Bush's War Crimes - Obama' s Healthcare

It's easy to kick somebody when they're down. George W. Bush has dealt with more difficult issues than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. And I've told my colleagues it's time that we go stand up for the president.-- John Boehner
Bush continues to not only be unapologetic regarding the use of torture during his terms of office, but vocally proud of his actions . He continues to insist that these methods "saved lives" by "exposing missions" when no one else agrees with that estimate and the small amount of information, which did prove to be accurate, could have been found by other means of investigation.

Dick Cheney in an interview at CNN with Candy Crowley (and I hope the last one I have to watch because he is becoming more pitiful than Nixon ever was) is so out of touch with the atrocity of torturing captives, he feels deeply hurt by Obama's suggestion that it was out of line with our Nation's values, and wants an apology from Obama for promoting that statement.
Among the techniques used, which are prohibited by the field manual are:
  • hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes.
  • stripping prisoners naked.
  • forcing prisoners to perform or mimic sexual acts.
  • beating, burning or physically hurting them in other ways.
  • subjecting prisoners to hypothermia or mock executions.
In the interview Cheney is sitting next to his daughter, telling us that not only was torture and rape and putting captives through fake executions perfectly acceptable, but offended that anyone like Obama would say they are not.

Not only did Obama say this, on his second day in office he gave Executive order to the CIA to stop, immediately, all use of torture or rape and any euphemisms they might have for torture and rape.

There are many congressman in office right now who were in office with Bush and Cheney. The Speaker of the House, John Boehner for example, was there through the full terms. John McCain was also there, and when Bush vetoed the law that would prohibit the use of any type of torture, John McCain supported him.

Personally I'm of the opinion that while there are likely some people who get into politics for unethical reasons, I harbor the belief that most people who make it as far as these two men, actually believe in the United States as a country of values, and worthy of respect.

And then March 08, 2008 comes and Bush gets on national radio and drops a bomb on you, which despite what he said before, you really didn't believe was going to happen.
"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. The bill provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and includes the interrogation requirement. It passed the House in December and the Senate last month. 
"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe," the president said.
What a crumbling effect that had to have on men like McCain and Boehner. To be face to face with exactly the world leader you have felt your whole life -- even fought and endured tortures because of those beliefs -- needed to be deposed and brought to justice. Face to face with this person, not as enemy, but as willing benefactor.

The reality of the man we had in the office of President hit the nation hard as well. Bush's approval rating dropped to 25% and did little to rise again afterward. No matter what spin the White House put on the media, we saw the true face, and weren't going for the rhetoric any longer.

Obama's swift actions, direct condemnations and absolute vision of what was and was not acceptable for any reason, under any circumstance, would only drive the sins deeper into the heart, I would venture. And then... a Nobel Peace Prize for doing it.



The Cultural Effects of Bush and War Crimes on the US, Congress and Healthcare

The U.S. experienced the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the national debt doubled (not counting two unfunded wars).
Corporations used tax breaks to move out of the U.S., Wall Street and banks were deregulated, causing the economy to tank and unemployment to soar, leading to one of the worst crashes experienced in 2008
The Patriot Act was enacted, basically destroying the Bill of Rights
Internationally, the U.S. became known as an aggressor nation that used torture for interrogation. In November 2006, a survey taken in Great Britain, Mexico, and Canada showed that they believe Bush is more dangerous than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
When Barack Obama took office, the Republicans — rather than trying to help repair the damage they had caused — made it their goal to make things worse, blame the president and hope voters would return them to power. Thus began a passive/aggressive culture of obstruction which seeks to stop any project of the president's which appeared to have a chance of working, while propagating the perception of his failure, and to hinder any effort toward progress in the area of economic recovery.
The deception, bashing of the president and sickening praise of any opposing foreign leader the president has had to deal with would have, in previous years, been reviled by the nation.
The GOP now says the economy isn’t improving fast enough.
Yet a columnist in Forbes (a publication known for its disdain for the president) reported that Obama is the best economic president in modern times .
The Affordable Care Act has improved access to health care, reduced the rate of increases and removed the pre-existing condition clauses. And it is popular in states that have adopted it. Trying to find a poll which is limited to those states however is next to impossible.Which brought to mind the question of "What would those polls look like?"
The Affordable Care Act is apparently hated by the “Tantrum Party,” the GOP.
The culture of obstruction with its heavy handed demagoguery has been effective, but also easy to spot. For example, Reuters-Ipsos spotted the effects in public opinion and ran a set of polls which would bring the effects to the surface. This poll showed:

  • 44% of Americans supported the law, with 56% against. By party affiliation, 75% of Democrats, 27% of Independents, and 14% of Republicans favored the law overall.
  • 82% favored banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
  • 61% favored allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26.
  • 72% supported requiring companies with more than 50 employees to provide insurance for their employees.
  • 39% supported the individual mandate to own insurance or pay a penalty. By party affiliation, 19% of Republicans, 27% of Independents, and 59% of Democrats favored the mandate.
  • Other polls showed additional provisions receiving majority support include: the creation of insurance exchanges, pooling small businesses and the uninsured with other consumers, so all can take advantage of large group pricing benefits (the community rating); and providing subsidies to individuals and families to make health insurance more affordable.
  • Other specific ideas that were not enacted but which showed majority support included importing prescription drugs from Canada (with its lower, government-controlled prices), limiting malpractice awards, reducing the age to qualify for Medicare, and the Public health insurance option.

The ObamaCare polls show that ObamaCare is less popular than the Affordable Care Act and that the Acts provisions are more popular than either in many cases. Of course they are all the same thing. This shows the more informed the public is about healthcare reform and the less rhetoric and talking points they hear, the more they like what the law actually does.

People who actually have insurance from the Affordable Care Act, feel that it benefits them and have little complaint about their insurance. It is obvious that polls are skewed greatly by those who don't know what the ACA is, what it does, and don't have it.

Also, the law is working in States where it is  being embraced. Propaganda is far less influential when people have actual facts to work with. 

The New York Times has published two recent articles, one a "news" article in the Political section and the other an Editorial, which attempt by tactics of demagoguery and insinuation to align Obama with "considering torture as acceptable" and possibly NOT signing the Geneva Convention Section 7 reaffirmation document early November. It should be noted that the timing of these slanderous articles goes well with the completed CIA report on the Torture President about to be handed to the Senate Committee, and the current ballot polls showing Republicans being challenged and behind. A post will be out soon going through these and using them to find other obvious demagoguery against President Obama.

I'm not a great political historian, so I might be in error, but I have never heard of a president who was directly attacked by his own Congress through media, inaction and obstruction. John Boehner's statements about the President are often flat out lies.

I believe personally that this level of attack was refrained from in the past because the Congressmen still held on to the belief that their positions were positions of trust and that real people with real lives were being affected by their actions or inactions -- and that mattered to them. The more this matter is investigated the more disregard for the needs or desires of the constituents is apparent. A perfect example of this is the 33 attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. A low end estimate puts the cost of these attempts at over $660 million. We paid that. Not  Boehner or McCain or anyone one else driving these attempts into action over and over instead of handling problems like the boarder, immigration and jobs.

And when have you witnessed a president being sued so many times by individual Congressmen, Governors and other government entities? The fact that none of these lawsuits have succeeded should tell us something, but from my Marketing experience I can assure you that the negative influence derived from the implied criminally, is far more influential than the vindication Obama receives from the courts. This is because Obama is the President of the United States. To have the gaul to sue him in court, implies greatly that the person doing so must have been dreadfully wronged to be pushed so far that he set aside his Patriotism and Respect for the office, and attacked the President. That, to most people in this country who still believe that a Congressman is, by definition, patriotic, affects us a great deal. However, on the flip-side, having the President win such an encounter simply goes with our expected outcome, whether the person expects this from a patriotic view point, or from a cynical point of view is irrelevant. His vindication makes little impression on us as a population. What we recall, is that he was sued.

Main Stream news as become less reliable and in the areas of Obama, extremely unreliable. We have been the subjects of a growing dis-information engine which has cost a great deal of time, money and effort to maintain, and it is wearing on its target. Obama's polls are down to 45%.

Imagine what the polls would be if Congress cared about its nation, more than it hated the fact that Bush left them dirty, and Obama, being a Democrat, could not vindicate them.

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