Posted on 12/04/2004 11:39:17 AM PST by ApesForEvolution
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) expressed no alarm Saturday about a warning from his outgoing top health official that the U.S. food supply is vulnerable to terror attacks but would not deny the assessment and assert that the nation's food is safe.
Reuters Photo
Thompson Resigns From Cabinet Post (AP Video)
Bush was questioned, after an Oval Office meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, about comments by Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson about the vulnerability of the U.S. food supply. Thompson spoke Friday as he announced his coming departure from the Bush administration.
"We're a large country with all kinds of avenues where somebody can inflict harm," Bush said. "We're doing everything we can to protect the American people. There's a lot of work to be done."
Thompson had said he worries "every single night" about a possible terror attack on the food supply, and despite dramatic increases in inspections of food imports, only "a very minute amount" of food is tested at ports and airports.
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that."
Thompson was the latest of eight members to quit Bush's 15-member Cabinet as the president moves into a second term.
Bush himself decided that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not go, ignoring criticism about Rumsfeld's handling of Iraq (news - web sites) and giving the secretary a strong vote of confidence to remain at the Pentagon (news - web sites). That decision, sealed Monday in an Oval Office meeting with Bush but not announced until Friday, settles one of the last major questions about who in the Cabinet goes and who stays.
Besides the eight members whose departure has been announced, Treasury Secretary John Snow has not received a public endorsement of continued service, even though White House officials have described him as a valuable member of the president's economic team.
Snow, who has been in the job less than two years, declined in an appearance Friday on CNBC to reveal whether he has submitted or offered to submit his resignation.
Rumsfeld's tenure has been marked by unanticipated postwar violence in Iraq and more than 1,250 U.S. deaths, as well as enormous increases in spending on the military after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Despite controversies, the hawkish, sometimes acid-tongued Rumsfeld has kept Bush's confidence.
Rumsfeld also has a long history of influential support from Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) from their days together in the Ford administration in the mid-1970s.
Rumsfeld has a full plate: continuing military operations in Iraq, focused now on securing the country ahead of January elections; the ongoing effort in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and a plan to modernize the military.
Bush believes Rumsfeld is "the right person at this moment in our history in fighting the war on terror to lead our armed forces," a senior administration official said in describing the president's decision.
The secretary's future had been the subject of much speculation, after revelations about abuses at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. Though Bush steadfastly backed his defense chief — one of the more hawkish members of his administration — Rumsfeld had many detractors in Congress and the military.
It had been widely believed at the Pentagon that Rumsfeld wanted to stay on, at least for a time, in order to oversee the continuing transition in Iraq and shepherd his plan for a fundamental transformation and modernization of the U.S. military.
Rumsfeld, 72, is the oldest person to serve as secretary of defense. He also was the youngest when he ran the Pentagon for President Ford.
Rumsfeld took intense criticism from members of Congress last spring when the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal became public. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) that he would quit if he thought that would help, but not simply to satisfy the administration's political enemies.
Rumsfeld said he would take the blame for the scandal. After the completion and publication of several in-depth investigations, the pressure for him to resign abated during the summer.
In recent interviews, Rumsfeld had refused to talk about his future, except to say he remained committed to transforming the military to make it more capable of fighting wars of the 21st century.
Many have criticized him for failing to foresee the insurgency that has taken thousands of Iraqi lives and killed hundreds of American troops since Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime was toppled in April 2003.
Rumsfeld has acknowledged that the strength and resilience of the insurgency was underestimated.
It was not clear how long Rumsfeld's top deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and chief policy adviser, Douglas Feith, would remain. Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday that Feith told his staff he intended to stay for a while.
Your Central Committee handlers will be contacting you shortly for re-education training...lolRut-Roh, Reorge! :^O
I've not been real big on the Immigration issues/threads, but it just seems like our loose borders would be a major weakness. I did see a thread a while back where some woman from the middle east had come across the Texas border illegally a LOT of times.
The Constitution grants the Federal Government, really, very few, important responsibilities.
Do you know which (one?) of them would regard attacks at our ports or borders?
On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823)
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
— George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
— James Madison
I was indifferent to Immigration, to some degree, for a long, long time and for 2 reasons:
I'm pretty familiar with Mexico, the border, government, etc. and 'how it *really* works'. Sadly, like other "Conservatives", I had a large blind spot on the Constitutional AND contemporary ramifications for America by the actual Globalist Agenda of both parties. I didn't apply standards of truth to the issue, but rather contemporary standards (which lack truth). I'm, shall we say, 'very familiar' with the procurement of bail-jumpers. So, it was all kind of just 'business'.
I also have more good friends of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino/Mexican/Yougetmydrift origins, that love the Lord and are solid Americans (if they weren't all originally :) than you can shake a stick at.
Now, everyone from the old days is saying "the Muhammadans are coming in by the 'boatload' from S./C. America through Mexico!".
So I took a couple of vacations this year, down south to the border, and checked it out.
Bottom line, we need to 1)get real and 2)get the best Conservative, Constitutional, Godly solution in place - as quickly as possible - for America's potential future.
The one our children/grand/great/great-great/etc. will look back at us and curse or praise, for their American, God-given freedom.
Anyone, *any* *one* who is against that, I'm against. Period.
Let's start our own "Tommy Thompson Fan Club" to protect his reputation from some of these mean old Freepers, LOL!
I hope he runs for Governor again. He'd make a d@mn good Senator for us, too. Wouldn't you love to see Baldwin or Feingold get the boot? What a waste of oxygen those two are! And Herb Kohl will probably want to retire in a few years, don't you think? Wouldn't Tommy be a great replacement for him? :)
You still Happy? :O lol
God bless ya brother...
And the only way he had to express frustration, after 4 years in the post, is to make a cheap parting shot to this President on the nightly news? Puhleeze, I just don't buy it.
Thompson must have forgot his medicine the day he said that. He just flushed his reputation right down the dumper.
"His RESIGNING and SAYING THIS is a shot across the bow if you asked me...a warning - that we don't have a CLUE what Homeland Security really means nor how far we really are from it."
My initial reaction to TT's proclamation was the same as the others.....but you have probably called it right.
I am hoping Kerik will direct the Homeland Security effort effectively.......I think he has the political horsepower to be able to......and he has been a Cop for a long time.....his performance during the 911 event and other retrospection he has surely done since should make him as capable as any and better than most. Ridge was and is nothing but a dullard political hack.
It is also evident that Tommy Thompson served HOW MANY YEARS without a BRAIN!?
(Other than that small item - yes. I'm still Happy.
Bttt for all you said.
LOL
Those mysterious ways and all...:)
Tommy slips on banana peel opus. What a maroon.
My wife and I used to raise goats for meat and milk. Es verdád, cabrito es muy saboroso. (The goats are fun pets, too.)
I didn't much like the taste of goat milk either, but we fed it to drop calves we bought at auction, and occasionally the pigs.
We visited the dumpsters behind supermarkets to feed the pigs, and corn-fed the calves after they were weaned.
For ten years, we never bought eggs or meat in the supermarket.
Better late than never response.
They were called VICTORY GARDENS in WWII. In the 60's they were called HIPPIE COMMUNES. In the 80's they were called SURVIVALIST CAMPS.
During every real or perceived crisis - citizens confront how vulnerable, interdependent and helpless they are for food supplies, water and power.
We think we are technologicall superior to our ancestors - but my grandmother raiseD rabbits, chickens, sheep and goats. She could skin a rabbit, pluck a chicken, shear a sheep and milk a goat. I can't - wouldn't know where to begin. SOMEONE HELP ME!
Perhaps a Government program that is focused on directing some who don't buy eggs or meat in a supermarket is overdue.
This could augment the Government programs which promote the cutting back of "meat and eggs" intake and guarantee the happiness of ALL individuals residing in the USA.
Now I understand the "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we deceive" comes from.
Well, my idea about the wall was not to offend anyone, but just a practical idea for security to keep those that would harm us out.I know that the wall that Israel put up to keep the Palis out is said to be helping them with their terror attacks. I can't imagine living that he**-hole part of the world where they are surrounded by folks whose goal is to drive Israelis from the face of the earth.
Living in Texas, we have a lot of Hispanics/Mexicans here. My experience has been that they are hard-working, honest and decent folks. My wife is Chinese and came over from China early last year so we could get married. She is enrolled in an ESL/English as a Second Language class in the local school district. It meets Mon/Thurs 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. The teacher is a second grade teacher during the day, from Mexico and moved here from Mexico over 20 years ago. The students are ALL from Mexico and South and Central America. My wife is the only Asian in the class and I go with her and I'm the only Anglo. Everyone in the class is really nice to us both and they are really great.
Did America just extradite a Drug Kingpin (terrorist) of FARC back to the states?
We are aware of AQ and others in S./C. America and Mexico coming across.
What alliances could be developing in our own hemisphere?
Classic! LOL!!
We just called it farming...:O
Bwahahahahahaaa! Or he blessed us with some Homeland Security reality!
Either way, I'm honestly glad he said it...
After hearing DHS' Tom Ridge *LIE HIS ASS OFF TO US* about Muhammadans illegally crossing our border, in direct contradiction to known reality.
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