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Obama toasts Poppy Bush: 'We are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you'
"You've described for us those thousand points of light -- all the people and organizations spread out all across the country who are like stars brightening the lives of those around them," Obama said at the White House. "But given the humility that's defined your life, I suspect it's harder for you to see something that's clear to everybody else around you, and that's how bright a light you shine."
"On behalf of all of us, let me just say that we are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you, and we can't thank you enough," Obama added.
SOURCE: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/15/19487988-obama-toasts-bush-we-are-surely-a-kinder-and-gentler-nation-because-of-you
218 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
The ‘W.’ Stands for ‘War Criminal’
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
By Nat Hentoff
In a June 6 letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey—largely ignored by a press immersed in the future of Hillary Clinton—56 Democrats in the House of Representatives asked for “an immediate investigation with the appointment of a special counsel to determine whether actions taken by the President, his Cabinet, and other Administration officials are in violation of the War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. 2441) . . . and other U.S. and international laws.”
This isn’t front-page news?
The letter began with a brief account of the notorious facts about Abu Ghraib (”sexual exploitation and torture”) and Guantánamo (”an independent investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross documented several . . . acts of torture . . . including soaking a prisoner’s head in alcohol and lighting it on fire”). Nor was “coercive interrogation” in Afghanistan omitted: “In October 2005, The New York Times reported that three detainees were killed during interrogations in Afghanistan and Iraq by CIA agents or CIA contractors.”
This is not a call for articles of impeachment. Bush will soon be gone, and the new president and Congress have far too much to do to get mired in that quicksand. These are grave criminal charges, and since international crimes are involved as well as the U.S. War Crimes Act and the Anti-Torture Act, other nations whose laws include “universal jurisdiction” could prosecute.
But why would House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers Jr. and Intelligence Committee members Jerrold Nadler (my congressional representative) and Jan Schakowsky—among other signers—make such dramatic and historic charges of “war crimes” now, after most congressional Democrats have not shown the same interest? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, is not on the list of signers; she and Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid have never, in their opposition to the administration, come anywhere near these shocking accusations.
CONTINUED...
http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/the-w-stands-for-war-criminal/3999/
PS: Welcome to DU, yeoman6987!
How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf
"If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it." -- the girl's dad, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States and Canada
"If I wanted to lie, or if we wanted to lie, if we wanted to exaggerate, I wouldn't use my daughter to do so. I could easily buy other people to do it." -- the girl's dad, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the United States and Canada
Cover art from Lies Of Our Times - A Magazine to Correct the Record, published between 1990-1994.
Just what I want to hear, Obama praising a Bush. 
He doesn't speak for me in this, so I resent him saying "...on behalf of all of us"
makes me want to 
You probably imagine your congressman hard at work in the Capitol debating legislation, making laws — you know, governing. But your newspaper probably didn’t tell you that one night in March, members of Congress hosted a crowning ritual for an ex-convict and multibillionaire who dressed up in maroon robes and declared himself the Second Coming.
On March 23, the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and Stalin — the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him “none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”
To many observers, this bizarre scene would have looked like the apocalypse as depicted in “Left Behind” novels. Moon, 84, the benefactor of conservative foundations like the American Family Coalition — who served time in the 1980s for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice — has views somewhere to the right of the Taliban’s Mullah Omar. Moon preaches that gays are “dung-eating dogs,” Jews brought on the Holocaust by betraying Jesus, and the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls “Godism” — with him in charge. The man crowned “King of Peace” by congressmen once said, according to sermons reprinted in his church’s Unification News: “Suppose I were to hit you with the baseball bat to stop you, bloodying your ear and breaking a bone or two, yet still you insisted on doing more work for Father.”
What, exactly, drew at least a dozen members of Congress to Moon’s coronation? (By the Unification Church’s estimate, 81 congressmen attended, although that number is probably high.) The event was the grand finale of Moon’s coast-to-coast “tear down the cross” Moonification tour, intended to remove Christian crosses from almost 300 churches in poor neighborhoods — the idea being that the cross was an obstacle to uniting religions under Moon. Yet the Dirksen ceremony was sold as a celebration of world peace. According to a cheery promotional video released by Moon’s International and Interreligious Federation for World Peace, the ceremony marked the dawn of “the era of the Eternal Peace Kingdom, one global family under God.” Moon’s coronation also cured God’s pain, the announcer explains.
Then, after Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., gave a speech praising one of Moon’s Ambassadors for Peace, the civil rights veteran Rev. Walter Fauntroy, an unnamed Lubovitch rabbi took the stage declaring: “I have never seen this miracle where Jews, Christians and Muslims come together for peace!” Then Moon’s cleric Chung Kwak took the mic. Before his days as the commander of the UPI wire service, Kwak, Moon said in a 1997 speech, was authorized to whomp on Unification Church members who slacked off. “Particularly those who are sleeping and hiding, Reverend Kwak’s baseball bat will fall upon you at any time,” Moon said. Now Kwak was standing in a Senate office building declaring Moon the king of the “second and third Israel.”
It might almost make sense for conservative congressmen to honor Moon in this way. After all, a writer in Moon’s magazine Insight wrote in February that it’s long past time for Republicans to thank the billionaire Korean preacher for his gifts. “[T]he continued refusal of Beltway conservatives publicly to acknowledge their steadfast patron is, of course, scandalous,” wrote contributor Paul Gottfried. Moon has sunk an estimated $2-$4 billion into the money-losing Times, and countless other causes — like Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
http://www.salon.com/2004/06/21/moon_7/
Other institutions, too.
NAZI-CIA; October Surprise; Bush-Moon Axis; Corporate McPravda
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1450222
Once in Paraguay, with a son of Rev. Moon:
Why not? Make out like bandits converting dollars to whatever the hecks.
Here's Neil with the late Great Father himself:
Neil Bush Meets the Messiah
By John Gorenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on December 5, 2005, Printed on September 8, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/29054 /
EXCERPT…
Moon's lobbying campaign is "ambitious and diffuse," as the D.C. newspaper The Hill reported last year, and the sheer range of guests revealed just how many Pacific Rim political leaders the Times owner has won over, including Filipino and Taiwanese politicians. And the head of the Arizona GOP attended a recent stop in San Francisco. But perhaps the most surprising VIP to tag along is Neil Bush, George H.W. Bush's youngest and most wayward son, who made both the Philippines and Taiwan legs of the journey, according to reports in newspapers from those countries and statements from Moon's Family Federation.
While Neil Bush and Moon's church couldn't be reached for comment on the tunnel or his speaking fees, a brochure from Moon's Family Federation underscores that the project is "God's fervent desire," dwarfing such past wonders as the Chunnel and heralding a "new era of automobile travel."
Moon, reviled in the 1980s as the leader of a group that separated young recruits from their families, says he is the Messiah. His far-flung business empire includes the UPI wire service, Washington, D.C. television studios, a gun factory, and enormous swaths of real estate, and he donates millions to conservative politics. In 1989, U.S. News & World Report linked his group to the Heritage Foundation and other conservative organizations. "Because almost all conservative organizations in Washington have some ties to church," wrote reporter John Judis, "conservatives ... fear repercussions if they expose the church's role."
SNIP…
Neil isn't the only Bush to attend Moon events. In 1996, his father, President George H.W. Bush, traveled to Buenos Aires with the Reverend in one of several such fundraising expeditions. "The 41st president, who told Argentine president Carlos Menem that he had joined Moon in Buenos Aires for the money, had actually known the Korean reasonably well for decades," writes former top GOP strategist Kevin Phillips in his book "American Dynasty." "Their relationship went back to the overlap between Bush's one-year tenure as CIA director (1976) and the arrival in Washington of Moon, whose Unification Church was widely reported to be a front group for the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency." Moon and his aides have called such claims bogus, saying his accusers were controlled by "Satan" to distract from his campaign to destroy communism.
SNIP…
Reverend Moon is the latest in a line of unusual partners for Neil Bush in recent years, including the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and fugitive Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who has been promoting the younger Bush's educational software company, Ignite!, according to the Washington Post.
CONTINUED…
http://www.alternet.org/story/29054/
Robert Parry tried telling the public about it, but who'd believe such a crazy story?
You know who really knows a lot about this? The great DUer blm.
Here's when President Obama had everybody over to the Oval Office.
Please note President Carter's body language.
And how could he feel after Iran-Contra. Don't Clinton and Obama know about Iran-Contra? Guess not. 
Blame Clinton for talking to Shrub. 
JFK CRIED FOR CONGO
(JFK receives the news of Lumumba's murder)
The caption for the photo above, by Jacques Lowe, personal photographer to JFK, reads:
"On February 13 1961, United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson came on the phone. I was alone with the President; his hand went to his head in utter despair, "On, no," I heard him groan. The Ambassador was informing the President of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, an African leader considered a trouble-maker and a leftist by many Americans. But Kennedy's attitude towards black Africa was that many who were considered leftists were in fact nationalists and patriots, anti-West because of years of colonialization, and lured to the siren call of Communism against their will. He felt that Africa presented an opportunity for the West, and, speaking as an American, unhindered by a colonial heritage, he had made friends in Africa and would succeed in gaining the trust of a great many African leaders. The call therefore left him heartbroken, for he knew that the murder would be a prelude to chaos in the mineral-rich and important African country, it was a poignant moment."
(end quoting from 1983 book "Kennedy A Time Remembered" by Jacques Lowe)
As news stories describe the massacre of thousands in the Congo (April 2003) I remember Orwell and JFK, two of my favourite people. In 1984 Orwell told us that once Big Brother took control of the world (One World Government) it was divided into three Super-States and the Disputed Territories, over which the Super-States waged continuous war. The people of the Disputed Territories (including equatorial Africa) were "expended like so much coal or oil". Their nations were gutted for their "valuable minerals and important vegetable products".
Like so much else of what Orwell told us, he was accurate about the fate of Africa. Its nations have never had a chance to survive on their own without interference. However, had President Kennedy been allowed to live and enact his policies for Africa, that continent could be equal today to Europe and America.
CONTINUED...
http://www.orwelltoday.com/jfkcongo.shtml
Like in Vietnam, policy toward Congo and the rest of Africa did a 180.
Dodd and Dulles vs. Kennedy in Africa
“In assessing the central character ...
Gibbon’s description of the Byzantine general
Belisarius may suggest a comparison:
‘His imperfections flowed from the contagion of the times;
his virtues were his own.’”
— Richard Mahoney on President Kennedy
By Jim DiEugenio
CTKA From the January-February 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 2)
As Probe has noted elsewhere (especially in last year’s discussion of Sy Hersh’s anti-Kennedy screed, The Dark Side of Camelot), a clear strategy of those who wish to smother any search for the truth about President Kennedy’s assassination is to distort and deny his achievements in office. Hersh and his ilk have toiled to distort who Kennedy really was, where he was going, what the world would have been like if he had lived, and who and what he represented. As with the assassination, the goal of these people is to distort, exaggerate, and sometimes just outright fabricate in order to obfuscate specific Kennedy tactics, strategies, and outcomes.
This blackening of the record—disguised as historical revisionism—has been practiced on the left, but it is especially prevalent on the right. Political spy and propagandist Lucianna Goldberg—such a prominent figure in the current Clinton sex scandal—was tutored early on by the godfather of the anti-Kennedy books, that triple-distilled rightwinger and CIA crony Victor Lasky. In fact, at the time of Kennedy’s death, Lasky’s negative biography of Kennedy was on the best-seller lists. Lately, Christopher Matthews seemed to be the designated hitter on some of these issues (see the article on page 26). Curiously, his detractors ignore Kennedy’s efforts in a part of the world far from America, where Kennedy’s character, who and what he stood for, and how the world may have been different had he lived are clearly revealed. But to understand what Kennedy was promoting in Africa, we must first explore his activities a decade earlier.
SNIP...
To say the least, this is not what the Dulles brothers John Foster and Allen had in mind. Once the French empire fell, they tried to urge upon Eisenhower an overt American intervention in the area. When Eisenhower said no, Allen Dulles sent in a massive CIA covert operation headed by Air Force officer Edward Lansdale. In other words, the French form of foreign domination was replaced by the American version.
SNIP...
1964: LBJ reverses Kennedy’s policies
In 1964, the leftist rebellion picked up strength and began taking whole provinces. President Johnson and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy decided that a weakened Adoula had to be strengthened with a show of American help. The CIA sent Cuban exile pilots to fly sorties against the rebels. When the UN finally withdrew, the US now became an ally of Belgium and intervened with arms, airplanes and advisors. Incredibly, as Jonathan Kwitny notes, Mobutu now invited Tshombe back into the Congo government (p. 79). Further, Tshombe now blamed the revolts on China! To quote Kwitny:
In a move suspiciously reminiscent of a standard US intelligence agency ploy, Tshombe produced what he said were some captured military documents, and a Chinese defector who announced that China was attempting to take over the Congo as part of a plot to conquer all of Africa. (p. 79)
With this, the Mobutu-Tshombe alliance now lost all semblance of a Gullion-Kennedy styled moderate coalition. Now, rightwing South Africans and Rhodesians were allowed to join the Congolese army in the war on the “Chinese-inspired left”. Further, as Kwitny also notes, this dramatic reversal was done under the auspices of the United States. The UN had now been dropped as a stabilizing, multilateral force. This meant, of course, that the tilt to the right would now go unabated. By 1965, the new American and Belgian supplemented force had put down the major part of the rebellion. General Mobutu then got rid of President Kasavubu. (Adoula had already been replaced by Tshombe.) In 1966, Mobutu installed himself as military dictator. The rest is a familiar story. Mobutu, like Suharto in Indonesia, allowed his country to be opened up to loads of outside investment. The riches of the Congo, like those of Indonesia, were mined by huge western corporations, whose owners and officers grew wealthy while Mobutu’s subjects were mired in abject poverty. As with the economy, Mobutu stifled political dissent as well. And, like Suharto, Mobutu grew into one of the richest men in the world. His holdings in Belgian real estate alone topped one hundred million dollars (Kwitny p. 87). Just one Swiss bank account was worth $143 million. And like Suharto, Mobutu fell after three decades of a corrupt dictatorship, leaving most of his citizenry in an anarchic, post-colonial state similar to where they had been at the beginning of his reign.
The policies before and after Kennedy’s in this tale help explain much about the chaos and confusion going on in Congo today. It’s a story you won’t read in many papers or see on television. In itself, the events which occurred there from 1959 to 1966 form a milestone. As Kwitny writes:
The democratic experiment had no example in Africa, and badly needed one. So perhaps the sorriest, and the most unnecessary, blight on the record of this new era, is that the precedent for it all, the very first coup in post-colonial African history, the very first political assassination, and the very first junking of a legally constituted democratic system, all took place in a major country, and were all instigated by the United States of America. (p. 75)
CONTINUED...
http://www.ctka.net/pr199-africa.html
Thank you, Heywood J. You should have a Sunday column for The New York Times. Plus, a couple other days of the week, as well.
To replace the seat occupied by this great statesman and jurist:
It's not history that haunts us, it's the BFEE.
Of course, Poppy also foisted David Souter. He, at least, tried.
as in 
do you think happens when a President has a public appearance with an ailing ex-President?
he has to do. But maybe he was too effusive? 
TYY
Like she called Clinton her other son. Oh my, georgie will really fall down the totem pole. 
Transcript:
TO: SAC, HOUSTON DATE: 11-22-63
FROM: SA GRAHAM W. KITCHEL
SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY
At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.
BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.
BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLINE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT.
BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395.
# # #
Don't want to miss getting eyewitness testimony on the record.
I don't think that I can go that far...given that it's not just Poppy but the SON who he has cozyied up to in the past month.
I think it goes beyond that. The Bushies are also fast friends with Bill and Hillary since they both left office. Poppy and Babs Bush saying Clinton was like a Son...and now they have a NEW SON?
It sort of strains my Democratic sensibilities what's going on. 
they commit crimes on their watch. It's the "Nixon Hangover Effect?"
Still speaking truth to power, I see. Thanks for providing evidence of just how "kinder and gentler" we are. 
"they" have come for us...now. We're working hard on the push back.
It's bad enough being me. 
I mean, I understand towing the corporate line to make sure the BFEE never faces any kind of criminal charges...but the fluffing and outright lying for someone like Poppy is beyond the pale of good taste.
Then again he DID compare himself to Reagan.
This has been disappointing.....not what we expected...and I don't think that we expected Obama to come out of the gate with a knife in his hand to slay the Bushies...but, we did think he would work for justice and we knew it would take time...but, we saw no indication that he even understood (once he was in office) WHY he was ELECTED!
Now it's his Second Term and once again he jumped out of the "Start Box" with more Repug Appointees and Rhetoric. Penny Pritzger Appointment and others...and NOW...Larry Summers is being floated by them to replace Bernanke!
I don't know anymore. Was it Bait and Switch...or that both Obama and the rest of us were deceived....
I voted for the guy...TWICE! Even with the trashing of us Progressive Dems who worked hard donating to Act Blue...Working to get the Crap Diebold Voting Machines out of our States and Standing in Vigils against Iraq Invasion on street corners for months after Protesting the Invasion of Iraq in our Blue and Red States all over America.
I don't know...I thought Occupy would do it! It was everywhere. And then......
But, I go back to the 60's and I know that change came from that... It wasn't finished and so NOW the Challenge is to WORK to REGAIN....and our Chance has Come once again.
But...it will be from a different angle...and with others who don't want to know what we did in the 60's ...but who will make something their own...and with the Oldies who can help...because they went through it before...but, it won't be THEIR MOVEMENT...it will Morph.. That's all I can say in my imho... for what it's worth.
And just be polite and factual about it. You'll still have posts hidden(I used to all the time) but stay true to yourself and your ideals and speak your mind.
Welcome to the Party!
and to Bring the People of our Country together,
but DAMN!!!
Poppy,
the BFEE,
The Carlyle Group, really is as close to an Evil Empire as you can get,
including the Bush Family Heritage of War Profiteering and Trading with the NAZIS during WW2.
Obama honors former President George H.W. Bush with Medal of Freedom
There is no other explanation.
"elegant elder statesman." Sort of reminds me of a dressed up snake...but..well I can't find a better analogy for that poor one I just gave. 
But, he is a snake.
It was a telling moment:
Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and ''Conspiracy Theorists'' at Ford Funeral
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3029417
Poppy smirks or laughs or grins at the moment he says "deluded gunman" near the 1:09 mark:
George H.W. Bush’s Eulogy for Gerald R. Ford
The New York Times
Published: January 2, 2007
Following is the transcript of the eulogy for former President Gerald R. Ford delivered today by former President George H.W. Bush in Washington, as recorded by The New York Times.
EXCERPT…
After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness. And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford’s word was always good.
A decade later, when scandal forced a vice president from office, President Nixon turned to the minority leader in the House to stabilize his administration because of Jerry Ford’s sterling reputation for integrity within the Congress. To political ally and adversary alike, Jerry Ford’s word was always good.
SOURCE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/washington/02cnd-ford-ghwb.html
PS: Of course, to Gerald Ford Warren Commission skeptics presented "no problem."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3772251
PPS: What's even more telling is how there are still people interested in scrubbing the assassination record of any reference to Poppy.
PPPS: For those interested, background...
Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.
And he meant it?
Now there is one terrifying thought. 
Poppy is a major POS.
Hugo didn't care much for Spain's fascist General Franco, either. I found it interesting that a king is telling a democratic leader to shut up in that same video.
The '70s when I grew up were far from perfect, but compared to the selfish, callous, ignorant, war-mongering, third-world nation of knuckle-draggers we've become since the Reagan/Bush Reaction, it was a fricking golden age.
He's become one of them...
What a well paid Putz.
Edit to add, great thread my friend.
His being polite and gracious is now another reason to shit on Obama.
FFS.
Sid
Mr. President, where have you been for the past 25 years??
(Good thing you can't) 