It has been a Republican mantra for decades that private enterprise is more efficient than government. In 2005 President George W. Bush led the charge to privatize Social Security. Between the collapse of Enron and the banking system can you imagine where we'd be if he hadn't failed? When the same president led us into the war in Afghanistan his administration used private security contractors, mercenaries - many of whom are not American citizens, to provide security for supply convoys and military bases. When President Bush led us into the war in Iraq his administration further privatized the war effort by using mercenaries to protect state department personnel leading to the alleged atrocities by Blackwater guards at Nisour Square where 17 innocent Iraqi civilians were killed.
During that same period President Bush appointed two new members to the Supreme Court. Those two members recently joined with three other activist judges from the right in a decision that effectively privatizes the United States Congress and Presidency. The decision in the Citizens United vs. the FEC which allows corporations both domestic and foreign to effectively purchase federal elected officials could well be the most enduring legacy of the George W. Bush administration.
Populist activists from the right and left, like the Tea Party and MoveOn.org should make common cause to call for a constitutional convention as provided for by Article V of the U.S. Constitution to reverse this disastrous decision by amending our constitution.
I will remember the last 8 years of financial destruction here in the US and the bloodshed of millions of civilians on a global scale. most honest political and financial experts consider him the worst leader america has ever had and this is why.
Worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression
Lied about the war in Iraq
No WMD's found in Iraq
Vetoed health coverage for kids
Ignored law, allowed torture
Illegal wiretapping
Had enough info to stop 9/11 and didn't, hid that fact from the public
Lost Bin laden at Tora Bora
Crassly unconstitutional signing statements
Stripped resources from Afghanistan and sent them to Iraq
Didn't catch Bin Laden
Allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan Afghan war out of control
Lied about reducing greenhouse emissions, ignored warming
Muzzled warming scientists in NASA and elsewhere
Political appointments to Department of Justice and political prosecutions
Cheney, Rove, and others in contempt of Congress -- refused to tell the American people the truth
Fooled public into believing Saddam was involved in 9/11 when he knew otherwise
Made light of inabilty to find WMD's
Please sign the petition to investigate Bush/Cheney for war crimes. Then pass it on to everyony you know that will sign it.
If American foreign policy had a gift shop, what would it sell? America the Gift Shop is an installation project that reflects the current foreign policy in the fun-house mirror of American Commerce. My palette is the vernacular of retail. Once the sugar coating of the ordinary dissolves, we are left with the hard and uncomfortable truth about where we've been as a nation. We buy souvenirs at the end of a trip, to remind ourselves of the experience. What do we have to remind us of the events of the last eight years?
I encourage you to visit it; it's worth eight years of your time.
John McCain continues to pound his chest about what a great commander-in-chief he would make. Just like his war loving Siamese twin brothers Bush/Cheney his only tool is the hammer of the military and every problem looks like the nail of a war. Now one of their favorite institutional friends the Rand Corporation(the folks who brought you the brilliant strategy of Vietnam) are saying that the "War on Terror" is a stupid concept because it doesn't work.
In a study released July 29th entitled How Terrorism Ends: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida Seth Jones,Ph.D. and Martin C. Libicki make the case that the "War on Terror" has failed to curb the world wide terrorist activities of al Qa'ida. They examined 648 terrorist groups that existed between 1968 and 2006 looking for how they eventually ended their activities. What their, dare I say it, scientific, study revealed is that the concept of a military solution to the problem of terrorist activity has never worked. Instead, "most terrorist groups end either because they join the political process, or because local police and intelligence efforts arrest or kill key members." Not that most of the readers of this site didn't already know it but they also found that the terrorist activities of al Qa'ida have only increased since 9-11 and that they also have expanded into Europe, Asia, Africa and of course the Middle East.
In the case of Boumediene v. Bush, issued on June 12, 2008, holding that the Guantanamo Bay detainees have a Constitutional right to file habeas corpus petitions in the courts of the United States to question the legality of their detentions, the majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have done what we expect them to do in times of crisis for our Constitutional rule of law.
This decision will go down as one of those decisive moments in American history when a majority of the Justices realized they had to take stern action to preserve the Constitutional framework of the republic from an aberrant course. The decision is a dramatic repudiation of the whole purported legal edifice of the neocons. Under this ruling, neither George Bush nor any other American president may use threats to national security, either real or imagined, as an excuse to override the Constitution.
Under this ruling, neither George Bush nor any other American president may decide for himself or herself what the president's powers are without the constraint of our Constitutional checks and balances. Under this decision, the Magna Charta is rescued from the Bushite/neocon jackboot.
This decision dispels clouds of gloom. To all of us who have experienced so many discouraging moments during the awful neocon nightmare of recent years, this action of our nation's highest court is the kind of thing that tells us our system may still be capable of protecting us from tyranny. It is the kind of thing that says perhaps the neocon thugs will indeed all get their come-uppance before it's all said and done. It is the kind of transcendental event that restores hope and renders great cheer for all who love the promise of democracy and freedom that our national forebears proclaimed to a waiting world on July 4, 1776.
For a moment, we can allow ourselves to feel genuinely optimistic about how it is all going to finally turn out in the matter of the people vs. the neocons and Bushites. For just a moment, though. The Constitution survived a very close call by a very close margin, a 5-4 vote of the Justices. John Bush III McCain was quick to express disagreement with the decision. Senator Barack Obama agrees with the decision. Senator Obama is already on public record opposing the neocons' bankrupt theories of Constitutional law as expressed by the four dissenters, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. For the sake of my country and all it stands for, for the sake of all that its patriot sons and daughters have sacrificed down through the centuries and decades and years, for the sake of my children's right to grow up as free citizens of a Constitutional democracy, I want Barack Obama, not Bush III McCain, filling the next vacancies on the United States Supreme Court. I am going to put every possible effort I can into making that happen by winning the electoral votes of my state of Texas. I hope you all do the same.
Peter Lesser, the lawyer, does this abbreviated history of Dallas' image in the world. It goes something like this: "Bump on a log, assassination. Bump on a log, Dallas Cowboys. Bump on a log, TV show. Bump on a log, Dallas Cowboys again."
(Take a look at the pictures below the fold. Pure gold for us left of center types. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Did anyone catch the bottom of the Austin American-Statesman print edition yesterday? I took one look at it and almost fell down laughing. My wife wondered what was so funny. I showed her and she just stared for a couple of minutes, then she lost it.
Click through for the pics... and uprate this on reddit!
The election of 2008 could be a replay of the Texas election of 2002.
In Texas in 2002, it had been 8 years since the defeat of Ann Richards by George Bush. The state was in a recession. The recession had caused a decrease in sales tax receipts. Important social programs were being cut right and left. It was a midterm election following a Republican Presidential victory. There was every reason to believe that it would be a good year for Democrats.
In response, Democrats put up a "dream ticket" in Texas in 2002. At the top of the ticket were Tony Sanchez, a wealthy Laredo banker running for Governor, and, for U.S. Senate, the charismatic Afro-American former mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk. Other statewide democratic candidates included Marty Akin, who had been the quarterback of a national champion University of Texas football team, who was running for Comptroller. Running statewide for Texas Attorney General was Kirk Watson, whose 15 seconds of fame years later caused him to look a fool on nationwide TV; as he was unable to cite a single accomplishment for his candidate Obama. Another well known statewide candidate was John Sharp who was running for Lt. Governor (essentially a "Prime Minister" in Texas).
In November of 2002, after the dust had cleared in Texas, there was not a single successful statewide Democratic candidate. All statewide offices had been lost. And, the legislature had gone over to the Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction.
This week marks the fifth anniversary of shock and awe in Iraq.
Five years of blood - 3,990 U.S. soldiers killed, including two who perished in a midday bomb attack in downtown Baghdad just yesterday, and more than 29,000 seriously wounded.
Five years of treasure - $800 billion officially, including President Bush's pending request for additional tax dollars, and probably closer to a total of $3 trillion, according to Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
Five years of shocking failure and awesome incompetence.
It was a year ago that I returned from Iraq, where I had been serving as a civilian. I didn't support the original invasion, but I held out hope that we could help Iraq build the foundation of a democratic system to justify the heartbreaking personal investments of our military families and the financial sacrifice of our taxpayers.
I was wrong.
Neither administration - not the one in Baghdad, not the one back in Washington, D.C. - had the commitment or competence to get the job done.
This week, what we are left with is a holding pattern of continued violence against our soldiers and Iraqi civilians, against our standing in the world, and against our economic well-being, which is now being driven into a deepening recession caused to some significant degree by that can be laid at the feet of the more than $12 billion you and I are already squandering there each month.
Yesterday, George W. Bush issued hollow assurances that he and his administration are doing everything they can to avoid an outright plunge into economic disaster, touting a $30 billion bailout of a prestigious Wall Street bank engineered since last Friday by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others.
"I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for working over the weekend," Bush smiled.
He made no mention of the families of the 15 U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq since Sunday, who surely have lost their share of sleep, too.
Did I hear President Bush's comments on the Today show this morning correctly when he stated that the war in Iraq was benefiting our national economy? If so, what a sad time it is for Texans and our country. I have looked for a transcript of the interview with Ann Curry but I cannot find it. Perhaps someone can find and post the interview.
