And all the sons of Congressmen! And the two adorable 100 Proof Bush daughters! (Ginna and Tonic)

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H.L. Mencken

“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.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them.  There is almost no kind of outrage - - - -torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians - - - - which does not change its moral color when it is committed by our side.  The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
-George Orwell

"Under the Bush administration, openness and accountability have been replaced by secrecy and evasion of responsibility. They abuse their power, conceal their actions from the American people, and refuse to hold officials accountable."
-Senator Edward M. Kennedy

“NEVER, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin.

To see it in our power to make a world happy – to teach mankind the art of being - so to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe, a character hitherto unknown, and to have, as it were, a new creation entrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too gratefully received.

She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. Not beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy in her own land, and under her own vine, the sweet of her labors, and the reward of her toil. In this situation, may she never forget that a fair national reputation is of as much importance as independence. That it possesses a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even enemies civil. That it gives a dignity which is often superior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and splendor fail.

It would be a circumstance ever to be lamented and never to be forgotten, were a single blot, from any cause whatever, suffered to fall on a revolution, which to the end of time must be an honor to the age that accomplished it: and which has contributed more to enlighten the world, and diffuse a spirit of freedom and liberality among mankind, than any human event (if this may be called one) that ever preceded it.”
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis New York, December 9, 1783

“George W.Bush is deeply interested in Deep Space Exploration. His next project will be to circle Uranus and search for Klingons…..”
-Dallas Herald

“Once a Republican, always a coprophile…:”
-Mother Theresa

America’s Enemies!

There are four entities who represent the most dangerous enemies to American liberties since George III.

They are:

1.             The Neocons or Likudists who owe their personal allegiance to another country and now completely control our foreign policy. They lied and deceived us into the Iraq war and are demanding that more and more American soldiers die to preserve their own country and ideals.

2.             The Christian Evangelical right who is trying to force the United States into becoming a theocracy under their rule. They know in their hearts that they alone can restructure a secular humanist America into their idea of Heaven on Earth.

3.             An element of American society that call themselves Patriots and are obsessively militaristic and great admirers of the corporate or fascistic state. Many of these have been very minor members of the American military and as a counterbalance to their reserve or rear area tours of duty, are rabidly in favor of draconian military action, the bloodier the better. Usually these drumbeaters are too old, or too fat, to fight and have no sons of draft age.

4.             George W. Bush, who is the worst president in the history of the United States and directly responsible for the huge death tolls in Iraq, is determined to rule the United States until God puts a stop to him and is even more determined to force the American people into becoming obedient, Christian and self-sacrificing lemmings who worship at his shrine and march in step.

Recommended reading

We gather information, on a daily basis, from many websites. There are a number of publications that are well worth viewing for their intelligent reporting of national and international news. All of those sources, listed below, are daily newspapers with the exception of the Asia Times. The latter is a very well written site with in-depth articles that are worth reading.

The New York Times:  www.nytimes.com
The Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com
The Christian Science Monitor: www.csmonitor.com
The Guardian: www.guardian.co.uk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:  www.seattlepi.nwsource.com
Asia Times www.atimes.com

Note: Very little of the information in this edition of TBR news has come from the mainline American media. It is just not there. Most of it has come from foreign sources and the Internet. Most of our sources can be seen on the main page.

The Voice of the White House

August 21, 2005: “Aside from the growing catastrophe in Iraq, we are now sinking deeply into a disastrous economic swamp as far as oil is concerned. The world-wide depletion of oil reserves, the failure of the U.S. to get effective control of the huge Iraqi reserves, the growing need for oil in the rest of the world, especially China, Bush’s bullying and threatening attitude towards once-friendly oil producers and worst of all, the dawning realization on the part of Muslim Fundamentalist terrorists that the U.S. is growing every more dependant on oil to prevent serious public eruptions makes refineries, tankers, pipelines etc very tempting and easily attacked targets. Here is some information about our current stocks of oil held by the Government and under the direct control of the President:

•                 The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil. The federally-owned oil stocks are stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.

•                 Decisions to withdraw crude oil from the SPR are made by the President under the authorities of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. In the event of an energy emergency, SPR oil would be distributed by competitive sale. Although the SPR has been used for emergency purposes only once (during Operation Desert Storm in 1991), its formidable size (more than 600 million barrels) makes it a significant deterrent to oil import cutoffs and a key tool of foreign policy.

•                 Today, the SPR has the capacity to hold 727 million barrels. It is the largest emergency oil stockpile in the world. Together, the facilities and crude oil represent a more than $21 billion investment in energy security ($4 billion for facilities and $17 billion for crude oil).

•                 On November 13, 2001, President George W. Bush ordered the SPR to be filled to approximately 700 million barrels by continuing to use the Royalty-in-Kind program carried out jointly between the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior. The royalty-in-kind program applies to oil owed to the U.S. government by producers who operate leases on the federally-owned Outer Continental Shelf. These producers are required to provide from 12.5 percent to 16.7 percent of the oil they produce to the U.S. government. The government can either acquire the oil itself or receive the equivalent dollar value

•                 Strategic Petroleum Reserve Inventory for August 11, 2005

Current Inventory
Sweet  284.6 million bbls
Sour    414.9 million bbls
Total   699.5 million bbls
Royalty-in-Kind to be Delivered 1.3 million bbls

While none of this is secret, it is also not generally known to the public. The price of oil to the United States is sharply escalating, partially because of the natural trends of the marketplace but also because of the aura of fear and hatred that Bush has deliberately fostered. He does not understand that if we were not so tied up militarily in Iraq, we would have plenty of troops available to enforce our acquisition of desperately needed oil. Try as he and his supporters may, the resistance in Iraq is far too effective and far too strong to permit U.S. exploitation of the huge Iraqi reserves (one of the main reasons for the war) and we could not invade Venezuela, also a strong desire on Bush’s part, because, frankly we do not have the troops. Bush doesn’t care what the UN or the rest of the world would say about such naked and greedy aggression but the vital troops are not there. In point of fact, governors of mainly Republican states are wailing that Bush has stripped their State National Guards of warm bodies so that in the anticipated civil disturbances (skyrocketing oil, diesel fuel and heating oil prices followed by problems with truckers delivering food and supplies throughout the country because of exorbitant fuel prices) appearing on the horizon, there won’t be any force to deal with them except local police and, maybe, a mobilized fascistic Republican storm troopers made up of right wing nuts. Bush cannot recall troops now, as necessity dictates, because we are literally on the ropes in Iraq and Bush’s weak personality precludes him from taking even one step backwards. He feels, his aides have said repeatedly, that this would make him look “weak” (which he is) and this he will never permit.

All reputable foreign oil industry sources state that oil will certainly go as high as $100 a barrel but even if it does and riots ensue here as outraged citizens can no longer drive to work, to school, to shop, Bush has said categorically that he will never, never release a drop of the oil in the reserves. The military have put a stop to this saying that any future military action plans against Iran or North Korea, now in the works, would be useless without oil reserves to draw upon.”