A Day That Will Live in Infamy: President George W. Bush Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln

In light of the ongoing bloodbath in Iraq, VanRamblings thought it appropriate to post this video by Jason Woliner of Jason for America.
As you may recall, President George W. Bush attended the Radio and Television Correspondent’s Dinner on March 24, and made a few jokes about the failure of his administration to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Some might consider his jokes to be in poor taste, when soldiers and civilians are dying for his mistakes. The video referred to above provides a wake-up call as to the human costs of the war in Iraq.
VanRamblings would also like to point out, as others have, that the commentary by Bush at the dinner does not constitute an isolated incident from his Administration — a random incidence of bad taste. The White House, and the Republican Party in general, tends to pride themselves on being the party of national security (remember Bush’s photo-op on the USS Abraham Lincoln—see above—where he dressed in a flight suit to declare victory in the war?). The actions of the Bush administration, however, consistently show them to have little or no respect for the sacrifices made by soldiers and their families.
Click here to discern what VanRamblings thinks Bush should be presenting to the American public in support of his campaign for re-election as U.S. President. A little truth in advertising never hurt anyone, don’t you think?

With more than $100 billion in personal assets among them, the five Waltons — Jim, John, Alice, Sam and Helen — occupy positions six through 10 in the Forbes billionaires rankings, twice as rich as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the richest man in the world.
In this essay, written by Peter Gamble and Glen Ford and published by In These Times, the co-publishers of The Black Commentator not only remind readers of Wal-Mart’s hatred of the public sphere, as expressed through their retail empire’s disregard of non-discrimination laws, wage and workplace safety standards, and the social safety net …

“Wal-Mart is more than just a participant in the low-wage economy: It is the most important single beneficiary of that economy. It uses its economic and political power to extend the scope of the low-wage economy and threatens to extend its business model into other sectors of the economy, undermining the wages of still more workers.”

The two authors provide compelling evidence that it is the intention of the Wal-Mart family “to destroy public education.” Through their Walton Family Foundation, and working with the Bush administration, the Walton family has set course “to savage and massively disrupt the … public school (system) while positing ‘alternative’ forms of education.”
The “alternative form of education&rdquo to which the Walton’s are partial is the voucher system. Employing a voucher system would only serve to reinforce the gross inequities which exist in the current education system.
Should Bush, and the Wal-Mart family, prove successful in their bid to implement a voucher system, private schools would be under no obligation to accept students, and would likely reject the majority of those with histories of behaviour problems, learning disabilities, or unstable family situations. Deplorable conditions would await those doomed to be left behind in already struggling schools whose financial problems would only be exacerbated, as government monies directed to private voucher system schools would deplete the already scant resources available to our public education system. Make no mistake, if the voucher system arrives in the U.S., it’s only a matter of time before it becomes a part of Canadian educational practice. One more issue for all of us to be concerned about.
Update: Reader Donald Toffaletto sends in this link to an award-winning LA Times story about Wal-Mart’s devastating impact on communities.
Update, April 12: In a story written by Bob Fernandez, and published in the The Philadelphia Inquirer Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, Parkesburg Borough reports the economic decline of their community, and an acceleration of the crime rate. Wal-Mart “has completely changed the way we do business. It has overwhelmed us at times,” says Police Chief John F. Slauch. Municipal taxes from the shopping center don’t come close to covering its policing costs, the chief said.

In the post 9-11 days, following the implementation of the Patriot Act, the United States began a crackdown on corruption in Latin America, arguing that their new anti-corruption policy was long overdue in a region racked by almost endemic public thievery.
Ostensibly, the policy was brought into being in the first place for two reasons. One, for national security reasons, because the U.S. felt that at least a portion of the hundreds of millions of dollars of laundered money that had been embezzled from such countries as Nicaragua and Guatemala might find its way into the hands of terrorists.
And, two, for fiscal reasons, because the Bush admininstration had committed itself to a 50% increase in foreign-aid spending, and didn’t want to see monies wasted on so-called ‘bent regimes’.
Whatever the case, the outcome of the U.S.’ new anti-corruption policy has been to everyone’s benefit (save the grafters and thieves, of course.)

Condoleezza Rice before the Sept. 11 commission this past Thursday. Members include
Jamie S. Gorelick, left, and Thomas H. Kean, right.

The New York Times reports today that Bush was briefed at his ranch in August, 2001 about a planned Osama bin Laden attack in the U.S.

President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday. The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a “closely held intelligence report” that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the President’s briefing in Crawford.

The disclosure contradicts repeated assertions by the White House that the briefing the President received about the Qaeda threat was “historical” in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Journal’s Rittenhouse Review offers a raft of wrap-up editorial reviews on the testimony of U.S. National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice.