Clipmarks | kmcolo's 'bush' clips

McSame

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:45:01 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: McCain gives up on trying to campaign on the issues and instead brings in professional BS spinners from the Bush years to sow confusion and fear into the electorate. Let's hope this plan fails.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Mr. McCain put a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 campaign in charge of day-to-day operations

Tags: election08, president, mccain

The Politics of Saber-Rattling

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:19:53 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.armscontrolwonk.com

President Bush apparently convinced European leaders to support additional sanctions against Iran during his farewell tour of Europe.

That’s good news,

What does seem clear, however, is that President Bush’s saber-rattling towards Iran—his stock reminder that “all options are on the table”—is singularly unhelpful.

Why Bush insists on repeating this swashbuckling mantra at every turn boggles the mind.

Now consider this in light of the fact that European publics—and I’m not joking here—tend to regard Bush’s policies as a greater threat to world peace than Iran’s.

Sanctions are almost always effective in the sense that they hurt the target country.

sanctions are seldom successful in actually changing the target government’s policies unless the international community

is committed to the endeavor over the long term.

Sustaining this commitment in the case of Iran is difficult enough, but Bush’s saber-rattling only makes it harder.

Tags: iran, nuclear weapons, bush

Global Image of U.S. Improves Slightly

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:04:55 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

PARIS — There is good news and bad news for President Bush as he pursues his valedictory tour of Europe this week, according to a new worldwide study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. The image of the United States has improved slightly in many countries over the past year, the poll results show. But on the other hand, the new optimism appears to be driven largely by the fact that Mr. Bush will soon be leaving office.

“When asked which country is ‘hurting the environment the most,’ majorities or pluralities in most countries surveyed cite the United States,” the Pew report said. “But people are increasingly pointing fingers at China.”

In fact, in one-third of the survey countries, more respondents see the United States as an enemy than as a partner. This view is especially strong in Turkey, a longtime ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and in Pakistan, a partner in the Bush administration’s efforts to fight terrorism.

Tags: polls, united states, foreign policy

Where's McCain Spending Precious Cash On Ads?

Thu, 29 May 2008 13:40:50 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com

John McCain's campaign is spending $1.135M on ad buys between May 6 and June 16.

Ohio -- $483,184

Pennsylvania -- $228,159

Michigan -- $227,978

Iowa -- $107,940

West Virginia -- $84,275

As On Call reported earlier this month, the McCain campaign has two 'head-fake' buys in Oregon and Wisconsin, for $1,405 and $2,181 respectively. The bigger numbers, meanwhile, provide a window into the GOPer's general election strategy. McCain is hoping to snag PA and MI, both of which went for Democrats in 2000 and 2004. Iowa narrowly voted for President Bush in 2004, and in 2000, voters gave the edge -- by 1% -- to VP Al Gore. OH and WV went for Bush both cycles.

Tags: election08, president, election, mccain

Bush-McCain Fundraiser Scaled Back: Lack of Interest

Sun, 25 May 2008 14:05:43 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com

A planned mega-fundraiser for the GOP, featuring President Bush and John McCain, has now been scaled back in the face of a daunting problem: Too few people actually wanted to buy tickets.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal, fundraiser set for this Tuesday in the city's convention center failed to sell enough tickets, leading to fears that the anti-Bush protesters might end up outnumbering actual attendees.

The new plan is for the Bush-McCain fundraising effort, which will benefit both the McCain campaign and the RNC, to be held in private residences in the Phoenix area away from media coverage.

Tags: politics, election08, bush, mccain

W's Legacy

Sat, 10 May 2008 15:25:54 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: media.dailycamera.com

Tags: politics, bush, comic

Bush does Nixon one better

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:23:38 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: What a surprise! Missing tapes.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The Bush administration has not found disaster recovery files for White House e-mails from a three-month time period in 2003, according to court documents filed this week, raising the possibility that messages sent before and after the invasion of Iraq may never be recovered.

That period was one of the most crucial of the Bush presidency. The United States launched the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, and President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1.

Two federal statutes require presidential communications, including e-mails involving senior White House aides, to be preserved for the nation's historical record.

Tags: bush administration, corruption, incompetence

Bush Administration: Fox in the Henhouse

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:21:11 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: What is this? The White House asked him twice to resign? Maybe they didn't say pretty please. Sorry, not good enough, if you want to get rid of someone like this and you ask them to resign and they don't, you fire them.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Nearly two dozen federal agents yesterday raided the Washington headquarters of the agency that protects government whistle-blowers, as part of an intensifying criminal investigation of its leader, who is fighting allegations of improper political bias and obstruction of justice

Bloch, who was nominated to his post by President Bush in 2003, is the principal official responsible for protecting federal employees from reprisals for complaints about waste and fraud. He also polices violations of Hatch Act prohibitions on political activities in federal offices.

Retired FBI agents and former prosecutors called the raid an unusual, if not unprecedented, intrusion on the work of a federal agency.

Bloch repeatedly clashed with his own workforce and with other Bush administration officials he targeted for improper behavior. By his own account, the White House twice asked him to resign.

Tags: bush administration, corruption, incompetence

Federal Revenue as % GDP

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:59:48 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: We finally recover from the Bush tax give-a-way to around average.

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

Dobson: I Will Never Support McCain

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:23:44 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: More of the Bush blow back. You guys got what you wanted in Bush now you are getting what was coming to you. In reply? We get "whine, whine, whine."

Clip Source: tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com

[Video]

With John McCain on the verge of winning the Republican nomination, the once-complacent anti-McCain forces on the right are getting louder than ever. This morning, James Dobson released a statement to Laura Ingraham's radio show, declaring that under no circumstances would he support McCain in the general election — a potential blow to the Arizona senator, since it could discourage turnout among some evangelical voters.

Tags: politics, election, election08, mccain

The G.W. Bush motivational poster

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:15:27 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: despair.com

Tags: humor

Why America Will Survive George W. Bush

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:53:01 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Otto von Bismarck saw how American blunders led to American power and allegedly said that God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America.

Walter Russell Mead (of the Council on Foreign Relations) puts Bush's 8-year stint in the White House into proper perspective.

America's foreign policy has been short-sighted and often self-defeating from the get-go, alternately collaborative, passive, and interventionist. And, yet, miraculously, we always come out ahead.

With the unstoppable rise of a global capitalist economy, Mead makes the case that America, for all its past and current faults, will continue to be the inevitable leader of this new international buoyancy. Not even our latest mistakes (unprecedented though they may be) can derail such a powerful incentive that is the modern American world trade system.

Which means, more than ever, we're literally all in this together.

Clip Source: www.tnr.com

Failing Upward

Nothing in the field of international affairs is as scandalous and as perplexing as the fact of American power. From Revolutionary times to the present, virtually all observers foreign and domestic have agreed that Americans don't do foreign policy well.

Moralistic, uninformed, unsubtle, alternately isolationist and hyperactive, hamstrung by a clumsy constitutional process and a public that oscillates between fatuous idealism and ignorant bellicosity, U.S. foreign policy has been shocking the world for more than 200 years.

And, worse still, we win. For two centuries, the United States has astounded critics with its bad foreign policy--and, for two centuries, the United States has steadily risen to an unprecedented level of power and influence in the international system.

The spectacle is often surreal. The United States seems to wander nearsightedly but relatively unscathed past one hazard after another

like a version of the chronically oblivious cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

Tags: america, usa, bush, foreign policy, world, history, war, empire, trade, economy

Who's Your Daddy?

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:25:01 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: Who owns the Bush family?

Clip Source: freund.typepad.com

Clip Source: www.csmonitor.com

Clip Source: subintsoc.net

Tags: politics, bush

Gore Wins Nobel Prize, High Court Gives It to Bush

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:43:14 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.scrappleface.com

(2007-10-12) — Although former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize this week for his work as a global-warming performance artist, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled early today that President George Bush would receive the gold medal, the diploma and the $750,000.

Tags: humor, global warmin, gore

Iraq War Commentary: The Calm of Failure

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:58:13 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo

Clip Source: www.mcclatchydc.com

Four and a half years after this president ordered the invasion of Iraq in a gross act of arrogance and ignorance based on faulty, bogus and politically twisted intelligence — and after repeatedly changing the rationales and objectives of the war as each has failed in turn — we’re going to continue this war because George W. Bush is incapable of admitting that he was wrong, wrong, wrong.

When our president talks of peace returning to the streets of Baghdad, he mistakes the silence of empty, abandoned homes and sectarian cleansing for progress. He confuses the segregation of Shia and Sunni, each in their own ghettos behind tall concrete walls, for progress. More than 3 million Iraqis have been driven from their homes and neighborhoods into exile, internal or external, and this he calls success.

Tags: iraq war, bush administration