In Memorium

Bush now has worst poll numbers of any President

There is rapidly becoming little dispute that Bush is the Worst President Ever:

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George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.

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Bush at all-time low (again) in polls

The economy and the war in Iraq have brought President Bush's approval numbers to 32% in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll -- the lowest rating of his career for this poll.

Where the press release tells us, "Just 32 percent of Americans now approve of the way Bush is handling his job, while 66 percent disapprove," that's about all we get about it. But the actual breakdown of those responses is very telling. You can look at the full report (PDF) here. Respondents were asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Do you approve/disapprove strongly or somewhat?" The responses worked out this way:

-Strongly approve: 16%
-Somewhat approve: 16%
-Somewhat disapprove: 15%
-Strongly disapprove: 51%

In other words a majority of Americans strongly disapprove of Bush. Not since Truman has that been the case and these low numbers for Bush have been stuck there for months (since last pril when he tied Truman for low numbers)

Bush now more hated than Nixon

Yep, the Democrats will have to mess up pretty bad to lose the Presidency in 08.

George W. Bush has now surpassed Richard Nixon as the second most-disliked president ever.

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The latest Gallup Poll found that Bush's popularity had been below 40 percent for six consecutive quarters, the Dallas Morning News reports. Nixon ended his five-quarter streak by resigning in 1974.

Truman's approval ratings were below 40 percent for 10 months, the longest ever in the history of the Gallup Poll. Bush, with six quarters remaining in his second term, could surpass Truman.

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Yep, I bet he can.

King George

Dick Cheney is the 4th Branch of Government

To be fair to Cheney, maybe he is just a part of the Piraha tribe of the Amazon.

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A study appearing today in the journal Science reports that the hunter-gatherers seem to be the only group of humans known to have no concept of numbering and counting.

Not only that, but adult Piraha apparently can't learn to count or understand the concept of numbers or numerals, even when they asked anthropologists to teach them and have been given basic math lessons for months at a time.

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Former Reagan Official says Bush should be impeached and then tried as a war criminal

hat tip daily kos

Paul Craig Roberts said that the US government is in the hands of dangerous psychopaths who are a disgrace to the human race and who should be arrested as war criminals and turned over the the Hague.

I just can't stay away.....

Bush is such a clown.....

Priests to purify site after Bush visit

link

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"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

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Kurt Vonnegut says George W. Bush is the "syphilis president"

I guess he can draw a crowd:

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On a cold, cloudy night, the lines threaded all the way around the Ohio State campus. News that Kurt Vonnegut was speaking at the Ohio Union prompted these “apathetic” heartland college students to start lining up in the early afternoon. About 2,000 got in to the Ohio Union. At least that many more were turned away. It was the biggest crowd for a speaker here since Michael Moore.

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best quote ever:

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“Well,” says Vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

The students seem to agree.

“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” Vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”

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Bush and Osama have a lot in common (funny)

George Bush Decision Flowchart (funny)

What is the difference between Iraq and Vietman?

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Finally, Judicial PROOF that Bush stole the election

I can't believe this is not front page news everywhere:

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Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.

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So what you say?

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Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004

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That's 2, count them, 2 elections that Bush stole.

Um. Impeachment?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

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Even Republicans are turning on Bush

Not even the died-in-the-wool, whatever-you-say-is-right, brand of Republicans are starting to turn on Bush. From a Newsweek story:

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Bush expected at least a handful of Republican senators—critics like Chuck Hagel and George Voinovich—to run from a troop increase. But the White House was surprised when even pro-war senators, including Sam Brownback and Lisa Murkowski, came out against the plan.

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Perhaps it has something to do with the polling numbers

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For the second straight day, 35% of Americans approve of the way that George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That’s the lowest level of Approval ever measured by Rasmussen Reports.

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And that's from a pro-bush polling company

*sheesh*

Stay the course? No?.........Yes.

Turns out the Bush team has told so many lies even THEY can't keep them straight anymore

Bush claims that he never said "Stay the Course" and he is right.




Except for all the times he said it.

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It's Hard to Get Answers from a Bush

watch and laugh

Is George Bush an Idiot? Round III

It turns out that there very well may be another explination for GWB. he's not actually stupid, he is just sick. Very very sick.

One doctor thinks he shows signs of "presenile dementia," or an early onset of Alzheimer's disease.

In a letter to be published in The Atlantic's October issue, Joseph Price, a self-described "country doctor" in Carsonville, Mich., calls presenile dementia "a fairly typical Alzheimer's situation that develops significantly earlier in life. . . . President Bush's `mangled' words are a demonstration of what physicians call `confabulation' and are almost specific to the diagnosis of a true dementia." He adds that Bush should be "started on drugs that offer the possibility of retarding the slow but inexorable course of the disease."

Bush funded the North Korea WMD program

Hat tip: Canadian Cynic

So it seems that the US under George W. Bush, decided to give North Korea the funding to carry out thier nuclear program:

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The US Government has announced that it will release $95m to North Korea as part of an agreement to replace the Stalinist country's own nuclear programme, which the US suspected was being misused.

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But don't worry, I'm sure safeguards were in place:

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In releasing the funding, President George W Bush waived the requirement that North Korea allow inspectors to ensure it has not hidden away any weapons-grade plutonium from the original reactors.

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Or, you know, not.

Bush's Thought Police

I don't toss the word "fascist" around very often because, like communist, it applies to a very specific type of political/cultural agenda and programme.

The people who do toss those types of terms around lose a lot of respect from reasonable people like myself.

However, I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if the shoe fits, in this case, as it were.

First we have to examine the issue of the thought police. You know, the idea that ideas are the problem.

Well take a look at this article from the New York Times. It seems that the though police are moving one step closer.

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A consortium of major universities, using Homeland Security Department money, is developing software that would let the government monitor negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications

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Not that they need the software because, as it turns out, we find that there is a bit of a problem with the Secret Service. They are in fact, literally acting as the thought police

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On June 16, Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people....Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on.... Ten minutes later they were approached by the Secret Service... placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.

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It turns out that this is standard operating procedure for the Secret Service under Bush.

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"When President Bush travels around the United States, the Secret Service visits the location ahead of time and orders local police to set up "free speech zones" or "protest zones," where people opposed to Bush policies (and sometimes sign-carrying supporters) are quarantined. These zones routinely succeed in keeping protesters out of presidential sight and outside the view of media covering the event."

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And so are the arrests:

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"At a Bush rally at Legends Field in 2001, three demonstrators -- two of whom were grandmothers -- were arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs"

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and:

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"last year, seven protesters were arrested when Bush came to a rally at the USF Sun Dome. They had refused to be cordoned off into a protest zone hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome."

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and:

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The Justice Department is now prosecuting Brett Bursey, who was arrested for holding a "No War for Oil" sign at a Bush visit to Columbia

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And it gets even worse, as the article goes on to point out.

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Attempts to suppress protesters become more disturbing in light of the Homeland Security Department's recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists. In a May terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government." If police vigorously followed this advice, millions of Americans could be added to the official lists of suspected terrorists.

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That's right, if you disagree with the war or the government then you must be a terrorist.

And for the record, the above quotes come from an article published in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Conservative. Which is not exactly some liberal rag.

Anyway,

where were we?

Oh yes, if you disagree with the war or the government then you must be a terrorist.

And what does the Bush Administration want to do to terrorists?

Oh, that's right.

Torture them.

In secret prisons

As Crooks and Liers points out, Bush won't even deny this stuff

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Matt Lauer: And yet you admitted that there were these CIA secret facilities. OK?

President Bush: So what? Why is that not within the law?

Matt Lauer: The head of Amnesty International says secret sites are against international law.

President Bush: Well, we just disagree with him.

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The interview goes on to discusee the legal niecities of "strap[ing] someone to a board and you make them feel as if they’re going to drown by putting them underwater" They didn't quite get to the fact that the new law might even allow the government to torture the family members of suspected terrorist. It turns out that Salon has obtained Army documents that show several cases where U.S. forces abducted terror suspects’ families.

Not only is the terrorist torture bill that was just passed by the Republicans obsence ont he face of it, but add this into the mix:

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Buried amongst the untold affronts to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the very spirit of America, the torture bill contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.

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The only possible way that this could come into affect would be to deal with US citizens. Why would a foreign terrorist have any allegiance to the United States to breach in the first place? Why would this clause be needed if they were truly using it to fight terrorism?

Continuing on...

The New York Times draws our attention to the Roman Empire where

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By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned.

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They are talking about the Roman response to a terrorist attack and the redefining of a hundered-year-old consitution. The parallels with the current situation are stunning

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Those of us who are not Americans can only look on in wonder at the similar ease with which the ancient rights and liberties of the individual are being surrendered in the United States in the wake of 9/11. The vote by the Senate on Thursday to suspend the right of habeas corpus for terrorism detainees, denying them their right to challenge their detention in court; the careful wording about torture, which forbids only the inducement of “serious” physical and mental suffering to obtain information; the admissibility of evidence obtained in the United States without a search warrant; the licensing of the president to declare a legal resident of the United States an enemy combatant — all this represents an historic shift in the balance of power between the citizen and the executive.

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So...... Facism? Let's look at the list, shall we?

Thought police? check
Secret prisons? check
Torture? check
Spying on all citizens? check
Denial and restriction of habeas corpus? check

Sounds a little too close to comfort for my liking.

So we have the situation where anyone who expresses dissent with the government (as defined by some computer program and massive NSA wiretapping) can be consisered a terrorist, and can be arrested for that by the secret service or the police. (Keeping in mind the Homeland Security Department's recommendation that local police departments view critics of the war on terrorism as potential terrorists) Then, the government can do pretty much whatever they want to these 'terrorists' once they get them in thier secret prisons. Including torture of themselves and familiy members. And again, all you need to be "eligable" for torture according to the torture bill is to "who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government"

A bit much... eh?