ThinkFast: March 1, 2006
ThinkFast: March 1, 2006
ThinkFast is a new feature of ThinkProgress. (It’s still a work in progress – let us know what you think.)
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “clarifies†his February 6 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. A letter to the committee from Gonzales suggests “the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic surveillance operations may extend beyond the outlines that the president acknowledged…”
Bush says Bin Laden helped him get reelected. Shortly before the election Bin Laden released a tape critical of the president. Reporter Bill Sammon quotes Bush in his new book: ”I thought it was going to help. I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.”
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said of Bush’s 2007 Homeland Security budget proposal: “It’s a hollow budget and I can’t understand it.”
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said yesterday that a civil war in Iraq could lead to a broader conflict in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the AP reports that a “civil war looms†in Iraq. (The WSJ, however, thinks “We’re winning in Iraq.â€)
President Bush made his first visit to Afghanistan yesterday with a surprise, four-hour stay that “comes at a time of increasing violence in the country.†The Defense Intelligence Agency director told Congress “the Taliban-dominated insurgency remains a capable and resilient threat†to the central government.
The $72,550 that for-profit colleges have given to new Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-OH) has paid off. Congress passed a “boon for the commercial education industry,” a new measure to eliminate the requirement that colleges conduct “at least half their courses on a campus instead of online to qualify for federal student aid.”
Former Rep. Duke Cunningham “bullied and hectored D.O.D. officials in order to ensure that his co-conspirators received their pound of gold.”
Rep. Katherine Harris’ former schedule coordinator took a job with MZM, suggesting the contractor was more tightly tied to the congresswoman’s office than previously known.
Baby steps: The Senate Rules Committee unanimously voted to force lawmakers to fully disclose gifts and travel paid for by lobbyists, but the “measure did not include the tough restrictions that some lawmakers had proposed.â€
And finally: Doh! “Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment…But more than half can name at least two members of the TV cartoon family [The Simpsons], according to a survey.”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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Notice Attorney G.G. uses the term “operations” as in plural.
March 1st, 2006 at 9:05 amBush went to Afghanistan, and all the sudden he cares about bin Laden again… it doesn’t seem that long ago that Bush was saying he doesn’t really spend time worrying about him… I think he was hoping not to be asked any questions about the still at-large terrorist leader… it was unavoidable over there… four years on and we’re going to find him? not unless some local farmer turns him in for the reward money…
March 1st, 2006 at 9:17 amSomething must be right with Bush? Only %34 seem to agree with that comment and they are a special kind of extremists themselves. So what does that say about Bin Laden and Bush?
And this only tells me that Bush isn’t interested in Catching Bin Laden or terrorists at all because he has more to gain from them being alive.
But Bush is probably right. There is nothing Bin Laden loves more than dead Iraqis, increase in terrorism, increase in American Hatred world wide, oh…and being alive. THANKS BUSH!
March 1st, 2006 at 9:22 amOver at democraticunderground, a memo written for GW by Richard Clarke, delivered to GW less than a week in office:
So, Bush was given the heads up that Al Queada was something to keep an eye on from day one. Hmmm…
March 1st, 2006 at 9:24 amthat document ios too small to read, could you post a link or a pdf please
March 1st, 2006 at 9:35 amBut Bobcat, Bush doesn’t read! And as for verbal summaries, his attention span is too short for anything more than sound bytes. And as for words of more than two syllables, well….
March 1st, 2006 at 9:36 amSee, Bush is a founding member of the K-I-S-S club.
What in the hell is the WSJ smoking? I read that op-ed and about threw up. To them, Iraq is a top tourist vacation. Bombings are GREAT. Desperation of the insurgents palatable. Iraqi security forces outstanding.
Seriously, they took EVERY reality and completely, 180-degree flipped it. Stunning.
March 1st, 2006 at 9:37 amas far as bin laden heling the president get elected, I don’t think so
there were people that despised the results of his policy, and people that believed his rhetoric
though a few claimed to be “undecided”, there really weren’t any..the country was devided
also
even if you agree with the premise, it’s pretty clear he didnt’t get re elected anyway, exit polls can’t possibly be wrong, and in the precincts they were wrong in this election, bush overcame the exit polls…in electronic equipped precincts…surprise surprise
so even if bin laden’s statement had some kind of impact presuading people who thought the president was doing a bad job into voting for him, so what, he gets re elected no matter how many people didn’t vote for him
March 1st, 2006 at 9:40 amOf course B. Laden helped Boosh get elected, and such was the intent of the release of the tape at that time. Boosh is the terrorists greatest ally.
March 1st, 2006 at 9:40 amAnd vice-versa… without the terrorist as an excuse for the Oil Crusade, Boosh wouldn’t have a bike to ride…..
could somebody post a link to the clark document please
March 1st, 2006 at 9:41 amBin Laden released his video when he did because he WANTED Bush re-elected.
Neither one of them was doing much until the other came along. Bin Laden probably knew about the Presidential Daily Briefing that said Bin Laden determined to strike US, using airliners, that Bush read and ignored a month before 9/11, as well as other huge, policy-driven blunders, that serve Bin Laden perversely well.
Bin Laden has been pulling Bush’s strings from the start and shithead has been playing right along. He’s such an idiot. Having another President, especially one with the background of Kerry, would have severely disrupted Bin Laden’s operations.
As it is, innocent Iraqis are suffering and dying, Americans are having their Constitutional rights eroded, America is (incredibly!) operating Soviet-style secret prisons, and we’re wasting billions of taxpayer dollars inspiring and training new jihadists in Iraq, and Iran is the only clear winner.
March 1st, 2006 at 9:41 amPDF of the memo:
PDF of above image
March 1st, 2006 at 9:59 amDitto #11, you have more eloquence and facts than I…
March 1st, 2006 at 10:00 amBin Laden was supported in Afghanistan by U.S. interests to fight the Soviet occupation, and then left up to his own devices after the Soviets left, and he made good use of it.
Boosh’s appearance in Karzai’s Kabul Kompound is a joke, it is the only corner of that country that isn’t under the control of the war lords who have always run things there.
It is not possible that the Taliban in Afghanistan is still a force in that country.
Were we not told that the shrub had destroyed the Taliban? Oh, I see, this was just another one of his lies.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:03 amThe discussion on the Bin Laden tape is revealing. Note that its all about Bush and the politics. It has nothing to do with the hunt for Bin Laden, the pain that seeing his face on TV again will cause the 9-11 victims. Its all about Bush, always all about him.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:23 amI have no pdf link above the image
March 1st, 2006 at 10:31 amaha
now I see your link, thanx for that
March 1st, 2006 at 10:33 amThe truth finally rears its ugly head…
…Gonzo lied to Congress…
…Bushiva really IS spying domestically…
March 1st, 2006 at 10:43 amThe invasion of Iraq has destabilized the region? No shit.
It’s time for the people who backed this crap to shut the hell up. They’ve been systematically wrong on everything for years but they’re still the mainstream.
FOAD.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:52 am.
# 15
March 1st, 2006 at 11:03 amIt’s always about Boosh because he’s a clear and present danger to America and the principles our Constitution was founded upon. Bin Laden is not, and could presently be a non-existent threat if the American armed forces were allowed to remove him from the scene in Tora Bora. Was it perhaps a call from Dubai to George that called a halt to the operation?
The pain of seeing Bush’s smirking mug as he continues to try to act out the script he’s given is causing a greater grief in this country, for the families of the dead and wounded and traumatized soldiers, and for the honest and sentient citizens ashamed of the values our representative leader espouses.
Dear Howdy – This should ease your pain of the “smirking Bush mug” – only three more years – then you’ll have a new Republican to foam at the mouth about.
March 1st, 2006 at 11:11 amAttorney General Alberto Gonzales “clarifies†his February 6 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Well, Senator Specter? How are you feeling now about your ability to, “take the Attorney General at his word” and not swear him in before testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee? This is sickening. These fucking enablers we have on the hill are going to assist in bringing about the end of everything that is good and decent about our society. I would suggest that lackeys to this administration study the history of Lidice, Czechoslovakia. There is a special place in hell reserved for those who sell out their fellow citizens.
March 1st, 2006 at 11:11 amI’m drooling already……:)
March 1st, 2006 at 11:41 am#7: “What in the hell is the WSJ smoking? I read that op-ed and about threw up.” – - It’s a true opinion piece with not one fact to support any of the claims. Lah-dee-dah, lah-dee-dah, everything is just peachy keen in Iraq as long as we keep saying it is.
March 1st, 2006 at 11:56 amOsama Bin Laden plays Bush like a fiddle and it’s obvious that Bin Laden wanted Bush to win the 2004 election. Bush is the best thing that ever happened to Bin Laden. He’s the major terrorist recruiting sargeant for El Quida. An old military axiom dating back thousands of years is “Know your enemy.” Knowing the enemy means being able to predict how that enemy will act thus giving you an advantage. And Osama certainly knows Bush. Kerry on the otherhand would have been an unkown; therefore unpredictable and therefore, more dangerous. Not to mention that Kerry actually fought in a war unlike Bush and his cabal of chicken hawk leaders.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:01 pmIt’s a true opinion piece with not one fact to support any of the claims. Lah-dee-dah, lah-dee-dah, everything is just peachy keen in Iraq as long as we keep saying it is.
Comment by Badmoodman — March 1, 2006 @ 11:56 am
What the WSJ or the Bush administration’s Iraq policy
March 1st, 2006 at 12:02 pm#21…
March 1st, 2006 at 12:04 pmOh, and, by threatening with another republican in 3 more years for me to foam about, implies you have abandoned your current Fear -Inducing Leader?
Congratulations!
And for John Negroponte to be able to spot a death squad or two in Iraq, it must be bad
March 1st, 2006 at 12:08 pmBin Laden and al Qaeda are literally a creation of the Military, Industrial and Government complex. The US has followed him from “Freedom fighter” to terrorist. Whether Osama actually made the tapes or were fabricated has become irrelevant since al Qaeda crashed planes into the NY Towers. I don’t believe for a second that the government didn’t know (read Sibel Edmonds • August 1, 2004: Sibel Edmonds’ Letter to Chairman Thomas Kean on her website http://www.justacitizen.org/ ). The only group that had anything to gain from all of this was the MIG complex. A war against a nebulous enemy that can be redefined any time they feel like is an ideal way to keep the cash flowing and expand power.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:08 pm#28, it’s possible that the US is one burned Reichstag away from a suspended constitution.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:09 pmBush says Bin Laden helped him get reelected… “I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn’t want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush.”
WTF? If anything, a sentient and rational electorate would have thought, why didn’t we get that guy in Afghanistan? Why is he still alive/free/campaigning for Bush?
March 1st, 2006 at 12:12 pm(The WSJ, however, thinks “We’re winning in Iraq.â€)
And “we’ve always been at war with EastAsia.”
March 1st, 2006 at 12:16 pm#31…. with all respect and sincerity, I didn’t follow that, amplify please? (who, what, where is Reichstag?) Thanks
March 1st, 2006 at 12:17 pm#34, sorry I was helping I-R-I out with his German history yesterday – he could up his game if he quoted from Mein Kampf a bit more.
There was a fire at the German parliament building, the Reichstag,in 1933, which resulted in the suspension of many civil liberties in a Germany just a few months into their first National Socialist government (elected, by the way). The Enabling Act followed the Reichstag Decrees, effectively giving the executive in Germany, Adolf Hitler, dictatorial powers in repsonse to a perceived threat from Communists.
The fire was blamed in the end on a mentally ill Dutch communist, who may simply have been Germany’s Lee Harvey Oswald.
I’m sorry, you’ll have to Wikipedia it yourself, TP is pulling off the spam highway again…
March 1st, 2006 at 12:27 pm#35….
March 1st, 2006 at 12:37 pmGot it! Thank you! I’ll keep on the lookout for wooden shoe tracks under my window….
CNN
February
Senate panel attacks homeland security budget
Bipartisan group says funding does not match Bush’s rhetoric
That’s what we have been saying for years now.
Is America waking up?
March 1st, 2006 at 1:16 pm“There’s a hole in the bucket
March 1st, 2006 at 1:25 pmdear georgie,dear georgie
there’s a hole in the bucket
dear georgie, a hole….”
How many innocent women and children are in the body count from the “major attack by Pakistani military” yesterday? To make an impression for the royal procession?bin Laden has been dead for a number of years,most of the governments know this,but they keep playing pretend for the dwindling diehard squeaky wheels who “want to believe”.Do you think he’s really delusional or is there some master plan?Besides bird flu and ressurection of 1918 virus?
March 1st, 2006 at 2:29 pm#31, bingo. Katrina exposed the breathtaking ineptness of our emergency preparedness, but I think it’s sort of calculated. Nulcear plants lightly guarded? Aww shoot, that’s OK. Chemical plants not regulated because of industry objections? Off the radar screen.
Mighty Aphrodite’s threatening us with another Republican in 3 years but it’s pretty obvious that Bush would not feel terribly bad if the US was attacked again. That way he can suspend the Constitution and stay on for as looooong as the “Global War On Terror” takes.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:35 pmPS: And if we were attacked again, guess what they’d be saying? That it was the liberal’s fault!! Never mind that the Republicans control the House and Senate, that Bush has been given everything he wanted, that the Keane (9/11) Commission’s members pop up occasionally to point out failures that continue to this day in the safeguarding of the Homeland.
March 1st, 2006 at 3:39 pmShorter Gonzales:
“We’re just making this s*** up as we go along…..”
Cheers,
March 1st, 2006 at 4:23 pm#41
March 1st, 2006 at 4:24 pmBut guess what, Bush doesn’t control the media like you idiots think he does. Every time the NY Times runs a story that was intended to destroy Bush by revealing secrets, it aids our enemies. I know you all believe that Bush is the enemy so you are ok with it. If we do get attacked again, you are right that it will be a liberal’s fault because who is standing in the way of preventing another attack? Who is resisting the Patriot Act? Who continues to publish photos of Abu Grabib? Who is committing treason by revealing secrets that affect national security? The terrrorists have to be right only once and our government has to right every single day to prevent another 9/11. Bush’s job of protecting us would be made a whole lot easier if liberals would give up their desperate attempts to grab back power. Heaven help us if they ever do.
Yeah, becuase the guns, missiles and IEDs they use don’t help them much. They need an American newspaper to help them.
Now that is funny shit. How the hell can liberals grab power if the conservatives own the House, Senate, Judiciary and Executives.
Do you think before you post or don’t think at all.
March 1st, 2006 at 4:46 pm#43
Well, first off, thanks for coming in here and spouting of annonymously. Real courage there, Mr. Period.
Next, let’s look at your silliness, item by item, shall we?
But guess what, Bush doesn’t control the media like you idiots think he does.
You’re right, he doesn’t. But corporate America does. Boy, do they ever. And guess who corporate America likes? They party of tax breaks for the rich.
Every time the NY Times runs a story that was intended to destroy Bush by revealing secrets, it aids our enemies. I know you all believe that Bush is the enemy so you are ok with it.
That’s just silly. What do you propose? Abolish freedom of the press? Establish a state-run news agency? Oh, and we don’t think Bush is the enemy, just really, really, really, REALLY misguided.
If we do get attacked again, you are right that it will be a liberal’s fault because who is standing in the way of preventing another attack? Who is resisting the Patriot Act?
Wow, that’s silly, too. So, 9/11 was Clinton’s fault, even though Bush was in office and had ample warning that Al Queada was determined to attack the US. And now the next attack will be a liberal’s fault, too? Even though GW has had 5 additional years to shore up the national security of the country? Yes, we are resisting the Patriot Act because it goes overboard. It is contributing to the slow stripping away of our civil liberties.
Who continues to publish photos of Abu Grabib?
And your solution is to ignore the photos, and let the torture continue? That’s assinine and inhumane. I thought you guys were supposed to be Christian and care for your fellow man? Or does that only apply to fellow light skinned Christians?
Who is committing treason by revealing secrets that affect national security?
Libby, Rove, Cheney. That was an easy one.
The terrrorists have to be right only once and our government has to right every single day to prevent another 9/11.
Yes. I agree with you on this one. Sure would be nice if Bush tried out the whole ‘being right’ thing every now and then. I’m guessing you agree with the Dubai ports deal, right?
Bush’s job of protecting us would be made a whole lot easier if liberals would give up their desperate attempts to grab back power.
Oh, silly us: expressing our opinions, trying to right wrongs, wanting to limit the ever expanding powers of the office of the president. How dare we. Man, oh, man… if only there wasn’t that pesky Constitution in the way. The Imperial President Bush would be able to work wonders!
Heaven help us if they ever do.
Nope, it won’t be heaven helping you. It will be the Democrats helping you. We like to help. It’s the Republicans that tell you, “tough, you’re on your own.”
March 1st, 2006 at 4:50 pm# 43
March 1st, 2006 at 4:58 pmLet us summarize your points:
According to your criteria, Cheney, Libby, and Rove are all guilty of treason for revealing the identity of Valerie Plame. Right so far?
Torture is okay as long as you don’t publicize it. I think that’s what the Constitution says. Cruel and unusual punishment should only take place out of sight in the back room. Right?
We are not going to give up our “desperate” attempts to grab back power precisely because fascist scum like yourself are running the show.
This should ease your pain of the “smirking Bush mug†– only three more years
Comment by mighty aphrodite #21
Barren Bi*ch,
…he ain’t gonna make it…
March 1st, 2006 at 6:11 pmwow a commie website .. listen amercia’s great and you’ll be glad to know that as rome we’ll crash from within thanks
March 2nd, 2006 at 11:02 pmAgency Info Online Tourist Travel
I was searching for ‘%KEYWORD%’ at google and got this your post (’%TITLE%’) in search results. Not very relevant result, but still interesting to read :)
March 25th, 2008 at 9:47 am