Major Political Changes in the USA

[DudeAsInCool]

Youth Give Bush Poor Grade, Hurting Republican Hopes, Poll Says

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's hopes of attracting a new generation of voters to the Republican Party may be fading, as younger Americans are far more critical of his job performance than the broader population.

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of Americans age 18 to 24 found Bush's approval rating was 20 percent, with 53 percent disapproving

and 28 percent with no opinion. That compares to a 40 percent approval rating among Americans of all ages in a separate Bloomberg/Times poll.

Much like Franklin Roosevelt attracted a new generation of voters with the New Deal, Bush and his administration have had high hopes of drawing younger voters to his party. He has sought to do that through policy initiatives aimed at creating an ``ownership society,'' and public relations tactics like a Youth Convention at the party's 2004 national convention, in which his twin daughters took the stage.

Among the initiatives aimed at drawing a new generation into the Republican fold are health-care savings accounts, elimination of the so-called marriage penalty in the U.S. tax code, and Bush's proposal to create private investment accounts from a portion of Social Security payroll taxes. `Younger Americans really want to see some leadership,'' Bush said last year as he launched his Social Security plan.

Instead, the Social Security initiative flopped in Congress after attracting criticism from the public and lawmakers of both parties, and health-care savings accounts haven't done much to expand coverage, with only about 1 percent of the U.S. population currently participating in them.

Social Issues

Bush's 2004 re-election strategy also may have damaged his party's standing with younger voters by stressing things intended to drive religious voters concerned about social issues to the ballot box, such as opposition to gay marriage.

``The very cultural issues the president wants to use to rally his party's base are exactly the issues that are alienating younger voters,'' said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. ``Across a broad swath of social issues, younger Americans see the administration as being out of line with what they believe.''

Read more

[DudeAsInCool]

I find really strange that the last 2 elections were considered unreliable but nothing happened. The goverment is in place and the people don't do anything about it except make some "Jesusland" jokes and make anti-Bush pictures.

Look what happened in Ukraine. The result was suspicious, the people fought and now they won a new election yet the US and EU call their current goverment non-democratic.

You not only call your country democratic. You have to prove it too.

We recently did..and its not over for Bush and crew

[slum_goddess]

We recently did..and its not over for Bush and crew

oh really? he's been squatting in the whitehouse for like six years now (including the emerging reports on the fucked e-voting scandals in 04) w/nobody in power saying 'peep' and nobody demonstrating 24/7 against this bullshit.

see so long suckers starting 3rd graph down.

[DudeAsInCool]

oh really? he's been squatting in the whitehouse for like six years now (including the emerging reports on the fucked e-voting scandals in 04) w/nobody in power saying 'peep' and nobody demonstrating 24/7 against this bullshit.

the votors just metaphorically threw him out. the libby indictment sent another clear message. there have been rollbacks on the nsa spying, and the Dems have got plans to leave Iraq.... for starters

[slum_goddess]

oh please --- big talk, no action.

[DudeAsInCool]

Attorney General Gonzales' new problems add to Bush's continuing ones

RON FOURNIER | AP | March 9, 2007 07:21 PM EST

WASHINGTON — Another day, another scandal. The Justice Department's improper and illegal use of the USA Patriot Act has Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in trouble, an all-too-familiar circumstance for President George W. Bush's inner circle.

The last thing a troubled president needs is another friend in trouble.

"This strikes me as another blow for the administration," said Republican consultant Joe Gaylord.

He was not the only Republican fretting about the Republican president's White House after a Justice Department audit criticized the FBI's use of extraordinary powers, granted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, to obtain personal information secretly.

"This is, regrettably, part of an ongoing process where the federal authorities are not really sensitive to privacy and go far beyond what we have authorized," said Sen. Arlen Specter, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Lawmakers already were seething at the Justice Department for the firing of eight federal prosecutors and Gonzales' dismissive response to critics.

"One day there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later," Specter said Thursday.

It is too soon to tell whether Gonzales, a close Texas friend of Bush, might be forced to leave. Even his ouster, however, would do little to change a perception that the Bush administration is unraveling amid declining public support and trust. Some big names already have had to leave.

Donald H. Rumsfeld was forced to resign after Democrats seized control of Congress in fall elections that were a repudiation of Bush's policies on Iraq.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a powerful adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, left the White House to face perjury charges in the investigation of the exposure of a CIA official. He was convicted Tuesday in a trial that also revealed that top Bush aide Karl Rove and a State Department official played roles in the CIA leak, part of a White House strategy to undermine a critic of the Iraq war.

Jim Nicholson, secretary of Veterans Affairs and former Republican Party chairman, is clinging to his job amid revelations of shoddy treatment for wounded troops from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The latest events are more heavy baggage for a president who already is close to his limit. Re-elected by a comfortable margin in 2004, Bush watched his job approval rating plummet in 2005 with the rise of violence in Iraq and the government's weak response and follow-up after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to huge swaths of the country's southern coastline.

With a rating of just 35 percent, Bush's standing is the weakest of any second-term president at this point in 56 years.

Source: Huffington Post

[DudeAsInCool]

oh really? he's been squatting in the whitehouse for like six years now (including the emerging reports on the fucked e-voting scandals in 04) w/nobody in power saying 'peep' and nobody demonstrating 24/7 against this bullshit.

see so long suckers starting 3rd graph down.

Tell Somebody What's Happening In The USA - Rickie Lee Jones

Not long ago it was alright

There were no bad dreams that kept me up at night

It was not brother against brother

Mother against mother

So tell somebody,

You've got to tell somebody

Tell somebody what happened in the USA

Now they want us to just get in line

Behind a president

When you know they spent milions of dollars

Condemning and accusing

The last one from the other side

Tell somebody, tell somebody

Tell somebody

What's happening in the USA

Tell somebody, tell somebody

Tell somebody

What happened in the USA

Tell somebody, tell somebody, tell somebody...

I want to know how far you will go

To protect our right of free speech

Because it only took a moment

Before it faded out of reach...

Oh, tell somebody, tell sombody right now

Tell somebody

What happened in the USA

I wanna read about it in the news

I wanna hear about it on tv, yeah

What happened in the USA

When they ask you

What happened in the USA

Tell sombody.

They'll wanna know, oh people

The depth of our democracy

Is only as good as the voices of protest she protects

Voices of protest - rise!

Source: Leo's Lyrics

[DudeAsInCool]

On March 1, a Wall Street analyst at Bear Stearns wrote an upbeat report on a company that specializes in making mortgages to cash-poor homebuyers. The company, New Century Financial, had already disclosed that a growing number of borrowers were defaulting, and its stock, at around $15, had lost half its value in three weeks.

What happened next seems all too familiar to investors who bought technology stocks in 2000 at the breathless urging of Wall Street analysts. Last week, New Century said it would stop making loans and needed emergency financing to survive. The stock collapsed to $3.21.

Read More

[slum_goddess]

Tell Somebody What's Happening In The USA - Rickie Lee Jones

what is this crap, 'tell somebody'? we ALL KNOW and nobody's doing shit about it. (ps, i love RL Jones)

[DudeAsInCool]

what is this crap, 'tell somebody'? we ALL KNOW and nobody's doing shit about it. (ps, i love RL Jones)

she wrote the song a couple years ago before the second bush election

[DudeAsInCool]

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- If Chuck Hagel is looking to join the cast of Republican presidential hopefuls, he's certainly not taking an orthodox route.

...But if Hagel is beating a path to the White House, there are those who question what he's using to pave the way.

In an interview appearing in April editions of Esquire magazine -- set to hit stands next week -- Hagel suggests that President Bush could be subject to calls for impeachment as the Iraq war drags on.

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel said in the article. "Before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends on how this goes."

Hagel has long been an outspoken critic of the administration's foreign policy and its handling of Iraq, but for a conservative Republican from a firmly rooted red state to mention the "I" word in the same breath with a sitting party president is still shocking.

Source

[DudeAsInCool]

Bush scrambles in front of reporters at a press conference in Mexico about the Justice Department's political firing of prosecutors

Atty General Gonzales will be forced out in days...

[slum_goddess]

here's hoping *clink!*

[DudeAsInCool]

More than 1 million pages of historical government documents — a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol — have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by the Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old.

In some cases, entire file boxes were removed without significant review because the government's central record-keeping agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, did not have time for a more thorough audit.

Source: USA Today

The initial notion was to keep the nation safer...I'm not sure that hiding information is the best way to do that...

[slum_goddess]

and we're surprised by this fresh hell? bastards.

[DudeAsInCool]

Things are heating up in Washington over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, role of the Justice Department and the White House in the firing of 7 Democratic prosecutors - could spell double trouble for the White House, since Gonzales is rumored to be on the way out, and Rove is being pushed to testify in Congress :)

Democrats want to know who hatched the plan to remove the prosecutors, and why. They suspect that the prosecutors were removed for either pursuing or failing to pursue politically charged cases, including ethics scandals and voter fraud investigations. One of the seven prosecutors, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, said on “Fox News Sunday” that he considered his dismissal “a political hit.”

Mr. Iglesias was removed after Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, complained to Mr. Bush about what he viewed as lax prosecution of voter fraud cases in his home state. Mr. Bush has said he passed on the complaint, in general terms and without mentioning any prosecutors’ names, to Mr. Gonzales.

Another of the fired prosecutors is Carol C. Lam, whose work as the United States attorney in San Diego resulted in the conviction of Randy Cunningham, a former Republican congressman now serving eight years in prison. On Sunday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a member of the Judiciary Committee, cited Ms. Lam’s dismissal in echoing Mr. Leahy’s demand for public testimony from Mr. Rove.

Read More NY Times

From Crooks & Liars:

"On Face the Nation yesterday, Senator Feinstein told Bob Scheiffer she has evidence that U.S. attorney Carol Lam was pinpointed for firing after she notified the Justice Department she was issuing search warrants for a Republican corruption case. According to Feinstein, an email was sent from the DoJ to the White House shortly after this notification saying that there was a "real problem we have right now with Carol Lam."

This is why the White House and Alberto Gonzales are in hot water. The evidence is becoming clearer by the day that these attorneys were cherry-picked for replacement because they wouldn't politicize their positions and sacrifice their independence; not because of the supposed "performance-related" issues.

It's important to connect the dots here and say that Lam (who prosecuted Duke Cunningham) was issuing these search warrants for Brent Wilkes and "Dusty" Foggo — the two men who were implicated in the all but forgotten Hookergate scandal that emerged from the Cunningham probe. Lam was also investigating Rep. Jerry Lewis — then the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Did the White House try to eliminate her so that these potentially embarrassing revelations never saw the light of day? And will Lam's replacement still pursue these cases?"

See the Video at Crooks & Liars

The LA Times Diggs Deeper:

Democrats turn up heat on firing of U.S. attorney

They allege Carol Lam was ousted in San Diego because she was investigating Republican politicians in Southern California.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats signaled Sunday that of the eight federal prosecutors abruptly ousted by the Bush administration, the case in San Diego is emerging as the most troubling because of new allegations that U.S. Atty. Carol C. Lam was fired in an attempt to shut down investigations into Republican politicians in Southern California.

Read More

[DudeAsInCool]

Fitzgerald Ranked During Leak Case

Justice Dept. Fired 2 With Same Rating

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show.

Read more at the Washington Post

This is getting juicy... :)

[DudeAsInCool]

Bush Warns Dems to Take Offer in Firings

WASHINGTON — A defiant President Bush warned Democrats Tuesday to accept his offer to have top aides speak about the firings of federal prosecutors only privately and not under oath, or risk a constitutional showdown from which he would not back down.

Democrats' response was swift and firm: They said they would start authorizing subpoenas as soon as Wednesday for the White House aides.

Read More

[slum_goddess]

Bush Warns Dems to Take Offer in Firings

WASHINGTON — A defiant President Bush

is there any other kind? especially when he's drunk?

[DudeAsInCool]

is there any other kind? especially when he's drunk?

the subpoenas were sent--bush is toast

[slum_goddess]

i'll believe it when i see that smirk (a word which i repossessed some time ago) wiped off his stupid egoistic drunken face.

[DudeAsInCool]

Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings

Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he was not involved in any discussions about the impending dismissals of U.S. attorneys. On Friday night, however, the Justice Department revealed Gonzales' participation in a Nov. 27 meeting where such plans were discussed.

The firings of eight prosecutors has since led to a political firestorm and calls for his ouster.

At that meeting, the attorney general and at least five top Justice Department officials discussed a five-step plan for carrying out the firings of the prosecutors, Gonzales' aides said late Friday. There, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was drafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week.

Source

Going...going...gone

[DudeAsInCool]

The Rovian Era

Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.

Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch. ...

The investigation of the firings of the United States attorneys seems to be closing in on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who should have been fired weeks ago. But Congress should bring equal scrutiny to the more powerful Mr. Rove. If it does, especially by forcing him to testify in public, it will find that he has been at the vortex of many of the biggest issues they are now investigating.

Read more at the NYTIMES

If only...

[DudeAsInCool]

Factory jobs: 3 million lost since 2000

WASHINGTON - Three weeks ago, Dawn Zimmer became a statistic. Laid off from her job assembling trucks at Freightliner's plant in Portland, Ore., she and 800 of her colleagues joined a long line of U.S. manufacturing workers who have lost jobs in recent years. A total of 3.2 million — one in six factory jobs — have disappeared since the start of 2000.

Many people believe those jobs will never come back.

Read More

Stock prices at highest levels. 3 million factory jobs lost since 2000 - I wonder if there is any connection, duh...

[CTC Command]

Investing in American unemployment--it's been the Republican way since before 1929.