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BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label Hurricane Katrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hurricane Katrina. Show all posts
25 October 2025
Now Streaming: Mother Jones Fall Climate Event Series 25OKT25
26 April 2013
8 Things You Won't See at the WAR CRIMINAL George W. Bush Presidential Library 25APR13
FROM Mother Jones, thank God there are journalist out there who aren't afraid to tell the truth....
W.
| Thu Apr. 25, 2013 3:05 AM PDT
W.
"Eight years was awesome and I was famous and I was powerful."—Former President George W. Bush, July 2012
On Thursday, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum will be officially dedicated at Southern Methodist University, a school attended by the likes of former first lady Laura Bush, actor Powers Boothe, and Kourtney Kardashian. The invitation-only event will be attended by President Obama, before he visitsa memorial at Baylor University for victims of the West, Texas, plant explosion. A spokesperson says attendance at the library dedication is expected to be in the thousands.
A presidential library is one way for an ex-POTUS to attempt to shape his long-term legacy. The historical assessment of Bush's 96 months in office remains as harsh as ever (a few of the strikes against him: endorsing torture, launching war on convoluted make-believe, jumping the gun on "mission accomplished", decimating a record budget surplus, politicizing NASA and the DOJ,wiretapping, ditching Kyoto, bungling Katrina,restricting stem-cell research, and getting all pissed off at the South Park creators). Yet the former president's supporters insist that he wants to address criticism of his administration head-on. "He really wants people to go in [the library and museum] and get a sense of what it was like to be president during that time and to use that to make an informed decision about his presidency," longtime Bush adviser Karen Hughes told Yahoo News.
How thoroughly the library and exhibits (as well as the George W. Bush Presidential Center encompassing them) handle and document history has yet to be fully evaluated. However, here are eight things we are confident visitors won't see at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum:
1. Bush's Pre-Invasion Plan for Governing Post-War Iraq
Because it didn't really exist.
2. The American Flag Put on the Toppled Saddam Statue
Because former Lieutenant Tim McLaughlin, the man who possesses the flag used for the iconic moment, refuses to lend it for use as pro-war propaganda.
3. The World's First Monument to Shoes Thrown at Bush's Face by an Iraqi Journalist
Uploaded on Dec 14, 2008
An Iraqi journalist threw two shoes at President Bush during a news conference Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The president was not hurt in the incident. (Dec. 14)
Because such a monument was already built—a six-foot-high sculpture depicting footwear chucked at Bush's head was unveiled at an Iraqi orphanage in 2009. (The shoe monument was, however, removed one day after its unveiling.)
4. The Time George Bush Fist-Pumped About Making the Planet Worse
Because as Bush prepared to depart Japan on the last day of his final G8 summit, he "signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets," and reportedly told his fellow leaders, "Good-bye from the world's biggest polluter"—a dark joke that he followed by "punch[ing] the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock."
5. 12 CIA Torture Tapes
Because the CIA destroyed them in late 2005.
6. An Exhibit Dedicated to the George W. Bush National Park
Because of course it doesn't exist…unless Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who recentlysecured $25,000 to study converting Bush's childhood home to America's next national park, gets his way.
7. These Will Ferrell Clips
Probably because the former president and the comic actor disagree so sharply about foreign policy.
8. Evidence of WMD
Come on, you know why.
01 November 2012
Michael Brown, Of 'Heckuva Job' Fame, Says Obama Reacted Too Fast To Hurricane Sandy & Mitt Romney In GOP Debate: Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency, Send Responsibility To The States 30&31OKT12
WHAT a horse's ass!!!! michael brown has no business criticizing anyone and certainly no business giving advise to anyone about the federal government's planning for and response to Hurricane Sandy. All he has done with this interview is remind people what a failure he and the bush administration was in dealing with Hurricane Katrina (as well as everything else) and that mitt robme romney would end FEMA and the government's ability to plan for and respond to disasters anywhere in the country. What would romney do? He would PRIVITIZE FEMA!!!! This from HuffPost.....
Former FEMA boss Michael Brown is critical of President Obama's hurricane response. WikiMedia
Michael Brown, the former FEMA director infamously praised by President George W. Bush for doing a "heckuva job"
during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, told a local paper
that President Barack Obama acted too quickly in mobilizing relief for
Superstorm Sandy.
"Here's my concern," Brown told Denver's Westword on Monday, suggesting that the official response was actually making people complacent. "It's premature [when] the brunt of the storm won't happen until later this afternoon."
Obama declared states of emergency all along East Coast states in the path of Sandy on Sunday, well before the storm hit, allowing federal resources to start flowing where governors thought they would be needed. FEMA and local responders were able to pre-position a lot of the material being drawn upon now.
Obama also held a press conference warning people to pay careful attention to the storm.
"This is a serious and big storm," Obama said after meeting with FEMA officials and talking to governors Sunday. "And my first message is to all the people across the Eastern seaboard, Mid-Atlantic, going north, that you need to take this very seriously."
Brown suggested Obama was just trying to look good.
"He probably figured Sunday was a good day to do a press conference," Brown said in his interview.
He
also thought Obama's response contrasted poorly to his response to the
deadly attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which
the U.S. ambassador and three others died. "One thing he's gonna be
asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so
quickly when in ... Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?" Brown said.
The whole interview is at Westword.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/michael-brown-obama-hurricane-sandy_n_2044971.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
"Here's my concern," Brown told Denver's Westword on Monday, suggesting that the official response was actually making people complacent. "It's premature [when] the brunt of the storm won't happen until later this afternoon."
Obama declared states of emergency all along East Coast states in the path of Sandy on Sunday, well before the storm hit, allowing federal resources to start flowing where governors thought they would be needed. FEMA and local responders were able to pre-position a lot of the material being drawn upon now.
Obama also held a press conference warning people to pay careful attention to the storm.
"This is a serious and big storm," Obama said after meeting with FEMA officials and talking to governors Sunday. "And my first message is to all the people across the Eastern seaboard, Mid-Atlantic, going north, that you need to take this very seriously."
Brown suggested Obama was just trying to look good.
"He probably figured Sunday was a good day to do a press conference," Brown said in his interview.
The whole interview is at Westword.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/michael-brown-obama-hurricane-sandy_n_2044971.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Mitt Romney In GOP Debate: Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency, Send Responsibility To The States
During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.
"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take
something from the federal government and send it back to the states,
that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it
back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in
the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite
question, what should we keep?"
"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.
"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all." The clip was flagged by HuffPost blogger Eric Zuesse.
WATCH:
UPDATE Sunday, 10:04 p.m.--
A Romney official reaffirmed the former governor's position Sunday evening in an email.
"Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters," the Romney official said.
UPDATE II Monday, 9:10 a.m.--
The Washington Post's Greg Sargent adds: "There’s another nugget here worth highlighting, though. In that appearance, Romney also suggested it would be 'even better' to send any and all responsibilities of the federal government 'to the private sector,' disaster response included. So: Romney essentially favored privatizing disaster response."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/mitt-romney-fema_n_2036198.html
"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.
"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all." The clip was flagged by HuffPost blogger Eric Zuesse.
WATCH:
UPDATE Sunday, 10:04 p.m.--
A Romney official reaffirmed the former governor's position Sunday evening in an email.
"Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters," the Romney official said.
UPDATE II Monday, 9:10 a.m.--
The Washington Post's Greg Sargent adds: "There’s another nugget here worth highlighting, though. In that appearance, Romney also suggested it would be 'even better' to send any and all responsibilities of the federal government 'to the private sector,' disaster response included. So: Romney essentially favored privatizing disaster response."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/mitt-romney-fema_n_2036198.html
10 December 2010
Santorum: A 2012 long shot tests the water 10DEZ10
RICK SANTORUM, neo-nazi hypocritical fascist gop pig wants to be president......how pathetic. Take a look at Spreading Santorum at
http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/index2.html
Darling of Christian conservatives, he claimed to value the sanctity of life (in his view beginning at conception) he consistently voted against increasing social safety net programs for children and families, and against increasing the minimum wage. His hypocrisy was paid for by his wealthy and corporate masters who paid him to do their bidding in the Senate. Sanctimonious, pompous, greedy, self-righteous, he is one of the last things this country needs. Check out the Wikipedia page on him for more on his sordid and tawdry public life at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum
GOFFSTOWN, N.H. - It was pushing 10 p.m., and Rick Santorum was sitting at the corner table in a near-empty Dunkin' Donuts. The garishly lit scene might have been lifted straight from the movie "Primary Colors."
"I'm feeling like doors are opening," the Republican former senator from Pennsylvania mused over his decaf. "Things are happening that maybe give me the impression that maybe I need to look at this seriously."
So seriously that Santorum was on his seventh trip to New Hampshire since April. Not to mention seven to Iowa over the past 14 months and seven to South Carolina in that time.
It had been a busy day: morning meetings with influential New Hampshire Republicans and grass-roots leaders, a luncheon with the Manchester Rotary Club, a dash to the seacoast for a private audience with former governor John Sununu, a dinner with GOP activist Claira Monier, then a question-and-answer session with the Goffstown-Weare Republican Committee.
Santorum had yet another meeting that evening back at his hotel. Before heading home the next day, he would get in an early-morning speech to a second Rotary chapter, a round of media interviews, more face time with GOP activists. Oh, and he'd make it to Mass at a nearby church.
This is what the embryonic days of a long-shot presidential campaign look like.
"If someone gets in the race that I feel really comfortable could do the things that need to be done - both winning and governing - then maybe this is a chance to say, 'Let this cup pass,' " Santorum said. "At this point, given what I see out there, I'm not feeling that."
It takes a certain kind of self-assurance, some might say a certain kind of self-delusion, to look at what it takes to capture the presidency of the United States and think: Hey, why not me?
It is an especially tall climb for a Republican like Santorum. Democrats have a history of taking chances on unknowns and fresh faces. The current occupant of the White House was two years out of the Illinois Senate when he sized up the competition, asked himself the same question and decided he was up to it.
But the GOP has a tradition of anointing the next person in line. With more than a dozen other names being mentioned, Santorum is nowhere near the front. The last time he was on a ballot, in a 2006 bid for a third Senate term in Pennsylvania, he lost by 18 percentage points.
Yet Santorum believes that this is an altered political environment - and that this time, the process of selecting a presidential nominee could be different for Republicans.
Others agree that the old GOP script could be rewritten in 2012. "People are desperate to the point of panic in wanting to get rid of Barack Obama, and increasingly anxious about the prospects of some of our choices," said a prominent Republican strategist, who did not want to be quoted by name suggesting that anything is lacking on the GOP bench.
"Every one of these people is either deeply flawed or irredeemably polarizing, and that's why a guy like Santorum is going to get a look."
Then there's the fact that the Republican establishment may not be in the driver's seat this time. And the other fact that Santorum was a tea party kind of guy before there was a tea party.
Tempered by time
In the recent history of Washington, few have so gleefully ransacked the established order or shown such contempt for its protocols.
Elected to the House in 1990 at the tender age of 32, Santorum made his mark as one of the "Gang of Seven" freshmen who exposed the House banking scandal. They forced the disclosure that more than half of their colleagues had written hot checks, and helped send dozens into retirement or defeat.
As a freshman senator four years later, Santorum violated the chamber's decorous folkways by carting around a "Where's Bill?" sign to demand a balanced budget from President Bill Clinton. He tried to have Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) removed as chairman of the Appropriations Committee because of Hatfield's refusal to support a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
Santorum was notorious for his moral pronouncements. He contended, for instance, that Boston's liberal culture was partly to blame for the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church there, and suggested that lifting antiquated state sodomy laws would sanction bestiality - or as he put it, "man on dog."
Santorum still breathes fire. In his evolving stump speech, he frames the prospect of Obama's reelection in near-apocalyptic terms: "Democracy and freedom will disappear." His agenda consists of stopping pretty much everything that has been set in motion in the past two years, starting with the overhaul of the nation's health-care system.
Since losing his Senate seat, Santorum has been splitting his time among various endeavors. He has a think tank perch at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a gig as a Fox News commentator, consulting work and speeches.
With seven kids, including a 2-year-old who was born with a serious medical condition, he has to weigh the avocation of running for president against the need to earn money. But friends say his eagerness to get back into the give-and-take of politics and policy is palpable. When he talks about the Senate, where he once had hopes of becoming majority leader, Santorum still occasionally uses the word "we" and slips into the present tense.
His had been an against-the-odds success story. The first true conservative whom Pennsylvania had sent to the Senate since 1952, he even landed a spot in the Senate GOP leadership. But his luck and his political skills ran out in 2006, a bad year to be a Republican and an especially bad one to be challenged by the moderate son of a popular former governor.
Except for the whisper of white around his temples, Santorum at 52 appears little changed from the boyish provocateur who stormed Washington two decades ago. But if he hasn't mellowed exactly, he has been tempered - by age, by experience, by defeat.
As he was taking questions recently at a gathering of College Republicans at American University, one student asked what he would tell someone who was entering Congress now.
"Keep the fire, but don't burn the place down," Santorum said. "It's a great country. It's a great institution. It makes mistakes, but you're not perfect, either."
Over coffee in New Hampshire, the Santorum of 2010 conceded that the Santorum of 1990 would not have had much regard for that kind of advice.
"In a sense, I learned it the hard way," he said. "I'm sure I made statements that at the time were very broad-brush."
Old-fashioned way
If Santorum does run for the presidency - a decision he says he will not make until next year - he would not start with the ready-made organization of former governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, both of whom ran in 2008, or the name identification of former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), or the supernova force of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
Santorum's team consists of a small circle of longtime advisers, most of whom are working for him part-time. But his political action committee has raised nearly $1.4 million this year, and the lion's share came in small contributions.
His audiences also tend to be small, and conservative, but they are receptive. "The people they trust the most are the people who understand the economic issues and the people who understand the social issues," said Kim Lehman, a Republican National Committee member and former president of Iowa Right to Life. "He brings that to the table, and people see that, and he's likeable."
Even in the era of Twitter and Facebook, Santorum is convinced that he would have to go about this the old-fashioned way. "If you're someone like me who is way in the back of the pack, you have to do well early, or you don't go far," he said.
He has already picked up some practical pointers. In New Hampshire, it's best to keep his Starbucks gold card in his wallet. In this state - where Dunkin' Donuts stores are as ubiquitous as Dairy Queens are in Iowa - people don't like to see their candidates drinking designer coffee.
But the most pointed advice has been from his wife, Karen, who issued a dictate she had never given in his earlier endeavors.
"Do it right. Be serious about it," Santorum recalled her telling him. "If you decide to do this, don't embarrass me."
http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/index2.html
Darling of Christian conservatives, he claimed to value the sanctity of life (in his view beginning at conception) he consistently voted against increasing social safety net programs for children and families, and against increasing the minimum wage. His hypocrisy was paid for by his wealthy and corporate masters who paid him to do their bidding in the Senate. Sanctimonious, pompous, greedy, self-righteous, he is one of the last things this country needs. Check out the Wikipedia page on him for more on his sordid and tawdry public life at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum
GOFFSTOWN, N.H. - It was pushing 10 p.m., and Rick Santorum was sitting at the corner table in a near-empty Dunkin' Donuts. The garishly lit scene might have been lifted straight from the movie "Primary Colors."
"I'm feeling like doors are opening," the Republican former senator from Pennsylvania mused over his decaf. "Things are happening that maybe give me the impression that maybe I need to look at this seriously."
So seriously that Santorum was on his seventh trip to New Hampshire since April. Not to mention seven to Iowa over the past 14 months and seven to South Carolina in that time.
It had been a busy day: morning meetings with influential New Hampshire Republicans and grass-roots leaders, a luncheon with the Manchester Rotary Club, a dash to the seacoast for a private audience with former governor John Sununu, a dinner with GOP activist Claira Monier, then a question-and-answer session with the Goffstown-Weare Republican Committee.
Santorum had yet another meeting that evening back at his hotel. Before heading home the next day, he would get in an early-morning speech to a second Rotary chapter, a round of media interviews, more face time with GOP activists. Oh, and he'd make it to Mass at a nearby church.
This is what the embryonic days of a long-shot presidential campaign look like.
"If someone gets in the race that I feel really comfortable could do the things that need to be done - both winning and governing - then maybe this is a chance to say, 'Let this cup pass,' " Santorum said. "At this point, given what I see out there, I'm not feeling that."
It takes a certain kind of self-assurance, some might say a certain kind of self-delusion, to look at what it takes to capture the presidency of the United States and think: Hey, why not me?
It is an especially tall climb for a Republican like Santorum. Democrats have a history of taking chances on unknowns and fresh faces. The current occupant of the White House was two years out of the Illinois Senate when he sized up the competition, asked himself the same question and decided he was up to it.
But the GOP has a tradition of anointing the next person in line. With more than a dozen other names being mentioned, Santorum is nowhere near the front. The last time he was on a ballot, in a 2006 bid for a third Senate term in Pennsylvania, he lost by 18 percentage points.
Yet Santorum believes that this is an altered political environment - and that this time, the process of selecting a presidential nominee could be different for Republicans.
Others agree that the old GOP script could be rewritten in 2012. "People are desperate to the point of panic in wanting to get rid of Barack Obama, and increasingly anxious about the prospects of some of our choices," said a prominent Republican strategist, who did not want to be quoted by name suggesting that anything is lacking on the GOP bench.
"Every one of these people is either deeply flawed or irredeemably polarizing, and that's why a guy like Santorum is going to get a look."
Then there's the fact that the Republican establishment may not be in the driver's seat this time. And the other fact that Santorum was a tea party kind of guy before there was a tea party.
Tempered by time
In the recent history of Washington, few have so gleefully ransacked the established order or shown such contempt for its protocols.
Elected to the House in 1990 at the tender age of 32, Santorum made his mark as one of the "Gang of Seven" freshmen who exposed the House banking scandal. They forced the disclosure that more than half of their colleagues had written hot checks, and helped send dozens into retirement or defeat.
As a freshman senator four years later, Santorum violated the chamber's decorous folkways by carting around a "Where's Bill?" sign to demand a balanced budget from President Bill Clinton. He tried to have Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) removed as chairman of the Appropriations Committee because of Hatfield's refusal to support a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
Santorum was notorious for his moral pronouncements. He contended, for instance, that Boston's liberal culture was partly to blame for the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church there, and suggested that lifting antiquated state sodomy laws would sanction bestiality - or as he put it, "man on dog."
Santorum still breathes fire. In his evolving stump speech, he frames the prospect of Obama's reelection in near-apocalyptic terms: "Democracy and freedom will disappear." His agenda consists of stopping pretty much everything that has been set in motion in the past two years, starting with the overhaul of the nation's health-care system.
Since losing his Senate seat, Santorum has been splitting his time among various endeavors. He has a think tank perch at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a gig as a Fox News commentator, consulting work and speeches.
With seven kids, including a 2-year-old who was born with a serious medical condition, he has to weigh the avocation of running for president against the need to earn money. But friends say his eagerness to get back into the give-and-take of politics and policy is palpable. When he talks about the Senate, where he once had hopes of becoming majority leader, Santorum still occasionally uses the word "we" and slips into the present tense.
His had been an against-the-odds success story. The first true conservative whom Pennsylvania had sent to the Senate since 1952, he even landed a spot in the Senate GOP leadership. But his luck and his political skills ran out in 2006, a bad year to be a Republican and an especially bad one to be challenged by the moderate son of a popular former governor.
Except for the whisper of white around his temples, Santorum at 52 appears little changed from the boyish provocateur who stormed Washington two decades ago. But if he hasn't mellowed exactly, he has been tempered - by age, by experience, by defeat.
As he was taking questions recently at a gathering of College Republicans at American University, one student asked what he would tell someone who was entering Congress now.
"Keep the fire, but don't burn the place down," Santorum said. "It's a great country. It's a great institution. It makes mistakes, but you're not perfect, either."
Over coffee in New Hampshire, the Santorum of 2010 conceded that the Santorum of 1990 would not have had much regard for that kind of advice.
"In a sense, I learned it the hard way," he said. "I'm sure I made statements that at the time were very broad-brush."
Old-fashioned way
If Santorum does run for the presidency - a decision he says he will not make until next year - he would not start with the ready-made organization of former governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, both of whom ran in 2008, or the name identification of former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), or the supernova force of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
Santorum's team consists of a small circle of longtime advisers, most of whom are working for him part-time. But his political action committee has raised nearly $1.4 million this year, and the lion's share came in small contributions.
His audiences also tend to be small, and conservative, but they are receptive. "The people they trust the most are the people who understand the economic issues and the people who understand the social issues," said Kim Lehman, a Republican National Committee member and former president of Iowa Right to Life. "He brings that to the table, and people see that, and he's likeable."
Even in the era of Twitter and Facebook, Santorum is convinced that he would have to go about this the old-fashioned way. "If you're someone like me who is way in the back of the pack, you have to do well early, or you don't go far," he said.
He has already picked up some practical pointers. In New Hampshire, it's best to keep his Starbucks gold card in his wallet. In this state - where Dunkin' Donuts stores are as ubiquitous as Dairy Queens are in Iowa - people don't like to see their candidates drinking designer coffee.
But the most pointed advice has been from his wife, Karen, who issued a dictate she had never given in his earlier endeavors.
"Do it right. Be serious about it," Santorum recalled her telling him. "If you decide to do this, don't embarrass me."
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