Reality-Based Engineering

Reagan DOJ Convicted TX Sherriff of Waterboarding

GFY, all you neo-cruds, GFY...

Lest We Forget...

...today is the 7th anniversary or the invasion of Iraq...

"Look, I know you have a lot to do and all...but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way."
"But, Mr. President, al Qaeda did this."
"I know, I know, but...see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred...
"Absolutely, we will look...again. But you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq. Iran plays a little, as does Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, Yemen."
"Look into Iraq, Saddam."
---George W. Bush issuing orders to counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke on September 12, 2001, as recounted in Clarke's book, Against All Enemies
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On Sept. 7, 2002, [Judith Miller] and fellow New York Times reporter Michael Gordon reported that Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb." As proof, she cited unnamed "American intelligence experts" and unnamed "Bush administration officials." Subsequently, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all pointed to Miller’s story as justification for war. On April 22, 2003, she told PBS’s Newshour that WMD had already been found in Iraq: "Well, I think they found something more than a ’smoking gun.’"
---Think Progress (Miller now works for Fox News)
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"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
---Condoleezza Rice (9/8/02)
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"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
---George W. Bush (10/7/02)
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"We will win this conflict. We will win it easily."
---John McCain (1/22/03)
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"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
---Colin Powell, United Nations Speech (2/5/03)
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"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." ... "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

---Dick Cheney (8/28/02) and (3/16/03)
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"[T]he area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
---Donald Rumsfeld (3/30/03)
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"There's a certain amount of pop psychology in America that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."
---Bill Kristol (4/1/03)
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Who said war never solved anything?
---Brendan Miniter, The Wall Street Journal (4/8/03)
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"We're all neocons now."
---Chris Matthews (4/9/03)
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"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals."
---Charles Krauthammer (4/19/03)
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Ted Koppel: [Y]ou’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is going to be done for $1.7 billion?
Andrew Natsios [Agency for International Development]: Well, in terms of the American taxpayer's contribution, I do. This is it for the U.S.
---Nightline (4/23/03)
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[Liberals] can't deny that President Bush has won his two wars, and won them resoundingly.
---Paul Mirengoff, Powerline (4/26/03)

Labels: al-Qaeda, Barack Obama, Cheney, dubya, GOP, Iraq

Yeah, uh, I remember him hammering W on taxes during the 2000 debates in South Carolina (and so do others here, you can search for more here )...so, here's a JedReport montage of McCain's tax ideas...sounds like Obama's ideas to me, peeps...

And, here's the exact money quote that recall from that debate that made me proud, at the time, to vote for him in the Mass primaries:

I want a balanced approach. A working families tax cut—Governor Bush has 38 percent of his tax cut go to the wealthiest one percent of Americans—pay down the debt, Social Security and Medicare. If we're going to save Social Security, we've got to take a bunch of the non-Social Security surplus, pump it into the Social Security system, because we all know that it's going broke. If we do that, then people can then invest part of their own payroll taxes in investments of their choice. The difference between Governor Bush's proposal and mine is that I put a whole lot of money into Social Security, Medicare and paying down the debt. He puts a whole lot of money into tax cuts.... Because we'd lay this obligation on another generation of young Americans—$3.6 trillion. At town hall meeting after town hall meeting, I have average Americans stand up to me and say to me, Senator McCain, all these years of running deficits, we've accumulated this debt. We're paying more interest—as much interest, almost, on it as we are in spending on national defense. We ought to pay down that debt, and not saddle the next generation of young Americans with it.... Look, Alan Greenspan just recently said we shouldn't have these massive tax cuts like Governor Bush is proposing. We should pay down the debt. But working families need the tax cut.

The green highlighted text is what I recalled clearly from the debate, but note what I highlighted in red...the $3.6 trillion debt he alludes to in the 2000 debates is, sadly, a low projection but a heckuva lookahead by McCain at the time. And, per this bonddad post from this morning, here are the debt loads carried by the USG at the end of each fiscal year of the Bush administration:

09/30/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2006 $8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2007 $9,007,653,372,262.48
09/30/2008 $10,024,724,896,912.49

We've added $4,217,261,484,712.43 to the debt...so, actually, McCain was closer (numerically, at least) than I thought!!

[update oct30] A good journal entry about historic tax rates.

Labels: 2000 Elections, 2008 Elections, dubya, John McCain, South Carolina, taxes

"He Just Sat There"

Great piece from Benen on what McCain *really* did in the White House photo-op meeting...

Labels: 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Cheney, dubya, economy, John McCain, macroeconomics

Prophetic NYT Article About Dubya

Copied over from TBP, since there's no known link:

Pricing in a Bush Presidency?
New York Times, July 9th 2000
(insert link)

"Stocks sold off again today as the markets is pricing in the likely impact of a George W. Bush presidency.

Since Bush has emerged as the polling leader in March, stocks have been hit hard. The NASDAQ has fallen 37%, while the S&P500 and the Dow are both down 20%, placing equities squarely in bear market territory.

Various Wall Street strategists have expressed concern regarding how a new set of Bush monetary and overseas policies could impact equities.

"My biggest concern is that the promised Bush tax cuts will be in extremely expensive. That would create huge deficits and be extremely inflationary" said Peter Leslie, a trader on the CBOT floor." Governor Bush has promised to reduce captial gains and dividend taxes, and lower the marginal rates on the nation's biggest earners. He has not explained how these tax cuts will be funded.

Maverick Capital fund manager Henry Carlyle is more concerned with government spending than Tax cuts. The Dallas resident stated "I have followed Governor Bush in Texas, and fiscal discipline is not his strong suit." Cabot expects a big increase in federal spending and budget deficits that will have ramifications for both inflation and an interest rates.

Vanguard chief John Bogle is more concerned with a lax regulatory environment: "A return to the sort of crony capitalism that we've seen in the past would wreak havoc with investor confidence. We need a strong SEC to make sure companies are transparent, and report their accounting fully and fairly. We should not throw the individual investor to a wild and woolly free market that is totally lacking in supervision." The Vanguard chief has long been a proponent of a strong regulatory environment for the protection of individual investors. "I do not see that sort of regime under a President Bush."

Robert Rubin, the Treasury Secretary under Presdient Clinton who retired last year to join the Board of Citigroup, focused on the Federal Reserve. "The next president needs to make sure that the Federal Reserve fulfills its obligations as bank supervisor. I am concerned that Governor Bush, as President, would move away from strict regulation of markets for ideological reasons." Rubin, a Democrat, warned of negative repercussions for the housing and financial sectors. "[Since joining Citigroup], I have been looking into the issue of derivatives. This is another area that requires close scrutiny from both the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. I see Bush lacking expertise in this crucial area."

Goldman Sachs chief investment strategist Robert Hormat, was even blunter in his assessment of a Bush Presidency: "I am looking for a market crash as a reaction to the election of George W. Bush. Investors should brace themselves for losses of 50% or more -- and even worse in the Tech sector -- should he be elected."

Legendary legendary oil trader T. Boone Pickens is more optimistic. "We should expect several military conflicts in the Middle East under President Bush, and while this may not be great for the economy it will be terrific for my energy holdings." If Bush gets elected, Pickens plans on opening a new oil based hedge fund, and is forecasting 100% increase in the price of oil to $40. "I'm an Oil, George is an Oil man, and his VP Dick Cheney is an Oil man. I expect energy returns to significantly outperform equity markets over the next eight years" he said."

Here's another blast from the past about how Oil&Gas spent a lot on getting W elected. Apparently, it's good for profits, dont you think? Not even a million dollars invested in W, and ExxonMobil does HOW many billions in profits PER MONTH??

Labels: 2000 Elections, Cheney, dubya, economy, energy policy, NY Times, The Big Picture

Challenge Of The Super-Duper Friends

Dear lord, this is funny...

and, you can compare the actual (below) to this political revision...

Labels: 2008 Elections, Al Gore, Barack Obama, Cheney, dubya, Hillary Clinton

Obama & Iraq: The Central Arguement

Labels: 2008 Elections, Barack Obama, Cheney, Democrats, dubya, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, RNC

Cyborg Spy Bugs

I blogged about this at some point from a front-page WaPo article...I'll dig it out later...

Labels: Cheney, CIA, computer, dubya, engineering, military, Patriot Act, WaPo

PBS - Cheney's Law

This guy is just scarry scarry scarry...even conservative republicans in the justice department thought he went way too far...wifey and I watched this for about 20 minutes of this at the point of the infamous visit to Ashcroft's hospital bed...we just had to turn it off since it's just too scarry to watch what actually happened in this country...

Labels: blog, Cheney, crime, crooksandliars.com, dubya, Frontline, media, PBS, press, RNC, Spending, USA

Bushie Wants Retroactive Immunity for Telcos That Helped In Domestic Spying

And he says this with a straight face - even if he believes that this illegal warrantless domestic spying is perfectly legal he thinks they need to get immunity? Huh?

Labels: Cheney, CIA, crime, dubya, FBI, Homeland Security, media, USA

WaPo: Federal RoboBugs

Scarry stuff...

Labels: Cheney, CIA, computer, dubya, engineering, FBI, Homeland Security, media, Patriot Act, peace, USA, WaPo

Normally Dont Link To ESPN...

...but there's an interesting bit in there about the political theatre surrounding increasing mpg.

I am all for increasing mpg, even if it's Bushie that suggests it. I dont necessarily believe him, but still...

Labels: auto safety, dubya, ESPN, global warming, mileage, USA