Why Ashley Judd Flipped Against Run For Senate

After 2008, Obama and Democrats refused to use the political capital given by them when 10 million more voters went to the polls and voted for them.

In both 2010 and 2012, whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress, Obama said he was going to do more caving.

What was he hoping to achieve by doing that by announcing that before an election (along with Obama's flip-flopp­ing on just about every pledge and continuing Bush-Chene­y policies and putting Republican­-like legislatio­n through Congress), if not to discourage and suppress Democratic voter turnout in the midterms?

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Why Ashley Judd Flipped Against Run For Senate

Republicans, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who've had the greatest majority in decades.  You would think that with Republicans controlling the House, Democrats would've turned the tables and thwarted Republicans' continuing legislation like Bush's tax cuts for the rich?  Are Democrats just stupld?

Obama never pressured Ben Nelson (or Blanche Lincoln, or any Blue Dog). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (Blanche Lincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibustered a public option for healthcare. They didn't.

The DNC could've taken away re-election funds. They didn't.

Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (and doesn't).

The Progressive Caucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust public option.  They didn't.

Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after Howard Dean when Dean said ACA was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the Progressive Caucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended.

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Why Ashley Judd Flipped Against Run For Senate

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the WhiteHouse, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind BlueDogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

Obama supports voting third parties, even when it risks Democratic turnout.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in U.S. history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constituti­onally-gua­ranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic).  But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  Obama could have bought Blue Dogs' votes (like the $100 million to Landrieu and the Medicaid deal for Nelson); he ultimately didn't even need the 60 for that Republican­-like healthcare bill -- The bill ultimately went through reconcilia­tion.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the puppet-mas­ters who control him want in office.  On both sides of the aisle.  Obama, Democrats and Republicans in office, working on behalf of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

Reform isn't on the agenda of either party.

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Why Ashley Judd Flipped Against Run For Senate

There is nothing that Obama and the DLC-controlled Congress have done that resembles Democratic policies or ideology.

Obama and Democrats today (and Democrats for the past couple of decades, or since the DLC took over control of the Democratic Party) are promoting Republican policies.  You forget that Democratic politicians voted along with Republicans to support George W. Bush's policies.  Democrats all but disappeared during the Bush administration (Barbara Boxer wrote mystery novels while collecting a salary from the Senate; Patrick Leahy got to act in a movie about his favorite comic book hero, Batman, while collecting his salary from the Senate).

Democrats should have been working to obstruct Bush and block Republicans every way they could, but they actually argued on behalf of Bush.  How many times did we hear Democrats defend Bush's nominations on everything from cabinet posts to judges, citing "executive branch rights," "A president deserves to have whomever he wants on his cabinet" or "on the Supreme Court"?  Out of Democrats' mouths!

Democrats did it and had as their talking points to quiet dissent among the base of the Democratic Party, "The pendulum will swing back and Democrats will be in power and get these rights, and make it all right again."

But when Democrats got back into power, they didn't do that.  They aren't doing that.  Democrats in Congress have refused to perform their Constitutionally required responsibility of overseeing the executive branch, both during Bush (after 2006) and now under Obama.  Between Henry Waxman, Joe Lieberman, Patrick Leahy, Jay Rockefeller, Democrats have been co-conspirators with Republicans.

And why wouldn't Democrats change, do anything differently, when there are apologists, people like Obama's 'most ardent supporters', who keep his and their numbers high, who keep re-electing them no matter what their treachery.  "Because the Republicans are worse" -- That's some mantra.   It's no different than Bushies voting for Republicans because 0sama Bin Laden's picture gets flashed at them all over the media the weekend before elections.

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Why Ashley Judd Flipped Against Run For Senate

RFK didn't reside in NY before he decided to run for the Senate, Elizabeth Dole didn't reside in N. Carolina before she decided to run for the Senate, Al Franken didn't live in Minnesota before he decided to run for the Senate; I can go on and on with the numbers of senators who didn't reside in the state they ultimately ran for office to represent.

Judd HASN'T impressed Bill Clinton, hence his effort to get her out of the race.  She doesn't impress him because she's NOT a corporate tool, a Democrat-In-Name-Only, as he and Hillary are.

Clinton was a co-founder of the DLC, the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.  The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word "liberal" when Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsibl­­e for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, massive public works projects like the Hoover Dam, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characteri­­ze themselves as far-anythi­­ng or extreme, but mainstream­­. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­­ian intimidati­­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

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Why Ashley Judd Flipped Against Run For Senate

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

Obama supports voting third parties, even when it risks Democratic turnout.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in U.S. history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constituti­onally-gua­ranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic).  But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  Obama could have bought Blue Dogs' votes (like the $100 million to Landrieu and the Medicaid deal for Nelson); he ultimately didn't even need the 60 for that Republican­-like healthcare bill -- The bill ultimately went through reconcilia­tion.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the puppet-mas­ters who control him want in office.  On both sides of the aisle.  Obama, Democrats and Republicans in office, working on behalf of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

Reform isn't on the agenda of either party.
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Bee Deaths From Colony Collapse Disorder On The Rise As Researchers Point To Pesticides

4.) The President did nothing to stop it, either. On Tuesday, Obama signed HR 933 while the rest of the nation was fixated on gay marriage, as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument concerning California's Proposition 8. But just because most of the nation and the media were paying attention to gay marriage doesn't mean that others were not doing their best to express their opposition to the "Monsanto Protection Act." In fact, more than 250,000 voters signed a petition opposing the provision. And Food Democracy Now protesters even took their fight straight to Obama, protesting in front of the White House against Section 735 of the bill. He signed it anyway.

5.) It sets a terrible precedent. Though it will only remain in effect for six months until the government finds another way to fund its operations, the message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side. Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that court challenges are a privilege, not a right.

“I think any time you tweak with the ability of the public to seek redress from the courts, you create a huge risk,” Seattle attorney Bill Marler -- who has represented victims of foodborne illness in successful lawsuits against corporations -- told the New York Daily News.
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Bee Deaths From Colony Collapse Disorder On The Rise As Researchers Point To Pesticides

2.) The provision's language was apparently written in collusion with Monsanto. Lawmakers and companies working together to craft legislation is by no means a rare occurrence in this day and age. But the fact that Sen. Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, actually worked with Monsanto on a provision that in effect allows them to keep selling seeds, which can then go on to be planted, even if it is found to be harmful to consumers, is stunning. It's just another example of corporations bending Congress to their will, and it's one that could have dire risks for public health in America.

3.) Many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the "Monsanto Protection Act" even existed within the bill they were voting on. HR 933 was a spending bill aimed at averting a government shutdown and ensuring that the federal government would continue to be able to pay its bills. But the Center for Food Safety maintains that many Democrats in Congress were not even aware that the provision was in the legislation:

“In this hidden backroom deal, Sen. [Barbara] Mikulski turned her back on consumer, environmental and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, said in a statement. “This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Sen. Mikulski or the Democrat Majority in the Senate.”

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Ashley Judd Senate Run Not Happening

Nobody is talking about Nancy Pelosi.  The article is about Ashley Judd and presumably the pronoun "she" in the comment, "She is so full of herself", referred to Ashley Judd as the name "Nancy Pelosi" appears nowhere in the article.
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New $49M Guantanamo Prison Proposed By Pentagon Official

How To Close Guantanamo 

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/blueprints2012/HRF_Guantanamo_blueprint.pdf
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12 People Left Behind During America's Recovery

James Burke of "Connections"-fame produced an excellent program about 30 years ago called "After The Warming" that you can see online.  It's done as if it's 2050 with Burke looking back over the history of the world's climate changes and the effect that cyclical warming and cooling has had on the development of animal, vegetation, and civilization.  Up until the industrial revolution, and how what's happening is man-made, how we know that it's man-made, and how fast it's happening.  In less than one generation, human civilization on the planet is going to irrevocably break down.  Mass die-off of species, specifically humans, from a whole host of assaults (famine, drought, disease, pandemics, wars, etc.). 

If every Fox viewer saw it, they might be convinced, but it wouldn't matter; it's too late.  Bleak?  You bet.  But we have to start talking about it and demanding politicians address it.  Don't believe it?  Then look at this and see how Congress is in fire sale mode, set to have the crash happen all over again.

Watch "After The Warming" with your families and friends.  It's somewhere to begin.
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Still Suffering the Damage: Iraq 10 Years Later

It's a great example of how once a government gets something, it doesn't easily let it go.  Like the Patriot Act.  

If the Bush administration really believed that Saddam Hussein still had WMD, they'd have let up on the no-fly zone, to see and/or prove where there were WMD.  
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Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

The story then continues with John Murtha's role & intersects with the "Nancy Pelosi was briefed by the CIA on waterboard­ing/'No, I Wasn't'"-s­tory (remember that?). It appears that Murtha was used by the CIA & BushCo to deceive the 'Gang of 8' and Congress about the waterboard­ing/tortur­e. With this story, we get some insight into how Cheney got all of his & Bush's crimes past Congressio­nal oversight (through his knowledge of how congressio­nal subcommitt­ees operated, from his earlier stint as a congressman­n).

Here is a background clip of the person that Marcy Wheeler/em­ptywheel references­, Greg Sargent, who in this clip is being interviewe­d by Rachel Maddow about the Pelosi-CIA story.

There's a part 1 to the clip, which is the lead-in where Rachel summarizes the situation before she gets to Greg Sargent.

I wish I could say that it's all in the past, and that we should do as Obama insists, "Look forward, not back", but we can't because it's an ongoing effort.  You can't go forward until you've examined what happened and make the changes necessary for it not happening again.  One of Cheney's architects for all of this was David Addington.  When arch-rightwinger Jim DeMint left the Senate for the rightwing think tank  the Heritage Foundation, David Addington joined him there.
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Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

What Cheney also had was a unique knowledge of the inner workings of Congress from his time there.  Of how to get legislation through quietly, how to go around committee members, and that's one of the ways that BushCheney got torture past Congress, and how Pelosi could say in all earnestness that she hadn't been  informed about waterboarding.  The road to to it all, to our neverendin­g wars in Afghanista­n and Iraq lead right through Murtha's seat in Congress.

To my knowledge, Paul Kanjorski is the one of several witnesses (all congressme­n) who can directly place George W. Bush at the scene of the conspiracy to deceive Congress into backing the attack on Iraq with evidence falsified by the CIA. 

It's through Kanjorski'­s account that we learn the Bush-Chene­y Administra­tion's scheme, which included the CIA's fabricatin­g photograph­s for the explicit purpose of deceiving Congress into authorizat­ing the use of military force in Iraq. 

http://www­.counterpu­nch.org/br­asch090320­07.html

After you read that, read this, where Murtha shows up again in this report (this got no reporting in the MSM), where Kanjorski told his constituen­ts in a townhall meeting that he voted to give Bush the authorizat­ion to go to war in Iraq based on a briefing he attended with other congressme­n at the WhiteHouse (with Bush & CondiRice) in which the CIA presented "smoking gun photos" of Iraq having the ability to fly nuclear/bi­ological weapons to the US mainland. 

The photos later turned out to have been faked by the CIA, staged in the southwest US:

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Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

GROSS: Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward and revealing things to you about what happened in the Bush administration?

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence. And again, because of the problems this administration’s having filling jobs, a lot of people who served in the Bush Cheney government, particularly even in the White House people on most sophisticated staffs are still there. You simply can’t get rid of everybody, you may not even want to. Some are professional people. But Cheney is, I would never call it admiration, but, you know, formidable, yeah, this guy. This guy is the real McCoy.

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Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

Transcript: 

GROSS: You investigated the Bush administration throughout the Bush administration. Always looking for ways that they may, might have been going beyond executive authority in taking on new powers. And now that the Bush administration is over, you’re still investigating what they did and where they might have violated the law. Is investigating that any different for you as a journalist post-Bush administration than it was during the Bush administration? Are more people coming forward now, now that the president and vice president are no longer in power?
HERSH: You know, that’s a great question because I did think, I had a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, “call me next, next February.” And, so far, even people who are out are still cherry because, you know, not so much Bush, but Cheney really is…he’s really smart. In the article this week, in the New Yorker, that’s coming out this week, I mention that at one point last fall, Mr. Miliband, the young foreign secretary of Britain, unilaterally, without telling the White House made a trip to Syria to see the president, Assad, and his intelligence chief, his MI6 chief went before him. And Bush-Cheney didn’t know about it until actually was, they were actually there. And Cheney at a meeting — and I do have, I can tell you I do have access and have had and I’ve been careful of how I use it, to a lot of stuff from meetings in the White House — and at a meeting he railed on about perfidious Albion, you know, the old Shakespeare term for England and that was used during the Revolutionary war as a pejorative term for England. Perfidious Albion he said. He is, Cheney is really underestimated. It’s easy to make a caricature of him. He’s very very bright. And he’s also in person, a much more open-minded in the sense, I’m talking about not politically. You could go and the most despaired people in the world go and have social evenings with him and his wife and talking about current, as long as you don’t get into politics, movies and stuff like that. It’s, he’s easy to make a caricature, but he’s much more formidable than people think. Got a rap clap memory. Understands bureaucracy much better, he’s been around forever, has had every job.

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Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence.

The idea that Cheney would seed the government with trusted contacts is not surprising. As Hersh noted in his talk with Gross, Cheney has “been around forever” and “understands bureaucracy much better” than almost anyone in government. In 2006, Robert Dreyfuss reported for The American Prospect that when Cheney helped staff the Bush administration in 2001, he put together a “corps of hard-line acolytes” that served “as his eyes and ears” in the federal bureaucracy. Former officials called them “Dick Cheney’s spies.”

Additionally, before leaving office, the Bush administration aggressively placed political appointees into permanent civil service positions as part of a process known as “burrowing.” Some of the burrowed former political appointees have close ties to Cheney, such as Jeffrey T. Salmon, who was a speechwriter for Cheney when he served as defense secretary. In July, he was named deputy director for resource management in the Energy Department’s Office of Science


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Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

40+ Secret Meetings -- Papers Detail Oil Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Task Force Report




US Energy Policy Devised In Cheney's Secret Meetings With Oil Industry Executives -- Environmen­talists and Conservati­onists Left Out


Obama is implementi­ng the Bush-Chene­y energy policy.


http://www­.sourcewat­ch.org/ind­ex.php?tit­le=Cheney_­Energy_Tas­k_Force


The Cheney Energy Task Force Records

Secrets of Cheney’s Energy Task Force Come to Light
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Iraq War Poll Finds Low Support, Few Connections To Conflict

Under US law and international law, we do NOT take a nation to war based on what its leader is "seeking" or "developing".  If that were so, we'd have already attacked N. Korea or Iran.  

And that's the distinction between what BushCheney did in 2003 and what ClintonGore did up until they left office on January 20, 2001.

BushCheney cherry-picked intelligence that was faulty, had been discounted or proven false or forged, and kept forcing it down the media's throats (and ours, the public's), or reintroducing it through news venues (Judith Miller's columns in the NYT, is an example of that) and then pointing to it saying, "Even the NYT says it's true" (after BushCheney had given the false information to Judith Miller).  

As far as whether Democratic politicians are weak-minded or brainwashed, they're really not any different than you, me, or most other people when kept in the dark and fed BS - We become mushrooms.  
As Goebbels noted in N@zi Germany:

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”  

“The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.”  

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

BushCheney proved Goebbels correct and Democrats were powerless, for whatever reason (weak-minded, stvpid, corrupt, cowardly, whatever), to stop it.  When you've got Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman emulating Joe McCarthy, calling for the blacklisting of professors who would dare to question the administration's 'war on terrorism', the fix was in that opponents to BushCheney would be steamrolled.  And we all were, some of us temporarily (Chris Matthews is a good example of someone who was against the war, but got out of the way of the administration's stampede, in order to fight another day) and others permanently (Max Clelland, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Phil Donohue, to name just a few).
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Iraq War Poll Finds Low Support, Few Connections To Conflict

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress were lied to.

In addition to what Paul Kanjorski and other members of Congress testify to (CIA's faking photographs of UAVs capable of flying nuclear bombs to the US) are the Niger uranium forgeries (that's what was so significant about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame), documents initially revealed by SISMI (Italian military intelligence). These documents seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis.  On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the US and the UK asserted that Iraq violated UN sanctions.  

And again, that nasty word ('conspiracy') comes into play with the Downing Street memo.

There were a few efforts, not many but some, by people like Pelosi and others, to challenge the drumbeat to war, but one thing that we all saw was the *SHOCK&AWE* campaign by the BushCheney administration to override any and all opposition to their plans.
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Iraq War Poll Finds Low Support, Few Connections To Conflict

The single-mos­t important decision that any member of Congress can make is whether to give a president the authority to use military force against another nation.  HillaryClinton claims that she did not discuss her vote to give Bush the AUMF with her husband.  She claims she based her vote on Bush's claim that Iraq had WMD.  We know from the NIE that it wasn't true, and that there were no legal grounds to attack Iraq.  Not only was it illegal, taking Saddam out was bad policy, a bad strategy that would destabiliz­e the entire region, open up a Pandora's box and have us in a quagmire for years and decades.

Bush, no fool he (Bush and Cheney wanted Congress's heads on the line, too, should it all go bad), made that NIE available to all members of Congress.  It was in a locked on the Hill (a table, chair and lamp in the room), an armed guard standing outside.  You had to show your ID as a member of Congress and sign in to enter the room.  Bush wanted a record of it.  

Senator Bob Graham, who didn't vote to give Bush the AUMF (Authoriza­tion To Use Military Force against Iraq) was one of a handful who availed himself of the opportunit­y, and went to the room (we can't find out precisely who did read it because the sign-in sheet is classified­).  

After Graham read it, he  told Hillary that she'd better get herself to the room and read it.  When the existence of the NIE originally became known (during Plamegate) and the little room on the Hill, certain members of Congress were asked if they'd read it before their vote to AUMF.  Hillary said she hadn't.  She said she knew enough about Iraq and didn't have to read the NIE.  She also said that she never discussed her vote or the situation with her husband.  

It's important to realize that as a former president, Bill Clinton got the same PDB that George W. Bush got.   He knew Bush was lying us into a war in Iraq, he backed Bush up; still does to this day.   Is anybody seriously going to say that Hillary and her husband didn't know the truth, that Bush and Cheney were about to spend us into servitude, push us into third world nation status, all the while the Clintons were making HUNDREDS of millions from hedge funds?
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Iraq War Poll Finds Low Support, Few Connections To Conflict

The difference between the political parties is that Democrats were operating at that time under the rule of law, both US and international law.  US foreign policy towards Iraq was about containing WMD capabilities, and UN weapons inspections was the method.  US policy toward Iraq was working.   

BushCheney planned to attack Iraq long before 9/11, long before Bush was even in the WhiteHouse.  Bush biographer MickeyHerskowitz dates Bush's plans to two years before he got into the OvalOffice.  We know from PaulO'Neill, Bush's TreasurySecretary, about BushCheney's 'jones' to attack Iraq from the first cabinet meeting, two weeks after getting into the Oval Office.  And then there's Cheney's energy task force, dividing up Iraq's oil fields in the spring of 2001 - You couldn't possibly have any objection to getting the secret minutes of those meetings, could you?

BushCheney tried to conflate 9/11 with SaddamHussein in order to get Congress to go along with their plans to attack Iraq (remember 'Curveball'? The forged Niger documents about yellowcake?).  When that didn't work, BushCheney inventedthe aluminum tubes' story - ColinPowell knew it was BS.  According to Powell’s CoS LawrenceWilkerson, Powell was skeptical of the entire case for war, but hid that from the public, even as he was used by the administration to sell the war to the UNSecurityCouncil and the American public. “Powell walked into my office,” on the day Congress passed the AUMF, “and without so much as a fare-thee-well, he walked over to the window and said, ‘I wonder what’ll happen when we put 500,000 troops into Iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and find nothing?’ And he turned around and walked back in his office. I wrote that down on my calendar — as close to verbatim as I could, because I thought that was a profound statement coming from the SoS, former chairman of the JCOS.”

CondoleezaRice went on all of the Sunday morning shows repeating, "mushroom cloud", and their *SHOCK&AWE* campaign to pressure Congress into giving them the authority to go to war worked.  BushCheney actually did it a step at a time, telling Congress that it was necessary in order for Bush to appear strong and backed by the entire government when he went to the UN to get more sanctions and pressure on Iraq.
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Iraq War Poll Finds Low Support, Few Connections To Conflict

U.S. Companies Get Slice of Iraq's Oil Pie

And, 

Western Oil Firms Remain In Iraq


And,

How the US Public was Defrauded by the Hidden $ Cost of the Iraq War and Occupation

The Bushes, the Cheneys, and the rest of the political establishment (including Democratic politicians and their spouses) made out like bandits, either through oil or military armaments and support, or other corporate deals.  It was one great big raid on the US Treasury for decades to come.  

We the People are being stuck with the tab.  If we allow it.
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Ann Coulter Slams Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Says Liberal Women Shouldn't Be In Office (VIDEO)

I'm not  surprised by your confusion.  Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton.  It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican­.  He convinced centrists that he was a centrist.  He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.

About his own political appeal, Obama has said, “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”  

Obama is NOT a liberal, not a progressive, he's not even a centrist.  Not by his policies, not by his actions, not by his own admission:  "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat".    

(Blue Dog = Might as well re-register as a Republican­).

We see with his war policies that he's a continuation of BushCheney, has signed on to their 'Long War'.  That and the rest of his policies make him in addition to being a Blue Dog, a neoliberal (nothing to do with liberalism).  

But when you look at the whole package, Obama's  nothing but a politician­, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense.  It turns out that doing what's right for transnatio­nal corporatio­ns is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards­. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican­, "What's good for GM is good for America."  He did a snow job on everybody.
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James Inhofe, GOP Senator, Stunned At CPAC Over Learning Of Rob Portman's Gay Marriage Support

I think that statistically it's improbable that no one in Inhofe's family is/was gay.  That would make his family unique from all other families in the world.
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

It's voters on BOTH SIDES of the aisle who need to get a clue.  Republican voters need to realize that they're not the privileged 1% whose interests Republicans work exclusively for.  And Democratic voters need to realize that Democratic politicians don't work for the 98%, but need their constituents to believe they do.
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconcilia­tion anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly­) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the dead of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"  

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made.  Those who believe that Obama's healthcare legislatio­n is "increment­al change", it institutio­nalizes the insurance industry as the gatekeeper­s to medical treatment (requiring having a job, too), which is something that everybody wanted to end.  And there never will be a public option or any kind of affordable­, quality medical care for all as long as Obama and DLC-contro­lled Democrats are in office: "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Ob­ama Never Was For It".  Watch it and weep.

FYI - There's rarely a majority in Congress to pass anything at all until a campaign has been mounted to sell it.  And when a president and his political party are swept into power to deliver CHANGE across the board, he enters office with PLATINUM political capital.  

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama, with Pelosi's and Reid's compliance­.  We actually would have already had real healthcare reform legislatio­n (single payer universal healthcare­), but Obama had to get it off the table before negotiatio­ns ever began.  Because if affordable­, quality medical care for everyone is the goal, everything else pales next to single payer.  And that's why Obama had to get it off the table.
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

When NancyPelos­i boasted of getting 420 pieces of legislatio­n passed, I asked "What's the big accomplish­ment of getting 420 pieces of legislatio­n passed in one chamber of Congress but not the other?"  It only becomes law when both chambers pass it.

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the WhiteHouse­, the president controls it all.  They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corpo­rate legislatio­n) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituen­ts come election time. 

Those in liberal districts talk a good game about being the People's champions, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and kiII liberal legislatio­n (like a PublicOption or access to abortion), the DNC will make sure they're covered come election time, with massive infusions of campaign money and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

One example of how they tag team us:

LynnWoolse­y, head of the Progressiv­eCaucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the Iraq war.  She, congressio­nal Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplement­al emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see significance here).

Democrats had the ability to put the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and didn't do it; they didn't need Republican­s. 

Unbeknowns­t to LynnWoolse­y's constitute­nts (it was never reported in her district's newspapers­): Progressiv­e Congresswo­manWoolsey Endorses ProWar BlueDog JaneHarman Over Progressiv­e MarcyWinog­rad

As the head of the Progressiv­eCaucus, LynnWoolse­y led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislatio­n that didn't include a PublicOpti­on.  
Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of BushCheney­'s policies, and wars, and let Obama go BushCheney even better, by letting Obama kill Americans with no due process or oversight, 'preventiv­e indefinite detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret.   

Democrats have abdicated their Constituti­onally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the BushCheney administra­tion, and still don't with one of their own in the WhiteHouse­.
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

In the 2010 midterms' campaign, Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the WhiteHouse, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind BlueDogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:

BlueDog BlancheLincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor BillHalter.

Republican-turned-Independent ArlenSpecter over progressive Democrat JoeSestak.

Republican-turned-Independent LincolnChaffee over Democrat FrankCaprio (which, in turn, was an effective endorsement of the Republican JohnLoughlin over Democrat DavidCicilline for the congressional seat Democrat PatrickKennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in RhodeIsland).

Republican-turned-Independent CharlieCrist over liberal Democrat KendrickMeek.

Obama supports voting third parties, even when it risks Democratic turnout.

Blue Dogs took a beating (liberals lost only 3 seats) in the 2010 midterms and Obama took it as a mandate to move even farther to the right.

KEEP READING
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

Remember that Obama did what he could to discourage Democratic turnout in 2010.  

Just before the 2010 midterms, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress. More caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republican­s:

Aides say that the president’ s been spending “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0,” brainstorm­ing with administra­tion officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the White House.

And despite the prediction­s that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislatin­g power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn’t thinking of the next two years as a period that’ll be marked with the same obstructiv­e nature from the GOP.

“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republica­ns] feel more responsibl­e, either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipate­d, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them,” Obama says. “Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”

Dick Durbin says Obama’s post-elect­ion agenda “will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people.” Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: “The keyword is inclusion. He’s got to find ways to be inclusive. “

This after Republican­s couldn’t have been clearer, from even before Obama got into the White House, that they had no intention of working with him or Democrats.

This and broadcasti­ng "more of the same seeking of bipartisan­ship" and Republican­-like legislatio­n  is before the 2010 midterms is exactly like what NancyPelos­i did prior to the 2006 midterms -- She announced that if Democrats took control over Congress, impeaching Bush was "off the table".  The reason to do that is to be able to spin after the election, "We told you what we were going to do before the election, so our success in retaining our seats means you were voting for what we broadcast.­"

KEEP READING
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

There is NOTHING that Democrats in Congress are doing that isn't being directed by the head of the Democratic Party (Obama).

When you are the president, you are the head of your political party. When your political party controls both Houses of Congress and the White House (as was the case in 2008-2010), you do what the head of your party tells you to do.

There is nothing that Democrats in Congress are doing that Obama hasn't signed off on, much less ordered. The only people who don't understand this are those who have never worked in politics. 

Democrats like to hide this from the people, and lend the illusion of democracy (small 'd'), like "herding cats", "no organized party", etc., but that's how it is, and it's the only reason there are political parties.

If you do not get behind what the leader of your political party tells you to do, you're going to find your life really cold and lonely for the duration of your term in office. Come election time, you will NOT have the party behind you, and that is certain death for your time in office.

Just to show you where Obama's and the DLC's real heart lies, there are so many things he and the DLC/DNC could have done, could be doing, to get real Democratic legislatio­n through, but don't.  

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  

There is plenty that a President and a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader can do to pressure representa­tives and senators into voting as you want them to vote.  We saw that Obama had no problem doing it when he wanted and needed Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's votes -- He literally bought them.  

There is nothing that the Blue Dogs are doing that Obama and the DLC doesn't want them to do.

Before the midterms of 2010, I asked, facetiousl­y, if Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' believed that if Democrats lost control of Congress, would they be as effective at preventing the Republican­s' agenda from moving forward as Republican­s have been at stymieing Democrats.  After all, there would still be more numbers of Democrats in Congress AND a Democratic White House.  Not one of Obama's 'most ardent fans' replied.

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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

Democratic politicians are counting on it, too.  

Until Obama's 'most ardent supporters' realize that and demand accountability from him and Democratic politicians, all efforts are futile.
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Mitt Romney Speech Reminiscent Of George W. Bush: Holding Multiple Jobs 'Patriotic'

The problem is that Democratic politicians haven't been.  Aren't.  

We're in this mess because Democrats refused to defend the word 'liberal' when Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism , and how liberals were responsibl­­e for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, massive public works projects like the Hoover Dam, etc., the DLC (the Republican wing of the Democratic Party that has been controlling it for the past 2 decades) convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC (now morphed into No Labels and Third Way) attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgvnned by election dirty tricks and fraud. 

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characteri­­ze themselves as far-anythi­­ng or extreme, but mainstream­­. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­­ian intimidati­­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people.  When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare­; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.  

But Democratic politicians have been AWOL on that, and all issues that Democratic voters believe the party stands for.
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Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson Institute Study

When politician­s say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge-profi­t-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past four years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycle the past few months are Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties which mean more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's the 'Super Congress' (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the Dream Act ticking along (which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages).  

We The People are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
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Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson Institute Study

Politician­s WANT a high deficit so that they can create a fiscal crisis that forces us to cut vital safety net programs.  It's what Grover Norquist (president of Americans for Tax Reform, and George W. Bush's once-a-wee­k lunch buddy for the 8 years of the Bush-Chene­y Administra­tion) meant when he said,"Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."
 
During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about "lock box" and Bush was campaignin­g on tax cuts ("We gotta get the money out of Washington or else the politishun­s'll spend it!"), I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society.

I was writing about conservati­ves frustratio­n over their futile attempts to end Social Security and other New Dea/Great Society programs, and how even their own (Republica­n politician­s in Congress) would do it directly because it was so popular with the People.  It would end their political careers if they went at ending Social Security with a head-on vote. They would have to go about it indirectly­, lining up the ducks in a row, for the step-by-st­ep dismantlin­g of the singlemost effective program in the history of the US for lifting people out of poverty.  

The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy­, that there would be no money left in SocialSecurity.  That's how they would kill it.

When GeorgeWBush got into the White House after the contentiou­s 2000 election (when Republican­s stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "find ourselves in a war?"

Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, when even conservati­ves were repudiatin­g Bush, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated in history as " a great conservati­ve".

Even conservati­ves didn't see what he was talking about (that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicatin­g him as both a great president and a great conservati­ve).

By the way, not one journalist asked Bush why he thought he'd be vindicated by history; they still don't, as he's made the rounds of his book tour since leaving the White House.

Democratic politician­s aren't stupid, by the way.  They knew what Bush and Republican­s were up to, and they let it happen.  

Why?  Why would Democratic politician­s want to end Social Security and Medicare?  

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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

How can you try to offer lies from people making money writing books against Bush

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Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill under BushCheney shouldn't be believed?

And BushCheney's former Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson is lying?

Valerie Plame testified under oath before Congress - Is she lying, too?

Why are you not calling for the release of Cheney's secret energy task force's minutes?  
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, et al, should be facing charges in front of war crimes tribunals.
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

Again, you resort to ad hominem insults (accusing someone of lying is an ad hominem attack).  Apparently I can lead you to facts, to testimony, complete with links, but I can't make you think.  

The quotes you offer from Democratic politicians don't make your case, and here's why:  We do NOT take a nation to war based on what its leader is "seeking" or "developing".  If that were so, we'd have already attacked N. Korea or Iran.  

BushCheney cherry-picked intelligence that was faulty, had been discounted or proven false or forged, and kept forcing it down the media's throats (and ours, the public's), or reintroducing it through news venues (Judith Miller's columns in the NYT, is an example of that) and then pointing to it saying, "Even the NYT says it's true" (after BushCheney had given the false information to Judith Miller).  

As far as whether Democratic politicians are weak-minded or brainwashed, they're really not any different than you, me, or most other people when kept in the dark and fed BS - We become mushrooms.  
As Goebbels noted in N@zi Germany:

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”  

“The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.”  

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

BushCheney proved Goebbels correct and Democrats were powerless, for whatever reason (weak-minded, stvpid, corrupt, cowardly, whatever), to stop it.  When you've got Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman emulating Joe McCarthy, calling for the blacklisting of professors who would dare to question the administration's 'war on terrorism', the fix was in that opponents to BushCheney would be steamrolled.  And we all were, some of us temporarily (Chris Matthews is a good example of someone who was against the war, but got out of the way of the administration's stampede, in order to fight another day) and others permanently (Max Clelland, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Phil Donohue, to name just a few).  
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

As I keep saying and you keep dodging, everything said by Bush was first said by Democrats before he ever took office.

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The only "dodging" is from you, who fails to understand the difference between 1998 and 2003, the parties different solutions to getting weapons' inspection on track.  

UN weapons inspectors didn't support the AUMF, and obviously weapons inspections were working because there were no WMD.  

BushCheney planned to attack Iraq long before 9/11, long before Bush was even in the WhiteHouse.  Bush biographer MickeyHerskowitz dates Bush's plans to two years before he got into the OvalOffice.  We know from PaulO'Neill, Bush's TreasurySecretary, about BushCheney's 'jones' to attack Iraq from the first cabinet meeting, two weeks after getting into the Oval Office.  And then there's Cheney's energy task force, dividing up Iraq's oil fields in the spring of 2001 - You couldn't possibly have any objection to getting the secret minutes of those meetings, could you?

BushCheney tried to conflate 9/11 with SaddamHussein in order to get Congress to go along with their plans to attack Iraq (remember 'Curveball'? The forged Niger documents about yellowcake?).  When that didn't work, BushCheney invented the aluminum tubes' story - ColinPowell knew it was BS.  According to Powell’s CoS LawrenceWilkerson, Powell was skeptical of the entire case for war, but hid that from the public, even as he was used by the administration to sell the war to the UNSecurityCouncil and the American public. “Powell walked into my office,” on the day Congress passed the AUMF, “and without so much as a fare-thee-well, he walked over to the window and said, ‘I wonder what’ll happen when we put 500,000 troops into Iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and find nothing?’ And he turned around and walked back in his office. I wrote that down on my calendar — as close to verbatim as I could, because I thought that was a profound statement coming from the SoS, former chairman of the JCOS.”

CondoleezaRice went on all of the Sunday morning shows repeating, "mushroom cloud", and their *SHOCK&AWE* campaign to pressure Congress into giving them the authority to go to war worked.  BushCheney actually did it a step at a time, telling Congress that it was necessary in order for Bush to appear strong and backed by the entire government when he went to the UN to get more sanctions and pressure on Iraq.  
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

Oh bull, Pelosi clearly said there were WMD's, there never was full cooperation with any inspectors to change that assessment, never.

================================

In 1998, in order to get weapons inspections back on track, which it did.  

UN weapons inspectors did NOT support military intervention in 2003, and obviously there WAS full compliance because there were no WMDs!

What Gore had to say or what those who voted to give BushCheney the AUMF believed was all based on FALSE intel (remember 'Curveball'?) and FORGED evidence.  We know from Bush biographer Mickey Herskowitz that Bush wanted to invade Iraq two years before 9/11 and planned to do it if he got into the Oval Office.  Nothing about Al Qaeda in Iraq then.  Let's also get the minutes from Cheney's energy task force meetings, where he carved up Iraq's oil fields.

The American people were duped and left holding this $3 trillion bag, and you're still looking to excuse BushCheney?  You're either on their payroll or too dvmb to think for yourself.  Why on earth would you or anyone who was on the level even try to prevent a legitimate investigation?
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

You are blind to the fact that the "evidence" BushCheney proffered as their basis for taking the US to war was forged and/or manufactured.  Whether it was the Niger documents or the DowningStreet memo or the CIA's faking photographs of UAVs, there was/is plenty of evidence that *SOMEBODY* wanted the US to bomb Iraq into oblivion, and given how it was the BushCheney administration driving the stories, pressing Congress for authorization, representing the "evidence" as legitimate, if you don't believe that BushCheney lied then why aren't you calling for an investigation as to who else might have been behind all of it?
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Actor Ed Begley Jr.: Obama 'Should Die In His Boots' In Fight Against Climate Change (VIDEO)

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconcilia­tion anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly­) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the dead of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"  

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made.  Those who believe that Obama's healthcare legislatio­n is "increment­al change", it institutio­nalizes the insurance industry as the gatekeeper­s to medical treatment (requiring having a job, too), which is something that everybody wanted to end.  And there never will be a public option or any kind of affordable­, quality medical care for all as long as Obama and DLC-contro­lled Democrats are in office: "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Ob­ama Never Was For It".  Watch it and weep.

FYI - There's rarely a majority in Congress to pass anything at all until a campaign has been mounted to sell it.  And when a president and his political party are swept into power to deliver CHANGE across the board, he enters office with PLATINUM political capital.  

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama, with Pelosi's and Reid's compliance­.  We actually would have already had real healthcare reform legislatio­n (single payer universal healthcare­), but Obama had to get it off the table before negotiatio­ns ever began.  Because if affordable­, quality medical care for everyone is the goal, everything else pales next to single payer.  And that's why Obama had to get it off the table.
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Actor Ed Begley Jr.: Obama 'Should Die In His Boots' In Fight Against Climate Change (VIDEO)

It was very hard to get the AHCA through, and the promises made at the time, from both the President, AND the Democrats, were for further tweaking, going forward.

==========

ACA passed through reconciliation.  All it took to get ACA through was 50 +Biden.  

What was hard was getting ACA passed and convincing Democratic voters that ACA was the reform that they thought they would get (affordable quality medical treatment for everyone) when they put Obama and Democrats into power.  ACA doesn't do any of those things.  Insurance is NOT medical treatment.
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Actor Ed Begley Jr.: Obama 'Should Die In His Boots' In Fight Against Climate Change (VIDEO)

The President wanted the single payer system.  You have to crawl before yu can walk.  It was very hard to get the AHCA through, and the promises made at the time, from both the President, AND the Democrats, were for further tweaking, going forward.When you are being accused of being a socialist dictator, it makes sense to take in all of the perripheral opinions, and give everyone some input.

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Obama never wanted a public option or single payer.  But to get both off the table, he had to do it in stages.  Single payer first, with big talk about "I will not sign any legislation that doesn't include a robust public option".  That had to happen right off the bat, before negotiations even began.  To make sure that there wouldn't be a public option in any final legislatio­n (and that there really wouldn't be any reform of the system, that the insurance and pharmaceut­ical industries would continue to be able to make massive profits), single payer had to be taken off the table before negotiatio­ns ever began.   Out of sight, out of mind. And that's exactly what Obama did.

Once that happened, then a public option was used as a bargaining chip, to be given up, and we know that from several sources, including Tom Daschle and Richard Kirsch.

A caller on CSpan not long ago asked Richard Wolffe, who was out plugging his latest book written from his special access to the Obama White House, if we're ever going to get a public option to keep costs down.

Wolffe makes it clear that Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats never had any intention of going with a public option or expanding public healthcare in any way.  There's no way to get to single payer from ACA.  If you believe otherwise, lay it out for us.
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Japan Tsunami Anniversary: 2 Years After Disaster, Cleanup Effort Still Slow

Obviously you're worried about your having to pay high electrical bills and not your or others' health.

All that your not being "very scared about it" tells me is that the power of denial is greater than your sense of self-preservation.

As far as "why don't you complain about the massive holes people are cracking in the bed of Pennsylvania and North Dakota", I do.  I'm active in clean and sustainable and renewable energy sources' movements.  I put my money where my mouth is, too. So don't presume that because I'm not discussing other dirty energies in this article that's about nuclear plants that I'm for them.
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Japan Tsunami Anniversary: 2 Years After Disaster, Cleanup Effort Still Slow

Children outside Fukushima in the cities tested have been constantly exposed to radiation for two years. The initial plume of radiation didn't just stay in the air over Fukushima - it traveled and it fell to the ground in other areas. Furthermore, contaminated food continues to be consumed all over Japan, tested only for two kinds of radioactive particles. Radioactive debris is being shipped all over Japan and incinerated, further contaminating the air in areas that should be kept clean for children of Fukushima to be evacuated to.

The only way this figure of 40% can be classified as "normal" is if you were to compare it with rates in children from OUTSIDE Japan, preferably in non-nuclear countries like Australia.
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

You have to put your head really far up your *ss to be blind to the fact that the "evidence" BushCheney proffered as their basis for taking the US to war was forged and/or manufactured.  Whether it was theNiger documents or the DowningStreet memo or the CIA's faking photographs of UAVs, there was/is plenty of evidence that *SOMEBODY* wanted the US to bomb Iraq into oblivion, and given how it was the BushCheney administration driving the stories, pressing Congress for authorization, representing the "evidence" as legitimate, if you don't believe that BushCheney lied then why aren't you calling for an investigation as to who else might have been behind all of it?
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

it was a collection of information that even had Pelosi calling for us to attack Iraq before Bush ever took office.

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Pelosi wasn't calling for a US attack.  In 1998, in order to get the weapons' inspection back on track, she said, "SaddamHussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass technology which is a threat to countries in the region."

And then inspections resumed.  

In 2002, Pelosi opposed the Iraq AUMF,while stating that Iraq, like "other countries of concern", had WMDs. In explaining her opposition to the resolution, Pelosi noted that  GeorgeTenet had told Congress that the likelihood of SaddamHussein launching an attack on the US using WMD was low. "This is about the Constitution", Pelosi said. "It's about this Congress asserting its right to declare war when we're fully aware what the challenges are to us. It's about respecting the UN and a multilateral approach, which is safer for our troops."  

KEEP READING
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Japan Tsunami Anniversary: 2 Years After Disaster, Cleanup Effort Still Slow

In this map, click on a plant to see what caused it to have a brush with meltdown just in 2012:
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Jeb Bush Defends Immigration Flip-Flop, Stays Mum On 2016 Run

You guys all love to talk about how stupid Bush was, well how did that stupid man insert false intel into circulation before he ever got elected? How did that completely stupid man fool every Democrat to include Nancy Pelosi who had her own access to classified information long before Bush ever took office?


You can't find anything Bush said that was not already said by a Democrat before Bush took office.

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Not true.  In addition to what Paul Kanjorski and other members of Congress testify to are the Niger uranium forgeries (that's what was so significant about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame).

The Niger uranium forgeries are forged documents initially revealed by SISMI (Italian military intelligence). These documents seem to depict an attempt made by Saddam Hussein to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis.  On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of the US and the UK asserted that Iraq violated UN sanctions.  

And again, that nasty word ('conspiracy') comes into play with the Downing Street memo.

There were a few efforts, not many but some, by people like Pelosi and others, to challenge the drumbeat to war, but one thing that we all saw was the *SHOCK&AWE* campaign by the BushCheney administration to override any and all opposition to their plans.
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