Giuliani billed obscure agencies for visits to his mistress.

[Bronco Bob]

More shenanigans from the party of family values.



As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor’s office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing “security.”

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani’s New York Police Department security detail.

Giuliani’s relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his "mistakes."

It’s also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week.

Asked about this article after it was published on Wednesday, Giuliani said: "It's not true."

He said he had 24-hour security during his eight years as mayor because of "threats," adding: " I had nothing to do with the handling of their records, and they were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately."

The practice of transferring the travel expenses of Giuliani's security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light, despite behind-the-scenes criticism from the city comptroller weeks after Giuliani left office.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

{My editorial comment: Folks, note the date, this was just months before 9/11.
If you think Bill's pecker caused 9/11, doesn't Rudy's pecker also have
a part to play in NYC's lack of preparedness to the disaster}

When the city's fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani's aides refused, citing "security," said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

Auditors "were unable to verify that these expenses were for legitimate or necessary purposes," City Comptroller William Thompson wrote of the expenses from fiscal year 2000, which covers parts of 1999 and 2000.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/7073.html

Folks, this guy could be your next president.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

But Patwa Robertson endorsed him, so fear not, fundies - Rudy is down with Jesus!

:thumbs:

[Rigs11]

What can you really expect from this guy? Smarts? I mean isn't this the guy who put the anti-terrorist agency in the world trade center?

[cutthemdown]

I'd vote for Hilliary over this guy. They are both middle of the road liberals but Hilliary is at least a democrat and doesn't hide it. Gulliani I think is not trustworthy and for that reason I don't want him representing the repubs, I'd rather just give the Democrats a shot. I did vote for Clinton over Dole but that was more because I thought things were going pretty good and saw no reason to shake up DC.

[cutthemdown]

What can you really expect from this guy? Smarts? I mean isn't this the guy who put the anti-terrorist agency in the world trade center?

I thought it was a CIA office in the WTC? Gulliani would only have a say in something at the NYC level I doubt he had anything to do with it. Now if it was some city anti terror group he started then I just haven;t heard about that.

[loborugger]

This isnt overly shocking as his minion Kerik did the same thing. Does it surprise anyone?

[Rigs11]

I thought it was a CIA office in the WTC? Gulliani would only have a say in something at the NYC level I doubt he had anything to do with it. Now if it was some city anti terror group he started then I just haven;t heard about that.

My bad, it was the city's emergency control center that he put in there.Hilarious!

[Bronco Bob]

I thought it was a CIA office in the WTC? Gulliani would only have a say in something at the NYC level I doubt he had anything to do with it. Now if it was some city anti terror group he started then I just haven;t heard about that.

No, what he was referring to was that Guiliani put the city's emergency
operations center, where the police and fire departments and other
city departments were supposed to respond to a disaster, in one of the
WTC buildings. Despite the fact that terrorists had bombed the WTC
in 1993. So it wasn't as if no one thought the WTC wasn't a terrorist
target.

[Taco John]

This is effectively the end of Rudy's bid for presidency. He will have a portion of hangers on until the end, but he's officially become as relevant as Sam Brownback in this contest.

[loborugger]

This is effectively the end of Rudy's bid for presidency. He will have a portion of hangers on until the end, but he's officially become as relevant as Sam Brownback in this contest.

I am not sure I agree. Money talks, BS walks, and Rudy has tons of funds. Look for him and his party to bury this while simulatenously assaulting anyone who brings it up. Any candidate that has a lot of name recognition, money, and time can make a thing like this fade away.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I did vote for Clinton over Dole but that was more because I thought things were going pretty good and saw no reason to shake up DC.

:thumbsup:

Same here.

I voted for Gore in 2000 for exactly the same reason.

(Call me crazy, but I guess I still hadn't had my fill of all that peace and prosperity stuff and $1.00 gas.)

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/rudy-drag-dtrump.jpg

[cutthemdown]

No, what he was referring to was that Guiliani put the city's emergency
operations center, where the police and fire departments and other
city departments were supposed to respond to a disaster, in one of the
WTC buildings. Despite the fact that terrorists had bombed the WTC
in 1993. So it wasn't as if no one thought the WTC wasn't a terrorist
target.

oh ok. Yeah too bad Clinton let them attack the first time and did nothing about it.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

oh ok. Yeah too bad Clinton let them attack the first time and did nothing about it.

:bs:

The perps in the first WTC bombing were hunted down, arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed.

BTW, the attack happened just a few weeks into Clinton's first term, but you didn't hear him trying to blame the previous administration.

http://www.izzyguaal.com/ws/pol/bin/2faces/2faces_thmb.jpg

[cutthemdown]

:bs:

The perps in the first WTC bombing were hunted down, arrested, tried, convicted, and jailed.

BTW, the attack happened just a few weeks into Clinton's first term, but you didn't hear him trying to blame the previous administration.

http://www.izzyguaal.com/ws/pol/bin/2faces/2faces_thmb.jpg

yeah but the people that trained them, and sent them were not.

[cutthemdown]

LA if you asked President Clinton if he wished he had went after Bin Laden harder and intervened in Rwanda what do you think he would say? Of course he would say yes. It's hard to be President and they all make mistakes.

Clinton got fooled by N Korea, either that or he looked other way because China gave him so much money. He blew it letting N Korea build Nukes. He blew it in Rwanda. He blew it not going after Bin Laden harder after first WTC bombing.

Clinton did do really good with the economy and in Serbia.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

yeah but the people that trained them, and sent them were not.

Clinton tried harder and came closer to getting them than Bush has - even before 9/11.

And every time Clinton tried to get his CT legislation by the GOP-controlled Congress he was shot down in flames (or accused of "wagging the dog.")

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Clinton got fooled by N Korea, either that or he looked other way because China gave him so much money.

This is nothing but already-discredited right-wing propaganda.

Here are the facts:

By Robert, Sam and Nat Parry

Editor’s Note: Over the past couple of decades, the Republicans have benefited enormously from their ability to create and disseminate false narratives through the Right’s large, well-financed media apparatus.

With mainstream journalists unwilling to challenge the false narratives – and thus put their careers at risk – American voters often go to the polls believing things that are almost the opposite of the truth.

In this excerpt from Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, the authors present a case study from Election 2000:

During Campaign 2000, conservative groups were given wide leeway in smearing Democratic candidate Al Gore without being called to account, even when the Vice President was falsely portrayed as a traitor.

For instance, in the weeks before Election 2000, Aretino Industries, a pro-Republican group from Texas, ran an emotional ad modeled after Lyndon Johnson’s infamous 1964 commercial that showed a girl picking a daisy before the screen dissolved into a nuclear explosion.

The ad remake accused the Clinton-Gore administration of selling vital nuclear secrets to communist China, in exchange for campaign donations in 1996. The compromised nuclear secrets, the ad stated, gave China “the ability to threaten our homes with long-range nuclear warheads.”

But the ad – which aired in “swing” states including Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and Pennsylvania – was filled with disinformation. The actual evidence was that the key breach in national security, contributing to the modernization of China’s nuclear arsenal, occurred in the 1980s, not the 1990s.

In other words, the secrets were lost during the Reagan-Bush administration, not the Clinton-Gore administration.

The most important compromised U.S. secret that allegedly helped China’s nuclear weapons program was the blueprint for the W-88 miniaturized nuclear warhead, which was smuggled to the Chinese in 1988, the last year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, according to documents later given to U.S. authorities by a Chinese defector.

China tested their W-88-style warhead in 1992, the last year of the first Bush administration.

Therefore, the W-88 secret was lost – and acted upon – before Bill Clinton and Al Gore took office. Indeed, the only significant part of this nuclear-secrets case that happened during the Clinton-Gore administration was that a Chinese defector exposed the espionage breach in 1995.

However, when the American public first learned of the compromised secrets a few years later, the Republicans applied fuzzy logic and a blurred chronology to transform the lost nuclear blueprints, apparently compromised on the Reagan-Bush watch, into an attack theme on Clinton and Gore.

Cox Report

This clever strategy could be traced back to a May 1999 report prepared by a Republican-controlled congressional investigation headed by Rep. Christopher Cox of California. The so-called Cox report accused the Clinton-Gore administration of failing to protect the nation against China’s theft of top-secret nuclear designs and other sensitive data.

When released on May 25, 1999 – shortly after the Clinton impeachment battle had ended – the Cox report was greeted by conservative groups and the national news media as another indictment of the Clinton administration.

By then, the Washington press corps had long been addicted to “Clinton scandals” and viewed almost any allegation through that prism, regardless of the details.

The Cox report gave weight in the public’s mind to the suspicion that there was something far more sinister behind earlier allegations that a Chinese government front had funneled $30,000 in illegal “soft money” donations to the Democrats in 1996.

Cox pulled off his sleight of hand with barely anyone spotting the trick card up his sleeve.
The key ruse was to leave out dates of alleged Chinese spying in the 1980s and thus obscure the fact that the floodgates of U.S. nuclear secrets to China – including how to build the miniaturized W-88 nuclear warhead – had opened wide during the Reagan-Bush era.

While leaving out those Republican time elements, Cox shoved references to the alleged lapses into the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

So, the Cox report’s “Overview” stated that “the PRC (People’s Republic of China) thefts from our National Laboratories began at least as early as the late 1970s, and significant secrets are known to have been stolen as recently as the mid-1990s.”

In this way, Cox started with the Carter presidency, jumped over the 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and landed in the Clinton years. In the “Overview” alone, there were three dozen references to dates from the Clinton years and only five mentions of dates from the Reagan-Bush years, with none of those citations related to alleged wrongdoing.

Cox’s stacking of the deck carried over into the report’s two-page chronology of the Chinese spy scandal. On pages 74-75, the Cox report put all the information boxes about Chinese espionage suspicions into the Carter and Clinton years.

Nothing sinister is attributed specifically to the Reagan-Bush era, other than a 1988 test of a neutron bomb built from secrets that the report says were believed stolen in the “late 1970s,” the Carter years.

Only a careful reading of the text inside the chronology’s boxes made clear that many of the worst national security breaches could be traced to the Reagan-Bush era.

[One of the authors of the Cox report was I. Lewis Libby, a key neoconservative who would later become Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and a figure in the Plame-gate scandal, the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity.]

Reagan Security Breaches

When federal investigators translated other documents turned over by the Chinese defector, they learned that the exposure of nuclear secrets in the Reagan-Bush years was even worse than previously thought.

According to a later Washington Post article, “the documents provided by the defector show that during the 1980s, Beijing had gathered a large amount of classified information about U.S. ballistic missiles and reentry vehicles.” But major news outlets didn't spell out the significance of that timing.

Other evidence suggested that conscious decisions by senior Reagan-Bush officials may have put communist China in a position to glean these sensitive secrets.

The rupture followed a secret decision by Ronald Reagan’s White House in 1984 to collaborate with Beijing on a highly sensitive intelligence operation. The project was the clandestine shipment of weapons to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, in defiance of U.S. law and while the administration was denying to Congress that such shipments were occurring.

The point man for enlisting China into the off-the-books contra operation was Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, then assigned to Reagan’s National Security Council staff.

Reagan’s White House turned to the Chinese for surface-to-air missiles for the contras because Congress had banned military assistance to the rebel force and the contras were suffering heavy losses from Soviet-built attack helicopters deployed by Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.

Some of the private U.S. operatives working with North believed China was the best source for SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles. In his 1989 Iran-Contra trial, North described this procurement as a “very sensitive delivery.”

For the Chinese missile deal in 1984, North said he received help from the CIA in arranging false end-user certificates from the right-wing government of Guatemala. North testified that he “had made arrangements with the Guatemalan government, using the people [CIA] Director [William] Casey had given me.”

But China balked at selling missiles to the Guatemalan military, which was then engaged in a scorched-earth war against its own leftist guerrillas. To resolve this problem, North was dispatched to a clandestine meeting with a Chinese military official.

In fall 1984, North enlisted Gaston J. Sigur, the NSC’s expert on East Asia, to make the arrangements for a meeting with a Chinese representative, according to Sigur’s testimony at North’s 1989 trial.

“I arranged a luncheon and brought together Colonel North and this individual from the Chinese embassy” responsible for military affairs, Sigur testified.

“At lunch, they sat and they discussed the situation in Central America,” Sigur said. “Colonel North raised the issue of the need for weaponry by the contras, and the possibility of a Chinese sale of weapons, either to the contras or, as I recall, I think it was more to countries in the region but clear for the use of the contras.”

North described the same meeting in his autobiography, Under Fire. “Back in Washington, I met with a Chinese military officer assigned to their embassy to encourage their cooperation,” North wrote. “We enjoyed a fine lunch at the exclusive Cosmos Club in downtown Washington.”

North said the Chinese saw the collaboration as a way to develop “better relations with the United States.” Possession of this knowledge also put Beijing in position to leverage future U.S. policies.

While the details of a possible U.S.-China tradeoff are still unknown, the Reagan administration did authorize a broader exchange program between U.S. and Chinese nuclear physicists. The Chinese were given access to the Los Alamos nuclear facility.

The Wen Ho Lee Case

Los Alamos nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee first came to the FBI’s attention in 1982 when he called another scientist who was under investigation for espionage, but Lee’s contacts with China – along with trips there by other U.S. nuclear scientists – increased in the mid-1980s as relations warmed between Washington and Beijing, according to a New York Times chronology that was published n 2001 after George W. Bush had become President.

The Times reported that limited exchanges between nuclear scientists from the United States and China began after President Carter officially recognized China in 1978, but those meetings grew far more expansive and less controlled during the 1980s.

“With the Reagan administration eager to isolate the Soviet Union, hundreds of scientists traveled between the United States and China, and the cooperation expanded to the development of torpedoes, artillery shells and jet fighters,” the Times wrote. “The exchanges were spying opportunities as well.”

“On September 25, 1992, a nuclear blast shook China’s western desert,” the Times wrote. “From spies and electronic surveillance, American intelligence officials determined that the test was a breakthrough in China’s long quest to match American technology for smaller, more sophisticated hydrogen bombs.”

In September 1992, George H.W. Bush was still President.

In the early years of the Clinton administration, U.S. intelligence experts began to suspect that the Chinese nuclear breakthrough most likely came from purloined U.S. secrets.

“It’s like they were driving a Model T and went around the corner and suddenly had a Corvette,” said Robert M. Hanson, a Los Alamos intelligence analyst.

Looking for possible espionage, investigators began examining the years of the mid-1980s when the Reagan-Bush administration had authorized U.S. nuclear scientists to hold meetings with their Chinese counterparts.

Though the American scientists were under restrictions about what information could be shared, it was never clear exactly why these meetings were held in the first place – given the risk that a U.S. scientist might willfully or accidentally divulge nuclear secrets.

China-gate

But the Chinese-espionage story didn’t gain national attention until March 1999 when The New York Times published several imprecise front-page stories fingering Wen Ho Lee as an espionage suspect.

During those chaotic first weeks of “Chinagate,” Republicans and political pundits mixed together the suspicions of Chinese spying and allegations about Chinese campaign donations to the Democrats in 1996. Clinton’s Justice Department officials then overcompensated by demonstrating how tough they could be on suspect Wen Ho Lee.

Virtually no one in official Washington noted the logical impossibility of Democrats selling secrets to China in 1996 that China apparently had obtained a decade or so earlier during a Republican administration.

Instead, conservative groups grasped the political and fund-raising potential.

Larry Klayman’s right-wing Judicial Watch sent out a solicitation letter seeking $5.2 million for a special “Chinagate Task Force” that would “hold Bill Clinton, Al Gore and the Democratic Party Leadership fully accountable for election fraud, bribery and possibly treason in connection with the ‘Chinagate’ scandal.”

The fallout from the spy hysteria kept spreading. The 60-year-old Wen Ho Lee was imprisoned on a 59-count indictment for mishandling classified material.

The Taiwanese-born naturalized U.S. citizen was put in solitary confinement with his cell light on at all times. He was allowed out of his cell only one hour a day, when he shuffled around a prison courtyard in leg shackles.

The case against Wen Ho Lee began to collapse, however. Prosecutors accepted a plea bargain on September 13, 2000, with the scientist pleading guilty to a single count of mishandling classified material.

A furious U.S. District Judge James A. Parker complained that he had been “led astray” by the prosecutors and apologized to Lee for the “demeaning, unnecessarily punitive conditions” under which Lee had been held. Parker ordered Lee released with no further jail time.

Still, the Cox report’s suspicions about Clinton-Gore treachery lingered and reemerged during the final days of Campaign 2000 with the “daisy ad” remake. The closing message was blunt: “Don’t take a chance,” the ad said. “Please vote Republican.”

In its appeal, the message was unintentionally ironic, since the worst compromises of nuclear secrets to China had occurred under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the team that would be restored to power if the voters followed the ad’s advice.

George W. Bush’s campaign also exploited the “Chinagate” suspicions, albeit a touch more subtly, by running ads showing Gore meeting with saffron-robed monks at a Buddhist temple in California.

So, millions of Americans went to the polls in November 2000 thinking that Gore’s temple appearance and the Chinese nuclear spying were somehow linked.

The national news media – still bristling with hostility toward Clinton and Gore – contributed to the confusion by failing to explain to the American public in a timely fashion that the Chinese security breaches represented a Reagan-Bush scandal, not a Clinton-Gore scandal.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/

He blew it letting N Korea build Nukes.

Man, do you ever get tired of peddling the lies and disinfo?

Number of nuclear weapons developed by NK on Clinton's watch: 0

Number of nuclear weapons developed by NK on Bush's watch: About 6


Here's a foreign affairs quiz:

(1) How many nuclear weapons did North Korea produce in Bill Clinton's eight years of office?

(2) How many nuclear weapons has it produced so far in President Bush's four years in office?

The answer to the first question, by all accounts, is zero. The answer to the second is fuzzier, but about six.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/opinion/26kristof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


The NK nuke deal brokered by Carter during Clinton's administration was successful - it was Dim Son's "axis of evil" saber-rattling that put NK back on the nuke warpath.

He blew it in Rwanda.

And he admitted it.

When was the last time you heard Bush admit to one of his numerous screw ups?


He blew it not going after Bin Laden harder after first WTC bombing.


Everytime he tried, the republican-controlled Congress stepped on his d*ck (and he still came closer to killing Bin Laden than the court-appointed fraud.)

[cutthemdown]

N Korea never stopped enriching under the carter brokered deal. It had no verification so they lied about following it. That's why it was a bad deal.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

N Korea never stopped enriching under the carter brokered deal. It had no verification so they lied about following it. That's why it was a bad deal.

Wrong.

The types of materials they were developing under the Carter deal were only good for generating power - not developing weapons.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

In June 1994, former President Carter went to North Korea to negotiate with Kim Il Sung, president of North Korea. These negotiations were a great success:

http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/agreedframework.asp

North Korea committed to freezing its plutonium weapons program in exchange for two proliferation-resistant nuclear reactors and other aid. As President Carter explained:

Responding to a standing invitation from North Korean President Kim Il Sung and with the approval of President Bill Clinton, I went to Pyongyang and helped to secure an agreement that North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon and permit I.A.E.A. inspectors to return to the site to assure that the spent fuel was not reprocessed. In return, the United States and our allies subsequently assured the North Koreans that there would be no nuclear threat to them, that a supply of fuel oil would be provided to replace the power lost by terminating the Yongbyon nuclear program and that two modern nuclear plants would also be provided, with their fuel supplies to be monitored by international inspectors. [Carter, "Engaging North Korea," The New York Times, October 27, 2002]

And, in spite of what the righties will tell you, the North Koreans kept this agreement. The plutonium processing at Yongbyon and elsewhere stopped, and IAEA inspectors were allowed back into North Korea. The plutonium processors were sealed with IAEA seals.

[defenseman]

This is effectively the end of Rudy's bid for presidency. He will have a portion of hangers on until the end, but he's officially become as relevant as Sam Brownback in this contest.

Very hard to say at this point. The media, if the weren't quite honest about their portrayal of exactly what occurred will get called on the carpet. But, I think Guilianni will be around for a while longer. His targeting of Romney during the debate was more damaging than this...dman

*The "sanctuary mansion" comment didn't bode well for Rudy.

[defenseman]

LA if you asked President Clinton if he wished he had went after Bin Laden harder and intervened in Rwanda what do you think he would say? Of course he would say yes. It's hard to be President and they all make mistakes.

Clinton got fooled by N Korea, either that or he looked other way because China gave him so much money. He blew it letting N Korea build Nukes. He blew it in Rwanda. He blew it not going after Bin Laden harder after first WTC bombing.

Clinton did do really good with the economy and in Serbia.

He screwed different sectors of the military, trust me on that one...dman

*He ruined the intelligence community to boot.

[Traveler]

He ruined the intelligence community to boot.

How?

[defenseman]

Clinton tried harder and came closer to getting them than Bush has - even before 9/11.

And every time Clinton tried to get his CT legislation by the GOP-controlled Congress he was shot down in flames (or accused of "wagging the dog.")

Clinton had OBL dead to rights on TWO occassions, and DID NOT pull the trigger. He was in their sights waiting for the go signal. And he bailed. I call BS on this.:gripe: If he had wanted to get him, he would have. When it came down to it, he didn't have the guts to do the right thing is what it boils down to...dman

[alkemical]

For the record:

Clinton did OK the tech transfer for light-nuke reactors - but the company that pushed for it, was being run by Rumsfield at the time. So please, you want to play the "look over there" game - just shoot yourself in the head and let the rest of us make the decisions, hmmmm k.

[Spider]

yeah but the people that trained them, and sent them were not.

Could you be any more stupid ? why dont you at least try to learn something before opening your pie hole ...... D man has an excuse for his stupidity , he is old and brain washed ......
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm

[Spider]

Clinton had OBL dead to rights on TWO occassions, and DID NOT pull the trigger. He was in their sights waiting for the go signal. And he bailed. I call BS on this.:gripe: If he had wanted to get him, he would have. When it came down to it, he didn't have the guts to do the right thing is what it boils down to...dman

LOL I try to cut you some slack , but damn ...... Lets say for a second that this crap you just spewed was true , for arguments sake , why are you not pissed at the Republicans for playing Politics with Bin Laden instead of capturing him ?
or havent you figured out that was going on yet ?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Clinton had OBL dead to rights on TWO occassions, and DID NOT pull the trigger. He was in their sights waiting for the go signal. And he bailed. I call BS on this.:gripe:

Holy sh*t - somebody has been listening to WAY too much Rehab Rush. :oyvey:

Actually, it was Vacation Boy who let Bin Laden get away when our forces had him cornered at Tora Bora.


If he had wanted to get him, he would have. When it came down to it, he didn't have the guts to do the right thing is what it boils down to...dman

:bs:

The GOP-controlled Congress blocked almost every piece of CT legislation Clinton wanted.

Ironically enough, Clinton sought the same airport security measures Bush enacted after 9/11, but the repugs shot them down because of opposition from the airlines.

These measures probably would have prevented 9/11.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.

Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them "totalitarian."

In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors.

Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al-Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement.

According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same.

In the end, the lobbyists got what they wanted, and the Bush administration pulled out of the plan. The Time article stated, "Without the world's financial superpower, the biggest effort in years to rid the world's financial system of dirty money was short-circuited."

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/63/22170

[Bronco Bob]

LA if you asked President Clinton if he wished he had went after Bin Laden harder and intervened in Rwanda what do you think he would say? Of course he would say yes. It's hard to be President and they all make mistakes.

Clinton got fooled by N Korea, either that or he looked other way because China gave him so much money. He blew it letting N Korea build Nukes. He blew it in Rwanda. He blew it not going after Bin Laden harder after first WTC bombing.

Clinton did do really good with the economy and in Serbia.

But N. Korea didn't start building nuclear bombs until long after Bush had
been in office. And then only after Bush cut off aid to them.
N. Korea was basically using the nukes as leverage to get Bush to
start giving them aid again. And it worked. The US is now giving
aid to N. Korea and N. Korea has agree to dismantle their nukes
as a result.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

For the record:

Clinton did OK the tech transfer for light-nuke reactors - but the company that pushed for it, was being run by Rumsfield at the time. So please, you want to play the "look over there" game - just shoot yourself in the head and let the rest of us make the decisions, hmmmm k.

Yes, he OKed them because they were only capable of generating power - not developing materials that could be used for weapons.

[alkemical]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,952289,00.html

The two faces of Rumsfeld


2000: director of a company which wins $200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea
2002: declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the axis of evil and a target for regime change

[defenseman]

How?

http://www.fas.org/irp/gentry/chapter2.html

A Framework for Reform of the
U.S. Intelligence Community
Chapter 2: National Interests and Intelligence Community Mission

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Too long to post. Good stuff. Clinton and Gore are called out by name in this writing. Just part of the answer why he shot the intel community to hell...dman

[defenseman]

Holy sh*t - somebody has been listening to WAY too much Rehab Rush. :oyvey:

Actually, it was Vacation Boy who let Bin Laden get away when our forces had him cornered at Tora Bora.



:bs:

The GOP-controlled Congress blocked almost every piece of CT legislation Clinton wanted.

Ironically enough, Clinton sought the same airport security measures Bush enacted after 9/11, but the repugs shot them down because of opposition from the airlines.

These measures probably would have prevented 9/11.

I'm not questioning that bush should have whacked the SOB (and still should be targeting the SOB), however, Clinton had his shot at him and ordered spec ops to standdown. Simple as that.....dman

[defenseman]

A little help from MSNBC is in order:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4540958/

dman

[defenseman]

Here some more OBL vs. Clinton stuff:

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/4/03534.shtml

dman

[cutthemdown]

But N. Korea didn't start building nuclear bombs until long after Bush had
been in office. And then only after Bush cut off aid to them.
N. Korea was basically using the nukes as leverage to get Bush to
start giving them aid again. And it worked. The US is now giving
aid to N. Korea and N. Korea has agree to dismantle their nukes
as a result.

I agree but the enriching started under Clinton. After the country has built a nuke it's much harder. Bush IMO did pretty well with N korea and I am pleased with the outcome. I agree 100 percent though that Kim Jong does everything for leverage and doesn't really want to nuke anyone.

Iran I worry about much more because there leader uses words like wipe of the map etc when referring to Israel. I do have some good friends who live in Israel so I am biased with wanting them protected.

[defenseman]

I agree but the enriching started under Clinton. After the country has built a nuke it's much harder. Bush IMO did pretty well with N korea and I am pleased with the outcome. I agree 100 percent though that Kim Jong does everything for leverage and doesn't really want to nuke anyone.

Iran I worry about much more because there leader uses words like wipe of the map etc when referring to Israel. I do have some good friends who live in Israel so I am biased with wanting them protected.

OBL professed war on the USA in '98 and, he followed through. Little Hitler has professed the death of israel and anyone who stands with them, and, if allowed, he will follow through. All you have to do is 'listen', he tells you what he will do if given the opportunity. You MUST take him at his word. Period...dman

[Rigs11]

I'm not questioning that bush should have whacked the SOB (and still should be targeting the SOB), however, Clinton had his shot at him and ordered spec ops to standdown. Simple as that.....dman

hey dman, not sure if you know this but let me let you in on a little secret. Bush is the current president.

[defenseman]

hey dman, not sure if you know this but let me let you in on a little secret. Bush is the current president.

No kidding. My point is, Clinton has his shots at OBL and did not pull the trigger. He should have, we all know that...dman

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I'm not questioning that bush should have whacked the SOB (and still should be targeting the SOB), however, Clinton had his shot at him and ordered spec ops to standdown. Simple as that.....dman

Actually, just the reverse is true.

Clinton gave the CIA carte blanche to use any means necessary to kill Bin Laden.

Clinton gave the CIA a green light to use whatever covert means were necessary to gather information on Bin Laden and his followers, and to disrupt and preempt any planned terrorist activities against the United States.

Clinton sent anti-terrorism and airport security measures to the house in 96, 97, 98, 99 and 2000. Every measure was killed by the house Republicans without even bringing them up for debate. (They were too busy being perverts, trying to look into the president's bedroom window.)

The sad thing about it, the measures contained some of the same recommendations that Dubya wanted to implement AFTER September 11th.

Everytime the last president tried to do something about Bin Laden, the house republicans all screamed "wag the dog."

What Clinton did do was send death squads to try to find bin Laden. They didn't succeed, but on the other hand, Bush has our whole armed services concentrating on bin Laden and still let him get away.

The perps responsible for the 1993 WTC attacks were caught and they are rotting in prison.

Clinton also stopped all trade and aid to the Taliban for letting bin Laden thrive in their nation.

Bush reversed that policy and gave the Taliban $43 million dollars in aid just three months before the attacks on New York City.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I agree but the enriching started under Clinton. After the country has built a nuke it's much harder. Bush IMO did pretty well with N korea and I am pleased with the outcome.

Number of nuclear weapons developed by NK on Clinton's watch: 0

Number of nuclear weapons developed by NK on Bush's watch: 6

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/opinion/26kristof.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

A little help from MSNBC is in order:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4540958/

dman

Right-wing revisionist history (just like ABC's "The Road to 9/11.")

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/banging-priceless.JPG

[Bronco Bob]

.