My name is Catherine Morgan, I'm a writer, nurse, mother, and founder of "The Political Voices of Women". This is a blog dedicated to inform and educate the voting public through articles, ideas, and links. It's also a way of giving myself a voice, rather than just sitting back and watching politics and my opinion go by.
--- I am now also at the Care2 Election Blog.
IS IT O.K. TO CRITICIZE THE PRESIDENT? — by Catherine Morgan
It seems to me that we have taken political correctness to an extreme that Roosevelt himself may have considered “wrong” and “morally treasonable”. To understand what I mean by this you need to read this quote by President Roosevelt, a Republican President.
“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”
“Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star”, 149 May 7, 1918
This was what President Roosevelt thought during a time that he himself was being harshly criticized. So, when I hear people saying that if we criticize President Bush, or question his policies we are “emboldening the terrorists”, it makes me a little angry. It seems to me that freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our country, and we can not allow anyone to take away our voice.
The NIE Report — Another Example of How The Media Cannot Be Trusted To Report The Truth To The American People — by Catherine Morgan
This National Intelligence Estimate (released this week and written by the nation’s top intelligence officers) is intended as a best guess of our biggest worries. … It warns that a tribal area in Pakistan has become a safe haven for terrorists. … It suggests that Hezbollah may be more likely to consider attacking the United States. And that violent Islamic extremists inside the USA may become ’sufficiently radicalized that they will view the use of violence here as legitimate.’ — read more
The NIE report that came out earlier this week, is more evidence that Bush has failed in his attempt to keep America safe from terrorism by fighting in Iraq. The war in Iraq has proven to have increased the terror threat that we face at home, not reduce it.
BE AFRAID, BE VERY VERY AFRAID. - Also know as the GOP Election Slogan.
President Bush speaks about the war on terror as he delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony in New London, Conn., Wednesday, May 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
This is the most infuriating thing I have heard, even more infuriating than the Democrats giving into Bush on the war. Fear, fear, fear. We must all live in fear - At least until the next presidential election. Because everyone knows the Republicans are the only ones that can protect America. Isn’t it funny how conveniently timed these threats and terror alerts are? Get your duct tape and gas masks ready, we are in for a long election season.
In remarks made Wednesday to the Associated General Contractors of America, President Bush defined his view of the success in Iraq that he hopes to accomplish.
“Either we’ll succeed, or we won’t succeed,” he said. “And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not, no violence.”
I don’t need to remind you who al Qaeda is. Al Qaeda is the group that plot and planned and trained killers to come and kill people on our soil. The same bunch that is causing havoc in Iraq were the ones who came and murdered our citizens. I’ve got to tell you, that day deeply affected my decision-making. And I vowed that I would do anything that I possibly could within the law to protect the American citizens against further attack by these ideologues, by these murderers.
And so while I’m talking about al Qaeda in Iraq, I fully recognize what happens in Iraq matters here at home. Despite their tremendous brutality, they failed to provoke the large-scale sectarian reprisals that al Qaeda wants. The recent attacks are not the revenge killings that some have called a civil war. They are a systematic assault on the entire nation. Al Qaeda is public enemy number one in Iraq. And all people of that society ought to come together and recognize the threat, unite against the threat and reconcile their differences.
For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it’s whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11. I strongly believe it’s in our national interest to stay in the fight. (Applause.)
As you watch the developments in Baghdad, it’s important to understand that we will not be able to prevent every al Qaeda attack. When a terrorist is willing to kill himself to kill others, it’s really hard to stop him. Yet, over time, the security operation in Baghdad is designed to shrink the areas where al Qaeda can operate, it’s designed to bring out more intelligence about their presence, and designed to allow American and Iraqi forces to dismantle their network.
We have a strategy to deal with al Qaeda in Iraq. But any time you say to a bunch of cold-blooded killers, success depends on no violence, all that does is hand them the opportunity to be successful. And it’s hard. I know it’s hard for the American people to turn on their TV screens and see the horrific violence. It speaks volumes about the American desire to protect lives of innocent people, America’s deep concern about human rights and human dignity. It also speaks volumes about al Qaeda, that they’re willing to take innocent life to achieve political objectives.
The terrorists will continue to fight back. In other words, they understand what they’re doing. And casualties are likely to stay high. Yet, day by day, block by block, we are steadfast in helping Iraqi leaders counter the terrorists, protect their people, and reclaim the capital. And if I didn’t think it was necessary for the security of the country, I wouldn’t put our kids in harm’s way.
We’re seeing significant progress from our new strategy in Anbar province, as well. That’s a largely Sunni area west of Baghdad. It’s been a hotbed for al Qaeda and insurgents. According to a captured al Qaeda document — in other words, according to what al Qaeda has said — and by the way, in a war to protect America, it’s really important to take the words of the enemy very seriously — according to this document, the terrorists’ goal is to take over Anbar and make it their home base in Iraq. According to the document we captured — that is a document from al Qaeda, the same people that attacked us in America — their objective is to find safe haven in this part of Iraq. They would bring them closer — that would bring them closer to their objective, their stated objective, which is to destroy the young Iraqi democracy, to help them build a radical Islamic empire based upon their dark ideology, and launch new attacks on the United States, at home and abroad. That’s what they’ve said they want to do. — read entire speech
President Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former CIA director George Tenet during a ceremony at the White House, December 14, 2004. Tenet faced accusations of hypocrisy from former espionage officials on Monday for not speaking out earlier against the White House’s push to invade Iraq, which he describes critically in his new memoir. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
NEW YORK — The backlash has built up even before the official release of former CIA Director George Tenet’s memoir, with criticism about his version of the run-up to the Iraq war, interrogation techniques and other events.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday disputed Tenet’s claim that the Bush administration, before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, never had a serious debate about whether Iraq posed an imminent threat or whether to tighten existing sanctions. — read full article
I don’t feel sorry for Tenet. He has a book deal, while the troops and their families are really suffering.
BAGHDAD - Five U.S. troops died in weekend attacks, pushing the death toll past 100 in the deadliest month for American forces since December, the military said Monday as a wave of violence battered Iraqi civilians including a suicide bombing at a Shiite funeral. — read full article
An internal Justice Department report accuses the FBI of underreporting its use of the Patriot Act to force businesses to turn over customer information in terrorism cases, according to officials familiar with its findings. (AP GRAPHIC)
“We strive to exercise our authorities consistent with the privacy protections and civil liberties that we are sworn to uphold,” Mueller said. “Anything less will not be tolerated. While we’ve already taken some steps to address these shortcomings, I am ordering additional corrective measures to be taken immediately.”…………….
Over the entire three-year period, the audit found the FBI issued 143,074 national security letters requesting customer data from businesses.
The FBI vastly underreported the numbers. In 2005, the FBI told Congress that its agents in 2003 and 2004 had delivered only 9,254 national security letters seeking e-mail, telephone or financial information on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents over the previous two years. – read full article
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What do you think about this? Is anyone actually surprised that the FBI is misusing The Patriot Act? I would be surprised, well shocked, if they were not misusing The Patriot Act. Quite frankly, I think as time goes by, these abuses will increase exponentially, and the abuses will become more severe than what we are finding out about today.
Our government has us all scared, and most of us will allow abuse of this law, simply because we want to be “safe”. Why should we care, as long as the abuse isn’t against “us”? I would say, you don’t need to care…..but it does look like a slippery slope to me.
Just some “food for thought”…………If we had had The Patriot Act before 9/11, would the men that caused this tragedy been successful? I venture to guess, it would just have been one more way the FBI compiled useful and useless information, but in no way was able to stop what happened on 9/11. I think current events at U.S. Airports, are evidence enough that we need better security at our airports.
Even if we allow the FBI to violate every persons personal information that they would like to, if the airports do not have adequate means to stop a terrorist or his/her luggage from getting on a plane, we are simply not safe. I think it is very naive, for any of us to believe, that by spying on Americans (innocent or guilty), we are going to stop terrorism. Maybe “naive” is too strong a word…let’s just say “stupid“, sorry…..naive. My twelve year old daughter could explain to the FBI, why trying to catch someone based on phone records, is like finding a needle in a haystack.
The chances of the FBI actually stopping terrorists before they commit a crime is not going to be as effective as actually having a 100% effective screening and protection at airports to catch people who are an “actual” threat. Even “not so smart” thieves know better than to pick a house to rob that is fully secured with top of the line security systems, they go to the “not so secure appearing” house. As long as our security is lacking at our airports (and it is), we are not safe……we may have a false sense of security, but we are not safe.
WASHINGTON(CNN) – A bill to enact the 9/11 Commission recommendations — one of the first bills passed by the new Democratic-led House of Representatives — will cost $21 billion over five years if enacted into law, congressional budget officials said Friday.
The House passed the bill January 9 during its heralded “first 100 hours” of the new Congress. The Senate has not yet voted on the measure.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would also allow the Transportation Security Administration to collect nearly $1.3 billion in fees from airline passengers. The money would be spent for airport security improvements.
Rep. Peter King, R-New York., the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, said the report validated his opposition to the bill.
“This bill was rushed to the floor without the Democratic leadership giving us any indication of its massive cost — and now we know why,” King said in a written statement. “Had we known [the cost] before the bill was brought to the floor, it would have been a different story.”
Democrats said the bill was needed to fulfill the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
The bill requires the federal government to screen cargo on passenger aircraft, authorize grants to improve police and fire communications, require shipping cargo containers to be scanned before entering the United States and take numerous other steps to improve security.
It seems to me that what we (our government), is spending on homeland security, is essentially, peanuts, compared to, the 378 billion dollars already spent or allocated to the war in Iraq (or 225 million dollars per day).
How can any politician say, that spending 378 billion dollars in Iraq is acceptable, but spending 21 billion dollars to protect or own country is too “massive” a cost?
I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t feel like we are much safer than we were on 9/11. What is it going to take, for our government, to actually take steps that will protect us? Does anyone really think, that there is any chance, that even if we win the war in Iraq, we will be safe?
Tell me how you feel. Are we spending too much $$$ on homeland security? Or too little? Do you feel any safer? Do you think if we win the war in Iraq, we will be safe?
All comments will be posted, regardless of your position on this debate, just as long as your comment is written respectfully. Thank you.
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Let us know what you think on some of the other issues in politics today…..just go the the WHAT DO YOU THINK? link.
President Bush speaks about the war on terror as he delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony in New London, Conn., Wednesday, May 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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