Bush is Back & Stewart's Got Him

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"The War That Did Not Happen"

If anyone thinks we can or should ignore the invasion of Iraq, think again. The Bush Administration perpetrated the jingoistic reaction to 9/11 with a false tie to WMD in Iraq and a bulls eye on Saddam Hussein. Tonight, Rachel Maddow hosts "Hubris: The Selling of the Iraq War" at 9PM EST. Taken from the book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, the documentary follows every false step lie and propoganda strategy by the Bush Administration in what Maddow calls "the war that did not happen."

 

President Bush demanded it.

 

Dick Cheney promoted it.

 

 Congress went along with it.  And we let them.

 

MSNBC explores this now ten year old declaration of war with the lies and fabrications by notables such as V.P. Dick Cheney, Secy of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condi Rice, Deputy Secy of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and more! Tune in tonight to see the heroes and villains (mostly the latter) speak out. Too bad they wouldn't do so at the time. We might have 4,000+ more soldiers and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens still with us.


 Petition to bring these people up on war crimes, anyone?

8 Years 4500 Casualties Later

I know I should be happy the war in Iraq is ended and the last troops officially left yesterday.  I am.  But I'm angry.  I'm angry it  in the first place. I'm angry it was sold to us with a lie.  I'm angry we  bought into the lie and I'm angry we didn't call out the perpetrators of this lie once the lie was exposed. 

I'm not the parent of someone in the military.  I am the daughter of a WWII vet and cousin of a lifer in the USAF.  I don't hate the military.  I respect the people who fight for us.  What I don't respect are the men who make these decisions, the so-called "leaders", the Masters of War:  Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush II, Tony Blair, majorities in U.S. Houses of Congress as well as Members of Parliament.

British weekly newsmagazine New Statesman, contains a well written op-ed on the legacy of the Iraq War.  Always interesting to hear how other countries view the U.S., even when they're our bed mates.

"Faces of the Dead" is a NY Times interactive visual of every soldier killed in Iraq & Afghanistan. This is what you call a reality check.

Was it worth it?   We'll be arguing this as long as we live without as much conviction as we argued about Viet Nam.  This perspective was written in 2007 but it's still relevant today; perhaps more so.

As a final note, here's the Iraqi Body Count and their latest estimates on civilian Iraqi deaths.

Dylan's Masters of War music video

Who Increased the Debt?

Who indeed?

Paul Krugman's  NY Times Op-Ed today focuses on the myth of debt recovery in the past.  

You often hear assertions to the effect that in the past the economy has always rebounded strongly after a recession, so there must be something special at work here — and that something special must be the socialist in the White House.

Yet the reality is that weak recoveries have actually been the norm for the last two decades: both the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession were followed by prolonged “jobless recoveries”.

Take another look at what we're going through and tell me we should be out of danger now two years after the failure of the biggest banks and financial firms in the world as well as the automotive industry.  

Come on people.

Too Big to Fail or Too Big For Their Britches?

HBO debuted "Too Big to Fail" the other night.  It's the story of the bank crises, the fed's involvement and the scare tactics used to convince Congress they had to pass emergency legislation to bail out some failing banks while others were left to fail.  I watched it with skepticism as it painted a somewhat heroic picture of then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, as well as Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.  Both men were appointed by George W. Bush.

Most of us were bamboozled into believing the bank bailout was the only way to save the economy, both domestic and foreign.  We were led to believe the money we gave the banks would be re-paid, credit loosened and the economy stimulated as banks used the money to lend again for new business loans, home purchases and the like.

But that didn't happen.  This rush to save the banks was much like the rush to invade Iraq after 9/11.  It happened too fast, there was too much pressure put upon Congress, no strict criteria for the banks to follow other than to pay back the money.  The American people?  We had little to say about the mess.  We barely understood it.  But we weren't consulted either. 

Thursday eve,  Huff Post led with this screaming headline and a story that supports what my gut told me at the time:

 The Fed Loses Cred (excerpt)  

In the midst of the global financial crisis in 2008, the Federal Reserve lent Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland at least $30 billion each at interest rates as low as 0.01 percent with no public disclosure of the details, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

The latest revelations about the covert infusions of credit provided by the Fed to some of the world's largest banks has amplified accusations that the central bank is a power unto itself, operating according to its own devices and in the interest of major financial institutions -- and beyond accountability to taxpayers.

It gets worse but you'll want to read it yourself.  The purveyors of the mess are enjoying their beach homes, their yachts, their golden parachutes.  They aren't suffering.  We are. 

When are we going to demand repercussions and responsibility from these institutions via our elected officials, our judicial system, our President? 

Or are they all in on the fix? 

There's Hope For Us Yet

My husband was kind enough to send me a link to this article on foxnews.com today: 

Barbara Bush Endorses Gay Marriage in New York

Okay, that grabbed my attention.  Barbara Bush endorsing gay marriage?  Are pigs flying?  Is it the End of Days?  Did Hell freeze over?  Whaaaaaaat??

Oh...a little reading and I find out it's not that Barbara Bush, old blue hair steely eyed bitchy Barbara Bush.  It's her granddaughter.  It's one of the twins.  She's GW and Laura Bush' progeny.  And she sounds like a bleeding heart Liberal. 



The web site promoting New Yorkers for Marriage Equality puts her in the company of Robert Kennedy Jr., Whoopie Goldberg, Kenneth Cole (married to a Cuomo), Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick; Liberals all.

It gets better.  The article includes an interview she did with Chris Wallace on FOX NEWS no less.  She's all about "health equity" for people in the U.S. and other countries.  Wallace says she sounds like "someone with a mission statement from the Obama White House."

Surprising puff piece from Fox News but, then again, they can't bash the ideals of the daughter of their idyllic former president, can they?

Kudos to Ms Bush and I am not being condescending.  It's very hard to move out of the sphere of influence of your folks.  I know.  I did it.  But I am not a public figure and for me it was a personal choice that didn't affect me publicly.  I just knew the political beliefs my parents held, particularly my father, were wrong.  Apparently the humanitarian experiences she's had deeply affected her, allowing her to look at all sides of the equations, not just the Right side.