inspector general and to Congress about the episode, which could lead to charges of perjury or obstruction of justice. Outcry over the firings contributed to the departure of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty.

The prosecutor firings also are the subject of intense interest from the House Judiciary Committee, which sued former Bush aides Harriet E. Miers and Joshua B. Bolten for access to testimony and documents. Rove is also tentatively scheduled to provide closed-door testimony to House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and other members of the panel next month.

Required reading/viewing, #27. Frank Schaeffer's got GOP and religious cred; and he's using it to expose the republican party for what it's become.

Hi Folks. So I've known about Frank Schaeffer for a little while now, but didn't know how fed up he actually was over Bush, Rush, the GOP, and the religious right (the latter two, which he once belonged to, the religious right, he and his parents were "co-founders" of, if you will). Unlike Michael Steele (RNC leader) and other GOPers who have apologized to Rush Limbaugh for telling the truth, you won't see that happening with Frank. And he does bring the hammer. Watch this video when you have 8 minutes (an interview he did w/ D.L. Hughley on CNN), and read his "Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (from a former republican)" below. It's an extremely well-written piece and really drives home many points. Perhaps the republicans who visit here (there are lots of you, I know!) can take a little something away from his observations. Original piece here. sj


You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.

I used to be one of you. As recently as 2000 I worked to get Senator McCain elected in that year's primary. (McCain and Gen. Tommy Franks wrote glowing endorsements regarding my book about military service, AWOL.). I have a file of handwritten thank you notes from Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush I and II. In the 1970s and early 80s I hung out with Jack Kemp and bought into his "supply side" myth and even wrote a book he endorsed pushing his ideas.) There's more, but take it from me; my parents (evangelical leaders Francis and Edith Schaeffer) and I were about as tight with -- and useful to -- the Republican Party as anyone. We played a big part creating the Religious Right.

In the mid 1980s I left the Religious Right, after I realized just how very anti-American they are, (the theme I explore in my book Crazy For God). They wanted America to fail in order to prove they were right about America's "moral decline." Soon after McCain lost in 2000 I re-registered as an independent in disgust with W. Bush. But I still respected many Republicans. Not today.

How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today's wholly negative Republican Party. And can you picture the gentlemanly and always polite Ronald Reagan, endorsing a radio hate-jock slob who crudely mocked a man with Parkinson's and who now says he wants an American president to fail?!

With people like Limbaugh as the loudmouth image of the Republican Party -- you need no enemies. But something far more serious has happened than an image problem: the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today's fifth column sabotaging American renewal.

President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited. I say economic and military cataclysm because without the needless war in Iraq you all backed we would not be in the economic mess we're in today. If that money had been spent here at home on renovating our infrastructure, taking us toward a green economy, putting our health-care system in order we'd be a very different situation.

As the father of a Marine who served in George W. Bush's misbegotten wars let me say this: if President Obama's strategy to repair our economy, infrastructure and healthcare fails that will put our troops at far greater risk because the world will become a far more dangerous place. So for all you flag-waving Republicans who are trying to undermine the President at home -- if you succeed more of our troops will be killed abroad.

When your new leader Rush Limbaugh calls for President Obama to fail he's calling for more flag-draped coffins. Limbaugh is the new "Hanoi Jane."

For the party that created our crises of misbegotten war, mismanaged economy, the lack of regulation of our banking industry, handing our country to rich crooks... to obstruct the one person who is trying to repair the damage is obscene.

Just imagine where America would be today if the 14 to 20 million voters -- "the rube base" who slavishly follow the likes of Limbaugh -- had not voted as a block year after year thus empowering the Republican fiasco. We would have a regulated banking industry and would have avoided our current financial crisis; some 4000 of our killed military men and women would be alive; over to 35,000 wounded Americans would be whole; we would have been leaders in the environmental movement; we would be in the middle of a green technology boom fueling a huge expansion of our economy and stopping our dependence on foreign oil, and our health-care system would be reformed.

After Obama was elected, you Republican leaders had a unique last chance to send a patriotic message of unity to the world -- and to all Americans. You could have backed our president's economic recovery plan. Since we all know that half of our problem is one of lost confidence and perception, nothing would have done more to calm the markets and project resolve and confidence than if you had been big enough to take Obama's offered hand and had work with him -- even if you disagreed ideologically. You had the chance to put our country first. You utterly failed to rise to the occasion.

The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.

While we circle the drain economically, hoping that President Obama can convince the holdouts to enact some stimulus legislation before we drown...if I hear another dumbass say something about how "FDR made the Great Depression worse" my head will explode. That is simply not true.As one can see above, GDP moved along in a generally upward fashion during FDR's presidency. The one blip of decline was related to budget-balancing in 1937. By the time WWII began (in late 1939), the US was well on its way up and out of the hole, so that by 1941 and US entry into the war, the Depression had effectively ended already with record GDP achieved years earlier.

Obama is looking at charts & graphs showing a precipitous fall in employment. Note the green line. That's where we are now. Where's the bottom? The US lost almost 600,000 jobs in JANUARY. What's this month or next going to look like? Obviously, the GOP economic free-for-all orgy of greed left one hell of a mess for the rest of us.

I give you the Bush-Cheney Recession (or Bush-Cheney Depression). The past eight years will inhabit some seriously dark chapters in history books.

"Time to Clean Out the Barn!"

Turn out the lights. The party's over.

Well, now that that's done...we can start cleaning up the mess.

As of about 5PM Eastern Standard Time, GWB's tenure effectively ended. Yeah, he's still the Preznit until Tuesday at noon, but for all intents and purposes "don't let the door hit ya in the ass..."

Friday at 5 is when most places empty out (and the happy hour bars get rollin'). Monday is a federal holiday, so as far as the US Gumint is concerned
"It's Change, Baby!"

some interesting recent polling numbers..

Mr. Popular: According to the latest NBC/WSJ poll, Obama's fav/unfav is 66%-14%, a whopping 71% approve of his transition so far, and while 55% say they like Obama personally and mostly approve of his policies, an additional 22% say they like him personally but disapprove of his policies. So that's 77% who say they like the president-elect. These numbers match the post-election euphoric period last month. NBC/WSJ co-pollster Peter Hart (D) also notes that the survey essentially breaks down feelings about Obama into three categories: personal, professional, and leadership. We have a battery of characteristic test questions that devoted polling fanatics should consume via the actual survey itself. But for those with less time, Hart culled it down to this: Obama's personal characteristic average (i.e., those giving him good marks on this score) is 68%; his professional characteristic average is 52%; and his leadership characteristic average is 68%. "The key to Obama's success, I think, will depend on his ability to keep up the leadership qualities," Hart says. "We like him personally, we're less certain about him professionally, but we think he has the leadership qualities to lead us forward."

...And Mr. Unpopular: But if Obama is coming into office riding a wave of unprecedented popularity for a president-elect, then Bush is leaving more unpopular than any other modern president except for Nixon (who resigned from office), according Gallup data of these past presidents. In the NBC/WSJ poll, Bush's approval rating is at 27% (which matches his all-time low in the poll), and his fav/unfav is 31%-58%. By comparison, when Bush's father left office in Jan. 1993, his fav/unfav numbers were essentially reversed, 52%-27%. And remember, Bush's father did not leave office on his own terms -- he was kicked out of office, receiving just 37% of the vote nationally. "Historically, presidents on the way out get some kind of glow," says co-pollster Bill McInturff (R). But that's not the case for George W. Bush, who, as it turns out, gives his farewell address to the public tonight.

America, then and now: "thanks for nothing, cretin!"

ahh...the good 'ol days...remember how Clinton left things for Bush. Now look how Bush left things for Obama! Thanks for nothing, GW! ..er, wait...actually..Bush didn't do nothing, now that I think about it? Wow. I WISH he did nothing. Instead, he started a wholly unnecessary war, decimating our military and getting american troops killed, by and large, for no reason (and TENS OF THOUSANDS MAIMED FOR LIFE), gutted our constitution, lied to us all constantly about WMD's and more (folks, every phone call you make is STILL being monitored by extremely sophisticated technology), assaulted our environment with policy changes, attacked and ridiculed science and scientists, completey destroyed our economy with his policies, tax cuts (is there anymore debate about these not helping the economy? please), lack of federal oversight, and by going against his "free-market" mantra and bailing out his corrupt buddies in the financial sector (not to mention his assinine "tax rebate" which failed miserably), and on and on and on...don't even get me started on Katrina!..the fact is any person reading this blog could have LEAD New Orleans, Mississippi, and this country better than Bush and this administration did, trough this terrible and fatal time. BUSH. DID. NOTHING. Seriously, this low-life has done everything possible to RUIN America in 8 years, not help it (and yes, I DO blame spineless democrats as a whole for rubber-stamping a lot of his lunactic actions). And if anyone disagrees, I sincerely would like to hear something to the contrary. Please, help me. Tell me what Bush has done to HELP AMERICANS in the last eight years. Please. I want to know. For real. Use the comments section after this great tidbit about "now/then's"...

From NBC's Mark Murray

With President Bush set to leave the White House less than two weeks from now, here's a "Then and Now" to show what the United States looked like when Bush was entering office and what it looks like now as he's leaving. The "Then" is the best-available figure as Bush was taking office in 2001. The "Now" is the most recent figure.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Then: 4.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2001)
Now: 6.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008)

DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE
Then: 10,587 (close of Friday, Jan. 19, 2001)
Now: 9,015 (close of Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009)

BUSH FAVORABILITY RATING
Then: 50% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 31% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)

CHENEY FAVORABILITY RATING
Then: 49% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 21% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)

CONGRESS APPROVAL RATING
Then: 48% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 21% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)

SATISFIED WITH THE NATION'S DIRECTION
Then: 45% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 26% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)

CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (1985=100)
Then: 115.7 (Conference Board, January 2001)
Now: 38.0, which is an all-time low (Conference Board, December 2008)

FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY
Then: 6.4 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 7.6 million (Census numbers for 2007 -- most recent numbers available)

AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE
Then: 39.8 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 45.7 million (Census numbers for 2007 -- most recent available)

U.S. BUDGET
Then: +236.2 billion (2000, Congressional Budget Office)
Now: -$1.2 trillion (projected figure for 2009, Congressional Budget Office)

"History Will Judge..."

Those of us left-of-center types have been saying this for going on eight years: "Worst. President. Ever." We've been joined in more recent years by many of our not-quite-so-liberal friends from the middle, and even a few authentic conservatives who recognize that the neocon/christofascist alliance of the GOP has run their party into a ditch. Thus, polling such as the NBC/WSJ numbers that just came out:



George W. Bush: Mr. 20%

In spite of the Rovian campaign currently organized to polish the Shrub's "legacy," I submit that history will judge #43 as not much more than a useful idiot, readily doing the bidding of his handlers and the neocon cabal that actually made the decisions of "the Decider."

That swagger of his has long ceased to seem authentic, and Mr. Bush in recent months has even seemed to me to have reached a point of realization about his tenure. Since I can't find it in my liberal heart to truly hate, my reaction is to re-humanize him, such that I sense a profound regret despite his outward talk of "no regrets." Perhaps there is enough native intelligence behind the beady eyes to realize that he - as well as a nation - was horribly used by others, that this past eight-year orgy of imperialism and suppression was planned well in advance of his arrival; that, indeed, his arrival was part of the plan. For that, I feel sorry for him. (But I'm not losing sleep over it.)