Tag Archives: George W. Bush

McCain tributes echo with criticism of Trump, by Laurie Kellman

Posted on September 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

These days, virtually every public gathering except Trump rallies echo with criticism of Trump. Why should John McCain’s funeral be any different? From Laurie Kellman at apnews.com:

WASHINGTON (AP) — John McCain’s daughter and two former presidents led a public rebuke of President Donald Trump’s divisive politics at the late senator’s memorial service Saturday in a call for a return to civility among the nation’s leaders.

The nearly three-hour service at the Washington National Cathedral was a remarkable show of defiance against a president McCain openly defied in life as the antithesis of the American spirit of service to something greater than any individual.

Standing near McCain’s flag-draped casket and with Trump’s daughter in the audience, Meghan McCain delivered a broadside against the uninvited president without mentioning his name.

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The Deep State’s Absorption of Donald Trump, by Jacob G. Hornberger

Posted on July 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

Despite his rhetoric, Trump is doing many of the same things Bush and Obama did. From Jacob G. Hornberger at fff.org:

The dust-up over NATO confirms, once again, that President Trump, unfortunately, has been absorbed by the same deep state whose existence he sometimes laments. After questioning here in the United States the usefulness of NATO, Trump traveled to a NATO meeting in Europe, where he flipped and declared his firm commitment to this Cold War anachronism, declaring publicly, “I believe in NATO” and publicly expressing his sentiment that NATO is “very unified, very strong, no problem.”

Let’s face the discomforting truth: Trump’s administration is just another four years of Bush-Obama.

Afghanistan? U.S. troops are still there, killing and dying. Like Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Trump keeps them there.

Iraq? U.S. troops are still there, killing and dying. Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps them there.

Syria? U.S. troops are still there, killing and dying. Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps them there. In fact, when Trump expressed a desire to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, he immediately flipped when he learned that the Pentagon disapproved of that action.

North Korea? U.S. troops are still there, almost 70 years after the deep state butted into the conflict by ignoring the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war. Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps them there and, until recently, has even threatened to rain nuclear fire and fury on North Koreans through U.S. nuclear bombers.

War on terrorism? U.S. forces continue assassinating people. Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps them assassinating.

The U.S. embargo on Cuba? Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps it in existence.

U.S. military bases in foreign countries? Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps them there.

The U.S. military-industrial complex? Like Bush and Obama, Trump keeps it there and expands it.

Why, Trump even flipped when the CIA put pressure on him to extend the time for secrecy with respect to the CIA’s 55-year-old records relating to the JFK assassination. Although Trump had announced all the way up to the day before the October deadline set by law that he intended to release the records, he buckled on the day of deadline, acceding to what the CIA wanted.

To continue reading: The Deep State’s Absorption of Donald Trump

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Trump Slams Bush: Iraq Invasion “Single Worst Decision Ever Made”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Iraq invasion may not actually be the worse decision ever made (Napoleon’s and Hitler’s decisions to invade Russia come to mind as worse), but it was certainly Bush’s worst decision. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

President Trump slammed former President George W. Bush over the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq – referring to it as “the single worst decision ever made,” and that it was comparable to “throwing a big fat brick into a hornet’s nest.”

Speaking to a group of GOP donors at a Mar-a-Lago closed door lunch and fundraiser, Trump also mocked Bush’s intellect: “Here we are, like the dummies of the world, because we had bad politicians running our country for a long time,” reported CNN – which obtained leaked audio from the event.

“That was Bush. Another real genius. That was Bush,” Trump joked. “That turned out to be wonderful intelligence. Great intelligence agency there.”

In the past, Trump has been notoriously critical of the decision to invade Iraq, slamming Jeb Bush during the 2016 primaries over his brother’s decision to invade.

Bush snarks back

Former President Bush – despite rarely criticizing President Obama – only took a month into Trump’s presidency to begin tossing barbs. Following Trump’s controversial Executive Order banning travel from several countries associated with terrorism, Bush 43 said: “I don’t like the racism and I don’t like  the name-calling and I don’t like the people feeling alienated. Nobody likes that.”

Last October, Bush indirectly slammed Trump at a policy seminar in New York – telling the audience “We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty… We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism.”

“Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone, provides permission for cruelty and bigotry, and compromises the moral education of children,” said Bush. “The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them.”

Trump and the Bush family have had a good relationship – as neither George W. Bush, his father former President George H.W. Bush, or Jeb Bush endorsed him during the 2016 election.

To continue reading: Trump Slams Bush: Iraq Invasion “Single Worst Decision Ever Made”

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History

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Thanksgiving 2017 – Why There Is No Peace On Earth, by David Stockman

Posted on November 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

It looked like close to a sure thing when the Soviet Union folded in 1991: the end of the Cold War would be the beginning of peace. It hasn’t panned out that way, thanks to the United States. This is an oustanding summary of the period since 1991. From David Stockman at ronpaulinstitute.org:

After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the death of the Soviet Union was confirmed two years later when Boris Yeltsin courageously stood down the red army tanks in front of Moscow’s White House, a dark era in human history came to an end.

The world had descended into what had been a 77-year global war, incepting with the mobilization of the armies of old Europe in August 1914. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the depredations which germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the march of history into the world war and cold war which followed inexorably thereupon.

To wit, upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped-out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and Vietnam.

We have elaborated more fully on this proposition in “The Epochal Consequences Of Woodrow Wilson’s War“, but the seminal point cannot be gainsaid. The end of the cold war meant world peace was finally at hand, yet 26 years later there is still no peace because Imperial Washington confounds it.

In fact, the War Party entrenched in the nation’s capital is dedicated to economic interests and ideological perversions that guarantee perpetual war; they ensure endless waste on armaments and the inestimable death and human suffering that stems from 21st century high tech warfare and the terrorist blowback it inherently generates among those upon which the War Party inflicts its violent hegemony.

In short, there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77-year war ended. The great general and president, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address, but that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word “congressional” in a gesture of comity to the legislative branch.

To continue reading: Thanksgiving 2017 – Why There Is No Peace On Earth

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Imperialism, Intelligence, Military, War

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On the Rehabilitation of George W. Bush, by Rebecca Gordon

Posted on November 24, 2017 | Leave a comment

George W. Bush makes some Worst 5 Presidents lists, including SLL’s. All he had to do to rehabilitate his image was cast aspersions against Donald Trump. From Rebecca Gordon at tomdispatch.com:

He received a prestigious award from the West Point Association of Graduates. He published a “runaway” bestselling autobiography. Last February, a lavishly produced book celebrating his paintings of Americans who served in the military was, as Time put it, “burning up the Amazon charts.”

Still, the liberal media wasn’t ready to embrace George W. Bush — not at least until he made some oblique criticisms of the current tenant of his old position, suggesting that, in the present political climate, “bigotry seems emboldened.” Seems? Have you been to Charlottesville lately, Mr. Bush?

The former president was less tentative on the main subject of his address to a conference on “democracy” he’d organized in New York City: the importance of free trade and the need for a large American footprint in the world. “We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade,” he said, “forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.” More on that speech later.

Not the First Rehab Job

George W. Bush is hardly the first disgraced Republican president and war criminal to worm his way back into American esteem. Richard Nixon remains the leader in that department.  He spent his later years being celebrated as an elder statesman and a master of realpolitik in international relations. In the process, he managed to shake off the dust of Watergate.

In those years, few even remembered that his was the first administration in which both the president and vice president resigned. In 1973, that disgraced vice president, Spiro Agnew, pled guilty to a felony count of tax evasion, but not before he’d bequeathed the English language a few of its most mellifluous sobriquets, among them the “nattering nabobs of negativism” and the “effete corps of impudent snobs” (aimed at those who opposed the Vietnam War).

To continue reading: On the Rehabilitation of George W. Bush

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Posted in Cronyism, Government, History, Media

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President George W. Bush: The Last Republican President? by Jack Kerwick

Posted on November 11, 2017 | Leave a comment

George W. Bush made the government much bigger and more powerful, both at home and abroad, the antithesis of what the Republican party once said it stood for. From Jack Kerwick at lewrockwell.com:

We can only hope

“I don’t like him. I don’t know much about him, but I know he’s a blowhard. And I’m not too excited about him being a leader.”

So says George H.W. Bush about President Donald J. Trump in Mark K. Updegrove’s soon-to-be-released, The Last Republicans. And Bush Senior admits to having voted for Hillary Clinton.

Neither is Bush Junior an admirer of his successor. “Wow, this guy doesn’t know what it means to be president.” W maintains that a president should not “exploit” and “incite” anger, but “come up with ideas to deal with it.”

Junior states that he voted for neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton.

Every American who ever desired to know the truth about our political system should thank God for Trump—regardless of whether or not they like him as a person or as a politician. Trump’s candidacy and presidency have exposed the System in all of its ugliness.

The Bushes are the proverbial textbook illustration of this ugliness.

It is now painfully obvious that the so-called “conservative movement” hadn’t been anything of the sort from at least the time of Reagan.  Rather, it has largely been a neoconservative movement, a species of soft or covert socialism and a cover for the Republican Party.

It is now painfully obvious that both the Democratic and Republican parties are corrupt organizations comprised of professional politicians that have labored indefatigably to deceive American voters into thinking that the parties presented voters with a genuine choice.

It is now painfully obvious that D.C., and, thus, the country, is in fact led by a Mono-Party. The idea of an “opposition party” is a politically-useful fiction that Democrats and Republicans, like the Bushes, have long exploited in order to advance their own interests, a fiction that proves especially handy during election season and, of course, for fundraising purposes.

To continue reading: President George W. Bush: The Last Republican President

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Duty, Honor, Atrocity, by Erik Edstrom

Posted on November 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

Does George W. Bush deserve a West Point award given “to a citizen… whose outstanding character, accomplishments, and stature in the civilian community draw wholesome comparison to the qualities for which West Point strives”? From Erik Edstrom at lewrockwell.com:

In George W. Bush’s home state of Texas, if you are an ordinary citizen found guilty of capital murder, the mandatory sentence is either life in prison or the death penalty. If, however, you are a former president of the United States responsible for initiating two illegal wars of aggression, which killed 7,000 U.S. servicemen and at least 210,000 civilians, displaced more than 10 million people from their homes, condoned torture, initiated a global drone assassination campaign, and imprisoned people for years without substantive evidence or trial in Guantanamo Bay, the punishment evidently is to be given the Thayer Award at West Point.

On October 19th, George W. Bush traveled to the United States Military Academy, my alma mater, to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award at a ceremony hosted by that school’s current superintendent and presented on behalf of the West Point Association of Graduates. The honor is “given to a citizen… whose outstanding character, accomplishments, and stature in the civilian community draw wholesome comparison to the qualities for which West Point strives.”

The Thayer may be one of the most important awards that hardly anyone has ever heard of. In a sense, it’s a litmus test when it comes to West Point’s moral orientation and institutional values. Academy graduates around the world — in dusty GP medium tents as well as Pentagon offices — all sit at the proverbial table where momentous, sometimes perverse decisions are regularly made. To invade or not to invade, to bomb or not to bomb, to torture, or not to torture — those are the questions. As the Trump era has reminded us, the U.S. military’s ability to obliterate all organized human life on Earth is beyond question. So it stands to reason that the types of beliefs pounded into cadets at West Point — the ones that will serve to guide them throughout their military careers — do matter. To the classes of cadets now there, this award will offer a message: that George W. Bush and the things he did in his presidency are worth emulating. I could not disagree more.

To continue reading: Duty, Honor, Atrocity

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, Military, Morality, Uncategorized, War

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Bush Lies—Again, by Jack Kerwick

Posted on October 25, 2017 | 1 comment

Given George W. Bush’s record as president, President Trump should take any criticism from him as a badge of honor. From Jack Kerwick at lewrockwell.com:

The former President of the United States, George W. Bush, made quite a splash recently when he took swipes at President Donald J. Trump.

Some thoughts:

First, the consternation of Deplorables aside, for purposes of clarity, it is actually a very good thing that Bush delivered his speech.  To as great an extent as anyone, the former President signifies the neoconservatism against which traditional conservative and Republican voters rebelled when they catapulted Trump to victory.

In other words, the symbolism involved in juxtaposing Bush with Trump couldn’t be richer inasmuch it symbolizes nothing more or less than the dramatic contrast between two ideal types: the GOP of yesteryear, a party run (and run into the ground) by neoconservatives, and the “populist,” more traditionally conservative GOP of the present and future.

To be clear, the contrast in question here is largely symbolic: Substantively speaking, Trump’s GOP has as yet shown few signs of having repented of its past ways (or of even having a pulse).  The neocons, on the other hand, are still very much alive.  Still, there can be no question that they have been humiliated and that Trump is looking to steer the party in a new direction.

Second, that Bush, who insisted upon being neither seen nor heard during the entirety of Barack Obama’s eight year tenure in the White House, should only now break his silence by criticizing Trump is a painful reminder of who he has always been.

It isn’t just that Bush and Obama, like Democrats and Republicans generally, belong to one and the same Regime, a Government-Academic-Media-Entertainment (GAME) Complex that its agents want to protect from Trump and his army of Deplorables.  Obama, you see, had been widely hailed by the journalistic and political classes as “the first black POTUS.”  To criticize Obama, then, would have made Bush vulnerable to the charge of “racism,” a charge that the Bushes of our political universe fear more than anything.

To continue reading: Bush Lies—Again

 

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Posted in Government, Politics

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The Horror! The Horror! by Jim Quinn

Posted on April 30, 2017 | 2 comments

A powerful Deep State with extensive expertise in persuasion and propaganda and an easily duped public are the recipe for disastrous policies at home and abroad. From Jim Quinn at theburningplatform.com:

I’m constantly amazed by the ability of those in power to create a narrative trusted by a gullible non-critical thinking populace. Appealing to emotions, when you have millions of functionally illiterate, normalcy bias ensnared, iGadget distracted, disciples of the status quo, has been the game plan of the Deep State for the last century. Americans don’t want to think, because thinking is hard. They would rather feel. For decades the government controlled public education system has performed a mass lobotomy on their hapless matriculates, removing their ability to think and replacing it with feelings, fabricated dogma, and social indoctrination. Their minds of mush have been molded to acquiesce to the narrative propagandized by their government keepers.

“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” – Thomas Sowell

With a majority confused, distracted, malleable, willfully ignorant, and easily manipulated by false narratives, heart wrenching images, and fake news, the Deep State henchmen have been able to control the masses with relative ease. The unanticipated rise of Donald Trump to the most powerful role in the world gave many critical thinking, anti-big government, skeptical curmudgeons hope he could drain the swamp and begin to deconstruct the massive out of control Federal bureaucracy.

His rhetoric during the campaign about repealing the disastrous Obamacare abortion, cutting taxes, dismantling Federal regulatory red tape, making Mexico pay for the wall, dumping Yellen, favoring higher interest rates, and not interfering militarily in countries who are not threatening the United States, appealed to many libertarian minded people.

I’ve watched with disgust over the last month as the promises of non-interventionism by a presidential candidate have been broken by the third consecutive president. George W. promised a humble foreign policy with no nation building. He had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist:

“If we don’t stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we’re going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I’m going to prevent that.”

With 9/11 as a convenient excuse, he invaded sovereign countries based on flawed data, passed the 4th Amendment destroying Patriot Act, allowed neo-cons to create a Orwellian surveillance state, and permitted the military industrial complex to regain its power and control over the political apparatus in Washington D.C. With no Cold War to fill their coffers, neo-cons in Congress, warmongering think tank co-conspirators, military brass and their arms dealer cronies needed to create a new war to keep the racket going.

To continue reading: The Horror! The Horror!

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Cronyism, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, Intelligence, Military, Surveillance, War

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He Said That? 3/12/13

Posted on March 12, 2017 | 2 comments

From George W. Bush (born 1946) American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009:

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

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