Tag: Presidency of George W. Bush

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Democrat Democratic hypocrites Politics Republican washington

Bill Clinton Blames Republicans For Present Economic Woes

Former President Bill Clinton blamed Republicans in Congress for the state of the economy. Mr. Clinton called out the  GOP as hypocrites for implementing massive tax cuts and increased spending during the Bush administration, policies that directly contributed to the present recession.

Speaking to a group of liberal group activists in Washington, Clinton said, “”Partly because the Republicans who control the House and have a lot of pull in the Senate have now decided, having quadrupled the debt in 12 years before I took office and doubled it after I left, that it’s all of a sudden the biggest problem in the world.”

The former President, who opposes spending cuts in a downward economy, again expressed his concerns with the present budget talks, and he referenced the United Kingdom and their mistake of cutting spending at a time when spending should have been increased. Clinton continued;

“In the current budget debate, there’s all this discussion about how much will come from spending cuts, how much will come from tax increases, and almost nobody is talking about one of the central points – that everyone who’s analyzed the situation makes, including the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission, which said you shouldn’t do any of this until the economy is clearly recovering.

“Because if you do things that dampen economic growth, and the U.K. is finding this out now, they adopted this big austerity budget, and there’s a good chance that economic activity will go down so much that tax revenues will be reduced even more than spending is cut, and their deficit will increase.”

President Obama meets today with both Republican and Democratic leaders to discuss the debt ceiling. Democrats have offered about $3 trillion in defense and other spending cuts and they have asked Republicans to agree on closing some tax loopholes that benefits millionaires and billionaires. Republicans have so far, dismissed this proposal and have demanded Democrats leave these loopholes alone.

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Barack Obama New York Osama bin Laden Politics United States USA PATRIOT Act

To Peep Or Not To Peep? That’s Still The Question

A friend of mine texted me last night to inform me that my dear President Barack Obama extended the super controversial Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 also known as the USA Patriot Act and better known simply as the Patriot Act,  for four more years.

The way my friend texted, “Obama signed an extension to the patriot act,” assured me that he was commenting on the fact that he couldn’t understand how even die-hard pro-Obama fans would think that the President could operate out of the White House in any way  other than the old status quo or business-as-usual. That Obama or any President for that matter – even with the best of intentions during their naive campaigning debut – would have any real authority to do anything other than what has already been laid out for him/her as a course of action by the omnipotent “powers that be”.

I realize that the Patriot Act was the cause of much public outcry following its initiation after 911 by the Bush Administration, paticularly because of how it dramatically reduced restrictions on law enforcement agencies’ ability to search telephone, e-mail, medical, financial, and other records of US citizens. Americans felt the invasion of privacy was unwarranted.

I think that was especially true in lieu of the fact that George Bush had declared on several occasions, that he was no longer interested in hunting for the man whom most Americans were led to believe was the mastermind behind terrorists acts against this  and other countries. And no “weapons of mass destruction” were ever uncovered during his administration either.

The sentiment had been that we were being punished for our government’s short-comings in handling the Bush/Cheney “War on Terrorism”. And now we have President Barack Obama, fresh on the heels of capturing and slaying Osama Bin Laden – who we’re  told was responsible for killing almost 3,000 people in New York that fateful day – now extending the hated act for another four years (which btw, pretty much covers a full term in the President’s seat for 2012).

My response to my buddy who sent me that text?

Well, although I can partake in a good conspiracy theory as well as the next guy, in the wake of Bin Laden’s demise at President’s Obama’s  hands I’m willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt on this. It’s possible he knows something we do not.  Unlike Bush, Barack Obama has actually struck a real blow to those who have been deemed as an enemy to the nation’s security, which can in turn provoke a serious counter attack. Perhaps it will be counter intelligence and not torture that will finally win the war on terrorism. And perhaps this is something we should just trust the President of the United States on.

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Condoleezza Rice Iraq Osama bin Laden United States

Condoleezza Rice Still Drinking Bush Tea – The Interview

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat down for an exclusive interview with Lawrence O’ Donnell last night, and continued her defense of the Bush administration and their decisions to invade Iraq. She also credits Mr. Bush for the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden, saying that a lot of the things Bush did, directly lead to Bin Laden’s demise.

When Lawrence pointed out that the decision to go into Iraq was wrong and based on a flawed report, Miss Rice got irritated and threatened to walk out on the interview.

Five months after September 11th 2001, the Bush administration shifted focus from Afghanistan and zeroed in on Iraq. One would think that after this interview, the reasons would be more clear. One would be wrong to think that.

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