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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
You seem to be having a reading comprehension problem. How else can one explain you still citing the August 6 PDB as important after I showed that it was unimportant and based largely on a December 4, 1998 PDB? (The December 4, 1998 PDB and actions taken in response to it apparently were of such little consequence that Richard Clarke made no mention of them in Against All Enemies.)
One more time:
"I really can’t recall it. I think its importance has been overblown. What hap-pens in the presidential daily briefing is that the president asks questions of the briefer, which is usually Tenet on Monday through Friday. And the briefer then takes notes of the questions and goes back to CIA to get papers written to respond to the questions.
"In response to the drumbeat day after day of intelligence that there was going to be an al-Qaida attack, the president apparently said, 'Tell me what al-Qaida could do.' And in response to that the CIA went off and wrote a paper that listed everything possible that al-Qaida could do. It didn’t say we have intelligence that tells us the attack will be here or there, the attack method will be this or that. It was rather a laundry list of possible things they could do."
That was Richard Clarke on the August 6 PDB.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/03/24/clarke/index2.html
You also claimed that I did not read Rice's words right after I posted her words. Once again, here is part of the exchange Rice had with Richard Ben-Veniste before the 9/11 Commission:
RICE: Certainly not. There was nothing reassuring. But I can also tell you that there was nothing in this memo that suggested that an attack was coming on New York or Washington, D.C. There was nothing in this memo as to time, place, how or where. This was not a threat report to the president or a threat report to me.
BEN-VENISTE: We agree that there were no specifics. Let me move on, if I may.
Ben-Veniste himself acknowledged that there were no specifics in the August 6 PDB. Clarke also noted in "Against All Enemies" that there were no "proof or specificity" regarding an imminent al Qaeda attack.
You're making yourself look foolish when you claim the August 6 PDB contained information that it did not contain.
One person did all this damage? Hardly!
Bush caused 9/11? It was on Clinton's watch that Osama Bin Ladin was ignored and allowed to flourish.
Bush caused the Iraq War? Congress was complicit as were the media. And what if Saddam had cooperated instead of being defiant?
Bush caused Katrina? It was an act of God that the corrupt politicians in New Orleans and LA were unprepared to deal with and thus tossed the blame at the federal government.
Bush caused the economic crisis? It is largely the result of the CRA under Carter that was expanded under Clinton and fed into by Fannie, Freddie, and HUD, leading to the mortgage debacle. Note that Bush and fellow Republicans tried to curb Fannie and Freddie but were stymied by Barney Frank and his party. It is also the result of greedy Americans feeding their "wants" excessively via credit and postponing any attempt at saving.
And now Obama wants to throw the country into the depths of debt by spending more money that doesn't exist. He will spin the crisis into a disaster.
Isn't it the Democrats,in charge of Congress, who have been voting for all of the bailout money? This is a real bait and switch article.
To the chagrin of Republicans who helped pass it, Bush's drug plan has turned out to be one of the biggest new entitlement programs of the past 40 years. (It only won enough Republican support to pass Congress because the Bush administration lowballed the actual price.)
To call this an "entitlement program" is really to misuse the term and debase language. The whole damned law was actually deliberately set up as a mammoth combo poison pill - to eviscerate Medicare, while offering a gigantic corporate welfare bonus to Pharma. One Goldman Sachs estimate ca. 2003 put the corporate welfare tally at near $14 billion over ten years, from the time the Part D was implemented in 2006.
This detestable pile of offal also:
a) prevented the government from bargaining for the lowest drug costs as per the VA
b) disallowed the importation of all lower-priced Canadian drugs
c) Proffered "Medicare Advantage" plans as a private (and "superior")alternative to standard Medicare. More than 40% are now on these "Advantage" plans which have but one purpose - to bleed Medicare into insolvency. (Taken as the point when Medicare's liabilities exceed 50% of its assets).
Last year alone, according to a GAO report, the MA plans cost nearly $12 billion more than standard Medicare, and this for a smaller served population.
At this rate, the GAO estimated that unless the MA plans are forced to pay higher premiums, they will power Medicare into insolvency before 2012.
Meanwhile, seniors can't catch a break and have to parse some 1,230 plans each year to try to snag the most eocnomic deals. Each year also the plans change benefits, costs etc. and what may have been a bargain in year one, will force a senior into the "doughnut hole" by year three. Thus, to get this so-called benefit seniors much jump through endless hoops.
In Barbados, meanwhile, a senior already on the National Insurance system (99% of all Bajans) simply signs up on the National Formulary and received all needed drugs for one low copay of $5. Of course, much higher taxes are paid, but the rank and file of Bajans consider it as worth it. They believe - and I agree having lived there - tis better to pay the higher taxes upfront than to try to surmount and keep up with all the medical costs later.
Dr. Nancy Sniderman yesterda a.m. on 'Morning Joe' referred to the "cheapness of Americans" and reluctance to pay higher taxes to support a decent medical care-delivery system for all. She also referred to HMOs as "raping the health delivery system".
That 2003 Medicare bill "rapes" most seniors who sign onto it despite all efforts to avoid it.
It is one of the things Mr. Obama needs to change soonest, if he is serious about controlling "entitlement" spending.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
