Bush signs torture ban but reserves right to torture
Posted By: PK on 2006-01-04
In Reply to:
Bush could bypass new torture ban
Waiver right is reserved
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | January 4, 2006
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.
After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.
''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief, Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.
Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.
A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security.
''We are not going to ignore this law, the official said, noting that Bush, when signing laws, routinely issues signing statements saying he will construe them consistent with his own constitutional authority. ''We consider it a valid statute. We consider ourselves bound by the prohibition on cruel, unusual, and degrading treatment.
But, the official said, a situation could arise in which Bush may have to waive the law's restrictions to carry out his responsibilities to protect national security. He cited as an example a ''ticking time bomb scenario, in which a detainee is believed to have information that could prevent a planned terrorist attack.
''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case, the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will.
David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said that the signing statement means that Bush believes he can still authorize harsh interrogation tactics when he sees fit.
''The signing statement is saying 'I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it's important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me,' he said. ''They don't want to come out and say it directly because it doesn't sound very nice, but it's unmistakable to anyone who has been following what's going on.
Golove and other legal specialists compared the signing statement to Bush's decision, revealed last month, to bypass a 1978 law forbidding domestic wiretapping without a warrant. Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a court order starting after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The president and his aides argued that the Constitution gives the commander in chief the authority to bypass the 1978 law when necessary to protect national security. They also argued that Congress implicitly endorsed that power when it authorized the use of force against the perpetrators of the attacks.
Legal academics and human rights organizations said Bush's signing statement and his stance on the wiretapping law are part of a larger agenda that claims exclusive control of war-related matters for the executive branch and holds that any involvement by Congress or the courts should be minimal.
Vice President Dick Cheney recently told reporters, ''I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it. . . . I would argue that the actions that we've taken are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president.
Since the 2001 attacks, the administration has also asserted the power to bypass domestic and international laws in deciding how to detain prisoners captured in the Afghanistan war. It also has claimed the power to hold any US citizen Bush designates an ''enemy combatant without charges or access to an attorney.
And in 2002, the administration drafted a secret legal memo holding that Bush could authorize interrogators to violate antitorture laws when necessary to protect national security. After the memo was leaked to the press, the administration eliminated the language from a subsequent version, but it never repudiated the idea that Bush could authorize officials to ignore a law.
The issue heated up again in January 2005. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales disclosed during his confirmation hearing that the administration believed that antitorture laws and treaties did not restrict interrogators at overseas prisons because the Constitution does not apply abroad.
In response, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, filed an amendment to a Defense Department bill explicitly saying that that the cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees in US custody is illegal regardless of where they are held.
McCain's office did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.
The White House tried hard to kill the McCain amendment. Cheney lobbied Congress to exempt the CIA from any interrogation limits, and Bush threatened to veto the bill, arguing that the executive branch has exclusive authority over war policy.
But after veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress approved it, Bush called a press conference with McCain, praised the measure, and said he would accept it.
Legal specialists said the president's signing statement called into question his comments at the press conference.
''The whole point of the McCain Amendment was to close every loophole, said Marty Lederman, a Georgetown University law professor who served in the Justice Department from 1997 to 2002. ''The president has re-opened the loophole by asserting the constitutional authority to act in violation of the statute where it would assist in the war on terrorism.
Elisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush's signing statement an ''in-your-face affront to both McCain and to Congress.
''The basic civics lesson that there are three co-equal branches of government that provide checks and balances on each other is being fundamentally rejected by this executive branch, she said.
''Congress is trying to flex its muscle to provide those checks [on detainee abuse], and it's being told through the signing statement that it's impotent. It's quite a radical view. ![src=http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif]() |
![src=http://nytbglobe.112.2o7.net/b/ss/nytbglobe/1/G.5-PD-S/s42010223224479?[AQB]&ndh=1&t=4/0/2006%2020%3A42%3A1%203%20300&pageName=News%20%7C%20Nation%20%7C%20Washington%20%7C%20Bush%20could%20bypass%20new%20torture%20ban&ch=News&events=event2&c1=News%20%7C%20Nation&c5=News%20%7C%20Nation%20%7C%20Washington%20%7C%20Bush%20could%20bypass%20new%20torture%20ban%20%7C%20PF&c6=Article%20Page%20%7C%20Globe%20Story&g=http%3A//www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/01/04/bush_could_bypass_new_torture_ban%3Fmode%3DPF&r=http%3A//www.huffingtonpost.com/&s=1024x768&c=32&j=1.3&v=Y&k=Y&bw=1014&bh=589&ct=lan&hp=N&[AQE]]()
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And from Mr. Pro-torture
Powell Aide: Torture 'Guidance' from VP
CNN News
Monday 21 November 2005
Former staff chief says Cheney's 'flexibility' helped lead to abuse.
Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, told CNN that the practice of torture may be continuing in U.S.-run facilities.
There's no question in my mind that we did. There's no question in my mind that we may be still doing it, Wilkerson said on CNN's Late Edition.
There's no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated - in the vice president of the United States' office, he said. His implementer in this case was [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department.
At another point in the interview, Wilkerson said the vice president had to cover this in order for it to happen and in order for Secretary Rumsfeld to feel as though he had freedom of action.
Traveling in Latin America earlier this month, President Bush defended U.S. treatment of prisoners, saying flatly, We do not torture. (Full story)
Cheney has lobbied against a measure in Congress that would outlaw cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, calling for an exception for the CIA in cases that involve a detainee who may have knowledge of an imminent attack.
The amendment was included in a $491 billion Pentagon spending bill that declared 2006 to be a period of significant transition for Iraq. (Full story)
Proposed by Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, the amendment was approved in the Senate last month by a 90-9 vote. It was not included in the House version of the bill.
The White House has said that Bush would likely veto the bill if McCain's language is included, calling the amendment unnecessary and duplicative.
Rumsfeld told ABC's This Week on Sunday that the White House was in negotiations with the Senate over the amendment.
There's a discussion and debate taking place as to what the implications might be and what is supportable and what is not, he told the program. But the fact of the matter is the president from the outset has said that he required that there be humane treatment.
Cheney has come under mounting criticism for his position. Last week, Stansfield Turner, a military veteran who served as director of the CIA during the Carter administration, labeled him the vice president for torture. (Full story)
In a statement responding to Turner's remark, Cheney said his views are reflected in the administration's policy. Our country is at war and our government has an obligation to protect the American people from a brutal enemy that has declared war upon us.
We are aggressively finding terrorists and bringing them to justice and anything we do within this effort is within the law, the statement said, adding that the United States does not torture.
Rumsfeld Denies 'Cabal' Charge
Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld and military officials, have denied that instances of torture were ever officially condoned. Some personnel accused of torture have been convicted and sentenced for prisoner abuse.
All the instructions I issued required humane treatment, Rumsfeld told ABC. Anything that was done that was not humane has been prosecuted.
But Wilkerson argued last month in a speech that Cheney and Rumsfeld formed a cabal that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.
Wilkerson told CNN Sunday he does not know if the president was witting in this or not.
I voted for him twice, he said. I prefer to think that he was not.
Earlier, on the same CNN program, Rumsfeld dismissed as ridiculous the claim that he was involved in a cabal.
Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they had no recollection of Wilkerson having attended meetings with Rumsfeld or Cheney.
In terms of having first-hand information, I just can't imagine that he does, said Rumsfeld. The allegation is ridiculous.
I was in every meeting with the joint chiefs. I was in every meeting with the combatant commanders. I went to the White House multiple times to meet with the National Security Council and with the president of the United States. I have never seen that colonel, added Pace.
They made my point for me, responded Wilkerson. The decisions were not made in the principals' process, in the deputies' process, in the policy coordinating committee process. They were not made in the statutory process.
Wilkerson said his insights came from Powell walking through my door in April or March of 2004 and telling me to get everything I could get my hands on with regard to the detainee abuse issue - ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] reporting, memoranda, open-source information and so forth - so that I could build some kind of story, some kind of audit trail so we could understand the chronology and we can understand how it developed.
While he acknowledged having no proof that the United States is torturing detainees, Wilkerson said, I can only assume that, when the vice president of the United States lobbies the Congress on behalf of cruel and unusual punishment and the need to be able to do that in order to get information out of potential terrorists... that it's still going on.
He said U.S. officials should realize they are involved in a war of ideas that cannot be advanced with torture.
In a war of ideas, you cannot damage your own ideas, your own position by seeming to do things that are in contradiction of your values, he said.
Rumsfeld told ABC that the military has overwhelmingly treated people humanely.
The history of the United States military is clear. Torture doesn't work. The military knows that. We want our people treated humanely, he said.
So torture is okay?
Sorry, don't watch TV. Homeland security - horse and pony show.........Our current govt is hiring people left and right, recruiting nonstop to hire people to protect our country. We will get attacked again. Can't blame anyone but the perps for that. It is what Obama will do about it that I am concerned with. Bush promised to get bin laden and invaded Iraq instead. Look at Katrina. Bush could not fix the knot in his own undershorts, let alone run a country.
Torture is torture
Torture is wrong, no matter where it took place. Do you think God is going to look kindly on anyone torturing another human being...A.K.A. "Playing God"??
Now Mr. Pro-torture is scheduled
Cheney to raise funds for DeLay
The White House is not distancing itself from embattled former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who is facing charges of breaking state campaign finance law.
Vice President Cheney is scheduled to appear at a December 5, Houston fundraiser on DeLay's behalf. Donors are being asked to contribute at least $500, according to an e-mail sent by the Fort Bend (Texas) Republican Party. Shannon Flaherty, DeLay's spokeswoman, confirmed details of the fundraiser.
For five years, Congressman DeLay has served as a key ally to pass the White House's agenda through Congress, and Ronnie Earle's political sideshow isn't going to get in the way of the real business at hand, said Flaherty. This event shows the Democrat strategy of avenging their ballot box losses with smear tactics and lawsuits is not going to work -- Republicans stick by their friends and don't back down from a fight.
DeLay was forced to step down from his leadership position in late September after Earle, the Travis County (Texas) district attorney, charged him with illegally directing corporate donations to Texas candidates. DeLay has asked that his trial be moved from Travis to Fort Bend County.
As of September 30, 2005, DeLay had $1.164 million in his warchest. Former Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) is challenging DeLay for his seat.
Gitmo Torture
This will undoubtably shake some things up. If the detainees' trials cannot proceed because the "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by the Bush administration have tainted the process so much that prosecutors cannot proceed in some of their cases, what happens now?
"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
....
Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani's health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.
Torture and Oppression?
What kind of marshmallow life have you been living, my dear? Do you have any idea what some people go through in other parts of the world?
How can we help but laugh at you if you insist on making a fool of yourself?
Religulous torture....(sm)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
The Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture rallied on Capitol Hill in March 2008.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small. !["](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/2.0/mosaic/tabs/interactive.gif") See results of the survey »
The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Leith Anderson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The survey asked: "Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?"
Roughly half of all respondents -- 49 percent -- said it is often or sometimes justified. A quarter said it never is.
The religious group most likely to say torture is never justified was Protestant denominations -- such as Episcopalians, Lutherans and Presbyterians -- categorized as "mainline" Protestants, in contrast to evangelicals. Just over three in 10 of them said torture is never justified. A quarter of the religiously unaffiliated said the same, compared with two in 10 white non-Hispanic Catholics and one in eight evangelicals
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/30/religion.torture/index.html#cnnSTCText
Obviously, "torture is torture".
The question is what constitutes torture. In my view, none of the techniques used, under the conditions in which they were used, constitute torture, including waterboarding.
I'd get into the notion of waterboarding as torture if we didn't do it to our own troops by way of training. That, to me, puts the tin hat on any idea that waterboarding constitutes torture.
This idea that interrogation should constitute nothing more severe than a game of "Simon Says" or "Mother May I?" suggests to me that we should bring back the draft and extend it to both sexes. There are too many people in this country who have never had to confront anything in this world more evil than their best friend running off with their boyfriend. They seem to think the world is made of gingerbread, and populated by Sunday School teachers. A stint in the military would open their eyes to reality.
If waterboarding isn't torture...(sm)
then why did we execute Japanese war criminals for waterboarding American POWs after WWII? Maybe it's just considered torture when done to Americans? You can't have it both ways.
Definitely NOT by torture, If I were Obama I would probably know how!...nm
nm
O is not going to engage in torture. He does not
believe in torture.
Bush's and Cheney's way DID NOT WORK.
How can you say that I am naive, maybe you are. Who knows?
Time will tell.
I can only pray, hope and wish that O will be successful in protecting and promoting the United States of America.
No to torture ! This brings only hate and more war! ..nm
nm
NO to torture. YES to tough interrogations!
nm
No, you are wrong. Obama is against torture,
he does not want to go the same path like Bush and Cheney, the wrong path.
He wants to compromise and negotiate. He started already with Iran and Netanyahu. He snubbed Natanyahu and told him that Natanyahu has to accept and agree to a 2-state solution or there will most probably be war.
O is very, very smart and I pray to God that he will stay strong and prevail when even certain Americans wish him failure.
It proves the extent of the torture that was used...(sm)
as well as shows the public exactly what the last admin did. It puts in front of the public (in particular republicans who would be against prosecuting the Bush admin) the facts. I honestly think the main point of showing pics is to gain public support for the prosecution of the last admin. I think dems are kind of fighting the battle before it gets there to make prosecution easier......but that's just my opinion.
yes, I agree, the torture was extreme, we just
got a 'glimpse' of it. But this is not the right time to expose it when the US troops are still in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Torture memos update
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#31378360
They call "sleep deprivation" torture. Then I have
nm
torture,-if waterboarding can save thousands of
nm
Hmmm, didn't a lot of the torture start
after 9-11 which I recall being a horrible terrorist attack? At that time, maybe torture was the right thing to do to find Obama, sorry, I mean Osama.
We do not purposely kill, cut off heads, torture.
nm
Still not torture. Poilcemen TAZER our own citizens.
Heck, the 'resource officers' at my kid's high school tazed a kid for spitting in the commons area.
Maybe we should just taze the terrorists. I'll bet they'll talk then. When they start sh!tting themselves and going into convulsions, I'll bet they'll cough up whatever info they have.
Plus, it'll save on the Gitmo water bill, and I think we're ALL for that.
It must be hard for you to accept that even the DEMS voted to keep Gitmo going.
Hey, maybe the terrorits could all live at YOUR house. You guys seem to have a lot in common.
I hope that O will not have to torture wrong confessions out
of Muslim prisoners. He has a different strategy, talking, negotiating, compromising, CHANGE and WISDOM.
This thread started with waterboarding, torture or not?
Everybody is FREE to post one's opinion.
I NEVER STARTED being rude, maybe I REACTED rude.
The one who starts is the guilty one, even with insulting language. I dislike it immensely when people run out of ideas to defend their stance, the personal attacks, taken out of the blue, set in, like
'take your meds' or 'take your Xanax', or 'chill out.'
This puts them immediately into the loser position.
Or they become all of a sudden 'Grammar Nazis', because they run out of choices to prove their points, whereas these are mostly just TYPOS.
Or do you follow the Christian rule:
'If somebody slaps you on your right cheek, offer him also your left cheek.'
I NEVER understood this weird suggestion.
Torture memos update/correction...(sm)
First, please note that I never said that pics would be released in the OP, only redacted portions of the memos. (Presumably testimonies of the prisoners) The previous thread about this turned into a debate about releasing pics, and I erroneously didn't catch and correct that. My bad.
Update:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#31334053
is it right to torture a prisoner to prove that he is innocent?..sm
More prisoners are tortured to death or drippled for life because they do not have anything to confess.
You can't spell or pick a winner; it's torture, not tortue
Keep chomping those sour grapes.
Sorry, JTBB, other countries use worse torture than what was stated here.
They starve, cut off fingers, hands, pull nails out, burn private parts, and decapitate prisoners in other countries. Why do you call other people with their comments "nimrods?"
If you want to torture to stop, why don't you go to those countries and fight against their torture? No...you'd rather call the American people nimrods. What is it with you? You used to have thoughtful posts, but now all you do is spew hate for Americans that do not support your views.
You are becoming anti-American IMHO and its sad that you could let the present government blind you to everything. You're either a socialist, facist, or a communist without announcing it up front. You have absolutely made me furious with your one-sided posts since the election. I try not to read them, but sometimes I do get a good laugh at your outrageous statements.
Lets talk about the torture of our soldiers by our enemies
Electrocution, beatings, broken bones, etc, etc, oh and their favorite of all times....beheadings.
The witch hunt should end here. What happened, happened. It's done and your god is in their now. I may have not liked what went on in the last administration (reason why I voted them out), but there is no reason to burn Bush/Cheney at the stake. What the other side does is 100 times worse.
Oh I guess you would rather the rape rooms and torture rooms go back online
You extreme leftists don't follow a wild thought through to the end. If you did you'd never post some of the stuff you pass off as coherent thought. You would rather defend a murderous dictator, his sons, and his terrorist friends than even entertain the thought of supporting your president even if you think he's wrong. You are really quite transparent about where your loyalties lie. You want to see the U.S. crash and burn. You are sucidal in your leftist loyalties.
You are not a liberal you are a wacko who has gone off the deep end and in need of serious help.
BUSH SIGNS MOST DRACONIAN GUN LAW IN US HISTORY!
All you Obama crucifiers had better quickly figure out a way to blame this on Obama! LOL.
http://www.knowthelies.com/?q=node/55
Your opinion of torture is your opinion. Tough
nm
Bush Ignores Laws He Signs, Vexing Congress
President Has Issued 750 Statements That He May Revise or Disregard Measures.
WASHINGTON (June 27) -- The White House on Tuesday defended President Bush's prolific use of bill signing statements, saying There's this notion that the president is committing acts of civil disobedience, and he's not, said Bush's press secretary Tony Snow, speaking at the White House. It's important for the president at least to express reservations about the constitutionality of certain provisions.
Snow spoke as Senate Judiciary Committe Chairman Arlen Specter opened hearings on Bush's use of bill signing statements saying he reserves the right to revise, interpret or disregard a measure on national security and consitutional grounds. Such statements have accompanied some 750 statutes passed by Congress -- including a ban on the torture of detainees and the renewal of the Patriot Act.
There is a sense that the president has taken signing statements far beyond the customary purview, Specter, R-Pa., said.
It's a challenge to the plain language of the Constitution, he added. I'm interested to hear from the administration just what research they've done to lead them to the conclusion that they can cherry-pick.
A Justice Department lawyer defended Bush's statements.
Even if there is modest increase, let me just suggest that it be viewed in light of current events and Congress' response to those events, said Justice Department lawyer Michelle Boardman. The significance of legislation affecting national security has increased markedly since Sept. 11..
Congress has been more active, the president has been more active, she added. The separation of powers is working when we have this kind of dispute.
Specter's hearing is about more than the statements. He's been compiling a list of White House practices he bluntly says could amount to abuse of executive power -- from warrantless domestic wiretapping program to sending officials to hearings who refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.
But the session also concerns countering any influence Bush's signing statements may have on court decisions regarding the new laws. Courts can be expected to look to the legislature for intent, not the executive, said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas., a former state judge.
There's less here than meets the eye, Cornyn said. The president is entitled to express his opinion. It's the courts that determine what the law is.
But Specter and his allies maintain that Bush is doing an end-run around the veto process. In his presidency's sixth year, Bush has yet to issue a single veto that could be overridden with a two-thirds majority in each house.
The president is not required to (veto), Boardman said.
Of course he's not if he signs the bill, Specter snapped back.
Instead, Bush has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret or ignore laws on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the Patriot Act.
It means that the administration does not feel bound to enforce many new laws which Congress has passed, said David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues. This raises profound rule of law concerns. Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?
Yeah, I remember the "Catholics for Bush" signs during the 2004 election
so much for churches staying out of govt
Reserves being held, yes. New oil and gas
kept quiet from everyone but the government...until the internet, of course.. These are new oil and gas finds.
The so-called reserves are held in case of emergency, so the prez and cabinet members can get out of the way of a red alert. Not for the citizens.
I am surprised they showed the signs sm
They actually showed them several times. A lot of people agree with that particular message. I don't agree totally with it, but do find many aspects of the official story suspicious and some of it downright stupid. Usually when there is one lie, there are others so the families request for a new investigation is valid.
The song was a little corny, but like the message. They are definitely right about the manure. I heard a lot of conservatives were there.
I let my dog pi$$ on all the OBOMBA signs in my neighborhood.
If people are moronic enough to disfigure their yards with the name of that failed abortion obomba, a little squat-n-whizz from Skeeter is just a litle tinsel on the tree.
Horrible signs were stating
x
Yeah, those horrible signs
Who do they think they are, gathering and exercising their first amendment rights like that? And all those signs came from republican central planning, didn't they? Maybe there could have been heavier attendance, but many of the potential supporters actually have jobs.
The MMM was organized by Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. It would have been soooooo politically incorrect before, during and after the million man march to characterize all the participants as nuts, sexist racist kooks with a single hateful agenda, trouble makers, disgruntled black men just looking to cause problems.
Yet the reverse is excactly how tea party participants were portrayed, which is okey-dokey with most people.
In the dish it out/take it department, the left has pretty a sweet deal because they can say the most prejudiced, outrageous things about the right and get by with it. But when the right criticizes the left it is always claimed that we are selfish, racist, sexist, homophobic bigots. It's not about your race, your gender, or your lifestyle. It's about socialism versus capitalism, okay?
Really? Which were the hate-monging signs - and please
I ask, of course, because I viewed a tremendous amount of coverage and attended one of them myself and didn't see a single sign that would qualify as "hate-monging" - even if I didn't happen to agree with every single sentiment expressed.
I think that you, my dear, are the one to be pitied if only because you seem to lack the ability to think.
Polly want a cracker?
A few signs in the audience showed that some people
abcdefg
Obama signs the stimulus in Colorado
around 2:40 ET. Then off to Phoenix for a couple of nights and then to Canada. Sure loves to travel in Air Force One and still on a promotional tour. I bet he sure misses campaigning.
http://www.c-span.org/
Pres. Obama Promotes Stimulus Plan
Today
Pres. Obama signs the Economic Stimulus bill in Denver, Colorado, this afternoon. His promo-
tional tour for the $787 billion plan then takes him to Phoenix, Arizona, where he will stay the night. On Thursday, he travels to Canada, to discuss economic issues with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Obama signs the stimulus in Colorado
around 2:40 ET. Then off to Phoenix for a couple of nights and then to Canada. Sure loves to travel in Air Force One and still on a promotional tour. I bet he misses campaigning.
http://www.c-span.org/
Pres. Obama Promotes Stimulus Plan
Today
Pres. Obama signs the Economic Stimulus bill in Denver, Colorado, this afternoon. His promo-
tional tour for the $787 billion plan then takes him to Phoenix, Arizona, where he will stay the night. On Thursday, he travels to Canada, to discuss economic issues with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Obama signs the stimulus in Colorado
around 2:40 ET. Then off to Phoenix for a couple of nights and then to Canada. Sure loves to travel in Air Force One and still on a promotional tour. I bet he misses campaigning.
http://www.c-span.org/
Pres. Obama Promotes Stimulus Plan
Today
Pres. Obama signs the Economic Stimulus bill in Denver, Colorado, this afternoon. His promo-
tional tour for the $787 billion plan then takes him to Phoenix, Arizona, where he will stay the night. On Thursday, he travels to Canada, to discuss economic issues with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Yeah right. Served under Reagan, Bush I and Bush II
x
Stop bringing up Bush - this post was not about Bush
I even said we have had some good presidents and some bad ones, but this post was not about Bush. It was about Obama. Yes Bush was one of the worst presidents I'm not arguing with you on that one, but everytime anyone brings up something about our current president they are shot back with Bush this or Bush that and on things that have nothing to do with what the current topic is about. Again, this was not about Bush. It was about Obama.
Oh, more "blame Bush" - except Bush didn't send these out, now did he?
Here's a news flash for you since you apparently haven't heard: BUSH IS NOT IN OFFICE and just today Gallup did a poll showing that THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK OBAMA SHOULD START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENS ON HIS WATCH.
G E T A C L U E.
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