American Duties 1 of 11

Leading into the New Year, this site is going to highlight some of Bush's thinking each day. This information has been made possible thanks to an address that he gave at the Eisenhower Building on Monday. Here's a recap of accomplishments in 2004 that he stated in his address:

The United States grew in prosperity, enhanced our security and served the cause of freedom and peace.

Nation's entrepreneurs generated more than 2 million jobs in this year alone contributing to a solid footing that was gained in our economy.

Signed new legislation that continues and will work towards the essential reorganization of our government by improving the nation's intelligence operations making our intelligence enterprise more unified, coordinated and effective than ever before and the American people more secure as a result.

Our country became safer because of the historic changes that occurred in the world in places like Afghanistan.

Brought the first presidential election in the 5,000-year history of Afghanistan making the government of President Hamid Karzai a steadfast ally in the war on terror.

America and our coalition put a strategy in place to aid the rise of a stable democracy in Iraq.

And people in uniform and our military families made many sacrifices for our country and served proudly.

Bush pointed out what he will do for the future:

Reform systems that were created to meet the needs of another era like the outdated tax code, which will soon have a citizens panel to recommend ways of transformation.

Work with the new Congress to make health care more accessible and affordable, to reform the legal system, to raise standards of achievement in public schools, especially our high schools, and to fix the Social Security system for our children and our grandchildren.

Submit a budget that fits the times.

Provide every tool and resource for our military. Protect the homeland and meet other priorities of the government.

Draft a budget that will maintain strict discipline in the spending of tax dollars and keep our commitment to cutting the deficit in half over five years.

Continue to work towards a functioning democracy in Iraq

Bush has a lot to be proud of this year especially since he kept the White House under his rule. He clearly won the election because he had the popular vote and the electoral votes needed to be President. I believe I speak for all Americans when I say, we hope that all of your tasks for the future are completed or at least we hope significant progress are made in those areas that you wish to focus in on.

And now, in the following days...we will follow 10 areas that Bush answered questions on when he was at the Eisenhower Building on Monday. When we finish, the New Year will be here. All the accomplishments of 2004 will become a thing of the past and the future will become a top priority for the Bush administration.

Future of Social Security

ALL OPINION

Bush has not detailed a plan making things difficult for the GOP. What to do? Should we bolster social security or that is, remove it? Maybe but consider this...

The elderly make up a good amount of votes and if they know that they are losing social security, what is the chance of re-election? Slim. That is the problem with the Republican controlled House and Senate.

I read through an article on ABC news to come up with a lot of what is fuels this piece. Basically, the future of social security does fall into the hands of the Republicans. Over the next four years, they have a choice. If they remove it, it may not be received well and could affect them being re-elected (unlike Bush who has nothing to lose). They could wait until some time closer to 2042 when "the system will be able to afford to pay only three-fourths of the benefits now due [to]recipients".

A catch phrase from Spider-Man comes to mind: With great power, comes great responsibility. Don't sit back because you are afraid of losing your job. Members of the GOP, take a stand. The people voted and ended up with a Republican majority that is expected to serve the people. So listen to the people and take action on this important issue. No doubt, social security has its issues. I sincerely hope that the Republicans in Congress do something.

Overhaul in Forests

According to Washington Post:

The Bush administration issued comprehensive new rules yesterday for managing the national forests, jettisoning some environmental protections that date to Ronald Reagan's administration and putting in place the biggest change in forest-use policies in nearly three decades.

The regulations affect recreation, endangered-species protections and livestock grazing, among other things, on all 192 million acres of the country's 155 national forests. Sally Collins, associate chief of the U.S. Forest Service, said the changes will replace a bureaucratic planning process with a more corporate management approach that will allow officials to respond to changing ecological and social conditions.

The new rules give economic activity equal priority with preserving the ecological health of the forests in making management decisions and in potentially liberalizing caps on how much timber can be taken from a forest. Forest Service officials estimated the changes will cut its planning costs by 30 percent and will allow managers to finish what amount to zoning requirements for forest users in two to three years, instead of the nine or 10 years they sometimes take now.

The government will no longer require that its managers prepare an environmental impact analysis with each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife. The changes will reduce the number of required scientific reports and ask federal officials to focus on a forest's overall health, rather than the fate of individual species, when evaluating how best to protect local plants and animals.

"We're really in a new world," Collins said in an interview. "You've got to have different plans for different places, and you've got to have more dynamic plans."

Critics such as Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a member of the House Resources Committee who tried twice unsuccessfully to block the proposed rules, said the changes will promote logging and other commercial exploitation of the national forests and relegate the public to the sidelines.

"With Bush's anti-environmental forest policy, you can't blame him for trying to hide behind other news, but not even Scrooge would unveil these regulations," Udall said. "These regulations, being offered two days before Christmas, cut the public out of the forest planning process, will inspire many more lawsuits and provide less protection for wildlife. It's a radical overhaul of forest policy."

Collins said the administration sought to update the rules to address new challenges, such as invasive species and forest fires, and to give the public input on how to manage the forests rather than commenting on individual projects.

The new rules would affect two national forests that encompass 1.6 million acres of Virginia land: the George Washington National Forest, 70 miles west of Washington, and the Jefferson National Forest in the southwestern part of the state. Jefferson National's officials just completed their management plan, and the George Washington forest is due to issue a new one in 2008.

Three presidents, including George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have tried to change how the government drafts the 15-year management plans that dictate how federal officials auction off timber, locate campsites, allocate grazing rights and protect vulnerable species in each forest. Because the plans can take five to nine years to complete, some activists and timber industry representatives have complained they are out of date when they become final.

Just before leaving office, Clinton finalized a set of regulations that emphasized ecosystem health and wildlife protection over commercial exploitation; President Bush reversed those rules just before Thanksgiving 2002. The final regulations issued yesterday, which will take effect when they are published in the Federal Register next week, are nearly identical to a proposal the administration outlined two years ago.

Administration officials said they will balance this newfound flexibility with regular audits of forest management decisions, but environmentalists said only strict federal rules can guarantee a haven for animals that seek refuge in the forests.

One-quarter of U.S. species at risk of extinction -- including more than 25 species of trout and salmon -- live in national forests, according to the conservation group NatureServe. Large animals such as grizzly bears, wolves and elk depend on the forests' large, undisturbed swaths of land for habitat.

"The end result of all this is there will be more logging and less conservation of wildlife," said Mike Leahy, natural resources counsel for Defenders of Wildlife. "They're not going to provide enough land for these species to hang on."

National forests are also an increasingly popular tourist destination for tens of millions of Americans. The number of visitors to national forests doubled over the past eight years, said Chris Wood, a Clinton administration Forest Service official who is now vice president of the conservation group Trout Unlimited.

But timber industry officials want access to the land, and they said they need a less burdensome process so federal officials can make timely decisions on proposed timber auctions.

Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, called the new rules "a step in the right direction" that will allow forest managers to make "better, more informed and quicker decisions" about timber sales.

"This will get the Forest Service caring about the land and caring about the people, instead of caring about the process and serving the bureaucracy," said West, who represents lumber and paper companies as well as landowners in 13 western states.


OPINION

You read the article. My reaction is not good. Inevitably, too much power is being given to timbering companies who use forests. Also, the idea that forest services will not be required to "prepare an environmental impact analysis with each forest's management plan, or use numerical counts to ensure there are "viable populations" of fish and wildlife" does not sit well with me. Our government has a duty to protect fish and wildlife. That is why DNR exists in states. With the Bush administration loosening restrictions, it makes the task of keeping fish and wildlife safe harder for services like the DNR. I am also worried that these forests wind up becoming smaller and affect the amount of tourists that visit. Tourism is a huge part of state's revenue. States expect people to visit its parks and that is why they often charge a fee to get in. I would not have loosened regulations but would have tightened them. Although, if you look at the Bush administration's first term track record with environmental issues, you find that they did not do a good job at all.

Pulled From the Archives For Those That Misunderstand This Website

A few people have no idea what this site was created for. I have chosen to re-post my original mission statement or the foundation for this website.

News alerts, internet websites, and many of the books that have been released recently have led me to believe that there are things escaping the eyes of the American people. There are stories that people aren't reading that are important. There are stories that people would generally be turned off by because they seem like they belong in publications like the National Enquirer. However, these are real and factual stories that can be obtained on newsstands or on news websites. There are also stories out there that the government does not want you to read. I feel that all information should be free to the people of America at some point. I have started this site to post stories that I find aren't getting the attention needed.

There it is in bold. This is a place that takes what is happening in current events and allows opinions to be shared on the events. From the events, come issues. Issues are then discussed. It was never my intention to take a stand on outsourcing and hope that you take my side. It was never my intention to look at the Iraq war and hope people take my side. But it was my intention to post news articles that are worth reading and to voice my opinion on them.

Some people have a tough time handling that.

Reconstruction Without Construction

Dangers drive U.S. contractor out of Iraq

Contrack International Inc. of Arlington, Va., led a coalition of firms working on a $325 million contract to rebuild Iraq’s roads, bridges and railways. Contrack withdrew from that contract last month after a surge in attacks on reconstruction efforts, said Lt. Col. Eric Schnaible of the Pentagon’s Project and Contract Office in Baghdad.

“It’s hard to do construction in a place where people are shooting at you or intimidating your work force,” Schnaible said in a telephone interview. “It’s a challenge across the country.”

The PCO has taken over management of about 18 subcontractors working on transportation projects, Schnaible said. He said Contrack’s pullout was “a mutually agreed-to separation” and does not signal a larger movement by U.S.-based companies to abandon Iraq.

“Some parts of the country are a whole lot more permissive than others,” Schnaible said. “Where we can get the work done, good things are happening.”

U.S. firms and their workers have been targets ever since they entered Iraq last year. Tuesday’s deadly attack on an Army dining hall near Mosul underscored the danger: Four of those killed were Americans working for the largest contractor in Iraq, Halliburton.

Workers for Iraq contractors have been killed by mortars, car bombs and gunfire. Some have been kidnapped and beheaded.

Security concerns have been a major reason for the slow pace of reconstruction which has frustrated Iraqi and U.S. officials alike. Of the $18.4 billion in Iraqi reconstruction money approved by Congress more than a year ago, less than $2 billion has been spent, PCO head Charles Hess said last month.


OPINION

Iraq is not secure and fear is running rampant through the region. Looks to me like the terrorists and insurgency are one step ahead of the U.S. This does not surprise me. Terrorism rarely fails. I refuse to feel like the cup is half full. Currently, the U.S. is lucky if you can convince people that it's half empty.

Could it Be???

And in bold the news article reads: President Bush Meets With NAACP Leader

President Bush and outgoing NAACP leader Kweisi Mfume met at the White House yesterday in what Mfume described as a frank, "man-to-man" discussion aimed at fixing the broken relationship between the president and the nation's oldest and largest civil-rights organization.

The two did not talk privately but were accompanied by political strategist, Karl Rove. The conversation was not terribly long...it lasted about 40 minutes and was a discussion on the strained relationship that Bush has experienced while in office.

Bush pointedly turned down an invitation to address the organization's national convention for the fourth consecutive year, calling his relationship with the group "basically nonexistent." The NAACP said Bush was the first president since Warren Harding who did not address the civil-rights group while in office.

After reelection, the NAACP called up Bush to reexamine their relationship and hopefully make it better during his second term.

Bush has refused to address the NAACP before because of what he perceived as its unfair criticism of his policies, from his decision to invade Iraq to his opposition to many affirmative-action programs. In yesterday's meeting, Bush explained that he refused to address the NAACP not because he personally feared a hostile reception from the group but because he thought such a reception would demean the presidency and embarrass the United States before the world.

Bush has generally avoided sit-downs with other established black civil-rights groups as well, for instance meeting only rarely with the Congressional Black Caucus. But he has reached out to carefully chosen minority audiences and to civil-rights advocates less critical of his policies such as the National Urban League.

OPINION

I always thought it to be awful that Bush would not speak with the NAACP. The NAACP is an organization that has gained respect for what it's done for the black community. Presidents should want to meet with them so they can hear about the issues affecting black people. But this goes beyond the NAACP, as the article said, Bush has a problem with other black civil rights' groups. He obviously couldn't talk face to face if he had to have his political strategist with him to carry on a meaningful discussion yesterday. I don't think Bush considers the needs of African-Americans like he should.

Now here's the catch...People say look at Colin Powell...look at Condoleezza Rice... I am. Just because you have had African-Americans in your cabinet doesn't mean you care about African-Americans like you should.