george w bush

Chris Knight's avatar

How bad are things when paying for the swearing in of a new President of the United States requires bailing out by the United States government?

George W. Bush has declared an emergency in and around Washington D.C. in anticipation of what is expected to be the record number of people who will be coming to town over the next several days to witness the inauguration of his successor, Barack Obama. Doing so “frees up” contingency funds that usually go toward hurricane relief or for other natural disasters. In this case that same money is going toward the inaugural celebrations. Providing for facilities is expected to cost the city $75 million and the state of Maryland, $12 million.

Quite a few things that could be observed about what this says regarding the American people and their government…

Admittedly, presidential inaugurations have always been a bit festive. Probably none on record ...

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Ever since this blog began five years ago, I have very often broken bad on George W. Bush. Because he has consistently proven himself to have been the worst President of the modern era (and quite possibly the worst ever). There have been a few times when I have not hesitated to praise his actions, but those have been few and far between. It will be decades before the damage that he has done to America can be fully repaired, if at all.

But don’t think that The Knight Shift is going to be a safe harbor for pro-Obama sentiment either…

This blog and the admittedly off-kilter guy behind it do not cotton to any ideology. If anyone enters my dojo with the sad notion that I should admire or fear them because they are a self-styled “conservative” or “liberal”, then they are wrong… and I won’t hesitate to land ...

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I defy anyone to tell me that these people don’t think of themselves as elitist royalty who believe they are better than the rest of us…

George W. Bush wants taxpayer money to pay for a gate to be installed on the public street where he will soon be living in Dallas after he leaves office in a few weeks. The gate will be a hindrance to those who already live on the street.

So because George W. Bush as a private citizen has chosen to live in a certain place, the right to free movement of not just his neighbors but all other Americans will be limited by act of government, paid for by our money, if this goes through.

Even without having it actually declared, is this not tantamount to granting Bush a de facto “title of nobility”?

If Bush is that concerned about his safety – though ...

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2009 is only a few scant hours old and it’s already seen my first published work for the new year. In today’s News & Record (the big paper serving this region) out of Greensboro there’s this letter, “Political power presents a false god for Christians”, written by Yours Truly.

Here’s the full text of it…

My thoughts regarding the recent election were confirmed when the son of a prominent local minister told me, “Why can I not have both?” when I remarked that the Christians of America can pursue Christ or pursue power, but they cannot pursue them together.

Who is to blame most for the election of Barack Obama? The self-professed “conservative Christians.” The ones who have for many years made an idol of political influence. Instead of the God of heaven, they have turned to worshiping a “god of fortresses” bereft of sincere love, mercy and grace.

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Many of the families of passengers who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 want George W. Bush to approve a seizure by the federal government of the field where the ill-fated flight crashed on the morning of the 9/11 attacks. The families want to turn the field into a memorial.

In other words, these people want to implement socialism to commemorate freedom.

I have never liked “eminent domain” uses like this, which is what the United 93 families are trying to call the seizure. But this isn’t for something needed like a highway or whatever. In this case it boils down to taking privately-held property (owned by Svonavec Inc.) by force of government, for benefit of a very few people.

Look, I think that what the passengers on United 93 did was courage personified. And their example is certainly something that all people can look to as an act of ...

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The lesser angels of my nature are wanting to cry out that stuff like this, is enough to make me think – however fleeting and regrettably – that if the “neo-conservatives” of this country were wiped out to a man, that this would have been a much better nation for it.

However, as a Christian, I have to fight against saying that I agree with that urge.

Frank Gaffney, former Assistant Defense Secretary and now with the “Center for Security Policy” (whatever the hell that is) declared on Hardball with Chris Matthews yesterday that in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the Iraq War was begun on false pretenses, “My position is that it’s regrettable that any Americans died. It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die.“

Here’s the video…

I’ve thought for a very long time now that George W. ...

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And to think that all this time, George W. Bush thought that the Iraqis would throw flowers at his feet… not shoes at his head:

An Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference yesterday in Baghdad and called him a “dog”. In most Mid-East cultures, showing someone the soles of your shoes is considered the ultimate – and often mortal – insult.

You know what I can’t help but think about this incident? Theodore Roosevelt was once giving a speech and someone tried to assassinate him. The bullet hit something in Roosevelt’s chest pocket, didn’t penetrate his body at all. T.R. jumped off the podium and commenced to beating the living crap out of the assailant with his bare hands. Now how come “tough guy” George W. Bush didn’t do something like that yesterday?

George W. Bush, “Liberator of Iraq”, having to duck a shoe ...

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Either way you cut this, it screams out “biggest heist of all time”.

The Federal Reserve is refusing to disclose the recipients of $2 TRILLION of emergency loans financed by American taxpayers.

On a related note, President Bush is considering tapping into the same funds since the “bailout” failed in the Senate last night.

Time to revisit “Hell Époque” post that I made all the way back in January. That was the term that future historians, I’m sure of it, would give our current era.

The era of United States history that stretched from the early 1990s until the end of the first decade of the 21st century, that has come to be regarded as the final years of America’s long-time domination of the world’s culture and economy.

Although noted for considerable achievements in computers and telecommunications that led to apparent empowerment of the individual, the Hell Époque was

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So, all of you who have held up George W. Bush as a paragon of Christian virtue: how do you ‘splain this?

George W. Bush, outgoing President of the United States, now says that the Bible is “probably not” literally true.

Bush also says that evolution is not incompatible with the Bible.

Adding to his statement that he is “not a literalist”, Bush also hedged immensely when he said that the most important lesson in the Bible is that “God sent a son”. Ummmm… Georgie baby, if you studied the Bible at all, you would know that God sent His only Son.

I saw firsthand eight years ago that the Cult of Bush was anything but Christ-like. Bush and his faithful do not worship God: they worship raw, naked power. Bush just happened to say the right words and the “evangelical conservatives” – who are by far the ...

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Is there anything more pathetic than a person scrambling against time in a vain effort to ensure that history will be kind to him or her?

Perhaps only if that person happens to be a current President of the United States.

George W. Bush was at West Point yesterday, trying to spin his eight years in office as a blazing success. The most foolish man to ever occupy the Oval Office actually defended his policy of pre-emptive war (something that had never been done before in American history) and declared to the assembled cadets that “With all the actions we’ve taken these past eight years, we’ve laid a solid foundation on which future presidents and future military leaders can build.”

The Decider also boasted that the present condition of the United States military is “”stronger, more agile and better prepared” than how he found it when he first took ...

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