Now Bush has flip-flopped...sm
Posted By: Democrat on 2005-09-23
In Reply to: Huh? Are you dense? - A UN mandate? ...sm
The UN is a viable and necessary institution now. This is his latest on the UN.
When he was making the case for the war it was screw the UN.
In the wake of the mess in Iraq he has changed his tone, done a 360.
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Bush Flip Flops on Immigration Bill...sm
Sensenbrenner: Bush Turned Back on Bill
Key House Republican Jim Sensenbrenner says Bush turned his back on immigration bill
WASHINGTON, May. 17, 2006
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER Associated Press Writer
 (AP) |
|
(AP) Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, who has pushed a tough border security bill through the House, accused President Bush on Wednesday of abandoning the legislation after asking for many of its provisions.
He basically turned his back on provisions of the House-passed bill, a lot of which we were requested to put in the bill by the White House, Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., angrily told reporters in a conference call. That was last fall when we were drafting the bill, and now the president appears not to be interested in it at all.
Sensenbrenner chairs the House Judiciary Committee and would be the House's chief negotiator on any final immigration package for Bush's signature. He said it was the White House that had requested two controversial felony provisions in the bill the House passed last winter.
We worked very closely with White House in the fall in putting together the border security bill that the House passed, he said. ... What we heard in November and December, he seems to be going in the opposite direction in May. That is really at the crux of this irritation, he said of Bush.
Agreed. Your post is a joke but one that flopped.
Try again.
The flip
MSNBC just showed that a little while ago....the whole clip. He scratched with one finger, then with the other. Not at all meant to be any kind of hand gesture.
Wow...flip flop, flip flop....
You yourself said social programs did not need more money thrown at them but managed better and priorities applied. Now you say there is no such thing as runaway social programs and they were not mismanaged. I guess you read a common dreams article and had to readjust your thinking, the article d'jour? lol. You should run for office. You got it down, girl.
Let's look at regime change in Iraq. That was not hatched by "neocons" (whatever the heck that means). It was hatched during the Clinton administration. He went on TV during his tenure and called for regime change, how Hussein had WMD, yada yada, for our own safety we should disarm him, look what he did to his own people, same thing intelligence said during Bush admin (no big surprise...Bush kept the intelligence structure intact from Clinton admin...boy what a colossal mistake THAT was). Clinton is liberal isn't he??
Open your mind and Google it. And figure out a way to spin it. If the attack on the WTC had happened during Clinton's watch, we would have invaded Iraq then, and you would have been on here defending it because a "liberal" Prez instituted it. We would not be hearing conspiracy theories from you, we would not be hearing bring the troops home from you. We would not be hearing you calling for HIS impeachment. No wonder we cannot get anything done in this country.
Moral relativism. In your mind, perjury is not wrong in all cases, it depends on what you are lying about. Go after Scooter Libby for perjury and obstruction (same thing Clinton did) because it is somehow worse when done by a Republican. Not be upset that the person who actually committed the crime (outing an agent) was Armitage, NOT Libby and NOT Rowe, was never charged. In fact was asked by Fitzgerald to keep quiet about it. But THAT does not matter to you.
The fact that you cannot see that yourself proves that you exist in the state of denial and your only "truth" has to come from a liberal page, a liberal article, a liberal TV station, yada yada. Anything printed in Common Dreams is gospel to you and you go no further. Anything printed on a page you don't approve of is a lie and you go no further. You don't even attempt to see if the FACTS are true (no matter where it is printed)..but, what am I thinking????? Why, heck, it CAN'T be the truth, if those evil lying conservatives printed it. LOL. Amazing!!
Oh yes, let's talk about unions. Why are Americans buying cheaper imports? Because union costs have made cars so expensive Americans can't afford them anymore. You don't think that has a direct effect on lots of jobs going overseas?? Of course it does! Unions as they were conceived were a needed thing. A wonderful thing. But many other things, money and power corrupted them. Where is the big money in unions? At the top, not with the union members. And both political parties suck up to them big time because of that power and money. Unions have contributed as much as anyone to sending jobs and manufacturing overseas.
Look at your history. Democrats (predominantly southern Democrats I grant you) DID keep the black population from voting. It was conservatives, largely for religious reasons, who opposed slavery and finally abolished it and were willing to fight a war over it. Even after the war and the emancipation proclamation, southern Democrats passed laws making it impossible for blacks to vote and managed to do so until the 60's. And when that point was made, you spun that by saying the Republicans of that time were more liberal. Spin, spin, spin. LOL.
It was Republicans (conservatives of that time) who started the sufferage movement for women, because conservatives believe that all men (and women) are created equal.
When did liberals get interested in what blacks wanted or needed? WHEN THEY GOT THE VOTE. Hence, the Lyndon Johnson war on poverty which came on the heels of blacks getting the vote. I don't know how much more transparent you can get. Same way with illegals. Oh NOOOO don't card them...they vote for US.
Lyndon Johnson was president when the decision was made to raid social security. And we know where that led, don't we? It was promised that would never happen. I would not call Lyndon Johnson a conservative.
The first pre-emptive war was started by a liberal President "to stop the spread of communism." That was not an idea spawned by "neocons" or the Bush administration. If you want to lay blame, at least lay it where it belongs. Liberals also forced the withdrawal when the war became increasingly unpopular, resulting in the killing fields of Cambodia, when the liberal Congress would not allow Nixon to keep his promises to the South. Now there is something for liberals to be proud of. Got the war stopped, yep...but at what cost?
You say you are not talking Democrats and Republicans, you are talking liberals and conservatives. I say tomato, you say tomato. Semantics. It is all the same. Most Democrats are liberal...in varying degrees. Your definition of "liberal" is not the same other persons who call themselves "liberal." When a Democrat does something you don't like, first thing heard is "he/she is not liberal." I guess you have to, in order make a vain attempt at a consistent message. So far it ain't happenin.
Media manipulation and lobbying were begun by the conservative party? First I would say prove it with something other than Common Dreams opinion pieces, but given the benefit of the doubt, let's just say they did. And here is the big BUT...it has certainly been perfected to a fine art by liberals. And what, pray tell, is the conservative "party?" Don't see that on any ticket. Just like I don't see "liberal" on any ticket. I thought you were not talking about democrats/republicans. Oops. That is what happens with cutting and pasting sometimes.
Your post looks like a left wing conspiracy theory ohhh myyy gooodnessss it is all THEIR fault, WE have NEVER EVER done ANYthing wrong, they are EVIL, EVIL, EVIL and EVERY bad thing that has EVER happened to this country was perpetrated by conservatives! Let's get the picks and shovels and torches and go to the castle and DESTROY them. LOL. Good grief.
And you wonder why people don't take the hard left seriously???
I tell you one thing....if BOTH sides don't quit playing the blame game and own up to the fact that no one party, no one ideal, no one ANYthing got us where we are, nothing will change. I cannot believe the colossal arrogance of anyone to state that it is all someone else's fault and accept no blame whatsoever.
Why can't we just drop all the labels, and when a good idea comes down the pike join in support of it instead of automatically rejecting it because...GASP...a "liberal" had it, or...GASP...a "conservative" had it. I am sure we do have some common goals in there somewhere, but they get lost in the power struggle.
It's like high school. Just bigger cliques. Superficial, judging someone by a label and engaging in group ridicule and dislike and not seeing individuals and not behaving as individuals but rather in packs. It was ridiculous then when we were teenagers. It is even more ridiculous now that we are adults.
SIGH. When we will we put away childish things??
hey, take off your flip flops
and we can wrastle....
...and on the flip side...we will soon see...sm
what Obama will do with his regime.
I have a feeling it won't be pretty.
At least we'll have a reason to throw all the democrats out of all branches of offices when they fall flat on their you know whatsits, and find they can't do what they think they can.
The American people won't stand for what the country is about to become, you included, once you wise up and see what's about to come.
No one gives a flip about retreat.
that perpetuates division and hatred....quite another story. No only do you have the reading comprehension of a 2nd grader, you can't seem to count past 3 and are obviously outnumbered by folks who have zero tolerance when it comes to bigots. Such a bore.
And on the flip side...
http://www.pnhp.org
France, which comes in 1st in WHO health care rankings, has a better plan for the US to emulate than England's. It *can* be done right, if we try.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042070.htm
It's too cold for flip flops where I am, but here are a few...sm
1. Social Security Surplus
BUSH PLEDGES NOT TO TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus. [President Bush, 3/3/01]
...BUSH SPENDS SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS The New York Times reported that the president's new budget uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes. [The New York Times, 2/6/02]
2. Patient's Right to Sue
GOVERNOR BUSH VETOES PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... Despite his campaign rhetoric in favor of a patients' bill of rights, Bush fought such a bill tooth and nail as Texas governor, vetoing a bill coauthored by Republican state Rep. John Smithee in 1995. He... constantly opposed a patient's right to sue an HMO over coverage denied that resulted in adverse health effects. [Salon, 2/7/01]
...CANDIDATE BUSH PRAISES TEXAS PATIENTS' RIGHT TO SUE... We're one of the first states that said you can sue an HMO for denying you proper coverage... It's time for our nation to come together and do what's right for the people. And I think this is right for the people. You know, I support a national patients' bill of rights, Mr. Vice President. And I want all people covered. I don't want the law to supersede good law like we've got in Texas. [Governor Bush, 10/17/00]
...PRESIDENT BUSH'S ADMINISTRATION ARGUES AGAINST RIGHT TO SUE To let two Texas consumers, Juan Davila and Ruby R. Calad, sue their managed-care companies for wrongful denials of medical benefits ‘would be to completely undermine' federal law regulating employee benefits, Assistant Solicitor General James A. Feldman said at oral argument March 23. Moreover, the administration's brief attacked the policy rationale for Texas's law, which is similar to statutes on the books in nine other states. [Washington Post, 4/5/04]
3. Tobacco Buyout
BUSH SUPPORTS CURRENT TOBACCO FARMERS' QUOTA SYSTEM... They've got the quota system in place -- the allotment system -- and I don't think that needs to be changed. [President Bush, 5/04]
...BUSH ADMINISTRATION WILL SUPPORT FEDERAL BUYOUT OF TOBACCO QUOTAS The administration is open to a buyout. [White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo, 6/18/04]
4. North Korea
BUSH WILL NOT OFFER NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA INCENTIVES TO DISARM... We developed a bold approach under which, if the North addressed our long-standing concerns, the United States was prepared to take important steps that would have significantly improved the lives of the North Korean people. Now that North Korea's covert nuclear weapons program has come to light, we are unable to pursue this approach. [President's Statement, 11/15/02]
...BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFERS NORTH KOREA INCENTIVES TO DISARMWell, we will work to take steps to ease their political and economic isolation. So there would be -- what you would see would be some provisional or temporary proposals that would only lead to lasting benefit after North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs. So there would be some provisional or temporary efforts of that nature. [White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 6/23/04]
5. Abortion
BUSH SUPPORTS A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE... Bush said he...favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question. [The Nation, 6/15/00, quoting the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 5/78]
...BUSH OPPOSES A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE I am pro-life. [Governor Bush, 10/3/00]
6. OPEC
BUSH PROMISES TO FORCE OPEC TO LOWER PRICES... What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots...And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price. [President Bush, 1/26/00]
...BUSH REFUSES TO LOBBY OPEC LEADERS With gas prices soaring in the United States at the beginning of 2004, the Miami Herald reported the president refused to personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds. [Miami Herald, 4/1/04]
7. Iraq Funding
BUSH SPOKESMAN DENIES NEED FOR ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR THE REST OF 2004... We do not anticipate requesting supplemental funding for '04 [White House Budget Director Joshua Bolton, 2/2/04]
...BUSH REQUESTS ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR IRAQ FOR 2004 I am requesting that Congress establish a $25 billion contingency reserve fund for the coming fiscal year to meet all commitments to our troops. [President Bush, Statement by President, 5/5/04]
8. Condoleeza Rice Testimony
BUSH SPOKESMAN SAYS RICE WON'T TESTIFY AS 'A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE'... Again, this is not her personal preference; this goes back to a matter of principle. There is a separation of powers issue involved here. Historically, White House staffers do not testify before legislative bodies. So it's a matter of principle, not a matter of preference. [White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 3/9/04]
...BUSH ORDERS RICE TO TESTIFY: Today I have informed the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States that my National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, will provide public testimony. [President Bush, 3/30/04]
9. Science
BUSH PLEDGES TO ISSUE REGULATIONS BASED ON SCIENCE...I think we ought to have high standards set by agencies that rely upon science, not by what may feel good or what sounds good. [then-Governor George W. Bush, 1/15/00]
...BUSH ADMINISTRATION REGULATIONS IGNORE SCIENCE 60 leading scientists—including Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors and university chairs and presidents—issued a statement calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. According to the scientists, the Bush administration has, among other abuses, suppressed and distorted scientific analysis from federal agencies, and taken actions that have undermined the quality of scientific advisory panels. [Union of Concerned Scientists, 2/18/04]
10. Ahmed Chalabi
BUSH INVITES CHALABI TO STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS...President Bush also met with Chalabi during his brief trip to Iraq last Thanksgiving [White House Documents 1/20/04, 11/27/03]
...BUSH MILITARY ASSISTS IN RAID OF CHALABI'S HOUSE U.S. soldiers raided the home of America's one-time ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday and seized documents and computers. [Washington Post, 5/20/04]
11. Department of Homeland Security
BUSH OPPOSES THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY...So, creating a Cabinet office doesn't solve the problem. You still will have agencies within the federal government that have to be coordinated. So the answer is that creating a Cabinet post doesn't solve anything. [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 3/19/02]
...BUSH SUPPORTS THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single, permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the homeland of America and protecting the American people. [President Bush, Address to the Nation, 6/6/02]
12. Weapons of Mass Destruction
BUSH SAYS WE FOUND THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION...We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them. [President Bush, Interview in Poland, 5/29/03]
...BUSH SAYS WE HAVEN'T FOUND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons.And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went. They could have been destroyed during the war. Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq. They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we'll find out. [President Bush, Meet the Press, 2/7/04]
13. Free Trade
BUSH SUPPORTS FREE TRADE... I believe strongly that if we promote trade, and when we promote trade, it will help workers on both sides of this issue. [President Bush in Peru, 3/23/02]
...BUSH SUPPORTS RESTRICTIONS ON TRADE In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection. [Washington Post, 9/19/03]
14. Osama Bin Laden
BUSH WANTS OSAMA DEAD OR ALIVE... I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' [President Bush, on Osama Bin Laden, 09/17/01]
...BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT OSAMA I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him.[President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]
15. The Environment
BUSH SUPPORTS MANDATORY CAPS ON CARBON DIOXIDE... [If elected], Governor Bush will work to...establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide. [Bush Environmental Plan, 9/29/00]
...BUSH OPPOSES MANDATORY CAPS ON CARBON DIOXIDE I do not believe, however, that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a 'pollutant' under the Clean Air Act. [President Bush, Letter to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), 3/13/03]
16. WMD Commission
BUSH RESISTS AN OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION ON WMD INTELLIGENCE FAILURE... The White House immediately turned aside the calls from Kay and many Democrats for an immediate outside investigation, seeking to head off any new wide-ranging election-year inquiry that might go beyond reports already being assembled by congressional committees and the Central Intelligence Agency. [NY Times, 1/29/04]
...BUSH SUPPORTS AN OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION ON WMD INTELLIGENCE FAILURE Today, by executive order, I am creating an independent commission, chaired by Governor and former Senator Chuck Robb, Judge Laurence Silberman, to look at American intelligence capabilities, especially our intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. [President Bush, 2/6/04]
17. Creation of the 9/11 Commission
BUSH OPPOSES CREATION OF INDEPENDENT 9/11 COMMISSION... President Bush took a few minutes during his trip to Europe Thursday to voice his opposition to establishing a special commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before Sept. 11. [CBS News, 5/23/02]
...BUSH SUPPORTS CREATION OF INDEPENDENT 9/11 COMMISSION President Bush said today he now supports establishing an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [ABC News, 09/20/02]
18. Time Extension for 9/11 Commission
BUSH OPPOSES TIME EXTENSION FOR 9/11 COMMISSION... President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [Washington Post, 1/19/04]
...BUSH SUPPORTS TIME EXTENSION FOR 9/11 COMMISSION The White House announced Wednesday its support for a request from the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks for more time to complete its work. [CNN, 2/4/04]
19. One Hour Limit for 9/11 Commission Testimony
BUSH LIMITS TESTIMONY IN FRONT OF 9/11 COMMISSION TO ONE HOUR... President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have placed strict limits on the private interviews they will grant to the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that they will meet only with the panel's top two officials and that Mr. Bush will submit to only a single hour of questioning, commission members said Wednesday. [NY Times, 2/26/04]
...BUSH SETS NO TIMELIMIT FOR TESTIMONY The president's going to answer all of the questions they want to raise. Nobody's watching the clock. [White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 3/10/04]
20. Gay Marriage
BUSH SAYS GAY MARRIAGE IS A STATE ISSUE... The state can do what they want to do. Don't try to trap me in this state's issue like you're trying to get me into. [Gov. George W. Bush on Gay Marriage, Larry King Live, 2/15/00]
...BUSH SUPPORTS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BANNING GAY MARRIAGE Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass, and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our Constitution defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife. [President Bush, 2/24/04]
21. Nation Building
BUSH OPPOSES NATION BUILDING... If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. [Gov. George W. Bush, 10/3/00]
...BUSH SUPPORTS NATION BUILDING We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people. [President Bush, 3/6/03]
22. Saddam/al Qaeda Link
BUSH SAYS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEEN AL QAEDA AND SADDAM... You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. [President Bush, 9/25/02]
...BUSH SAYS SADDAM HAD NO ROLE IN AL QAEDA PLOT We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11. [President Bush, 9/17/03]
23. U.N. Resolution
BUSH VOWS TO HAVE A UN VOTE NO MATTER WHAT... No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam. [President Bush 3/6/03]
...BUSH WITHDRAWS REQUEST FOR VOTE At a National Security Council meeting convened at the White House at 8:55 a.m., Bush finalized the decision to withdraw the resolution from consideration and prepared to deliver an address to the nation that had already been written. [Washington Post, 3/18/03]
24. Involvement in the Palestinian Conflict
BUSH OPPOSES SUMMITS... Well, we've tried summits in the past, as you may remember. It wasn't all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intifada in the area. [President Bush, 04/05/02]
...BUSH SUPPORTS SUMMITS If a meeting advances progress toward two states living side by side in peace, I will strongly consider such a meeting. I'm committed to working toward peace in the Middle East. [President Bush, 5/23/03]
25. Campaign Finance
BUSH OPPOSES MCCAIN-FEINGOLD... George W. Bush opposes McCain-Feingold...as an infringement on free expression. [Washington Post, 3/28/2000]
...BUSH SIGNS MCCAIN-FEINGOLD INTO LAW [T]his bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law. [President Bush, at the McCain-Feingold signing ceremony, 03/27/02]
26. 527s
Bush opposes restrictions on 527s: I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising [in McCain Feingold], which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import. [President Bush, 3/27/02]
…Bush says 527s bad for system: I don't think we ought to have 527s. I can't be more plain about it…I think they're bad for the system. That's why I signed the bill, McCain-Feingold. [President Bush, 8/23/04]
27. Medical Records
Bush says medical records must remain private: I believe that we must protect…the right of every American to have confidence that his or her personal medical records will remain private. [President Bush, 4/12/01]
…Bush says patients' histories are not confidntial: The Justice Department…asserts that patients no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential. [BusinessWeek, 4/30/04]
28. Timelines For Dictators
Bush sets timeline for Saddam: If Iraq does not accept the terms within a week of passage or fails to disclose required information within 30 days, the resolution authorizes 'all necessary means' to force compliance--in other words, a military attack. [LA Times, 10/3/02]
…Bush says he's against timelines: I don't think you give timelines to dictators. [President Bush, 8/27/04]
29. The Great Lakes
Bush wants to divert great lakes: Even though experts say 'diverting any water from the Great Lakes region sets a bad precedent' Bush 'said he wants to talk to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien about piping water to parched states in the west and southwest.'– [AP, 7/19/01]
Bush says he'll never divert Great Lakes: We've got to use our resources wisely, like water. It starts with keeping the Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes Basin...My position is clear: We're never going to allow diversion of Great Lakes water. [President Bush, 8/16/04]
30. Winning The War On Terror
Bush claims he can win the war on terror: One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we're asking questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course, you can. [President Bush, 4/13/04]
…Bush says war on terror is unwinnable: I don't think you can win [the war on terror]. [President Bush, 8/30/04]
…Bush says he will win the war on terror: Make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win [the war on terror]. [President Bush, 8/31/04]
Re: Canadians...The flip side. s/m
There is a flip side to some Canadians coming into the US to get health care, jump the line, etc. For every Canadian that comes here for care there is an equal or larger number of Americans entering Canada to obtain more reasonable medication. Also, a small but growing situation are Americans traveling to India for surgical procedures that they otherwise could not afford in the US.
As I have said before, I certainly do not have the magic "fix" for the health care debacle, but there is a flip side regarding Canada, etc.
She definitely calls them out on their flip flops
xx
on the flip side .. those with $$ pay more in taxes ...
by virtue of the money they SPEND -- their property taxes are higher; all those clothes and cars and boats and fancy diners out are taxable items ....so they automatically are already paying more into the tax funds that those with lower incomes.
I am also one who thinks it should be a flat tax -- WITH NO LOOPHOLES ... keep it fair and keep it simple.
We don't make much ... but I don't think it's fair to take from the rich and give to the poor. Let the rich give of their own accord, if they so desire.
I could have worked harder, made better decisions/different choices ... but I didn't and those who did should not have to support me.
I agree with the other poster - I would give the shirt off my back to those who really deserve it but our social programs have propagated a whole generation that think they are owed something just for being here and being American.
oh well .. back to work .. LOL
Is tht so? So I assume that you are a flip-flop,
WHAT exactly made you change your mind?
Biggest FLIP FLOP of all time...sm
So does Bush think there should be an exit strategy or not?
He's a joke!
Conservative Santorum - a flip flopper?
Group accuses Santorum of switch
Conservative association says senator made '180-degree turn' on intelligent design
By Lauri Lebo
Daily Record/Sunday News |
|
Dec 25, 2005 — A conservative organization that touts itself as a supporter of traditional values blasted Sen. Rick Santorum for his withdrawal of support for the Dover Area School District's unconstitutional intelligent design policy.
Senator Rick Santorum's agreement with Judge John Jones' decision ... is yet another example of why conservatives can no longer trust the senator, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania said in a news release Friday.
The association's president, Diane Gramley, said Santorum - who is expected to face a tough re-election challenge next year from state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. - should heed her organization's remarks.
It's a warning that he needs to be careful, Gramley said. That he's beginning to lose his conservative base.
A year ago today, an editorial by Santorum praising Dover's intelligent design policy appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I commend the Dover Area School District for taking a stand and refusing to ignore the controversy, he wrote.
Dover school officials were so pleased that they printed the piece in a newsletter sent out to district residents.
But last week, one day after Judge John E. Jones III sharply criticized former Dover board members and ruled that intelligent design could not be included in the science curriculum as unconstitutional, Santorum said he was troubled by former board member's actions.
Jones, in a strongly worded decision, left no doubt that he believed board members lied under oath in order to cover up their motivations - getting religion into science class.
Gramley criticized Santorum for changing his position.
He's almost made a 180-degree turn on this issue, she said.
In August, after President Bush said he supported teaching intelligent design in science class, Santorum said he didn't agree.
Rather, he said he supports teaching the controversy over evolutionary theory.
As far as intelligent design is concerned, I really don't believe it has risen to the level of a scientific theory at this point that we would want to teach it alongside of evolution, the Pennsylvania senator said during an NPR interview in August.
But in a 2002 Washington Times op-ed article, Santorum wrote that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science classes.
Gramley said Santorum's change of view is an indication that he may be diverting from his conservative positions, in order to court more moderate voters.
Santorum also said he intends to withdraw his affiliation with the Thomas More Law Center, which defended the Dover policy in the lawsuit.
Santorum could not be reached for comment Friday.
http://www.ydr.com/doverbiology/ci_3342145 |
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Seems like Harry Reid has done some flip flopping of his own
FLASHBACK: Dem Senate Leader Harry Reid: 'Our Federal Wallet Stretched To Limit By Illegal Aliens Getting Welfare'
'Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally'
August 5, 1993
The Office of Sen. Harry Reid issued the following:
In response to increased terrorism and abuse of social programs by aliens, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today introduced the first and only comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress.
Currently, an alien living illegally in the United States often pays no taxes but receives unemployment, welfare, free medical care and other federal benefits. Recent terrorist acts, including the World Trade Center bombing, have underscored the need to keep violent criminals out of the country.
Reid's bill, the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993, overhauls the nation's immigration laws and calls for a massive scale-down of immigrants allowed into the country from approximately 800,000 to 300,000.
The bill also changes asylum laws to prevent phony asylum seekers. Reid said the U.S. open door policy is being abused at the expense of honest, working citizens.
We are a country founded upon fairness and justice, Reid said. An individual in real threat of torture or long-term incarceration because of his or her political beliefs can still seek asylum. But this bill closes the door to those who want to abuse America's inherent generosity and legal system.
Reid's bill also cracks down on illegal immigration. The 1990 census reported 3.3 million illegal aliens in America. Recent estimates indicate about 2.5 million immigrants illegally entered the United States last year.
Our borders have overflowed with illegal immigrants placing tremendous burdens on our criminal justice system, schools and social programs, Reid said. The Immigration and Naturalization Service needs the ability to step up enforcement.
Our federal wallet is stretched to the limit by illegal aliens getting welfare, food stamps, medical care and other benefits often without paying any taxes.
Safeguards like welfare and free medical care are in place to boost Americans in need of short-term assistance. These programs were not meant to entice freeloaders and scam artists from around the world. Even worse, Americans have seen heinous crimes committed by individuals who are here illegally, Reid said.
Specific provisions of Reid's Immigration Stabilization Act include the following:
-- Reduces annual legal immigration levels from approximately 800,000 admissions per year to about 300,000. Relatives other than spouse or minor children will be admitted only if already on immigration waiting lists and their admission does not raise annual immigration levels above 300,000.
-- Reforms asylum rules to prevent aliens from entering the United States illegally under phony asylum claims.
-- Expands list of felonies considered aggravated felonies requiring exclusion and deportation of criminal aliens. Allows courts to order deportation at time of sentencing.
-- Increases penalties for failing to depart or re-entering the United States after a final order of deportation order. Increases maximum penalties for visa fraud from five years to 10 years.
-- Curtails alien smuggling by authorizing interdiction and repatriation of aliens seeking to enter the United States unlawfully by sea. Increases penalties for alien smuggling.
-- Adds alien smuggling to the list of crimes subject to sanctions under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Expands the categories of property that are forfeited when used to facilitate the smuggling or harboring of illegal aliens.
-- Clarifies that a person born in the United States to an alien mother who is not a lawful resident is not a U.S. citizen. This will eliminate incentive for pregnant alien women to enter the United States illegally, often at risk to mother and child, for the purpose of acquiring citizenship for the child and accompanying federal financial benefits.
-- Mandates that aliens who cannot demonstrably support themselves without public or private assistance are excludable. This will prevent admission of aliens likely to be dependent on public financial support. This requirement extends to the sponsor of any family sponsored immigrant.
-- Increases border security and patrol officers to 9,900 full-time positions.
END
Don't forget that he flip flops at every turn....sm
of the wind, saying stuff INFORMED voters well know is just a ruse to get votes. Most of the stuff he is so-called "promising" will never get out of Congress - he knows that and is banking on uninformed Americans who think highly of his rock-star status. Personally I always thought the lying was supposed to start AFTER they got into office, but it's obvious that Obama sees things WAY differently than most folks who pay attention to his rhetoric instead of being "sheeple. "
maybe he's just a flip flopper - like 100 years in Iraq
He should have just said "I don't remember" like the pubs have over and over and over.
Mmmm, no I think the mother of all flip-flops...sm
Goes to McCain for "Experience, experience, experience, I have the experience!" McCain: What, that's not working? Okay, I mean "Change, change, change!" ("Do you think anyone will notice that I just adopted what my opponent's platform because mine wasn't working, and that I've gone from being a so-called 'Maverick' to a populist in a matter of weeks?")
I think the flip flop prize still belongs to Joe Biden...
from "He is not ready to lead; the job does not lend itself to on-the-job experience" to "He is ready to lead." Talking about the #1 on his ticket. Think that one still takes the prize. :)
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.
Bush is gone, YEA!!! and yeah, it could darn well be Bush! LOL.
Chimp boy!! But, the cartoon is NOT about Bush, now is it? Give me a break.
George Bush HIMSELF makes it so easy to make fun of George Bush!!!! oh where would I start, so litt
nm
Yes, Bush and Bush alone did this whole mess all my himself
Your speaking as though nobody else had a hand in this, just Bush nobody else. Last I knew we had a democratic congress and they are the ones who got us into this mess. Time to put fault where it belongs - congress. Bush is only a talking head.
Bush....they will still blame Bush.
nm
Corporation owned media does not bash Bush, they bash those that bash Bush.sm
Google Bush and vote fraud and there is tons of information about how many Americans 'voted' for Bush. Poor us and poor troops.
bush says....
bush says we are safer cause of our Iraq war..No way..we have created a culture of American haters.a culture of terrorists against America due to this so wrong war..hopefully the Downing Street Memo and the people now realizing we have sacrified too much will be the downfall for the warmonger in the White House..
Bush
He is shrub, chimp boy and many other names I cant post here but which I call him at home and among friends..oh yeah, dufus, jerk, imbecile...
As soon as Bush went from
"Anyone in my office involved with a leak will be fired" to "Anyone who is found guilty of leaking," I figured he had a handle on what the decision is going to be by the special prosecutor, who, incidentally, was appointed by BUSH.
I guess time will tell if justice truly does prevail.
Bush makes Nixon look like a choir boy.
Bush's oil? sm
Well, you all have blamed Bush for everything except original sin. I guess that is next. Thank the environmentalists partly for the mess we are in with oil. And stop deifying Chavez. He is not a good person.
No, Bush, you certainly are no FDR!
No One Can Say They Didn't See It Coming
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com
Wednesday 31 August 2005
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
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A New Orleans resident waded through floodwaters coated with a fine layer of oil in the flooded downtown area on Tuesday, August 30, 2005. |
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Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.
A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation.
The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised no net loss of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection, said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as highly questionable, and boasted, Everybody loves what we're doing.
My administration's climate change policy will be science based, President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as a report put out by a bureaucracy, and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive Report on the Environment, stating, Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment, the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.
In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease. Bush completely ignored this statement.
In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of abstinence. When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.
On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan. Bush had boarded his very own Streetcar Named Desire.
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Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of The Clinton Wars, is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.
Bush's war
We are going to deal with the homecoming veterans of Iraq, their mental and physical troubles, for decades to come. I remember when I was a teenager, there was a man who lived down the street from my best friend where we all hung out..He would sit on his stoop. We would go up to the fence and ask him questions..He was spaced out, shaking, stared into space..We, as punky kids, thought it was funny..Later I found out, he was suffering from *shell shock*, post traumatic stress disorder..FROM WWII..He had never recovered..This was in the 1960's and he still was suffering..OMG..I also have a friend who was in Vietnam and he has never been the same after he came home in 1969..These returning vets are gonna experience hell on earth and we along with them..This war did not have to happen..this was an unnecessary war..a war of convenience, of profit and we will pay the price..Not Bush or his cronies, they will be insulated, locked away in their gated communities counting their money..We the working and caring American people, both democrat and republican, will pay the price..The only difference is democrats will admit it, republicans will still try to make excuses for Bushs war.
What? Not Bush?
Nobel Peace Prize 2005: Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez makes the final list
VHeadline commentarist Carlos Herrera writes: The
Nobel Commission for the Peace Prize has received 199
nominations including Colin Powell, the U2 singer Bono
and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
It's Bush's
I wonder how much Bush (i.e. you and
me as TAXPAYERS) pays Faux News for its' *fair and balanced* reporting.
Ya gotta laugh at the morons who actually BELIEVE this nitwit, though!
Bush
Is he president Bush or dictator Bush? How can he expect to form a democracy in Iraq when at the very same time tear ours apart? What message is his administration trying to send to the terrorist now? We must make sure this does not slide by and be forgiven, not this time, Mr. Bush has gotten away with so many lies and then said I made a mistake. He is like the boy who cried wolf. When we let him get away with this illegal spying, and not even in the least way seeking a legal solution for doing it over 4 years! This is not acceptable, this is the highest disgrace of all of his disgraces done to our country. This is one nation under God, not George Bush. My new name for him is King George because his mindset is that of a dictator not a president. We need to clean up our own democracy before go around setting examples for other countries to do the same.
Bush
We should all be thankful that Bush was re-elected, I cannot imagine Kerry as President of the U. S. and now it looks like Hillary Clinton is going to run for President. If anyone votes for her they would have to be nuts. Cannot imagine getting Billy living back in the White House. If Hillary cannot control her own husband, how is she going to run the U.S.???????
Bush is doing no different
He's not targeting people paying off J.C. Penny Bills, Sears Cards etc. That's just ridiculous. Your argument about Bin Laden would work if he was the only terrorist in the world. You can't Monday morning quarterback in the War on Terror. Bush is not the first person to do this, and he won't be the last. This whole issue is just bizarre, and people who seem to be pro-terrorist are more bizarre.
Bush is not above the law...sm
Glad to see some of his fellow republicans are bringing this to the light for him.
Bush would never be a
Democrat. There is no money in it and he couldn't fake the compassion required.
But...I think that the Bush Adm.
is not the only president adm. this happens or will happen under.
The other ones will not bring back the American worker when China will make something for 10-cents and we make it for 10-dollars. All this outsourcing is here to stay. Sad to say.
SO DID BUSH!!!!!
x
if only Bush had
succeeded in passing his privitization of Social Security. Then we would be seeing all you gung-ho True Believer Repubs freaking out at the devastation of your retirement money. You would have to walk the walk instead of pontificating endlessly on your favorite subjects - scarey terrorists, Ayers, socialism, Salinsky, yak, yak, yak. It would serve ya all right.
Just saw this on TV and it's thanks to Bush sm
4 million more people this year from last year are on food stamps... twice as many people as 2005 are on food stamps.... say what you want but this is UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF G W BUSH and McCain voted with him 90 percent of the time. Not only that but McCain admitted during the run for candidacy that he knows nothing about the economy. I saw and heard it with my own senses. He said he doesn't know much about the economy.
People get $101 a month in food stamps and that only covers food, no toothpaste or toilet paper. You repubs act like it's moochers but these are newly impoverished people who had jobs last year and the year before. Wake up is all I can say.
Stop hating and pay attention.
oh get over bush would ya?
is out the door. as much as i dislike bush, he did not create all of this mess and i would rather have another 8 years of him in office and would feel way safer at night than i would with obama. you all can go on and on about how mccain s like bush, blah blah blah.... i disagree. i didn't vote for bush but i would vote for him over obama that is how strongly i feel that obama is so full of hot air. i just cannot believe how many people have their blinders on.
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