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Dubya, could you please quit your cronyism bullsh$t?
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| MisterOpus1 |
I've concluded Bush is an idiot.
Okay, maybe that's not a big surprise, but you'd think the guy would learn his lesson after appointing one of his big money coughers to a major post (FEMA Director), or his favorite pen-pal personal lawyer as a Supreme Court nominee.
Uhh, nope, no lessons learned at all. What's worse, these posts actually involve foreign intelligence gathering:
| quote: | In the Company of Friends
Bush may be besieged by charges of cronyism, but they don’t seem to have affected his picks for a panel assessing intelligence matters.
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Updated: 6:45 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2005
Nov. 2, 2005 - Controversy continues to rage over spying failures and the mishandling of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Last week it was the indictments in the CIA leak case. This week, it was the extraordinary secret session of the Senate, when Democrats pushed for a new round of inquiries into the misuse of intelligence on Saddam’s regime. So it’s all the more remarkable to see how the White House has just filled a committee overseeing intelligence issues.
President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts. After watching the fate of Michael Brown as head of FEMA and Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee, you might think the president would be wary about the appearance of cronyism—especially with a critical national-security issue such as intelligence. Instead, Bush reappointed William DeWitt, an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president’s campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel. Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush’s 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Other appointees included former Commerce secretary Don Evans, a longtime Bush friend; Texas oilman Ray Hunt; Netscape founder Jim Barksdale, and former congressman and 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton. Like DeWitt, Evans and Hunt have also been longtime Bush fund-raisers, raising more than $100,000 apiece for the president’s campaigns. Barksdale and five other appointees—incoming chairman Stephen Friedman, former Reagan adviser Arthur Culvahouse, retired admiral David Jeremiah, Martin Faga and John L. Morrison—were contributors to the president’s 2004 re-election effort. Friedman also served a year on the intelligence board under President Bill Clinton, who appointed chairmen with very different profiles from Bush's Pioneers: former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William Crowe, former Defense secretary Les Aspin, former House speaker Tom Foley and former GOP senator Warren Rudman. (Clinton did also appoint two donors who gave $100,000 apiece to the Democratic National Committee: New York investment banker Stan Shuman and Texas real estate magnate Richard Bloch.)
According to the White House, the intelligence advisory board offers the president “objective, expert advice” on the conduct of foreign intelligence, as well as any deficiencies in its collection, analysis and reporting. Created during the Eisenhower administration, the board has played a role in determining the structure of the intelligence community. Indeed, its members have been considered important presidential advisers, receiving the highest level security clearance and issuing classified reports and advice to the president.
Yet, as with many federal panels, membership on the board has also been doled out to top campaign contributors and supporters of the president—a move the White House defends since panelists are not required to have significant intelligence experience.
Friedman, a former top economic adviser to Bush during his first term, replaced Jim Langdon, a Washington lobbyist and Bush Pioneer who had been board chairman since February. Langdon himself replaced Brent Scowcroft, a close adviser to Bush’s father who was not reappointed to the panel after he publicly criticized Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
Last summer, Langdon became embroiled in ethical questions after The Washington Post reported that he had helped Akin Gump, the law firm where he works as an energy lobbyist, secure a contract with a Chinese firm seeking to buy Unocal, the California energy company. It’s unclear if Langdon resigned or was simply replaced. A board spokeswoman declined comment, and calls to Langdon’s office were not returned. Last week, Bush named 12 members to the panel, leaving four slots on the committee unfilled. Carol Blair, an administrative officer at the board, tells NEWSWEEK that the positions may remain empty. “The size and scope of the board is really up to the president,” she said. “We don’t know what will happen.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9900921/site/newsweek/ |
Now to be fair, the article does point out posts being apppointed by fundraisers in the past by other presidents like Clinton, but wouldn't it kinda help the little guy out in office to maybe stay away from appointing his cronies these positions, especially NOW when he's kinda under fire about it?
Can't we have a ing rule against cronyism somehow? What the ever happened to qualifications actually entailing knowledge and experience into that given position? |
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| occrider |
He has lots of friends to look out for. Look at this ... somebody, ANYBODY tell me this isn't absurd:
| quote: |
Senate passes bill to slash spending
Measure cuts $35 billion over five years
Friday, November 4, 2005 Posted: 0710 GMT (1510 HKT)
Manage Alerts | What Is This? WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans voted Thursday to cut spending on federal entitlement programs for the first time in eight years, but not the way President Bush wanted.
Even in advance of the 52-47 vote, the White House was stirring up veto talk because one of the programs being chopped is dear to President Bush. About 15 percent of the $35 billion in savings over the next five years would come through eliminating $5.4 billion in subsidies to some regional insurance companies that signed onto Bush's Medicare prescription drug program getting under way in January.
His GOP allies were not pleased by what they regarded as a nit being picked.
"Absurd," said Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire, of the veto threat. After spending all week carrying the White House's water, Gregg added: "I have to catch a plane."
Bush didn't make too much of the veto threat issued in his name, instead thanking the Senate for the cuts to health care programs for the elderly, poor and disabled while leaving food stamps untouched.
"Today, the Senate took an important step forward in cutting the deficit," Bush said in a statement from Mar del Plata, Argentina, where he is attending a conference. "Congress needs to send me a spending-reduction package this year to keep us on track to cutting the deficit in half."
The measure also permits exploratory oil drilling in an Alaskan wilderness area. Five Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate who oppose the drilling voted against the bill. (Full story)
The spending battle now heads to the House, where Republicans are divided over whether to cut more deeply across a broader range of social programs. Also, House GOP leaders may remove a provision that allows the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Senate bill is estimated to trim $36 billion, or 2 percent, from budget deficits forecast at $1.6 trillion over five years. The cuts total $6 billion for the plan's first year, with deficits predicted to exceed $300 billion.
Still, Republicans said the debate was an important moment for their party, which gained control of Congress 11 years ago with promises to balance the budget. The return of intractable deficits and surging spending has caused heartburn for many Republicans over their record on spending and addressing budget deficits.
The long-planned budget measure would make the first cuts to mandatory programs since 1997. These programs account for 55 percent of the budget and include Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies and student loan subsidies.
"This is a major step forward," said Gregg, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. "It is a step towards fiscal responsibility and it is a reflection of the Republican Congress' commitment to pursue the path of fiscal responsibility."
Democrats generally opposed the bill because it allows the oil drilling and increases the deficit when coupled with a $70 billion tax cut bill that they say largely benefits well-off taxpayers.
"Their budget ... actually would make the deficit worse," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada. "That's fiscally irresponsible at any time, but especially when we should be saving to prepare for the baby boomers' retirement."
Yet Republicans did pick up the support of two Democrats, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, whose hurricane-devastated state won emergency aid under the bill.
Also Thursday, the House Budget Committee approved a $54 billion deficit-reduction bill on a party-line vote. But so many GOP lawmakers are unhappy with the bill that Republican leaders acknowledge it will have to be reworked before a final vote in the full House next week.
It appears increasingly likely that protests from moderates will force House GOP leaders to drop the oil drilling plan and revisit it in final compromise talks with the Senate.
The Senate Republicans who opposed the budget bill over the drilling issue were Norm Coleman of Minnesota; Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine; Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island; and Mike DeWine of Ohio.
The bill reflects the influence of moderates who provided swing votes in the full Senate and Senate Finance Committee, which came up with proposals to curb the growth in Medicaid and Medicare.
As a result, the Senate's cuts largely protect beneficiaries of the programs, while turning to drug companies, pharmacies and insurance subsidies for much of the savings. The Agriculture Committee, meantime, dropped plans to cut food stamps.
Still, there is plenty of sugar to go along with the fiscal medicine. The bill contains about $35 billion in new spending to go along with the cuts:
Doctors would get an $11 billion reprieve next year from a scheduled 4.3 percent cut in their Medicare payments.
Dairy farmers won a $1 billion extension of milk income payments.
College students would get more than $8 billion in new grants.
More disabled children would retain Medicaid health coverage.
Senators also approved a $2.7 billion plan by Sens. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, to lower student loan processing fees and provide aid to students and schools in hurricane zones.
It passed after the Senate rejected, 68-31, a bid by conservatives to make much of the aid available through school vouchers.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITIC...t.ap/index.html
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Can you believe that? "Thanks for cutting spending on the poor, elderly, and disabled! Whoah whoah whoah! Those subsidies to insurance companies have to stay!" |
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