Ah - The Bush Administration. Did that really happen to us?

Before Obama was President, dreamacttexas would occasionally have problems.  We would get these weird gray boxes on some immigration posts, and a couple of times the blog became inaccessible.  It didn't make any sense.  But then, after Obama came in, things changed.  dreamacttexas no longer shows the gray boxes.  The blog no longer burps.  I wonder why.

Although Obama said he would not push to punish the Bush people for having tortured prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Graib, the bad stuff inevitably surfaced.  Today the papers said that Condi approved the torture.  Of course she would.  She was so cozy with Bush, she couldn't say no.  The others couldn't say no either.  It would be interesting to know why they agreed to such a terrible thing.  Was it pressure from Bush or Cheney? Was it some kind of black mail?  Or are they just bad people (outright malice)?

A detailed Congressional report on the Bush Administration on torture was released today.  Click here for link to entire report.

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Senate implicates Bush aides in prisoner abuse

* Ewen MacAskill in Washington
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 April 2009 18.05 BST


A Senate inquiry published today directly implicates senior members of the Bush administration in the extensive use of harsh interrogation methods against al-Qaida suspects and other prisoners round the world.

The 232-page report, the most detailed investigation yet into the background of torture, undercuts the claim of the then deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was the work of "a few bad apples".

The report's release added to the debate raging within the US after Barack Obama, who regards the techniques as torture, opened the way for possible prosecution of members of the Bush administration.

Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the senate armed services committee, which ordered the inquiry, said today: "The paper trail on abuse leads to top civilian leaders, and our report connects the dots." The report shows a paper trail going from the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to Guantánamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq.

The report says: "The abuse of detainees in US custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorised their use against detainees."

The report reveals pressure for the adoption of more aggressive interrogation techniques came from the uppermost reaches of the Bush administration. Rumsfeld gave the go-ahead for the use of 15 interrogation techniques.

The mood within the administration at the time is caught in a handwritten note attached to a memo in December 2002 from Rumsfeld, on the use of stress positions. "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?" Rumsfeld asked.

The report, the result of an 18-month inquiry, reveals the administration rejected advice from various branches of the armed services against using more aggressive techniques. The military questioned both the morality and the reliability of information gained.

The report condemns the techniques adopted: "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority."

The report discloses that waterboarding and other techniques used were based on a faulty premise. The methods were lifted from a military programme known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (Sere) but the armed forces pointed out that this was intended to train troops in resisting torture rather than establishing whether these were useful interrogation methods.

Bush administration memos released by Obama last week were confined to interrogations at Guantánamo and CIA secret prisons round the world, but the senate report goes wider, including prisons run by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report could reopen the Abu Ghraib cases, involving sentenced military prison staff who claimed that authorisation for the techniques came from higher up. Colonel Janis Karpinski, an army reserve brigadier general demoted because of prisoner abuses at the jail in Iraq, said the Senate report backed claims that staff became "scapegoats" for the US interrogation policies.

The report says that Sere instructors trained CIA and other military personnel early in 2002 on the use of harsher interrogation techniques but warned that information obtained might be unreliable.

The internal debate also suggests that the definition of what was acceptable was flexible. The report notes that a senior CIA official attended a meeting of staff at Guantánamo in 2002. The minutes tell of a discussion of interrogation techniques, and the official saying that the legal statutes were vague. "It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong," the official said.

In a separate development, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, giving evidence to the House foreign affairs committee, further stirred up the debate with the former vice-president, Dick Cheney, saying he should not be regarded as a "reliable source" on torture. Cheney has being saying that classified memos he has seen show that valuable information was obtained through the harsher interrogation techniques.

Obama's head of intelligence, Dennis Blair, appeared to concur with Cheney in a memo released last week but his assessment was blacked out. link to Guardian article

Bushies have no room to talk, especially Gonzalez

The Bush team has been disparaging Obama's new administration.  This however is no surprise.  The Bush administration was not known for being nice (although they surprised us with how "polite" they were during the transition).  The transition is over now and its time to take out their claws.  With all the problems the Bushies caused, and how incompetent many of them looked (especially Alberto Gonzalez) they really should stay quiet.

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Bush White House Cast Assails Obama
But Ex-President Has Held His Tongue

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 7, 2009; Page A04

Richard B. Cheney says President Obama's policies will make it easier for terrorists to kill Americans. Alberto R. Gonzales says the new attorney general could be undermining the morale of U.S. intelligence officials.

And Andrew H. Card Jr., George W. Bush's first chief of staff, took Obama to task for allowing shirtsleeves and loose collars in the Oval Office -- arguing that they are a clear departure from Bush's sterner sartorial rules...more

link to image

Torture is not as important as Blagojevich

Why is Blagojevich more important than the Iraqis who are tortured by the U.S.? A report on how the Bush administration is responsible for the use of torture was made public five days ago and all has been quiet.

What is it about all the atrocities performed by Bush administration officials that the media is so reticent about making notice? Why are they letting Rumsfeld off the hook? There is clear evidence in the report, there are no "assumptions" - these are facts.

No wonder the Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at Bush. While technically this is an inappropriate action (you shouldn`t be throwing shoes at presidents), after over a million Iraqi deaths, people have a right to be angry...

link to Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Torture

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Monday Dec. 15, 2008 09:30 EST
Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

...This Report was issued on Thursday.
Not a single mention was made of it on any of the Sunday news talk shows, with
the sole exception being when John McCain told George Stephanopoulos that it was "not his job" to opine on whether criminal prosecutions were warranted for the Bush officials whose policies led to these crimes. What really matters, explained McCain, was not that we get caught up in the past, but instead, that we ensure this never happens again -- yet, like everyone else who makes this argument, he offered no explanation as to how we could possibly ensure that "it never happens again" if we simultaneously announce that our political leaders will be immunized, not prosecuted, when they commit war crimes. Doesn't that mindset, rather obviously, substantially increase the likelihood -- if not render inevitable -- that such behavior will occur again? Other than that brief exchange, this Senate Report was a non-entity on the Sunday shows.

Instead, TV pundits were consumed with righteous anger over the petty, titillating, sleazy Rod Blagojevich scandal, competing with one another over who could spew the most derision and scorn for this pitiful, lowly, broken individual and his brazen though relatively inconsequential crimes. Every exciting detail was vouyeristically and meticulously dissected by political pundits -- many, if not most, of whom have never bothered to acquaint themselves with any of the basic facts surrounding the monumental Bush lawbreaking and war crimes scandals. TV "journalists" who have never even heard of the Taguba report -- the incredible indictment issued by a former U.S. General, who subsequently observed: "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account" -- spent the weekend opining on the intricacies of Blogojevich's hair and terribly upsetting propensity to use curse words... more

Sneak is the word for the Bush administration

Democracy Now aired a program on how the Bush administration was pushing last minute regulations on November 13, 2008. It was titled "Bush Admin Pushes Through Last-Minute Deregulation that May Be Hard to Undo."


This is all no surprise. What has been the pattern all along is not going to change now.

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Bush sneaks through host of laws to undermine Obama

by Paul Harris
The Observer, Sunday 14 December 2008

The lame-duck Republican team is rushing through radical measures, from coal waste dumping to power stations in national parks, that will take months to overturn, reports Paul Harris in New York

After spending eight years at the helm of one of the most ideologically driven administrations in American history, George W. Bush is ending his presidency in characteristically aggressive fashion, with a swath of controversial measures designed to reward supporters and enrage opponents.

By the time he vacates the White House, he will have issued a record number of so-called 'midnight regulations' - so called because of the stealthy way they appear on the rule books - to undermine the administration of Barack Obama, many of which could take years to undo.

Dozens of new rules have already been introduced which critics say will diminish worker safety, pollute the environment, promote gun use and curtail abortion rights. Many rules promote the interests of large industries, such as coal mining or energy, which have energetically supported Bush during his two terms as president. More are expected this week.

America's attention is focused on the fate of the beleaguered car industry, still seeking backing in Washington for a multi-billion-dollar bail-out. But behind the scenes, the 'midnight' rules are being rushed through with little fanfare and minimal media attention. None of them would be likely to appeal to the incoming Obama team.

The regulations cover a vast policy area, ranging from healthcare to car safety to civil liberties. Many are focused on the environment and seek to ease regulations that limit pollution or restrict harmful industrial practices, such as dumping strip-mining waste.

The Bush moves have outraged many watchdog groups. 'The regulations we have seen so far have been pretty bad,' said Matt Madia, a regulatory policy analyst at OMB Watch. 'The effects of all this are going to be severe...'...more

Could Bush & Co. have to face the music on torture?

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Obama's Plans for Probing Bush Torture
salon.com

President Bush could pardon officials involved in brutal interrogations -- but he may also face a sweeping investigation under the new president.

Nov. 13, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- With growing talk in Washington that President Bush may be considering an unprecedented "blanket pardon" for people involved in his administration's brutal interrogation policies, advisors to Barack Obama are pressing ahead with plans for a nonpartisan commission to investigate alleged abuses under Bush.

The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as Obama advisors begin to coordinate with Democrats in Congress on the proposal. The plan would not rule out future prosecutions, but would delay a decision on that matter until all essential facts can be unearthed. Between the time necessary for the investigative process and the daunting array of policy problems Obama will face upon taking office, any decision on prosecutions probably would not come until a second Obama presidential term, should there be one.

The proposed commission -- similar in thrust to a Democratic investigation proposal first uncovered by Salon in July -- would examine a broad scope of activities, including detention, torture and extraordinary rendition, the practice of snatching suspected terrorists off the street and whisking them off to a third country for abusive interrogations. The commission might also pry into the claims by the White House -- widely rejected by experienced interrogators -- that abusive interrogations are an effective and necessary intelligence tool...more

16 days left for the Wrecking Ball

The New York Times is concerned. Editorials are rarely this long. Is anyone else paying attention to what the Bush administration is doing in its last days?  Anything they try to do for the next 16 days could be a problem our next president will be dealing with.  You can bet the administration's minions are putting in extra hours these days.

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New York Times
November 4, 2008
Editorial
So Little Time, So Much Damage

While Americans eagerly vote for the next president, here’s a sobering reminder: As of Tuesday, George W. Bush still has 77 days left in the White House — and he’s not wasting a minute.

President Bush’s aides have been scrambling to change rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties and abortion rights, among others — few for the good. Most presidents put on a last-minute policy stamp, but in Mr. Bush’s case it is more like a wrecking ball. We fear it could take months, or years, for the next president to identify and then undo all of the damage.

Here is a look — by no means comprehensive — at some of Mr. Bush’s recent parting gifts and those we fear are yet to come.

CIVIL LIBERTIES We don’t know all of the ways that the administration has violated Americans’ rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. The changes also give the F.B.I. — which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others — expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background.

The administration showed further disdain for Americans’ privacy rights and for Congress’s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security. The law requires the department’s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans’ privacy — and clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law “does not prohibit” officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. George Orwell couldn’t have done better.

THE ENVIRONMENT The administration has been especially busy weakening regulations that promote clean air and clean water and protect endangered species.

Mr. Bush, or more to the point, Vice President Dick Cheney, came to office determined to dismantle Bill Clinton’s environmental legacy, undo decades of environmental law and keep their friends in industry happy. They have had less success than we feared, but only because of the determined opposition of environmental groups, courageous members of Congress and protests from citizens. But the White House keeps trying.

Mr. Bush’s secretary of the interior, Dirk Kempthorne, has recently carved out significant exceptions to regulations requiring expert scientific review of any federal project that might harm endangered or threatened species (one consequence will be to relieve the agency of the need to assess the impact of global warming on at-risk species). The department also is rushing to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list — again. The wolves were re-listed after a federal judge ruled the government had not lived up to its own recovery plan.

In coming weeks, we expect the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a final rule that would weaken a program created by the Clean Air Act, which requires utilities to install modern pollution controls when they upgrade their plants to produce more power. The agency is also expected to issue a final rule that would make it easier for coal-fired power plants to locate near national parks in defiance of longstanding Congressional mandates to protect air quality in areas of special natural or recreational value.

Interior also is awaiting E.P.A.’s concurrence on a proposal that would make it easier for mining companies to dump toxic mine wastes in valleys and streams.

And while no rules changes are at issue, the interior department also has been rushing to open up millions of acres of pristine federal land to oil and gas exploration. We fear that, in coming weeks, Mr. Kempthorne will open up even more acreage to the commercial development of oil shale, a hugely expensive and environmentally risky process that even the oil companies seem in no hurry to begin. He should not.

ABORTION RIGHTS Soon after the election, Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, is expected to issue new regulations aimed at further limiting women’s access to abortion, contraceptives and information about their reproductive health care options.

Existing law allows doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in an abortion. These changes would extend the so-called right to refuse to a wide range of health care workers and activities including abortion referrals, unbiased counseling and provision of birth control pills or emergency contraception, even for rape victims.

•

The administration has taken other disturbing steps in recent weeks. In late September, the I.R.S. restored tax breaks for banks that take big losses on bad loans inherited through acquisitions. Now we learn that JPMorgan Chase and others are planning to use their bailout funds for mergers and acquisitions, transactions that will be greatly enhanced by the new tax subsidy.

One last-minute change Mr. Bush won’t be making: He apparently has decided not to shut down the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — the most shameful symbol of his administration’s disdain for the rule of law.

Mr. Bush has said it should be closed, and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and his secretary of defense, Robert Gates, pushed for it. Proposals were prepared, including a plan for sending the real bad guys to other countries for trial. But Mr. Cheney objected, and the president has refused even to review the memos. He will hand this mess off to his successor.

We suppose there is some good news in all of this. While Mr. Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, 2009, he has only until Nov. 20 to issue “economically significant” rule changes and until Dec. 20 to issue other changes. Anything after that is merely a draft and can be easily withdrawn by the next president.

Unfortunately, the White House is well aware of those deadlines.

link to editorial

link to photo

The Weirdest American President by Gore Vidal

Tuning in to Gore Vidal on one of the Pacifica stations, I thought to myself that what he is saying is so true to our American world.  I know that he sounds far out to some - but it is certainly worth listening to his eloquent style.

"Oliver Cromwell, in his order to the infamous Long Parliament: ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. And so, in the name of that God who created the whale—Go!’” - from President Jonah, Meet Oliver Cromwell!

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President Jonah, Meet Oliver Cromwell!
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060207_president_jonah_redux/
Posted on Feb 7, 2006

link to audio of this essay*

By Gore Vidal

Today, as I sit, like so many Californians, at the heart of what seems to be a vast burning bush, I realize that Jehovah’s jinx of the weirdest American president is as operative in this lowering pre-Halloween season as it was last February when, guided by Scripture, I posted here on the Internet the bad news that our nominal president was seriously jinxed by an unrelenting deity who, from his throne of fire, now blows fiercely upon the west coast of the United States, spreading from San Diego to Malibu to Lake Arrowhead. Lucifer’s finest new-minted flames, a reminder to us, President Jonah’s Supreme Court-appointed subjects, that our ruler is triply cursed for his disobedience to obey his Lord not only long ago at Nineveh, but lately compounded by his inability to destroy all of Baghdad, a city hailed in that magical musical comedy, “Kismet,” by a song entitled “Never underestimate Baghdad.” But a jinxed president’s estimate is bound to be fatally wrong even in the eyes of his creator.

While contemplating the ill-starred presidency of G.W. Bush, I looked about for some sort of divine analogy. As usual, when in need of enlightenment, I fell upon the Holy Bible, authorized King James version of 1611; turning by chance to the Book of Jonah, I read that Jonah, who, like Bush, chats with God, had suffered a falling out with the Almighty and thus became himself a jinx dogged by luck so bad that when a Stone Age cruise liner, thanks to his presence aboard, was about to sink in a storm at sea, the crew for safety’s sake threw him overboard and—Lo!—the storm abated. The three days and nights he subsequently spent in the belly of a nauseous whale must have seemed like a serious jinx to the digestion-challenged mammal who extruded him much as the decent opinion of mankind has done to Bush.

Originally, God wanted Jonah to give hell to Nineveh, whose people, God noted disdainfully, “cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand,” (rather like the people of Baghdad who still cannot fathom what democracy has to do with their destruction at the hands of the Cheney-Bush cabal). But the analogy becomes even more precise when it comes to the plague of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico that led to the Curse of Katrina upon a plainly incompetent president, as well as one who has been plainly jinxed by whatever faith he cringes before. Witness the ongoing screw-up of, say, prescription drugs, and the revival of an ancient race war in Louisiana. Who knows what further disasters are in store for us thanks to the curse Jonah is under? As the sailors fed the original Jonah to a whale, thus lifting the storm that was about to drown them, perhaps we the people can persuade President Jonah to retire to his other Eden in Crawford, Texas, taking his jinx with him. We deserve a rest. Plainly, so does he. Look at Nixon’s radiant features after his resignation! One can see former President Jonah in his sumptuous presidential library happily catering to faith-based fans with animated scriptures rooted in “The Pet Goat.”

Not since the glory days of Watergate and Nixon’s Luciferian fall has there been so much written about the dogged deceits and creative criminalities of our rulers. We have also come to a point in this dark age where there is not only no hero in view but no alternative road unblocked. We are trapped terribly in a now that few foresaw and even fewer can define despite a swarm of books and pamphlets like the vast cloud of locusts which dined on China in that ‘30s movie ”The Good Earth.”

As I mentioned last February, I have read many of these descriptions of our fallen estate, looking for one that best describes in plain English how we got to this now and where we appear to be headed once our good Earth has been consumed by fire and only Rapture is left to whisk aloft the Faithful. Meanwhile, the rest of us can learn quite a lot from ”Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire” by Morris Berman, a professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

I must confess that I have a proprietary interest in anyone who refers to the United States as an empire since I am credited with first putting forward this heretical view in the early ‘70s. In fact, so disgusted with me was a book reviewer at Time magazine who, as proof of my madness, wrote: “He actually refers to the United States as an empire!” It should be noted that at about the same time Henry Luce, proprietor of Time, was booming on and on about ”The American Century.” What a difference a word makes!

Berman sets his scene briskly in recent history. “We were already in our twilight phase when Ronald Reagan, with all the insight of an ostrich, declared it to be ‘morning in America’; twenty-odd years later, under the ‘boy emperor’ George W. Bush (as Chalmers Johnson refers to him), we have entered the Dark Ages in earnest, pursuing a short-sighted path that can only accelerate our decline. For what we are now seeing are the obvious characteristics of the West after the fall of Rome: the triumph of religion over reason; the atrophy of education and critical thinking; the integration of religion, the state, and the apparatus of torture—a troika that was for Voltaire the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment world; as well as, today, the political and economic marginalization of our culture.... The British historian Charles Freeman published an extended discussion of the transition that took place during the late Roman empire, the title of which could serve as a capsule summary of our current rulers: ”The Closing of the Western Mind.”

Mr. Bush, as God knows best, is no Augustine; but Freeman points to the latter as the epitome of a more general process that was underway in the fourth century: namely, ‘the gradual subjection of reason to faith and authority.’ This is what we are seeing today, and it is a process that no society can undergo and still remain free. Yet it is a process of which administration officials, along with much of the American population, are aggressively proud.” In fact, close observers of this odd presidency note that Bush, like his evangelical base, believes he is on a mission from God and that faith trumps empirical evidence. Berman quotes a senior White House adviser who disdains what he calls the “reality-based” community, to which Berman sensibly responds: “If a nation is unable to perceive reality correctly, and persists in operating on the basis of faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed.”

Berman does a brief tour of the American horizon, revealing a cultural death valley. In secondary schools where evolution can still be taught too many teachers are afraid to bring up the subject to their so often un-evolved students. “Add to this the pervasive hostility toward science on the part of the current administration (e.g. stem-cell research) and we get a clear picture of the Enlightenment being steadily rolled back. Religion is used to explain terror attacks as part of a cosmic conflict between Good and Evil rather than in terms of political processes.... Manichaeanism rules across the United States. According to a poll taken by Time magazine fifty-nine percent of Americans believe that John’s apocalyptic prophecies in the Book of Revelation will be fulfilled, and nearly all of these believe that the faithful will be taken up into heaven in the ‘Rapture.’

“Finally, we shouldn’t be surprised at the antipathy toward democracy displayed by the Bush administration. ... As already noted, fundamentalism and democracy are completely antithetical. The opposite of the Enlightenment, of course, is tribalism, groupthink; and more and more, this is the direction in which the United States is going. ... Anthony Lewis who worked as a columnist for the New York Times for thirty-two years, observes that what has happened in the wake of 9/11 is not just the threatening of the rights of a few detainees, but the undermining of the very foundation of democracy. Detention without trial, denial of access to attorneys, years of interrogation in isolation—these are now standard American practice, and most Americans don’t care. Nor did they care about the revelation in July 2004 (reported in Newsweek), that for several months the White House and the Department of Justice had been discussing the feasibility of canceling the upcoming presidential election in the event of a possible terrorist attack.” I suspect that the technologically inclined prevailed against that extreme measure on the ground that the newly installed electronic ballot machines could be so calibrated that Bush’s heirs would win handily no matter what (read Rep. Conyers’ report (.pdf file) on the rigging of Ohio’s vote).

Meanwhile, the indoctrination of the people merrily continues. “In a ’State of the First Amendment Survey‘ conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2003, 34 percent of Americans polled said the First Amendment ‘goes too far’; 46 percent said there was too much freedom of the press; 28 percent felt that newspapers should not be able to publish articles without prior approval of the government; 31 percent wanted public protest of a war to be outlawed during that war; and 50 percent thought the government should have the right to infringe on the religious freedom of ‘certain religious groups’ in the name of the war on terror.”

It is usual in sad reports like Professor Berman’s to stop abruptly the litany of what has gone wrong and then declare, hand on heart, that once the people have been informed of what is happening, the truth will set them free and a quarter-billion candles will be lit and the darkness will flee in the presence of so much spontaneous light. But Berman is much too serious for the easy platitude. Instead he tells us that those who might have struck at least a match can no longer do so because shared information about our situation is meager to nonexistent. Would better schools help? Of course, but, according to that joyous bearer of ill tidings, the New York Times, many school districts are now making sobriety tests a regular feature of the school day: apparently opium derivatives, not gin, are the opiate of our stoned youth. Meanwhile, millions of adult Americans, presumably undrugged, have no idea who our enemies were in World War II. Many college graduates don’t know the difference between an argument and an assertion (did their teachers also fail to solve this knotty question?). A travel agent in Arizona is often asked whether or not it is cheaper to take the train rather than fly to Hawaii. Only 12% of Americans own a passport. At the time of the 2004 presidential election 42% of voters believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. One high school boy, when asked who won the Civil War, replied wearily, “I don’t know and I don’t care,” echoing a busy neocon who confessed proudly: “The American Civil War is as remote to me as the War of the Roses.” He should have added the US Constitution, as well.

We are assured daily by advertisers and/or politicians that we are the richest, most envied people on Earth and, apparently, that is why so many awful, ill-groomed people want to blow us up. We live in an impermeable bubble without the sort of information that people living in real countries have access to when it comes to their own reality. But we are not actually people in the eyes of the national ownership: we are simply unreliable consumers comprising an overworked, underpaid labor force not in the best of health: The World Health Organization rates our healthcare system (sic—or sick?) as 37th-best in the world, far behind even Saudi Arabia, role model for the Texans. Our infant mortality rate is satisfyingly high, precluding a First World educational system. Also, it has not gone unremarked even in our usually information-free media that despite the boost to the profits of such companies as Halliburton, Bush’s wars of aggression against small countries of no danger to us have left us well and truly broke. Our annual trade deficit is a half-trillion dollars, which means that we don’t produce much of anything the world wants except those wan reports on how popular our Entertainment is overseas. Unfortunately the foreign gross of “King Kong,” the Edsel of that assembly line, is not yet known. It is rumored that Bollywood—the Indian film business—may soon surpass us! Berman writes, “We have lost our edge in science to Europe...The US economy is being kept afloat by huge foreign loans ($4 billion a day during 2003). What do you think will happen when America’s creditors decide to pull the plug, or when OPEC members begin selling oil for euros instead of dollars?...An International Monetary Fund report of 2004 concluded that the United States was ‘careening toward insolvency.’ “ Meanwhile, China, our favorite big-time future enemy, is the number one for worldwide foreign investments, with France, the bete noire of our apish neocons, in second place.

Well, we still have Kraft cheese as of today and, of course, the death penalty.

Berman makes the case that the Bretton-Woods agreement of 1944 institutionalized a system geared toward full employment and the maintenance of a social safety net for society’s less fortunate—the so-called welfare or interventionist state. It did this by establishing fixed but flexible exchange rates among world currencies, which were pegged to the U.S. dollar while the dollar, for its part, was pegged to gold. In a word, Bretton-Woods saved capitalism by making it more human. Nixon abandoned the agreement in 1971, which started, according to Berman, huge amounts of capital moving upward from the poor and the middle class to the rich and super-rich.

Mr. Berman spares us the happy ending, as, apparently, has history. When the admirable Tiberius (he has had an undeserved bad press), upon becoming emperor, received a message from the Senate in which the conscript fathers assured him that whatever legislation he wanted would be automatically passed by them, he sent back word that this was outrageous. “Suppose the emperor is ill or mad or incompetent?” He returned their message. They sent it again. His response: “How eager you are to be slaves.” I often think of that wise emperor when I hear Republican members of Congress extolling the wisdom of Bush. Now that he has been caught illegally wiretapping fellow citizens he has taken to snarling about his powers as “a wartime president,” and so, in his own mind, he is above each and every law of the land. Oddly, no one in Congress has pointed out that he may well be a lunatic dreaming that he is another Lincoln but whatever he is or is not he is no wartime president. There is no war with any other nation...yet. There is no state called terror, an abstract noun like liar. Certainly his illegal unilateral ravaging of Iraq may well seem like a real war for those on both sides unlucky enough to be killed or maimed, but that does not make it a war any more than the appearance of having been elected twice to the presidency does not mean that in due course he was: in due course, our befuddled people will demand an investigation of those two irregular processes. Although he has done a number of things that under the old republic might have got him impeached, our current system protects him: incumbency-for-life seats have made it possible for a Republican majority in the House not to do its duty and impeach him for his incompetence in handling, say, the natural disaster that befell Louisiana and then the U.S. military itself.

The founders thought two-year terms for members of the House was as much democracy as we’d ever need. Therefore, there was no great movement to have some sort of recall legislation in the event that a president wasn’t up to his job and so had lost the people’s confidence between elections. But in time, as Ecclesiastes would say, all things shall come to pass and so, in a kindly way, a majority of the citizens must persuade him that he will be happier back in Crawford pruning Bushes of the leafy sort while the troops not killed or maimed will settle for simply being alive and in one piece. We may be proto-slaves but we are not unreasonable.

Reason requires that we explain to the media and to this self-anointed “war-time president” whose “inherent” powers, to hear him babble, transcend the Constitution itself. But they can’t: First, we are not at war with another country; second, presidential powers are enumerated in the constitution, not inherent--despite the weird legal misreadings by ambulance-proud White House lawyers.

Nevertheless, our neo-totalitarians are planning new wars in the Middle East, Far East, Conga Line! while his latest State of the Union speech justifies eavesdropping (without judicial warrants) on anybody in the United States that he wants to listen in on. This is what we call dictatorship. Dictatorship. Dictatorship. And it is time we objected before he shoves us into World War Three.

Can we wait till the next election? Only if the electronic voting machinery has paper trails or, perhaps, honest old-fashioned paper ballots. In any case, with one voice let us say, “We’ve had enough of you. Go home to Crawford. We’ll help you raise the money for a library, and you won’t ever have to read a book. We the folks are not cruel even though we must now echo America’s spiritual ancestor Oliver Cromwell, in his order to the infamous Long Parliament: ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. And so, in the name of that God who created the whale—Go!’”

*audio version has slightly older ending than current printed version

link to image

Bush did not do it alone - who colluded with him?

"The real problem with the Bush years is not so much that he did what he did, but that he managed to gain the consent of America's political class in enabling him to do it."  The Guardian - London

It took a Congress who for whatever reason wanted to follow the steps of their unconstitutional president.  It took a populace that cared so little for the rights of fellow human beings that they could only sigh when they heard about torture, and quickly moved onto checking their Blackberry.

It took an Attorney General who knew about the world of the Other (coming from a working class immigrant family), but chose to become the perpetrator once he came into power.

It took a Supreme Court who, blinded by political ambition, inverted wrong and right.

It took scores of politicians who decided that winning was better than honesty.

It took a populace that preferred to blame an inept leader and his dark hatchet man rather than take any responsibility for the people's own blind collusion.

It took a two faced Senate who let a brutal administration set in place a national police that brought terror to 12+ million people who happen to have arrived "without permission."

who is really responsible?

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Those who are tasked to police this democracy are blinded by confetti
The real problem with the Bush years is not so much what he did but that America's political class enabled him to do it
by Gary Younge

o The Guardian, London
o Monday September 1 2008


... The fact that this administration has been criminally incompetent is now the stuff of water-cooler orthodoxy. The fact that it has been plain criminal is not. But it should be. Under George Bush the US has tortured, disenfranchised, lied, spied and, on more than one occasion, flouted its own constitution. Those who would not go along were fired or demoted. Those rulings it could not garner support for it simply classified or hid. Those inquiries it could not prevent it thwarted. When Major General Antonio Taguba tried to pursue his investigation of Abu Ghraib up the chain of command he was stopped. "I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority," he told the New Yorker.

Its violation of international law is ultimately a matter for the international community. But its violation of American laws is a matter for the American public. However, it is now clear that the political consequences of these transgressions will range from negligible to non-existent. The Bush administration should be led away in handcuffs - either indicted or impeached. Instead it is about to leave the scene of the crime in broad daylight while those tasked to police this democracy - notably politicians and the press - blind themselves with confetti.

Those who regard impeachment as merely a vindictive attempt to adjudicate the past display a chronic lack of imagination. True, it is not going to happen. But that makes it no less morally compelling or politically relevant to argue that it should. Trying to look ahead without acknowledging how you got to where you are is a surefire way to end up wandering around in circles. And the last place the Democrats want to be is where they were.

Take voter registration. Around this time last year the attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, was forced to resign amid allegations of perjury before Congress over his role in the politically motivated firing of seven attorneys. They were replaced by what his then chief of staff referred to as "loyal Bushies" on the advice of the White House. Five of the fired attorneys were in battleground states. They had irritated local Republicans by refusing to bring voter fraud cases targeted at loyal Democratic groups because of lack of evidence.

The congressional hearings were a farce. Gonzales said he "could not recall" more than 71 times in one day. Clearly he hoped we would forget too.

But in a year when voter rolls are swelling with the expectation of an unprecedented turnout it is crucial that we remember. A few weeks ago John McCain's campaign attorneys attended a national training session for Republican lawyers on election law, which included a session on identifying and responding to instances of voter fraud. Despite the justice department's own studies showing that voter fraud is extremely rare, Republicans are gearing up for mass intimidation in minority areas on election day. If the election is close expect to see Florida 2000 replayed from Virginia to Nevada. And if the challenges go to court, Gonzales's "loyal Bushies" will be there to hear the cases.

Such are the lasting consequences of Bush's crooked tenure. Casting him as inept and unethical is not difficult. He is the most unpopular president for six decades. Some have been loathed more - but none by so many for so long. But understanding how he managed to do it demands a wider lens.

For he could not do it alone. The US is not an elected dictatorship. The president is supposed to stand at the helm of a system of checks and balances. The reason there was no balance was because there were no checks. The real problem with the Bush years is not so much that he did what he did, but that he managed to gain the consent of America's political class in enabling him to do it. His political estrangement is not because he tried, only because he failed.

This has more or less been conceded by none other than the leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who voted against the war in Iraq. When asked recently by the Nation why she took impeachment off the table before the 2006 elections, Pelosi answered: "What about these other people who voted for that war with no evidence ... Are they going to be voting with us to impeach the president? Where are these Democrats going to be? Are they going to be voting for us to impeach a president who took us to war on information that they had also?" In other words, for the Democrats to impeach the president they would first have to implicate themselves.

This is not to say the Democrats were equally culpable. But they were differently responsible, and cowed by accusations of lack of patriotism most of them abdicated that responsibility.

Asked to explain the administration's use of torture, the director of the 9/11 commission, Philip Zelikow, said: "Fear and anxiety exploited by zealots and fools." But there is, it seems, no price to pay for being a zealot or a fool in power. America will no doubt be anxious and fearful again some day. And for all the ceremonial hyperbole of this convention season, there is little to suggest that when that day comes the fools and zealots won't once again come out on top.

g.younge@guardian.co.uk

Gary Younge: Those who are tasked to police this democracy are blinded by confetti
This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday September 01 2008 on p27 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 00:07 on September 01 2008.


* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

for link to Guardian article click here
for link to image click here

The Dark Ages of the early 21st Century

as I was reading for my current research project, I found a passage that fit so well in the early 21st century political climate of the United States.

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... before long, [there]...gave way to a period in which the intellectual openness of the preceding three centuries was tried and found guilty. During this period, social structures and philosophical assumptions were overthrown by climatic changes, famine, and a series of plagues...; political ideals and ethical standards were challenged...Western thought degenerated into pragmatic skepticism or mystic fideism, into flaccid subjectivity or stolid dogmatism...

There was no challenging of faulty logic by good logic, no mustering of sound arguments to overturn the unsound. Just a simple albeit effective anathema sit-one that would lead, to Luther's famous curse upon "the whore, Reason," and, on the other, to authoritarian reforms..."

This passage is from The Key to the Name of the Rose by A.Haft, J.White, and R.White, 1999. pages 25-26.

Bush Administration's Latest on Immigration Policy

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SECRETARY OF COMMERCE CARLOS M. GUTIERREZ REMARKS AT STATE OF IMMIGRATION PRESS CONFERENCE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

States News Service
June 9, 2008

The following information was released by the U.S. Department of Commerce:

SECRETARY GUTIERREZ

As you can see, immigration reform remains a top priority for this Administration. In the absence of legislation from Congress, we've been proactively tackling this issue head on.

The American people want and deserve a thoughtful, broad-based approach to immigration that focuses on the security and economic prosperity of our country.

Last August, Secretary Chertoff and I announced a package of administrative reforms that sharpen existing tools to protect our citizens and make our immigration system more workable.

We have made great strides in securing our borders and enforcing existing immigration laws. But we cannot neglect our economic security. At a time when we are facing tough economic challenges-our actions must boost our economy-not hamper it.

The reality is that we simply do not have enough workers at both ends of the spectrum-from low skilled field laborers to high skilled tech workers.

For example, for the fifth straight year, our H-1B cap was filled at or before the start of the fiscal year. This year, the cap was reached in one week.

That's why, as Secretary Chertoff mentioned, we are proposing administrative reforms to our high-skill programs and to the H-2B non-agriculture temporary worker program.

In addition, we have proposed changes to the H-2A agricultural seasonal worker program. The changes will make the H-2A system more efficient and ensure an orderly and timely flow of legal foreign workers.

They will also protect the rights of all agricultural workers-American and foreign. Make no mistake, we need both. We don't have enough domestic workers to keep America fed.

The New York Times ran an article with the headline "Shortage of Labor to Cut Food Supply: Farmers, handicapped by lack of help, reduce their crop acreage."

That article ran in 1920. Coincidentally, that was amidst one of the worst anti-immigration waves we have ever had.

Nearly a century later we face similar challenges-but this time, rather than reduce consumption, we'll have to turn to foreign producers-or move our farms overseas-to feed our families.

In fact, it is already happening-a survey by the U.S. farm group Western Growers indicated American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres of land in Mexico employing 11,000 people.

At a time when we are looking to further secure our food supply and tighten our import safety-we should not encourage the outsourcing of American agriculture.

We know there are employers who have not been able to fill many jobs with American workers. We simply can't ignore the problem and hope this issue will go away.

A comprehensive solution remains the best and most long-term option-without it we're getting a piecemeal approach to a national issue. For example:

In 2007, states enacted 240 immigration laws-up from 84 the year before.

Immigration is being debated in every capitol in the country.

A total of 1,562 immigration bills were introduced last year.

This patchwork of laws is untenable in the long-term. But until Congress acts, we will take steps for our nation's security and our economic stability.

We will continue to look at ways to improve existing programs and address all aspects of immigration. Other major economies have realized the need for immigration policy to help them grow their economies.

Our country has a long history of making immigration work. We have more experience than any other nation, and it has been to our great advantage. We can make immigration an advantage that will last for a century

This issue is not going away. Regardless of who is president, and regardless of which party is in power, immigration will remain both a tough challenge, and a great opportunity for our nation. Thank you. Now, we are happy to take your questions.

from Lexus-Nexis Academic

Timing of the Telling - McClellan on Bush

Cartoon "The McClellan Book," by John Cole
link to cartoon



McClellan is being attacked on all sides. From the Bush administration: that he is lying, from the media: why he took too long to tell us about the dark side of the White House.

You could say that it is a character flaw, that he was too easily led by his superiors. This could be possible. But considering the history of Bush, Cheney and associates - you could wonder how dangerous it would have been for him to speak out while he still worked for them. You can define the word dangerous many ways. Or how dangerous it is for him now that the book is released.

The presidential administration with no clothes

As story after story comes up about the disastrous tenure of the Bush administration, you would think that McClellan's book criticizing Bush and his cronies would be welcomed. Many people would rather criticize Mc Clellan than admit that their emperor has no clothes.

funny how lies can make you hallucinate.



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'Disillusioned' McClellan Defends Memoir
By Dan Eggen and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 29, 2008; 11:55 AM

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan today strongly defended his critical new book on the Bush administration, saying he became "disillusioned" as he realized he was a pawn in a larger political game.

McClellan, who has been harshly condemned as a turncoat by some of his closest friends and former colleagues, said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show that the book was intended to illustrate how a presidential candidate who vowed to change the culture of Washington failed to do so once he was elected.

Instead, McClellan says, President Bush stayed in a "permanent campaign culture" and allowed his staff to use misleading and incomplete information to "sell" the Iraq war to the American people. While the president focused his public arguments on the possibility that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, McClellan said, his true goal in toppling Saddam Hussein was to boost democracy in the Middle East.

McClellan told "Today" he hoped his message would resonate during the current presidential campaign season, when the major candidates are again emphasizing their desire to change the way Washington operates.

"The White House would prefer I not speak out openly and honestly about my experiences, but I believe there is a larger purpose," McClellan said in his first interview since the book's contents were reported earlier this week. "I had all this great hope that we were going to come to Washington and change it. Then we got to Washington, and I think we got caught up in playing the Washington game the way it is being played today."

McClellan, 40, was the ultimate Bush loyalist. He first went to work for George W. Bush when he was Texas governor in 1999, helped Bush gain the White House in 2000, and then came to Washington to defend the president for the next six years on such issues as the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.

But the explosive book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," alleges that the Bush administration waged a "political propaganda campaign" in favor of the Iraq war and bungled the response to the storm that devastated the Gulf Coast...

for complete WP article click here

Public Lies; Private Secrets

While the political history of this country is full of politicians fudging just a bit..... the current administration wins the prize for honest dishonesty. They aren't embarrassed when they are caught with their pants down-- they just smile and say "we didn't say that."

What is really unfortunate is that the nation's president is often seen as a model for honesty and integrity - not this time -- except for those who are lying to themselves.

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A Ludicrous Denial

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, May 16, 2008; 1:29 PM

What do you call it when White House officials say one thing in public and almost the exact opposite in private?

You might call it lying.

President Bush yesterday took the highly provocative rhetorical step of likening those who support negotiating with our enemies to Nazi appeasers. For most people following the presidential campaign, it was an obvious attack on Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama, who has been particularly critical of Bush's refusal to talk with leaders who disagree with him.

On the record, White House officials issued disingenuous denials that Bush was talking about Obama. But on background, they admitted as much.

CNN's Ed Henry reported that "White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party."

Sasha Issenberg writes for the Boston Globe: "White House officials indicated that the criticism applied to Obama."

Brian Williams reported on the NBC Nightly News that "it was clear to those listening that it was in part to make a point about Barack Obama back home." NBC correspondent John Yang then added: "Privately, White House officials said the shoe fits the Democratic frontrunner."

When asked at yesterday's gaggle if Bush's remark was "in any way directed at Senator Obama," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino replied: "It is not." And not only that: She tried to blame Obama for such an interpretation. "I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you," she said. "That is not always true and it is not true in this case."

for complete WP article click here

The Irony of Ignorance

After 4,000 soldier deaths - the Bush administration vows to continue.  Adding this to the million+ Iraqi deaths - creates such irony, since to proceed with the war - and the heavy troop presence is said to be the "right" thing - Recalling the statement that God helps the president decide what is best - would God really want an administration that feigns ignorance to the consequences of such massive carnage?

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Bush Says War's Outcome 'Will Merit the Sacrifice'
President and Petraeus Discuss Strategy as the U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Rises to 4,000

By Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; A01

As the American military death toll in Iraq reached 4,000, President Bush conferred yesterday with top U.S. officials in Washington and in Baghdad and vowed in a public statement that the outcome of the war "will merit the sacrifice."

Bush held a two-hour videoconference with Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. Petraeus reiterated his plan to halt U.S. troop withdrawals, begun late last fall, at the end of July. At that point, he has said, he will "evaluate" whether Iraqi forces and a reduced number of U.S. troops can maintain the lower levels of violence.

"We have every desire to continue with the withdrawal of forces" at some time after July, one military official said. "The issue will be once we remove over 25 percent of combat power plus other associated units . . . we let the dust settle . . . and look to see where we're at," he said, adding that the evaluation period would probably be at least six weeks. Petraeus has offered no guarantee that conditions will allow further withdrawals before Bush leaves office.

In congressional testimony next month, Petraeus and Crocker are expected to describe continued but slow improvement in military and political conditions, even as recent weeks have seen an increase in suicide bombings, along with Sunday's renewal of rocket attacks on Baghdad's Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located.

Among the wounded in four separate attacks were an American military contractor and an embassy employee from Jordan, both of whom remain in serious condition, a U.S. official in Baghdad said. Military officials said the munitions were Iranian-made, fired from northeastern Baghdad by renegade Shiite militia groups.

Late Sunday night, the U.S. command in Baghdad announced that four soldiers had been killed by a makeshift bomb in southern Baghdad, bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed to 4,000 since the war began in March 2003. Dozens of Iraqis were also killed in violence around the country Sunday.

Overall attacks in Iraq have sharply declined in Iraq, but the trend has begun to plateau over the past three months -- car bombings have decreased, but suicide bombings have increased. Military officials said that Petraeus will tell Congress that the withdrawal, which has now reached about 9,000 troops, will continue with three additional brigades to be withdrawn without replacement by July 31.

Although administration officials have said that U.S. troop strength at that point should be about where it was before a "surge" in deployments began last spring -- approximately 130,000 -- the military official said the net number remaining may be larger. "They're in the process now of trying to scrub the numbers," he said of Petraeus's command in Baghdad. "Figuring out boots on the ground is difficult because . . . units come in at different sizes, people have left, people have been wounded."

There are similar difficulties, he said, in determining the "battlefield geometry" that will enable the withdrawal of entire combat brigades. Brigades are seldom deployed intact, and their battalions are often scattered. While one battalion could be withdrawn without replacement, others may have to be replaced by U.S. or Iraqi forces from elsewhere.

During his testimony on April 8 and 9, Petraeus expects to present Congress with firm numbers on how many U.S. troops will leave Iraq and how many will remain by the end of July.

Crocker, who in previous testimony has cautioned against hopes of rapid progress, is expected to describe some political and economic achievements but to say that much work remains. In a mid-March interview with The Washington Post, he described Iraqi political and economic institutions as "like everything else here, still very much under development."

Another senior U.S. diplomat offered positive indicators yesterday, saying that Iraqis are "spending increasingly more money than we are" on reconstruction and some military programs. "We're not starting any new projects and [the Iraqis] are getting incrementally better," he said. Iraq's "Arab neighbors are gradually engaging, although not enough. They're not embracing Maliki the way they ought to," he added, referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

After speaking with Petraeus and Crocker yesterday morning from the White House, Bush attended a briefing by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department on cooperation between military and civilian officials in Iraq and elsewhere. In a statement to reporters, he spoke of the U.S. civilians who have died in Iraq and said: "I will vow so long as I am president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain."

Bush will attend a similar briefing by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and military leaders today at the Pentagon, but administration officials said they do not expect any new decisions or departures from current policy.

One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that after months of friction among civilian and military leaders -- including over concerns about overall stress on the military -- there is little debate over the basic Iraq strategy for the next six months. The only real question, he said, is how long the "pause" in withdrawals after July will last.

In Turkey yesterday, Vice President Cheney told ABC News that "there's no reason now to decide what the force level is going to be in December of '08." The criterion, he said, "is how do we make certain we succeed in Iraq? It may be that we can make judgments about reductions down the road. . . . But I don't think [Bush] is likely to want to try to say now what the force level ought to be at the end of the year."

for link to WP article click the title of this post

we apologize for not having the source for the Bush photo

White House Statement on DREAM ACT 10 24 2007

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503

October 24, 2007 (Senate)

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

S. 2205 - Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of
2007

(Sen. Durbin (D) Illinois and two cosponsors)

The Administration continues to believe that the Nation's broken
immigration system requires comprehensive reform. This reform should
include strong border and interior enforcement, a temporary worker
program, a program to bring the millions of undocumented aliens out of
the shadows without amnesty and without animosity, and assistance that
helps newcomers assimilate into American society. Unless it provides
additional authorities in all of these areas, Congress will do little
more than perpetuate the unfortunate status quo.

The Administration is sympathetic to the position of young people who
were brought here illegally as children and have come to know the United
States as home. Any resolution of their status, however, must be careful
not to provide incentives for recurrence of the illegal conduct that has
brought the Nation to this point. By creating a special path to
citizenship that is unavailable to other prospective
immigrants-including young people whose parents respected the Nation's
immigration laws-S. 2205 falls short. The Administration therefore
opposes the bill.

The primary change wrought by S. 2205 would be to establish a
preferential path to citizenship for a special class of illegal aliens.
Specifically, S. 2205 awards permanent status to any illegal alien who
is under 30, has been in the United States for five years after arriving
as a child, and has completed two years of college or in the uniformed
services. This path to citizenship is unavailable to any other alien, no
matter how much promise he or she may have, no matter how much he or she
may contribute to American society. Moreover, the path that S. 2205
creates would allow illegal aliens to obtain a green card before many
individuals who are currently lawfully waiting in line.

Sponsors of S. 2205 argue that the bill is necessary in order to give
children who are illegal aliens incentives to obtain an education. But
it is difficult to reconcile that professed aim with the bill's
retroactivity provisions: even those who attended college years earlier
will be eligible for a green card.

The legal status that the bill grants its beneficiaries means that they
can petition almost instantly to bring family members into the country.
It also places them on the fast track to citizenship because they can
immediately begin accruing the residence time in the United States that
is necessary for naturalization. Finally, this legal status entitles the
bill's beneficiaries to certain welfare benefits within five years.

The bill is also indiscriminate in whom it would make eligible for the
program. For example,

S. 2205 includes loopholes that would authorize permanent status for
certain aliens convicted of multiple misdemeanors and even felonies.

The open-ended nature of S. 2205 is objectionable and will inevitably
lead to large-scale document fraud. The path to citizenship remains open
for decades, thus creating a strong temptation for future illegal aliens
to purchase fraudulent documents on a burgeoning black market. Moreover,
the bill's confidentiality provisions are drawn straight from the 1986
amnesty law and will provide the same haven for fraud and criminality as
that law did.

Immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people-and of
this Administration-but it needs to be addressed in a comprehensive and
balanced way that avoids creating incentives for problems in the future.

The Bush Administration Crushes a Dream

Dreams Crushed
The Bush administration vs. young immigrants
Washington Post
Thursday, October 25, 2007; Page A24


IT WAS always a long shot for supporters of an immigration measure known as the Dream Act to round up the 60 votes needed to advance the bill in the Senate. But it didn't help matters yesterday when the Bush administration, having supported a comprehensive immigration reform bill containing essentially the same provision, came out against the bill on the morning of the vote. This helped quash the hopes of tens of thousands of promising young people who find themselves, through no fault of their own, in this country illegally. The failure of the Dream Act -- it got just 52 votes -- leaves them no realistic hope of achieving legal status.

The Dream Act, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), would have addressed a small but especially deserving fraction of the estimated 12 million people in this country illegally. Those who entered the country before age 16, lived here for at least five years and graduated from high school with unblemished records could obtain conditional legal status for six years. During that period, they would have to spend at least two years in college or the military. Only then would they qualify to become legal permanent residents.

In its policy statement yesterday, the administration asserted that it was "sympathetic" to the plight of these young people but insisted that the measure "falls short" because it would create "a special path to citizenship that is unavailable to other prospective immigrants -- including young people whose parents respected the nation's immigration laws." Of course, the administration-backed comprehensive immigration reform measure, which failed earlier this year, also provided for special, expedited treatment of young people in this category. The administration had no problem with the provision then, and its complaints now seem as cowardly as they are unpersuasive.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR2007102402333.html