2005: The world’s nations are together in Montreal today. A conference to discuss the problem of global warming is well under way. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University calls this time “the critical decade” for dealing with climate change, while there still is time to make a difference. “We do have a little time, but not much ... If we don’t get a serious program in place for the long term ... we will simply not make it and we will be crossing limits which will basically produce impacts that are unacceptable”, Oppenheimer says.
Given the importance of the topic, and the gathering of so many nations to discuss it, the Bush administration decides to send no one. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change is quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “Most people are ready to take the dialogue forward. The only place where that is not the case is the [Bush] administration”.
U.S. companies also send representatives to the gathering, despite President Bush’s apparent desire that everyone stick their heads in the sand and pretend that climate change is not happening. Dennis Canavan of Johnson & Johnson is quoted in the Washington Post, saying: “We feel climate change is very real”. Despite his company having grown by a factor of four since 1990, it has been able to cut its greenhouse emissions by 3.1 percent during this time. Johnson & Johnson: moving forward on dealing with climate change. The Bush administraiont: not so much.
“We want them to know how to teach the science of reading. In order to make sure there’s not this kind of federal—federal cufflink.” George W. Bush, speaking about education, March 30th 2000
Also on this date, Laura Bush makes Christmas gift book recommendations ("Poor George’s Almanac” is not among them). Read more in the 2008 Calendar/Day Planner/Stocking Stuffer: http://www.PoorGeorgesAlmanac.com/onThisDate.htm
Saturday, January 5, 2008
On This Date in Bush History 12/4: In Denial
On This Date in Bush History-"a strategic error of the first order”
“Iraq is a very important part of securing the homeland, and it’s a very important part of helping change the Middle East into a part of the world that will not serve as a threat to the civilized world, to people like—or to the developed world, to people like—in the United States.” President Bush, April 3rd 2007
2003: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College posts a study by Jeffrey Record today. The study criticizes the Bush administration mixing the Sadam and al Qaeda threats saying this was “was a strategic error of the first order ... The result has been an unnecessary preventive war ... that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland ... The war against Iraq was not integral to the [war on terror], but rather a detour from it”.
The study’s author served as an advisor in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War, and as a staff member for the Senate Armed Services Committee. He teaches at the Air Force’s Air War College in Alabama.
Bush’s Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the study “obviously is inaccurate”. Obviously! An LA Times article quotes a former National Security Council staff member saying, “The criticism does not seem out of line with many of the conversations I have had with officers in every branch of the military”.
“These people don’t like freedom. You know why? Because it clashes with their ideology. We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.” President Bush, August 6th 2004
Read more in the 2008 Calendar: http://www.PoorGeorgesAlmanac.com/onThisDate.htm
On This Date in Bush History 12/3: Brownie’s FEMA
“He has chang’d his one ey’d horse for a blind one.” Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1733
2001: President Bush announces today that he intends to nominate Michael Brown to head FEMA. ‘Brownie’ as the president calls him, is to become infamous as the face of the incompetent federal response to Hurricane Katrina. While Brown has little to recommend him in the area of emergency management, he did lead an Arabian horse association for nine years. ‘Brownie’ replaces former FEMA director and longtime Bush associate Joe Allbraug. Allbraug also had no notable emergency management experience but he served as head of Bush’s 2000 campaign.
Thus Mr. Brown becomes the second poorly qualified individual appointed by Bush to lead FEMA, a critical asset in the age of terrorism. Bush’s choices stand in sharp contrast to Bill Clinton appointee James Lee Witt, a true expert in the emergency management. Witt’s handling of the Northridge California earthquake, as well as widespread Mississippi river flooding, earned him and FEMA wide praise.
In 2006 Congress would enact a law requiring that the head of FEMA have “a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management”. President Bush, never one to value competency on the job, would issue a signing statement saying he believed he did not have to obey this requirement.
“So please give cash money to organizations that are directly involved in helping save lives - save the life who had been affected by Hurricane Katrina.” President Bush, September 6th 2005
2006: Columbia University history professor Eric Foner’s op-ed appears in the Washington Post today. Foner compares the faults of presidents previously judged amongst the worst (Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon) and points out that one president, President Bush, “has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of [all] his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history”.
Read more in the 2008 Calendar/Day Planner/Stocking Stuffer: http://www.PoorGeorgesAlmanac.com/onThisDate.htm
On This Date in Bush History 12/2: “the worst of the presidents”
“This is historic times.” President Bush, April 20th 2004
2002: White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer talks today of Saddam and WMDs: “If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world”. Or, as it turns out, he may just be telling the truth. Bush’s Iraq weapons inspector David Kay admitted Saddam had no WMDs in October 2003, adding “Iraq’s large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new chemical weapon munitions was reduced - if not entirely destroyed - during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N. inspections.”
2005: Columnist and presidential biographer Richard Reeves writes today: “Poor James Buchanan, the 15th president, is generally considered the worst president in history ... Buchanan set the standard, a tough record to beat. But there are serious people who believe that George W. Bush will prove to do that, be worse than Buchanan. I have talked with three significant historians in the past few months who would not say it in public, but who are saying privately that Bush will be remembered as the worst of the presidents” Poor George.
“you don’t have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, how do you think my standing will be?” President Bush, March 16th 2005
Read more in the 2008 Calendar/Day Planner/Stocking Stuffer: http://www.PoorGeorgesAlmanac.com
Bush Quotes
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.” George W. Bush, March 2001
“I want to make sure everybody who has a job wants a job.” - George Bush
“It is white.” - George W. Bush, when asked what the White house was like by a student in East London
On This Date in Bush History 01/01: Poor George
2003: On this date, Ron Suskind writes in Esquire Magazine that the first President Bush fired assistant Karl Rove for leaking information. Contrast this action, the firing of Karl Rove for a breach of integrity, with the inaction of the current President Bush who continued Karl Rove’s White House employment after Rove had leaked the identity of a CIA operative to the press.
“‘Tis a Shame that your Family is an Honour to you! You ought to be an Honour to your Family.” Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1750
2006: “Happy New Year to you all. Thanks. I can’t think of a better way to start 2006 then here at this fantastic hospital” says President Bush. The president is visiting wounded troops today at San Antonio’s Amputee Care Center of Brooke Army Medical Center. President Bush added, “As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself - not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch”. Poor George.
“I do think we need for a troop to be able to house his family. That’s an important part of building morale in the military.” President Bush, March 12th 2001
As promised, with the arrival of the New Year, these Bush History posts are now history (though they will continue on Facebook via the free ‘Poor George’ application( http://www.facebook.com/p.php?api_key=38e2355ed0122961e17b14ac684b1613 ), and at the website below). To those who responded, or were faithful readers, thanks, and Happy New Year to all!
“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.” (or woman) Benjamin Franklin
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
a New Year's appeal from Ramsey Clark -- no war on Iran!
The impeachment movement starts 2008 off right
Protesters carry an enormous copy of the Constitution at the Rose Bowl parade.
We will not rest. With your help, we will continue this historic struggle. The impeachment movement was out in force the first day of 2008. At yesterday's Rose Bowl parade, impeachment activists and supporters came out in full force with banners, and signs, calling for the immediate removal of Bush and Cheney. This was a great action, and a great way to get the message of impeachment out to a broader audience. Surely, many of yesterday's television viewers and parade participants got their first exposure to this movement. They now know that the people of this country can and will make a difference, and not stand idly by as the Bush administration rips the Constitution to shreds.
Please make an urgently needed donation so that we can place newspaper ads, organize mass rallies and demonstrations, and continue a vigorous nationwide lobbying effort. We can't do it without your continued your support. Please click this link to make a donation.
"I ask you to resolve now to resolve to join us and do all you can to create a credible and hopefully irresistible demand for the impeachment of President Bush. To make an urgently needed donation to help build the important work of ImpeachBush in the coming year, click on this link." - Ramsey Clark
We must resolve now to do all within our power to remove by impeachment, as the Constitution requires us to do, George W. Bush, Vice President Cheney and other civil officers who bear responsibility for the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Administration from office.
While he remains president, George W. Bush will not let anything stand in the way of his plans to attack Iran. When the National Intelligence Estimate disclosed in early December 2007 that Iran had abandoned plans to develop nuclear weapons several years earlier, President Bush conceded he knew this months earlier even when he spoke of "World War III" with Iran. Rather than offering a ray of hope that his plans for Iran might change on the day the new Intelligence Estimate was announced, he responded that Iran has been a threat, is still a threat, will remain a threat, and that sanctions against Iran must be tightened.
We now have close to one million registered votes for impeachment... Those of us who believe impeachment is imperative must assume the responsibility to arouse the American people to embrace the impeachment issue and the threat to the future the Bush Administration poses.
People in all walks of life are deeply concerned and have taken courageous action to speak out on the aspect of President Bush’s conduct that concerns them most.
I ask you to resolve now to resolve to join us and do all you can to create a credible and hopefully irresistible demand for the impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their principal advisers. This will mean many hours of effective effort by each of us to secure votes for impeachment, persuade members of the House of Representatives to support and vote for impeachment and contributions and fund raising to wage a major nationwide campaign in the media, on the streets where we live and in the halls of Congress.
To make an urgently needed donation to help build the important work of ImpeachBush in the coming year, click on this link.
-- Ramsey Clark
To read the full article by Ramsey Clark, click on this link.
