I woke up this morning to the radio and the usual array of lies, allegations, and corruption. I was going through comments made during the course of the night and saved a couple for future reference. one in particular seems to have come from our friend Larry on Bush's record setting low approval rating. I went through all the news on CNN and FOX then Google and did not find anything that I felt had to be discussed and the truth spoken. Then in dawned on me. This is the first day in my memory since Bush took office certainly in the last couple years that Bush was not the talk of the MSM. Not a story, nothing!
Then it hit me! The complicit MSM has failed to even mention that Bush is the worst President in the History of the country! What is worse is that the over inflated ass could care less because in his little mind he is the Greatest! So I went to thee article from The American Research Group, Inc. to anyone else in the world this would be shattering but not the chief idiot! I am once again stunned at his friggen ignorance! George W. Bush is now the most unpopular president in recorded American history
Concerns over Economy Push George W. Bush's Overall Job Approval to New Low
George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.
Then it hit me! The complicit MSM has failed to even mention that Bush is the worst President in the History of the country! What is worse is that the over inflated ass could care less because in his little mind he is the Greatest! So I went to thee article from The American Research Group, Inc. to anyone else in the world this would be shattering but not the chief idiot! I am once again stunned at his friggen ignorance! George W. Bush is now the most unpopular president in recorded American history
Concerns over Economy Push George W. Bush's Overall Job Approval to New Low
George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.
Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.
Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.
Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. How does Georgie stack up to previous presidents lows?
Clinton low: 36 percent, May 1993 (early missteps like Zoe Baird)
George H.W. Bush low: 29 percent, August 1992 (recession)
Reagan low: 35 percent, January 1983 (recession)
Carter low: 28 percent, July 1979 (high gas prices)
Ford low: 37 percent, January 1975 (economy, Nixon pardon)
Nixon low: 23 percent, January 1974 (Watergate)
Johnson low: 35 percent, August 1968 (Vietnam)
Prior to GW the Lowest ever? That would be Harry Truman during the Korean War, in February 1952, at 22 percent. While no one was looking, the economy nosedived, gas prices have soared, the war in Iraq is as unpopular as ever and Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. And so while none of us were paying attention, our 43rd president just hit a major milestone.George W. Bush is now the most unpopular president in recorded American history. Worse than Richard Nixon in the days before he resigned in disgrace during Watergate, worse than Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis, much worse than Bill Clinton when he was impeached. Just as Roger Bannister raced through what once seemed the unreachable 4-minute mile, Bush has burst through a barrier once also thought impossible, below the 20-percent mark.
* This blows me away because main stream media has totally ignored this because they are enablers and are complicit in this nightmare we know as George W. Bush! Worse, the chief idiot is proud of the division and destruction and thinks he will be remembered as one of the greatest Presidents in History. I just want to scream! We will be lucky to survive GW and be able to pick up the pieces.
James Joiner
Gardner Ma
11 comments:
Did you see what is happening in Serbia and the US Embassy? I told yo this would happen. I hear them saying we need Russia to help. Hell they are helping. They instigated this.I told you this would be one more front in Bush's forever war!
Look at this Jim:
Maverick Republican Drops WC Bomb on Bush/Cheney
Dan DeWalt
After Downing Street
In a packed hearing room on Feb 19th, under a carved wooden sign reading “Live Free or Die”, the New Hampshire House committee of State-Federal Relations and Veterans’ Affairs heard testimony on Representative Betty Hall’s HR 24, which calls on the U.S. Congress to begin impeachment hearings for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
What was most notable about the four straight hours of testimony was not that opponents of the resolution could only muster two people willing to testify against it, both Republican stalwarts using selected excerpts from Jefferson’s parliamentary manual or from the bill itself, whose arguments were embarrassingly empty.
It was not that Kris Roberts, the committee chair, had taken this hearing seriously enough to have researched the law, history and nuances of the subject, and that he used this to inform the proceedings in a reasonably fair manner.
It was not the fact that after the hearing ended, several pro-impeachment witnesses were approached by committee members and thanked for their clarity and useful testimony.
It was not even the novelty of the interjections by one committee member that would periodically steer the conversation abruptly into Rockefeller/Trilateral Commission territory.
The most remarkable moment came late in the afternoon when Republican House member Steve Vaillancourt strode into the room to testify. After passing out copies of the second chapter of Patrick Buchanan’s “Day of Reckoning” as supporting evidence, Vaillancourt opened his remarks quoting “fools rush in where wise men fear to tread”, and it sounded like a set up to condemn a rush to impeach. But instead he said that Betty Hall is neither fool nor wise man, but is a model of courage and that her impeachment resolution should be supported.
And then the fun began.
Member Vaillancourt then gave a short history lesson, telling the committee that until Bush/Cheney, America had never engaged in an offensive war [sic.], and pointing out that the Truman, Eisenhower. Kennedy and Reagan “Doctrines” had all been based on defense and had not been offensive in nature. Warming to the subject, he delved into the ramifications of Bush/Cheney’s actions, saying that their reckless foreign policy has been anti-American, unconstitutional, and ruinously costly to the nation.
He was fairly thundering by the time that he pronounced that not only should Bush and Cheney be impeached, but also they should be tried as war criminals in a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity. He flatly stated that the war in Iraq has provided grounds for war crimes charges against the President and Vice President. And there was not one word of protest from a single committee member. They may or may not support this resolution to impeach, but there seems to be no one left with a credible argument to defend Bush/Cheney.
Vaillancourt said that he spoke not as a Republican, a New Hampshire citizen or an American, but as a member of humanity. His remarks made a common sense plea for an honest appraisal of our current political situation, for the acknowledgement that we have a duty to act as a decent and responsible people, and that principle be the governing factor of our government’s actions. These are all values that should, and once did, cut across party lines. If the current political parties have forgotten this, and become so degraded as to allow the lawlessness and criminality of this administration to go unchecked, the people have not.
And at that hearing the people had their chance to speak. One member of the committee remarked that she had never before seen such a wide range of viewpoints as represented by the witnesses, to be so united on one issue.
After deliberation the next day, loyalty to party leadership proved a stronger pull than reasoned argument, for five committee members voted to recommend the bill, with eleven voting against. Now facing an uphill battle to get it passed in a full House vote in March, Betty Hall was still encouraged by the committee hearing and vote. She has received much more support for this resolution than she did with a similar effort last year, and is already working to get grass roots supporters out between now and the vote to get their legislators’ attention.
If the grass roots continue to pour out as they did on Tuesday, and if there were a few more politicians like Steve Vaillancourt and Betty Hall, we might see things begin to change. It’s instructive to remember that some politicians who are now leading the charge for impeachment did not want to talk about it only a few short months ago. The spotlight is now on the New Hampshire House, the third largest deliberative body on the planet, and arguably one of the more democratic representative systems anywhere as well. These representatives may listen to an outsider’s viewpoint on what to do about the Constitution, but they will be influenced most by the neighbors whom they represent. The question is, is New Hampshire angry enough and organized enough to convince the legislature to call for impeachment? For those outside of New Hampshire the question is, how can we raise the temperature everywhere else, making it all the more plausible that the Granite State will reach the boiling point.
This sounds like Bush Jim:
Inside the world of war profiteers
From prostitutes to Super bowl tickets, a federal probe reveals how contractors in Iraq cheated the U.S.
By David Jackson and Jason Grotto
Inside the stout federal courthouse of this Mississippi River town, the dirty secrets of Iraq war profiteering keep pouring out.
Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.
The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.
Federal prosecutors in Rock Island have indicted four former supervisors from KBR, the giant defense firm that holds the contract, along with a decorated Army officer and five executives from KBR subcontractors based in the U.S. or the Middle East. Those defendants, along with two other KBR employees who have pleaded guilty in Virginia, account for a third of the 36 people indicted to date on Iraq war-contract crimes, Justice Department records show.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Rock Island sentenced the Army official, Chief Warrant Officer Peleti "Pete" Peleti Jr., to 28 months in prison for taking bribes. One Middle Eastern subcontractor treated him to a trip to the 2006 Super Bowl, a defense investigator said.
Prosecutors would not confirm or deny ongoing grand jury activity. But court records identify a dozen FBI, IRS and military investigative agents who have been assigned to the case. Interviews as well as testimony at the sentencing for Peleti, who has cooperated with authorities, suggest an active probe.
Rock Island serves as a center for the probe of war profiteering because Army brass at the arsenal here administer KBR's so-called LOGCAP III contract to feed, shelter and support U.S. soldiers, and to help restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.
In one case, a freight-shipping subcontractor confessed to giving $25,000 in illegal gratuities to five unnamed KBR employees "to build relationships to get additional business," according to the man's December 2007 statement to a federal judge in the Rock Island court. Separately, Peleti named five military colleagues who allegedly accepted bribes. Prosecutors also have identified three senior KBR executives who allegedly approved inflated bids. None of those 13 people has been charged.
A common thread runs through these cases and other KBR scandals in Iraq, from allegations the firm failed to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that it charged $45 per can of soda: The Pentagon has outsourced crucial troop support jobs while slashing the number of government contract watchdogs.
The dollar value of Army contracts quadrupled from $23.3 billion in 1992 to $100.6 billion in 2006, according to a recent report by a Pentagon panel. But the number of Army contract supervisors was cut from 10,000 in 1990 to 5,500 currently.
Last week, the Army pledged to add 1,400 positions to its contracting command. But even those embroiled in the frauds acknowledge the impact of so much war privatization.
"I think we downsized past the point of general competency," said subcontractor Christopher Cahill, who for a decade prepared military supply depots under LOGCAP. Now serving 30 months in federal prison for fraud, Cahill added: "The point of a standing army is to have them equipped."
KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton Co., says it has been paid $28 billion under LOGCAP III. The firm says it quickly reports all instances of suspected fraud and has repaid the Defense Department more than $1 million for questionable invoices.
In a statement, KBR said its roughly 20,000 employees and 40,000 subcontractors have performed laudably in a war zone where Army demands shift rapidly and local suppliers don't always maintain ledger books. Spokeswoman Heather Browne wrote: "Ethics and integrity are core values for KBR."
But a wiretapped transcript recently released in Rock Island underscores the brazen nature of the exceptions.
In October 2005, with federal agents tailing them, three war contractors slipped through London's posh Cumberland hotel before meeting in a quiet lounge. For the rest of that afternoon, the men sipped cognac and whiskey and discussed the bribes that had greased contracts to supply U.S. troops in Iraq.
Former KBR procurement manager Stephen Seamans, who was wearing a wire strapped on by a Rock Island agent, wondered aloud whether to return $65,000 in kickbacks he got from his two companions, executives from the Saudi conglomerate Tamimi Global Co.
One of the men, Tamimi operations director Shabbir Khan, urged him to hide the money by concocting phony business records.
"Just do the paperwork," Khan said.
Party houses, prostitutes
In October 2002, five months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Khan threw a birthday party for Seamans at a Tamimi "party house" near the Kuwait base known as Camp Arifjan. Khan "provided Seamans with a prostitute as a present," Rock Island prosecutors wrote in court papers. Driving Seamans back to his quarters, Khan offered kickbacks that would total $130,000.
Five days later, with Seamans and Khan hammering out the fine print, KBR awarded Tamimi the war's first $14.4 million mess hall subcontract, court records show.
In April 2003, as American troops poured into Iraq, Seamans gave Khan inside information that enabled Tamimi to secure a $2 million KBR subcontract to establish a mess hall at a Baghdad palace. Seamans submitted change orders that inflated that subcontract to $7.4 million.
By June, Seamans and fellow KBR procurement manager Jeff Mazon, a Country Club Hills resident, had executed subcontracts worth $321 million. At least one deal put U.S. soldiers at risk.
The Army LOGCAP contract required KBR to medically screen the thousands of kitchen workers that subcontractors like Tamimi imported from impoverished villages in Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
But when Pentagon officials asked for medical records in March 2004, Khan presented "bogus" files for 550 Tamimi workers, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Lang said in a court hearing last year.
KBR retested those 550 workers at a Kuwait City clinic and found 172 positive for exposure to hepatitis A, Lang told the judge. Khan tried to suppress those findings, warning the clinic director that Tamimi would do no more business with his medical office if he "told KBR about these results," Lang said in court. The infectious virus can cause fatigue and other symptoms that arise weeks after contact.
Retesting of the 172 found that none had contagious hepatitis A, Lang said, and Khan's attorneys said in court that no soldiers caught diseases from the workers or from meals they prepared. It remains unclear if that is because the workers were treated or because they did not remain infectious after the onset of symptoms.
Still, the incident shows how even mundane meal contracts can put troops at risk. Similar disease-testing breaches cropped up at cafeterias outsourced to firms besides Tamimi, former KBR Area Supervisor Rene Robinson said in a Tribune interview.
"That was an ongoing problem," Robinson said. "When the military asked for paperwork, it was spotty." KBR was forced to begin vaccinating the employees at their work sites, he added.
Tamimi and its U.S. lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The company has said it is cooperating with federal authorities.
By July 2005, Tamimi had secured some 30 KBR troop feeding subcontracts worth $793.5 million, records show. Khan continued to negotiate Iraq war subcontracts for Tamimi until shortly before he was arrested in Rock Island in March 2006.
He is now serving a 51-month prison sentence for lying to federal agents about the kickbacks he wired to Seamans, who pleaded guilty and served a year and a day in prison. Both declined to comment.
Seamans, a 46-year-old Air Force veteran, once taught ethics to junior KBR employees. At his December 2006 sentencing hearing, he expressed remorse for taking the kickbacks, telling the judge: "It is not the way that Americans do business."
It was another repentant LOGCAP veteran standing before a Rock Island judge on Wednesday. Peleti, formerly the military's top food service adviser for the Middle East, wept as he admitted taking bribes from Tamimi and three other subcontractors between 2003 and early 2006.
Ribbons and badges glittered across Peleti's pressed green Army shirt. "I stand here before you today to convey my remorse and sincere regret," he said, then broke down.
One subcontractor, Public Warehousing Co., took Peleti and another top Army official to the Super Bowl, a defense investigator said in court Wednesday. The firm has denied wrongdoing. Khan also bribed Peleti to influence LOGCAP contracts with cash. Peleti was arrested in 2006 while re-entering the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base with a duffel bag stuffed with watches and jewelry as well as about $40,000 concealed in his clothing.
While prosecutors documented kickbacks in only the first two of Tamimi's mess hall subcontracts, they contend that the tone was set to corrupt the system.
"Tamimi and Mr. Khan have their hooks into Mr. Seamans, they have their hooks into KBR," Lang said in court last year. "It is difficult to assess the kind of damage that did to the integrity of the subcontracting process when the first two subcontracts are corrupted."
Auditors in the basement
Military auditors say they closely monitor the layers of KBR subcontractors who actually perform most of the LOGCAP work, stationing teams in Iraq. But one Rock Island search warrant said auditors working back in the U.S. could manage only limited reviews of the cascade of deals.
In the basement of one of KBR's Houston office buildings, a 25-member team from the Defense Contract Audit Agency had "no communications" with "personnel on the ground," so they could not confirm whether goods and services actually were delivered, the search warrant application said.
In the absence of oversight, some Middle Eastern businessmen would offer "Rolex watches, leather jackets, prostitutes, and the KBR guys weren't shy about bragging about the fact that they were being treated to all that stuff," said Paul Morrell, whose firm The Event Source ran several mess halls as a KBR subcontractor.
Such questionable relationships continued long after early procurement managers like Seamans had been rooted out. Early subcontractors such as Tamimi became almost indispensable in part by outfitting Army cafeterias with expensive power generators and refrigeration systems, records and interviews show.
"If you ever gave Tamimi a hard time, you'd get a call," former KBR subcontract manager Harry DeWolf told the Tribune.
When subcontracts came up for renegotiation, DeWolf said, companies like Tamimi "would say, 'Fine, we're going to pull out all of our people and equipment.' They really had KBR and the government over the barrel."
Complicating the investigation of war-contract crimes, the government of Kuwait has denied a U.S. request to extradite two Middle Eastern businessmen accused of LOGCAP fraud. The country's ambassador last year sent letters to the Justice Department asking the U.S. to drop its case against one of them, arguing that international agreements forbid U.S. prosecution of Kuwaiti residents for crimes allegedly committed on Kuwaiti soil. Prosecutors disagree, but a judge is considering Kuwait's assertion.
Investigators also have faced challenges in dealing with KBR. The company has withheld some internal company documents relating to Mazon, Seaman's fellow KBR procurement manager, the firm's attorneys wrote in court filings.
In response to one subpoena, the firm gave agents about 2,760 of Mazon's computer files but withheld 398 others, saying they were covered by attorney-client privilege or other protections.
Federal prosecutors say they have given KBR no special treatment and that the company has legal rights afforded to all firms whose employees have been charged with wrongdoing. "We did withhold some documents as being privileged," a KBR spokeswoman wrote, but added that the company has provided statements and grand jury testimony.
Mazon has pleaded not guilty to charges that he inflated a fuel contract. His attorneys say the fuel subcontract was accidentally inflated when figures were converted from U.S. dollars to Kuwaiti dinars then back again. At least 22 KBR troop support subcontracts were inflated through similar errors, Mazon's attorney J. Scott Arthur wrote in papers filed in Rock Island.
KBR attorneys said the company informed federal officials of three similar "double conversions" on other subcontracts. But KBR said it "has not undertaken an exhaustive search of its millions of pages of procurement documents" to determine whether other such errors exist.
Congratulations New Hampshire, live free or Die! This has to get going in Congress and be acted on. I know the two idiots will keep twisting arms until it is too late and they will simply stay the destructive course. They deserve inpeachment 1000 times more than Bill Clinton. I wish we could condemn him or something even once he is out. We have to do something!
Larry
It is so pervasive the corruption and just in Iraq. I have heard of trucks being delivered that did not even reun etc. Aone time I had such an extensive list it wasn't funny.
It psses me off to no end Bush's insistance on no oversight so the corrupt could benefit from the Government tills and he would thus gain allies.
I often wonder how many Billions of the 500 or so Billion spent were just stolen and how many good American lives were wasted because of faulty or no equpment due to corruptive action and gain!
Getting closer Jim:
Texans protest against planned NAFTA superhighway
Filed by Nick Langewis and David Edwards
As Senators Clinton and Obama prepared to debate in their state, Texans were marching in protest over the NAFTA superhighway known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, or I-69, the primary purpose of which is to speed the delivery of goods coming in from Mexico to proposed inland ports.
The TTC is planned to span the state of Texas from Laredo, on the Mexican border, to Texarkana, on the border with Arkansas, to continue north to Canada. The projected cost is $183 billion over fifty years, with no American companies expressing interest in financing it.
With no public approval required to begin construction, repeated calls against the TTC at public meetings, with seldom a word of support, may easily go unheeded.
"This is about international--global companies that are coming in and having their way with our politicians," says Terri Hall of TexasTURF. "It doesn't matter what does to the people in the path," she continues, "it doesn't matter what it does to our way of life..."
"Citizens here," says an unidentified man at a public hearing, "are not going to bear the burden so Wal-Mart can get their cargo into the U.S. cheaper and faster."
Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is among opponents of the TTC, doubting the intentions of those planning its construction. He cites millions of acres subject to eminent domain, which the state promises to use against landowners who protest, and also notes that he has yet to encounter a person that supports the TTC.
"Frankly," says Texas Department of Transportation's Phil Russell, "we're in a different day and age right now, and the way we built our roadways fifty years ago simply isn't keeping up with the congestion that we're seeing here in Texas now."
"This is really messing with Texas," quips an incredulous Lou Dobbs to anchor Bill Tucker. "You can't tell me that Governor Rick Perry and the head of the Department of Transportation down there--that they're dumb enough to say that, because all of this traffic's coming out of Mexico, that Texas citizens should be funding the highway that is needed as a result of that traffic. That's absolutely idiotic."
"If people are putting up with this nonsense from their state government, and Governor Rick Perry, and their Department of Transportation," Dobbs continues, "these aren't the Texans that I know, and who I respect mightily."
Larry
As Senators Clinton and Obama prepared to debate in their state, Texans were marching in protest over the NAFTA superhighway known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, or I-69, the primary purpose of which is to speed the delivery of goods coming in from Mexico to proposed inland ports.
The TTC is planned to span the state of Texas from Laredo, on the Mexican border, to Texarkana, on the border with Arkansas, to continue north to Canada. The projected cost is $183 billion over fifty years, with no American companies expressing interest in financing it.
With no public approval required to begin construction, repeated calls against the TTC at public meetings, with seldom a word of support, may easily go unheeded.
"This is about international--global companies that are coming in and having their way with our politicians," says Terri Hall of TexasTURF. "It doesn't matter what does to the people in the path," she continues, "it doesn't matter what it does to our way of life..."
People just do not get it! They do not matter. American businesses do notmatter. America does not matter
States better fight this all the way but it will not matter. A world economy is what matters as you know, with an NAU to operate it.
I am going to discuss our Manmar Belgrade future if the right succeeds in assassinating Obama. that will be the final step for Bush to declare martial Law and finish this
As much as I love to call Crawford Caligula Mr. 19%, the methodology in that ARG poll is flawed.
tc
That's interesting! I didn't check out their methodology knowing that he is the worst in history as his goal is total control of us and destruction of our America so he can emplace his version. I still don't understand why the numbers aren't single digit which is still too high!
Jim, I posted on it a few days ago, because of my background in opinion research. Instead of asking the core question (approval) first, they asked it last after several questions on the economy. Respondents answers to economic questions would put them in a negative mind-set when they came to the core question. Not necessarily an intentionally biased poll, but very shoddy workmanship. Every point above zero is a point to high, and a testament to the propaganda value of Faux Noiue.
tc
You have a good opinion. You think like me I believe!
Post a Comment