Conservatives have been trying to blame the Iraq war disaster on Obama claiming Republicans “had it won,” but “Obama lost it.” They blame it on Hillary Clinton for voting for the Iraq war resolution. They even justify the disaster by claiming that “Bush found WMDs in Iraq.” He did, but those WMDs were sold to Hussein by Reagan and Bush, Sr, and they were all dismantled and disabled.
You can’t be a conservative without being willing to lie for the Republican party simply because you cannot defend Republican policies without lying.
Here’s the latest news about the Iraq war disaster…
Islamic State group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 tribesmen and women in Iraq’s Anbar province, officials said Saturday, the latest mass killing committed by the group.
The shooting happened late Friday in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of the provincial capital of Ramadi, Anbar councilman Faleh al-Issawi said.
Militants accused the men and women of the Al Bu Nimr tribe of retaliating against them after being displaced from their homes when the group seized the Anbar town of Hit last month, al-Issawi said.
“These killings are taking place almost on a daily basis now in the areas under the control of the Islamic State group and they will continue unless this terrorist group is stopped,” al-Issawi told The Associated Press.
An official in the Anbar governor’s office confirmed the death toll. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to brief journalists.
On Thursday, authorities found the bodies of 48 Sunni tribesmen killed by the Islamic State group in Anbar.
Fascism is a radical authoritarian, nationalist, right-wing political ideology.
Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, blood, and the Republican party.
To achieve this, fascists purge forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration.
Fascists believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.
It advocates the creation of a totalitarian single-party, right-wing state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy (such as eugenics).
A fascist state’s government is led by a supreme leader such as George W. Bush who exercises a dictatorship over the fascist movement, the government, and other institutions of the state.
Discipline and obedience to the leader is demanded by the fascist movement to followers and subjects of a fascist state and is promoted through encouraging comradeship and commitment of followers and subjects.
Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the fascist state. In the Republican fascist party, dissent is not allowed.
Fascism promotes violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.
It views conflict as a fact of life that is responsible for all human progress.
It exalts militarism as providing positive transformation in society, in providing spiritual renovation, education, instilling of a will to dominate in people’s character, and creating national comradeship through military service.
Fascists commonly utilize paramilitary organizations for violent attacks on opponents, or to overthrow a political system.
Fascists are for socialized religion, military, and corporate economic losses.
WASHINGTON — Four former Blackwater Worldwide security contractors were convicted Wednesday on charges stemming from a deadly 2007 shooting in Iraq.
Federal court jurors found one defendant guilty of murder and three others of manslaughter and weapons charges, roundly asserting that the shooting was criminal. The defendants showed little emotion as the lengthy verdict was read.
Seventeen Iraqis died when gunfire erupted on Sept. 16, 2007 in the crowded Nisour Square in Baghdad. The shooting inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad and helped solidify the notion that Blackwater, America’s largest security contractor in Iraq, was reckless and unaccountable. Read more…
We’re finally finished with our Iraq occupation. So far, it’s cost us over a trillion dollars and the lives of well over 4000 soldiers and over 30,000 wounded. Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of a war waged for political gain.
In our Iraq excursion, we invaded a sovereign nation that was of no threat to us. The Bush administration allowed us to be attacked on September 11, 2001, and then he used that as an excuse to invade Iraq. Much of the rationale for going to war turned out to be based on lies or weak evidence, yet the investigation into how we “got it so wrong” has never been completed. We spent more on the investigations into Bill Clinton’s personal life during his presidency than we’ve spent on the investigation into how we were lied into this war — a war that some say may be the biggest blunder in U.S. history. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about his personal life, yet no one has been punished for lying us into this war.
The Bush administration used fear and hatred to advance his radical right-wing agenda. He got policies implemented that caused our federal debt to more than double, and some of which resulted in the near total collapse of our economy. Our government is now more polarized than it has been in at least 100 years. Our Supreme Court is stacked with activist political hacks thanks to Bush’s appointments.
So, after eight years of occupation, we leave Iraq with one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Violence is increasing, the government is headed by right-wing religious extremists, unemployment is high, and civic unrest runs rampant.
The Bush Administration taking credit for killing Osama bin Laden is akin to…
…if birds took credit for the “Miracle on the Hudson” landing performed by Chesley Sullenberger, after his plane hit a flock that disabled its engines.
…if King George III took credit for the United States of America after England lost the colonies.
…if neo-Nazis took credit for the hit Broadway musical “The Producers.”
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases emitted by human activity are causing global average temperatures to rise. Conservative think tanks are trying to undermine this conclusion with a disinformation campaign employing “reports” designed to look like a counterbalance to peer-reviewed studies, skeptic propaganda masquerading as journalism, and events like the AEI luncheon that Crichton addressed. The think tanks provide both intellectual cover for those who reject what the best science currently tells us, and ammunition for conservative policymakers like Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who calls global warming “a hoax.”
This concerted effort reflects the shared convictions of free-market, and thus antiregulatory, conservatives. But there’s another factor at play. In addition to being supported by like-minded individuals and ideologically sympathetic foundations, these groups are funded by ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company. Mother Jones has tallied some 40 ExxonMobil-funded organizations that either have sought to undermine mainstream scientific findings on global climate change or have maintained affiliations with a small group of “skeptic” scientists who continue to do so. Beyond think tanks, the count also includes quasi-journalistic outlets like Tech CentralStation.com (a website providing “news, analysis, research, and commentary” that received $95,000 from ExxonMobil in 2003), a FoxNews.com columnist, and even religious and civil rights groups. In total, these organizations received more than $8 million between 2000 and 2003 (the last year for which records are available; all figures below are for that range unless otherwise noted). ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Lee Raymond serves as vice chairman of the board of trustees for the AEI, which received $960,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. The AEI-Brookings Institution Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, which officially hosted Crichton, received another $55,000. When asked about the event, the center’s executive director, Robert Hahn—who’s a fellow with the AEI—defended it, saying, “Climate science is a field in which reasonable experts can disagree.” (By contrast, on the day of the event, the Brookings Institution posted a scathing critique of Crichton’s book.)
During the question-and-answer period following his speech, Crichton drew an analogy between believers in global warming and Nazi eugenicists. “Auschwitz exists because of politicized science,” Crichton asserted, to gasps from some in the crowd. There was no acknowledgment that the AEI event was part of an attempt to do just that: politicize science. The audience at hand was certainly full of partisans. Listening attentively was Myron Ebell, a man recently censured by the British House of Commons for “unfounded and insulting criticism of Sir David King, the Government’s Chief Scientist.” Ebell is the global warming and international policy director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), which has received a whopping $1,380,000 from ExxonMobil. Sitting in the back of the room was Christopher Horner, the silver-haired counsel to the Cooler Heads Coalition who’s also a CEI senior fellow. Present also was Paul Driessen, a senior fellow with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow ($252,000) and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise ($40,000 in 2003). Saying he’s “heartened that ExxonMobil and a couple of other groups have stood up and said, ‘this is not science,’” Driessen, who is white, has made it his mission to portray Kyoto-style emissions regulations as an attack on people of color—his recent book is entitled Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (see “Black Gold?”). Driessen has also written about the role that think tanks can play in helping corporations achieve their objectives. Such outlets “can provide research, present credible independent voices on a host of issues, indirectly influence opinion and political leaders, and promote responsible social and economic agendas,” he advised companies in a 2001 essay published in Capital PR News. “They have extensive networks among scholars, academics, scientists, journalists, community leaders and politicians…. You will be amazed at how much they do with so little.”
We must never forget how the Bush administration didn’t take the threat of terrorism seriously before 9/11 and then how the first Supreme Court appointed president used it to pass his radical agenda. The consequences of Bush’s response to 9/11 were the doubling of the federal debt, getting us involved in two wars at a cost of some three trillion dollars and over 4,000 American lives, the loss of all credibility in world affairs, the huge spike in oil prices, the collapse of our economy, the violation of the Geneva Conventions, violations of our Constitution, and the list goes on.
We must never forget 9/11 and what conservatives did to our country.
Bush has written a book! Most of us doubted that he had ever read a book, but now he has written an actual book. And we have obtained an excerpt! This is from chapter three where he describes the time he took off before running for Governor of Texas:
The first day on my vacation, what I did on my summer vacation, the first day on my vacation, I woke up. Then, I went downtown to look for job. Then I hung out in front of the drugstore. The second day on my summer vacation, I woke up, then I went downtown to look for a job. Then I hung out in front of the drugstore. The third day on my summer vacation, I woke up…
It appears to be a real page turner! I’ve already ordered my copy from Amazon.
Every week it seems that there are new accounts of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. Usually these cases of abuse involve young boys. The Archdiocese has been protecting these perverts for decades, but they’re finally being called on it.
As with any religious cult, whether it’s the Heaven’s Gate and their comet Hale-Bopp, the Unification Church (and their Washington Times “news”paper, or the Catholic Church, there is always abuse. There always has been and there always will be.
A sure sign of a wacky organization is costumes. Wackos love to play dress-up. And the priest costumes don’t get much wackier. Their bishop costumes are pretty wacky, too.
These religious nuts are required to vow a life of celibacy if they want to be able to dress up in the wacky costumes and be the leader of the cult. (I wonder what their treatment is for blue balls.)
The church also has their share of bizarre beliefs, the main one being the story of a guy about 2,000 years ago who was born to a virgin mother, crucified, and then magically rose from the dead, and if you believe that story, you’ll go to a magical place when you die. (If you believe that one, I have some oceanfront property for sale here in Colorado you might be interested in.)
These religious nuts also believe that the earth is only about 6,000 years old.
Cults are extremely dangerous when they infiltrate our government, which was the case with the Bush and Reagan administrations. Cult members are inherently irrational and they make irrational decisions. Bush thought god told him to invade Iraq. Reagan used astrology to make decisions. With both administrations, the result was catastrophic failure. We’re now on the verge of collapse. China is poised to become the next economic super-power. We owe much of our debt to them. Currently we’re indispensable as a trading partner. Should that indispensability ever wane, we could be in big trouble.
We are now so far in debt, if we every get into another major war, we’re at the mercy of China to finance it. Should China be on the apposing side, we’re screwed. We’re paying some $400 billion a year just on interest on the Reagan/Bush debt.
Right-wingers try to blame it on Obama. The Republican party is also a cult. Take away the lies and they’d have nothing left. The only thing they lack is silly costumes.
Sarah Palin saw that she could cash in on her celebrity after the 2008 election by resigning from governorship and going out on a speaking tour, among other things. Sure, she was elected to serve the state of Alaska, and forcing an extra election, costing the state quite a bit of money, but money is the right-wing American way. Anything for a buck.
As governor, Palin was paid a measly $125k a year where she had to do actual work, make (bad) decisions, and deal with criticism.
As a right-wing celebrity, she’s “earned” about $12 million since July! There’s good money in telling the lies right-wingers want to hear. Sean Hannity makes about $20 million a year and Glenn Beck makes about the same.
Like Bush, Palin, Hannity, and Beck are just regular people to right-wingers and that makes the ignorant masses feel good. And isn’t that what’s really important?
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulus, implied president Bush was not much of a thinker.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You’ve now met with President Obama many times. At least 15 meetings and phone calls.
MEDVEDEV: Sixteen times.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sixteen. Okay, I knew it was 15. I wasn’t sure about the 16. What do you make of Barack Obama the man?
MEDVEDEV: He’s very comfortable partner, it’s very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people – I won’t name anyone by name – he’s a thinker, he thinks when he speaks. Which is already pretty good.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You had somebody in your mind, I think. (LAUGHS)
MEDVEDEV: Obviously I do have someone on my mind. I don’t want to mention anyone by name, but his initials are “GEORGE W. BUSH! George Bush is so stupid, he once tripped over a wireless phone! George Bush is so dumb, he got fired from his job at the M&M factory for throwing out all the ‘W’s! George Bush is so dumb, he once put money in the parking meter and waited for a gumball to come out! Wait, I’m not finished… (laughs out loud) Bush is so stupid, his geometry test said “Find x”, and he circled it and said “there it is!” Bush is so dumb, he stares at an orange juice carton every morning for an hour because it says “concentrate!”
(At this point in the interview, Medvedev rolled on the floor, laughing his ass off.)
MEDVEDEV: Ah, sorry… But seriously, Barack Obama is eager to listen to his partner, which is a pretty good quality for a politician. Because any politician is to a certain degree a mentor. They preach something. And the ability to listen to their partner is very important for the politician. And he is pretty deeply emerged in the subject, so he has a good knowledge of what he’s talking about. There was no instance in our meetings with Mr. Obama where he wasn’t well prepared for the questions. This is very good. And after all, he’s simply a very pleasant man with whom it’s a pleasure to deal with.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of a record $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned — a request that could be an especially hard sell to some of the administration’s Democratic allies.
The extra $33 billion in 2010 would mostly go toward the expansion of the war in Afghanistan. Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops for that war as part of an overhaul of the war strategy late last year. Source
$708 billion comes out to $2,329 per person in the United States. Think about if the wars weren’t being paid for on credit but instead we had to ante up the money every year. We would have been out of there a long time ago.
Yesterday, Obama claimed “the buck stops here” when intelligence agencies failed to prevent the latest terrorist attack that could have cost the lives of hundreds of people. There were plenty of obvious warnings, yet chances are, no one will suffer any consequences or lose their jobs. The bombers’s own father warned that his son was a serious danger, yet he wasn’t entered into the no fly list. The CIA realized there was a danger after the plane took off, but was going to wait until the plane landed before they took action. Had the bomber not been so incompetent, that would have been too late.
We’ve seen the lack of any consequences with the banking industry. Banks deemed “too big to fail” engaged in reckless behavior, which in effect was high stakes gambling, but it turned out, they were gambling with the house’s money! No problem. Here’s a few hundred billion to take care of your losses. And give yourselves a bonus while you’re at it.
Last week, there was the Blackwater murder case where the contractors gunned down innocent, unarmed Iraqi civilians in cold blood, but the case was thrown out of court. Iraqis understandably were outraged, but it looks like there will be no consequences. Not exactly the way to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
With the Abu Ghraib scandal, only a few peons were punished. With the Bush administration, the buck stopped with the people who were just following orders. It never reached those who were in command, like Rumsfeld or Cheney.
And of course, there was the issue of the Bush administration lying us into a war. Nearly 4,000 American troops died, thousands of others were wounded, at a cost of a trillion dollars, not to mention all the Iraqi civilians who were killed. Rather than prosecute anyone, the Obama administration wants to look forward. Dick Cheney doesn’t realize what a gift he was given. He should be in prison, yet all he’s doing is running his mouth calling Obama “weak on terror.” No, the Bush administration was weak on terror. They allowed us to be attacked and then lost the war against al Qaeda by bankrupting our country and destroying our economy. That was bin Laden’s goal.
There were also the cases of Karl Rove and Harriet Meyers defying congressional subpoenas and nothing ever happened with that.
And then there was the Clinton administration… Oh, wait… Clinton was impeached for getting a blow job. Hmmmm… I guess there are just no consequences for Republicans acting badly. If only Clinton knew back then that you could just ignore Congressional subpoenas.
Bin Laden’s goal was to bankrupt America. The real target of the 2001 attack was our economy, as revealed in a videotape released in 2004.
“We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” bin Laden said in the transcript. Source
The U.S. was in a mild recession before the 9/11 attack, but the fear caused by the attack caused our economy to really tank. Our government’s over-reaction to the attack cost our country trillions of dollars and allowed Bush to implement his radical agenda, including his massive tax cuts where Republicans couldn’t even get a simple majority in the Senate. Cheney had to cast the deciding vote.
With the irresponsible tax cuts and increased spending due to the two wars, Bush doubled the U.S. debt. Our federal debt is now over 12 trillion dollars and Osama bin Laden is still at large.
DRUDGE RETORT 