PUBLIC MARKS from jasontromm with tag bush

On Tuesday, January 23, President Bush delivered his 2007 State of the Union Address. While there were some things in the speech that were, on the whole, good, on most matters the President continued to show no appreciation for the concept of limited (particularly federal) government, and he continues to conflate the ideas of national defense and security with his stubborn continuation of his Administration’s tragic war of choice in Iraq. On the positive side, the President's health care proposal to allow replace an unlimited employer health care expense deduction with standard deductions for individuals, while not perfect, is a large step in the badly needed direction of breaking the link between employment and health insurance in this nation. It would stop federal tax discrimination against people who are not covered by employer-provided insurance. It would, as the President said, make health care more affordable for more Americans.

A Border Patrol agent sentenced to prison along with his partner for shooting and wounding a man smuggling drugs into the U.S. will appear with a congressman tomorrow at a rally asking President Bush to offer a pardon. Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were sentenced to 12 years and 11 years, respectively, in October by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas.

A WND interview in which Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., called Miami a "Third World country" has ignited a war of words with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other lawmakers insulted by the remark, which is now being echoed in news media across America. "Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country," Tancredo told WND in a Nov. 19 story as he lamented how the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration. "You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

As a national uproar continues over comments by Sen. John Kerry suggesting American troops were lazy and not bright, President Bush is hammering Kerry and fellow Democrats for their lack of strategy for winning the war in Iraq, while troops themselves are mocking Kerry. In a photo circulating the Internet today, soldiers were shown holding a banner with intentional misspellings reading: "Halp Us Jon Carry – We R Stuck Hear N Irak."

Some of Barbra Streisand's fans have some advice for the diva as she makes a rare U.S. tour -- shut up and sing. Not all members of her audience, who paid up to $250 (134 pounds) for a ticket, have appreciated her politics. During a performance at New York's Madison Square Garden this week, one concertgoer yelled out, asking if the concert was a fundraiser. Streisand replied: "Shut the f*** up!" ()() I couldn't agree more. Actors and singers don't have a right to push their views on people who pay to see them perform, not preach.

When Judge Anna Diggs Taylor was given the job of deciding whether the Bush administration’s wiretapping program was unconstitutional, she certainly understood that she would be ruling on one of the most politically charged cases in recent history. So it would have been prudent for her to disclose any activity that might conceivably raise questions about her ability to be impartial. Regrettably, it was left to a conservative group, Judicial Watch, to point out her role as a trustee to a foundation that had given grants to a branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, a plaintiff in the case.

Democrats don't oppose the war on terrorism because they hate Bush: They hate Bush because he is fighting the war on terrorism. They would hate him for fighting terrorists even if he had a "D" after his name. They would hate Bernie Sanders if he were fighting a war on terrorism. In the past three decades, there have been more legitimate sightings of Bigfoot than of "Scoop Jackson Democrats."

A microphone picked up an unaware President Bush saying on Monday Syria should press Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit" and that his secretary of state may go to the Middle East soon. Bush was talking privately to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg about an upsurge of violence in the Middle East, not realizing a microphone was recording what he said.

In a special televised address last night, President Bush addressed the nation on the immigration crisis. Unless a total indifference to the wishes of the American people can be counted as a kind of political boldness, anyone hoping for a bold new approach from the White House last night on immigration was likely disappointed. The president is in bad shape. His approval rating with voters is approaching Saddam Hussein territory—his handling of the immigration issue a major reason for the plummet.

Jorge Bush finally found a point of difference with his amigos who support illegal aliens. Asked whether the national anthem should be sung in English or Spanish, el presidente didn't miss a beat. "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English," he said without equivocation -- at least for now.

President Bush accuses those of us who want to secure America's borders and fully enforce our immigration laws of lacking "compassion." Huh. Well, I have yet to hear an ounce of compassion from President Bush for America's countless casualties of lax immigration enforcement. Where's the sympathy for innocent, law-abiding citizens who have lost their lives at the hands of illegal aliens and their open-borders enablers?

President George W. Bush, seeking to refocus the immigration debate in Congress, said the U.S. must attack the "underground industry" that thrive on illegal immigrants while treating undocumented workers "with respect." ()() Why? Illegal aliens (not undocumented workers) have no respect for US or our laws. It won't take massive deportations, just deport 1% and the rest will get the message that they have to obey our laws.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation on Wednesday and political adviser Karl Rove gave up his policy role in a shake-up of President George W. Bush's senior aides. ()() Holy crap! Who will the liberals have to beat up on now that Karl Rove's gone?

President Bush announced the resignation of White House chief of staff Andy Card on Wednesday and replaced him with budget director Joshua Bolten, saying "the next three years will demand much of those who serve our country." ()() Is this the first step in a Whitehouse shake-up that will lead to Dick Cheney's resignation? I certainly hope so, Bush needs to appoint Condi as his successor by making her VP now!

President Bush has lost his momentum, Americans' support for the Iraq war is dwindling, and opposition to Bush policies is hardening. That's according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll being covered as if it were a real news story.

Last week, I published a new book, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. A lot of my friends are not happy with me for writing it and I have been embraced by a number of people on the left whom I would ordinarily consider my political enemies. Both are mistaken about why I wrote the book and what I hope to accomplish with it.

Critics of the Bush administration have promoted video of an Aug. 28, 2005, teleconference between emergency management officials and the president as proof that the White House was warned that levees around New Orleans would likely fail against Hurricane Katrina. But a closer examination of the recording and transcript shows no mention that the Crescent City's levees would be breached.

A federal judge has ruled against a public school teacher who filed a lawsuit after administrators removed Christian-themed postings from his classroom, including a depiction of George Washington praying at Valley Forge and news clippings about the faith of President Bush and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The White House has been dropping hints that the president will make health-care reform the centerpiece of his State of the Union address. The Bush administration's health care record is, to put it delicately, inconsistent. It has supported efforts to remove government influence over the health care sector, such as health savings accounts (HSAs). On the other hand, the president signed into law the largest expansion of federal power over health care in generations the ill-fated Medicare drug program.

This week, more than two months after President Bush nominated him, the Senate will finally vote on Judge Samuel Alito’s elevation to the Supreme Court. In a final, all-too-typical move, the vote was put off a week at the behest of Alito’s opponents. Why? Nobody seriously expects another week to make a difference. With a few exceptions, senators probably knew how they were going to vote before the hearings. So, why put off the vote?

But reporters still ignore free market advocates who predicted it. Media coverage of problems facing the new Medicare prescription drug plan focused on elderly patients left in the lurch by bureaucracy, producing what CBS’s Bill Plante called a “political headache” for the Bush administration. But in the Jan. 16 reports on the “Evening News” and “World News Tonight,” both networks ignored conservative critics who had argued the plan was doomed to fail because it was a typical big government solution that ignored the free market.

Los Angeles activist Jesse Lee Peterson has questioned the sanity of entertainer Harry Belafonte for meeting with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and, in local media, calling President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world."

President Bush and many lawmakers have announced they are refunding or giving to charity some or all of the donations they or their political action committees received from once-powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff, his associates or clients.

Congress can't usurp the president's power to spy on America's enemies. In the continuing saga of the surveillance "scandal," with some congressional Democrats denouncing President Bush as a lawbreaker and even suggesting that impeachment hearings may be in order, it is important to step back and put things in historical context. First of all, the Founding Fathers knew from experience that Congress could not keep secrets. In 1776, Benjamin Franklin and his four colleagues on the Committee of Secret Correspondence unanimously concluded that they could not tell the Continental Congress about covert assistance being provided by France to the American Revolution, because "we find by fatal experience that Congress consists of too many members to keep secrets."

So apparently Bush authorized the NSA to listen in on phone calls to and from numbers with known terrorists ties. Great. It was about time. Why is this controversial? I come home and the Democrats and the press are acting like Bush declared himself dictator-for-life and had Alan Dershowitz publicly executed. This episode got me thinking, and in the spirit of the year-in-review round-ups everyone likes to do in December, I would like to present: Media Manufactured Scandals — the Year that Was: