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POPSinteractive guide: Who in the Bush administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted
Each scandal is represented by a colored circle that encompasses the people who are implicated. As it's easy to see, many of the players here are mixed up in two, three, or more of the alleged crimes. Hence all the overlapping circles (Venn-diagram heaven!). The best way to make sense of this legal tangle is to mouse over the title of an individual scandal, which will highlight everyone implicated. For example, the wiretapping bubble ensnares George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Ashcroft, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales. At the same time, Ashcroft and Gonzales fall into the overlapping circle for monkey business related to DoJ hiring. Mouse over a person's name for information on how each person is involved. Mouse over the title of each circle for specifics about the particular scandal. And if all else fails, fall back on this golden rule of wrongdoing in the White House: All roads lead to Gonzales.
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POPSPelosi should look in the mirror This from the woman who has protected a war criminal who, if Bush is ever tried as one or impeached, ought to be tried and impeached/recalled as an enabler, as harboring, protecting aiding and abetting a war criminal. This from a woman who on occasions has appeared to be lusting over or hero worshipping him. This from a woman who also appears to have had a demented school-girl crush on a virtual monster.
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POPSThe Dalai Lama is a better man than I Sorry, I can't love the King St. George Dumbfuck just yet. I haven't evolved quite that far. Too much death, Blood and sorrow on Bush's hands. I guess I need some "inner disarmament", neh? Seriously.
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POPSNiether Dems or Rethugs Deserve or votes! He’s a politician in essence chosen by the mainstream corporate media marketing complex to be their puppet and appeal to the public’s desire for an anti-Bush. Unfortunately he’s not far enough removed from mainstream corporate media marketing complex to represent real “change”.
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POPSNaomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food, Housing and Banking as Chance to Exploit Us More
... Food, fuel, housing, climate change -- talk about these crises. First, start with oil. Klein: There really is a kind of a tsunami of shocks facing not just the economy but people's lives, people's real lives. They're all intersecting. They're making each other worse. And I think we really are seeing some very live examples of what a write about in the book, which is how there is a strategy. And this is what I mean by "the shock doctrine." There is a clear political strategy, and has been for several decades, to exploit these moments when people are desperate for quick-fix solutions and more inclined to believe in a kind of a magical cure, to push through very, very unpopular policies that don't actually solve the crisis at hand, that don't actually help people, but are incredibly profitable for multinational corporations. And I think we are seeing a very vivid example of this with this speech from George Bush yesterday, where he is taking a very real crisis, which is demandi
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POPSWill homosexual marriage save the Repubs? Since Obama is running to the right/center, and Democreeps are kissing King George's butt and trashing the Constitution, the Rethugs could actually win! Amazing, and sick, 'Murrikan politics at it's best (worst)
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POPSMcCain Jokes about Killing Iranians ... AGAIN McCain reminds me of a cross between Yosemite Sam http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNFsnZdn1Ho and Peppermint Patty http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGQ2WvjvTHA . Yosemite Sam being the gunslinger on the Bugs Bunny cartoon with a bad temper and Peppermint Patty the dim-witted, D-minus grade-getting talkative character on the Charlie Brown show who was always putting her foot in her mouth. I think those two cartoon characters had a kid and named him John McCain.
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POPSObama Should Follow Feingold
That’s bad — not just because Obama is putting politics ahead of principle, but because he’s calculating the politics wrong. As Feingold proved when he was overwhelmingly re-elected in a swing state in 2004, after casting the sole vote against the Patriot Act, standing strong for the Bill of Rights attracts rather than sacrifices votes. Even worse is the deceptive claim that the “compromise” on FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) reached by the Bush administration and congressional leaders allows for meaningful scrutiny. As Feingold says, “The proposed FISA deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation. The House and Senate should not be taking up this bill, which effectively guarantees immunity for telecom companies alleged to have participated in the president’s illegal program, and which fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home. Allowing courts to review the question of immunity is meaningless when the same legislation essentially requires the co
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POPSMoral Depravity in the Highest Places
After 7 1/2 years of George W. Bush, much of the media and political establishment — which have never shown much interest in holding Bush to account — now appear anxious to simply move on. They seem determined to leave unexamined the full cruelty and mendacity of the Bush administration, with its unlawful wars and blatant violations of the Geneva Conventions. Moving on is a great idea - once there’s been some accountability, with a full public recognition of wrongdoing, and a commitment to bring about change. Otherwise, nothing will have been learned. The comments of Yoo, who authored top-level internal memos justifying torture and virtually unlimited presidential power, suggest a moral depravity in very high places. That depravity led to the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib and at other U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and “black sites” around the world. The dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, Lawrence Velvel, argues that Bush and top administration offi
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POPSSeeds of Current Propaganda found in Reagan Era 
Enduring Skills Beyond these individuals, the manipulative techniques that were refined in the 1980s — especially the skill of exaggerating foreign threats — have proved durable, bringing large segments of the American population into line behind the Iraq War in 2002-03. Only now — with more than 4,100 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead — are many of these Americans realizing that were manipulated by clever propaganda, that their perceptions had been managed. For instance, the New York Times recently pried loose some 8,000 pages of Pentagon documents revealing how the Bush administration had manipulated the public debate on the Iraq War by planting friendly retired military officers on TV news shows. Retired Green Beret Robert S. Bevelacqua, a former analyst on Murdoch’s Fox News, said the Pentagon treated the retired military officers as puppets: “It was them saying, ‘we need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.’” [NYT, April 20,
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POPSFor sale: one used country - cheap The US news media didn't think this post 9/11 "mercy" flight for Bush's personal friends was worth investigating. ============================== How deep the connection goes "September 13, 2001 - Thousands of Americans were dead. They have been killed in a terrorist operation largely run by Saudis. Nonetheless the two men (Bush and Prince Bandar Of Saudi Arabia) each lit up a Cohiba cigar (on the Truman balcony of the White House)... Few Americans realized that these two dynasties had a history dating back more than twenty years. Not just business partners and personal friends, the Bushes and the Saudis had pulled off elaborate covert operations and gone to war together... They had been involved in the Iran-contra scandal, in secret U.S. aid in the Afghanistan War that gave birth of Osama bin Laden." From: House of Bush, House of Saud: The secret relationship between the world's most powerful dynasties by Craig Unger. Page 15
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POPSObscene Military Budget is much biger than Reported Legally see the article for the cuts behind the figures here: Now, imagine that, due to a little more Pentagon/Bush administration wizardry, even this black budget estimate is undoubtedly a low-ball figure. One reason is simple enough: The proposed $541 billion Pentagon 2009 budget doesn't even include money for actual wars. George W. Bush's wars are all paid for by "supplemental" bills like the $162 billion one Congress will soon pass -- so the Department of Defense's $34 billion black budget skips "war-related funding." This means that even the overall figure for that budget remains darker than we might imagine (as in "black hole"). The Pentagon not only produces stealth planes, it is, in budgetary terms, a stealth operation. If honestly accounted, the actual Pentagon yearly budget, including all the "military-related" funds salted away elsewhere, is probably now more than $1 trillion a year.
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POPSDemocrats Have Legalized Bush's Crimes Beyond the breathtaking scope of this new authority, the Bush administration also snuck in a clause that granted forward-looking immunity from lawsuits to communications service providers that assisted the spying. That removed one of the few safeguards against Bush's warrantless wiretaps: the concern among service providers that they might be sued by customers for handing over constitutionally protected information without a warrant. In short, the "Protect America Act" made warrantless surveillance legally cost free for a collaborating service provider, tilting the scales even further in favor of the government's spying powers.
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POPSEveryone Caves in to the Fascists (almost) WTF is going down? The USA...Even The Miracle Man Obama is comfortable with the corporations being given immunity....The very definition of fascism...reminiscent of the Nazis defending Krupp and other German industries. "MURRIKA UBER ALLES!!!!"
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POPSEndless Funding for Endless Wars On and on and on and on it goes....Why don't we just take the babies from their moms when they're born and be done with it...give 2/3 of all you earn to the Pentagon...
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POPSInsane ex-Ambassador to UN Bolton predicts Bombs “An Obama victory would rule out military action by the Israelis because they would fear the consequences given the approach Obama has taken to foreign policy,” said Mr Bolton, who was Mr Bush’s ambassador to the UN from 2005 to 2006. “With McCain they might still be looking at a delay. Given that time is on Iran’s side, I think the argument for military action is sooner rather than later absent some other development.” The Iran policy of Mr McCain, whom Mr Bolton supports, was “much more realistic than the Bush administration’s stance”.
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POPSPresident Bush Urges Quick Passage of Wiretapping Bill I'm watchin' on CSPAN the debate on this bill in the House of Reps. Supporters of the House version say this will NOT give Telecoms immunity and make the 4th Amendment (right to privacy, search and siezure) virtually shredding another piece of the Constitution, like the Senate version., but if The Preznut supports it, I have my doubts.