BottleOfBlog

Bush Warns Democrats To Stop Him Before He Creates Accounting Nightmare That Will Never Be Accounted For

WASHINGTON - President Bush sternly pressed Democrats to approve money to fund the Iraq war "without strings and without delay" before leaving town for the Christmas holidays, something congressional leaders have already indicated they will not do…

Bush said this will push the Pentagon toward an accounting nightmare and affect the military's ability to do its job protecting the country.

"The American people expect us to work together to support our troops. That's what they want," Bush said Thursday after spending two hours meeting at the Pentagon with military leaders. "They do not want the government to create needless uncertainty for those defending our country and uncertainty for their families. They do not want disputes in Washington to undermine our troops in Iraq just as they're seeing clear signs of success."

Goddam right! The American people have troops in the field. Those troops need to be funded. Their lives depend on it. Congress needs to send Bush a bill funding those troops, and Bush needs to sign it. And no political wrangling should get in the way. Why the hell hasn't Congress sent Bush a bill funding those troops so Bush can sign it?

The House has passed a $50 billion bill that would keep war operations afloat for several more months, but set a goal of bringing most troops home by December 2008. After Bush threatened to veto the measure, Senate Republicans have blocked it. In turn, Democratic leaders say they won't send Bush a war spending bill this year at all.

Oh. So the Democratically controlled House passed a bill funding the troops. But, because of a political dispute, Bush threatened to veto it. And then Republicans in the Senate, because of a political dispute, blocked the funding of American troops in the field.

And now Bush is sternly pressing Democrats to stop holding up the funding of our troops because of political disputes.

I guess he wants Nancy Pelosi to put impeachment back on the table so we can remove the biggest obstacle to funding our troops. Though, Democrats can't do anything about the obstructionist Senate Republicans until 2008.

In response, Pentagon officials began saying the military will have to take drastic steps next month if it doesn't get the money soon. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered the Army and Marine Corps to begin planning for a series of expected cutbacks, including civilian layoffs, termination of contracts and reduced operations at bases.

Bush reiterated that theme at the Pentagon, backed by Vice President Dick Cheney and military leaders.

"Congress limits how much money can be moved from one account to the other," Bush said. "Secretary Gates has already notified Congress that he will transfer money from accounts to fund other activities of the military services to pay for current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — and no more money can be moved."

That's a good point! No, that's a great point! Democrats who have voted to fund our troops had better "work together" with Bush and the Republicans who have blocked funding for our troops or else the Pentagon is going to have an "accounting nightmare"! If the Democrats don't "work together" with Republicans by giving the Republicans everything they want, the Pentagon will not be able to shift money from one account to another.

Because Congress won't let the Pentagon do that--just shift money around from account to account without any kind of accountability. And the Pentagon wouldn't even think about doing that because it's so meticulous about its accounting and keeping Congress appraised of just what exactly the Department of Defense is doing with the four hundred billion dollars a year Americans give it.

The last thing the Pentagon wants or needs is some accounting nightmare caused by Congress!

The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.

Oops!

But that was years ago. I'm sure the CEO styled management Dream Team of the Bush Administration fixed that!

WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be-released audit will show that at least $8.8 billion in Iraqi money that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, FOX News has confirmed.

D'oh!

(02-16) 04:00 PST Washington -- More than $10 billion of the money paid to military contractors for Iraq reconstruction and troop support was either excessive or unsupported by documents, including $2.7 billion for contracts held by Halliburton or one of its subsidiaries, Congress was told Thursday.

What?

Ten years after Congress ordered federal agencies to have outside auditors review their books, neither the Defense Department nor the newer Department of Homeland Security has met even basic accounting requirements, leaving them vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse…

And the Defense Department, with a $460 billion budget this fiscal year, has never even come close to passing. Because that department makes up at least 20 percent of all federal spending, the entire federal government also has failed its audits since the congressional mandate took effect…

Robert Dacey, chief accountant for the Government Accountability Office, characterized the financial affairs of the two departments as “a pretty consistent mess…”

At last count, accounting at the Defense Department is performed in 4,000 different business systems, Jonas said. And in its most recent audit, the department acknowledged that it had more than $270 million worth of unsupported accounting entries.

Jonas noted that there also have been what she called “significant successes.” In 2001, the Pentagon had hundreds of inoperable accounting systems and no data standards. This year, she said, it received a clean audit opinion on $215 billion, or 15 percent, of its assets and $967 billion, or 49 percent, of its liabilities.

That's right. Fifteen percent of the DOD's assets and nearly half of it's liabilities have been properly accounted for.

And President Deficit N. Bankruptcy wants to argue that strict Congressional oversight of the Department of Defense is a bunch of red tape in the way of our troops receiving the funding he threatened to veto if Republicans didn't block it.

I almost wish Bush could re-select himself for another four years. It would be horrible. The cost to our country in money, prestige, and progress would be inestimable.

But, after four more years of this cretin, not only would the despicable, immoral, and perverted modern Republican party be ground out of existence, but Americans might finally, fifty years after they were told by an honest to God military hero on live television, realize that they are getting ripped off, year in and year out, by the very people they put unquestioning trust in.

And they might also realize, once again, why the people who founded this country put all that shit in the Constitution about never trusting your gubment.

In English It Means "Magic Eight Ball"

JERUSALEM, Nov. 10 — The American-sponsored Middle East peace conference expected by the end of the month looks to be thin on content, mostly serving as a stage to begin formal negotiations on a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli and American officials have been so busy dampening expectations that they are not even calling the event a conference anymore, instead referring to it merely as a “meeting”…

The long buildup to Annapolis, together with Ms. Rice’s many trips to the region, have given birth to a new verb in Israeli government circles: “lecondel,” meaning, to come and go for meetings that produce few results. The word is based on Ms. Rice’s first name.

And, once again, she's the rock star of this administration.

Well, I guess a bunch of lecondels are better than a "lebushel", meaning to come to Washington and produce appalling results.

And Ye Shall Not Know The Truth As The Truth Isn't Really All That Fucking Important To The March Of Freedom Or Having A Fabulous Freedom Institute

Nov. 8, 2007 | Conventional wisdom has it that George W. Bush became a "born-again" Christian in the summer of 1985, after extended private talks with Reverend Billy Graham. As recounted by Bush himself in "A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House," a ghostwritten autobiography prepared for the 2000 presidential campaign, one evening at Walker's Point, the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, Graham, spiritual confidant to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan and a close friend of the Bush family, sat down by the fireplace and gave a talk. "I don't remember the exact words," Bush wrote. "It was more the power of his example. The Lord was so clearly reflected in his gentle and loving demeanor…"

"Over the course of that weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul, a seed that grew over the next year," [Bush] continued. "He led me to the path, and I began walking."

There's just one problem with Bush's account of his conversion experience: it's not true. For one thing, when Billy Graham was asked about the episode by NBC's Brian Williams, he declined to corroborate Bush's account. "I've heard others say that [I converted Bush], and people have written it, but I cannot say that," Graham said. "I was with him and I used to teach the Bible at Kennebunkport to the Bush family when he was a younger man, but I never feel that I in any way turned his life around."

Even if one doesn't accept Graham's candid response, there's another good reason to believe that the account in Bush's book is fiction. Mickey Herskowitz, a sportswriter for the Houston Chronicle who became close friends with the Bush family and was originally contracted to ghostwrite "A Charge to Keep," recalled interviewing Bush about it when he was doing research for the book. "I remember asking him about the famous meeting at Kennebunkport with the Reverend Billy Graham...." Herskowitz said. "And you know what? He couldn't remember a single word that passed between them."

Herskowitz was so stunned by Bush's memory lapse that he began prompting him. "It was so unlikely he wouldn't remember anything Billy Graham said, especially because that was a defining moment in his life. So I asked, 'Well, Governor, would he have said something like, "Have you gotten right with God?'"

According to Herskowitz, Bush was visibly taken aback and bristled at the suggestion. "No," Bush replied. "Billy Graham isn't going to ask you a question like that."

Herskowitz met with Bush about twenty times for the project and submitted about ten chapters before Bush's staff, working under director of communications Karen Hughes, took control of it. But when Herskowitz finally read "A Charge to Keep" he was stunned by its contents. "Anyone who is writing a memoir of George Bush for campaign purposes knew you had to have some glimpse of what passed between Bush and Billy Graham," he said. But Hughes and her team had changed a key part. "It had Graham asking Bush, 'George, are you right with God?'"

In other words, Herskowitz's question to Bush was now coming out of Billy Graham's mouth. "Karen Hughes picked it off the tape," said Herskowitz.

Only Karen Hughes and George W. Bush could tell a lie about finding the truth.

And don't forget: George W. Bush sent Karen Hughes, who happily lied about Billy Graham to a largely Christian country, to Muslim countries to convince those people of America's honesty.

These people could only exist in real life.

Writers of parody and satire, and ridiculous fiction would be too embarrassed to ask their readers to believe that such horrendously stupid and incompetent, and dishonest, and malevolent characters could actually impossibly wind up in The White House.

Good Gawd

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday publicly held U.S. debt breached $9 trillion this week for the first time ever, just five weeks after Congress had raised the statutory borrowing limit…

The increase in the debt limit is the fifth since Bush took office in January 2001. The U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of his presidency…

The Greatest Tax Cut Evah!

Seven years ago, the government was running a 230 billion dollar and growing surplus. By 2012--only four years from now--our national debt--our entire national debt--would have been paid off. Each and every American taxpayer would have enjoyed a tax cut from getting rid of the 300 billion dollar plus interest payments on our debt.

Instead?

After eight years of doing our part, working hard, paying our taxes, when Bush leaves office, each and every American taxpayer is going to be rewarded by owing nearly twice as much as when Bush literally took office.

That's some tax cut.

In approving the debt limit increase, Congressional lawmakers said the $850 billion increase should be large enough to allow the government to continue borrowing into 2009, well beyond next year's presidential and congressional elections.

Oh, thank goodness! I'd hate to think our elected representatives would actually have to answer questions about the trillion dollars they just borrowed in our name during an election year! That would be so distracting from the more important issues of taxing whores, burning flags, speaking English, and making little children recite a pledge they don't even understand.

The modern Gee Oh Pee is horrendous. It's a nation wrecking machine. There's no denying that.

But you've got to admit: the modern Democratic party is weak and lazy, and either too dumb or too scared to fight.

In eight years of fiscally conservative leadership, the Gee Oh Pee added four trillion dollars of debt to American taxpayers. Those were eight years under a "CEO" styled fiscally conservative Republican president. Six out of eight of those years were under a fiscally conservative Republican House, which, under Bill Clinton pretended to want a Constitutional Amendment to balance the budget. And four of those eight years--the four record setting deficit years--were under a Republican House, Senate, and President.

The Gee Oh Pee, given total control of our government, answered in red and red for once and for all the age old question of which party can taxpayers trust more when it comes to their money.

And Democrats, quite helpfully, took that issue off the table until after next year's Presidential and Congressional elections.

What a bunch of weak sucks.

Rather Than A Good Night's Sleep

I recommend a good fifteen hours of self-help therapy.

Roar like a lion, you magnificent bastards, or get gobbled up like prey.

Comrade Rudy Thanks God For Socialized Medicine...And Socialized Housing...And Socialized--Well, Rudy Loves Socialism!

Nov. 2, 2007 | To a politician pandering to his party's right wing, a role that Rudolph Giuliani plays every day now, citing his own recovery from prostate cancer as an argument against "socialized medicine" must have seemed like pure genius. The radio ad that went up this week in New Hampshire suggests that Giuliani not only faced down the 9/11 terrorists -- or something like that -- but triumphed over a terrifying disease as well, without the help of any government bureaucrats…

Yes, it's another inspiring and instructive story -- or would be, perhaps, if only it were true…

…Giuliani was serving as mayor and participating in a city of New York health plan when his doctor informed him that his prostate biopsy had come up positive. The coverage he enjoyed -- which resembles the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan -- permits all city employees, from trash haulers and subway clerks up to the mayor himself, to select from a variety of insurance providers, and it is not much different from the reform proposals adopted by his nemesis Hillary Clinton…

In the spring of 2000, when Giuliani learned that he had cancer and abruptly dropped out of the Senate race against Sen. Clinton, he was enrolled as a member of GHI, one of the two gigantic HMO groups that provide care for most city workers (the other is known as HIP). He underwent surgery and radiation at Mount Sinai Hospital, a prestigious institution that participates in the GHI plan, which means that his costs were largely underwritten by city taxpayers.

So does that qualify as "socialized medicine"?

At GHI and HIP, the city government pays the premiums for its hundreds of thousands of enrolled members, of course…

Rudy's such a joke.

He spent his entire adult life working jobs provided to him by the government, enjoying government provided healthcare, and his comfort and well being in his old are assured by government provided pensions.

He even spent eight years of his life living in government provided housing.

As one brilliant--not to mention extremely handsome--blogger recently pointed out:

In the last forty years, Rudy Giuliani, by himself, has benefitted more from the federal government than my entire extended family has in one hundred and fifty years.

In fact, there is very nearly no one alive in this country today who has been better taken care of for an entire lifetime by the government than Rudy Giuliani.

Except maybe Dick Cheney.

But he hates big government, too.

And now, after a lifetime of ferociously sucking on the government tit, Rudy is campaigning for one more government job, with more of that awesome government provided healthcare, and another government provided pension, along with government provided room, board, and extravagent travel and entertainment allowances.

And how is he campaigning? By running against the losers and the wimps who want a "nanny state" to provide them with government jobs, and government healthcare, and government pensions.

Is this guy a piece of shit, or what?

The best I can figure is that Rudy opposes taxpayer money actually being spent on taxpayers because he honestly believes all taxpayer money should be spent on him.

After eight disasterous years of an incompetent fraud like Bush, I just can not fathom how Republicans can line up behind another guy who's a total, incompetent fraud.

How can anybody take this guy seriously?

Oh, that's right! Because his foreign policy team is made up of people who were too crazy and extreme to get jobs in the Bush administration.

We better all take him very seriously.

Or five years from now? The Bush administration is going to look like Pax Americana, with Einstein as our Caesar.

Yer Librul Media

He was nowhere to be found on stage, but Rudy Giuliani's campaign shrewdly rushed to declare victory after Tuesday night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia - chiefly because the former New York mayor emerged as the preferred whipping boy among the seven Democratic rivals.

Giuliani's name came up a few times, most notably when Sen. Joseph Biden called Giuliani the "most under-qualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency...I mean, think about it. Rudy Giuliani. There's...there's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11."

Those lines played to laughs, and a member of Giuliani's team fired back quickly Tuesday night, noting that Giuliani, unlike Biden, "rarely reads prepared speeches, and when he does he isn't prone to ripping off the text from others," a reference to stump speeches Biden gave in 1987 that lifted heavily from campaign talks by the British Labor Party leader at the time.

But Biden's remarks were significant less for their humor than what they dramatized: Giuliani has become the Republican the Democrats seem to worry most about of late.

Hahahahahaha!

Joe Biden pantsed Rudy on national television. First, Biden gave Rudy a melvin. Then, he pantsed him, then he spanked him, then he lifted him up by his ankles and dipped him in the Boy's room toilet for a good ol' fashioned swirly.

And, for the rest of the day, everyone laughed and pointed as Rudy walked around with a wet head, a sore ass, and the elastics of his underpants up around his armpits.

You don't believe me? Watch:

Christ Almighty! If a Republican laid that line on a Democrat? It would be over. Every freaking gibbering monkey on every single network and cable new show would be breaking their necks bobbing in agreement about how that was The Quip of This Election.

Every dipshit pundit would be falling all over themselves to pronounce that quip "Endgame!" "Devestating!" "Hilarious!"

Twenty seven years ago, Sainted Ronny Rotten badly recited his lameass and overly rehearsed, "There you go again" and your librul media still can't stop talking about what genius that was!

And, here, Biden says something that's not only actually funny, but it's true, and what does your librul media have to say about that?

Rudy wins!

People, there is no librul media.

There are a few very, very wealthy and powerful men and women, who own 90% of the equity in this country, and they send 90% of your representatives to Washington, and they live and operate outside the laws of the rabble you and I call The People.

And, oh, by the way, they own all your television stations, and they own all your radio stations, and they own all your magazines and newspapers.

And they aim to keep it that way. Forever and ever and ever.

The Heir To Ronny Rotten

The CIR/Salon investigation reveals that the whistle-blower system -- first created by Congress decades ago and proclaimed as a cornerstone of government transparency and accountability -- has in reality enabled the punishment of employees who speak out. It has had a chilling effect, dissuading others from coming forward. The investigation examined nearly 3,600 whistle-blower cases since 1994, and included dozens of interviews and a review of confidential court documents. Whistle-blowers lose their cases, the investigation shows, nearly 97 percent of the time. Most limp away from the experience with their careers, reputations and finances in tatters.

Legal experts and lawmakers say the system is badly in need of reform. In fact, new legislation to strengthen whistle-blower protections has been moving through Congress this year, with strong bipartisan support, and is expected to come before the Senate this session. But in the latest setback to the system, the Bush White House has vowed to veto the legislation, citing among its criticisms a risk to national security…

Of course! The cornerstone to gubment transparency and accountability, and the nasty little aristocrat we call President of the United States thinks its a risk our national security. He'd veto a blessed bipartisan bill to protect American citizens who tell the truth.

This authoritarian little creep thinks our national security would be threatened if Americans could hear the truth about their government.

Doesn't this arrested case of intellectual development know that "national security" is short for the preservation of a society free from tyrany? And doesn't he know that no society can be free from tyrany when its government can punish its citizens for speaking the truth?

You bet your ass he knows that. World's Worst History Major or not.

And The Founding Fathers knew that, too. That's why, when they wrote down a Bill of Rights, the first one on the list protected Americans from retribution from the gubment for exercising free speech.

You know who else knew that? If you believe the gospel of John, the bipartisan baby Jesus. Chapter 8, verse 32. Honest, you could look it up.

What kind of a man--what kind of an American--thinks he's defending and protecting the security of a free nation when he opposes the right of The People to know what their representative government is doing???

What kind of an American thinks its in the public interest to protect and conceal governmental waste and corruption, and criminality?

I'll tell you! A Reagan Republican!

In the wake of Watergate, Congress passed the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. It established the Office of Special Counsel, with a staff of investigators to look into complaints of retaliation against employees who spoke out…

[T]he Federal Circuit Court in Washington [is] the only court that can preside over appeals of whistle-blower cases beyond the Merit Systems Protection Board…

The Federal Circuit Court's longest sitting jurist, Haldane Robert Mayer, was appointed by Ronald Reagan. Prior to his appointment, Mayer had been the acting U.S. special counsel -- the chief whistle-blower investigator. But Mayer resigned from that position in 1982 after the Office of Special Counsel was accused of holding seminars for political appointees and agency managers -- to teach them how to fire whistle-blowers effectively within the confines of the law. The scandal led Congress to strengthen the whistle-blower law, but it did not stop Reagan from appointing Mayer to the bench.

"Judge Mayer is one of the most significant people in the legal system to translate the whistle-blower law passed in response to his own [alleged] abuses of power," said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project.

George W. Bush and the Sainted Ronald Reagan--a couple of guys who didn't believe in democracy.

Read the article. The funniest thing about all of this is that whistleblower protection, which is a truly great idea, was originally proposed by...Richard Nixon!

Though, of course, Nixon proposed it during a Democratic administration in the fifties, and I'm sure his little rat like mind envisioned it as an awesome tool to encourage frightened Americans to accuse their friends and fellow workers of being communists.

So they could be persecuted by the government.

Is there any greater threat to our "national security" than the modern Gee Oh Pee?