Jeb Bush Speech At 2012 Republican Convention: Finally, A Defense Of The Bush Record

Newly declassified documents published at the National Security Archive prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the Bush administration planned to topple Saddam Hussein and invade Iraq as early as January, 2001, and were making strategic plans and resource allocations as early as November, 2001.

January 30, 2001 – Bush administration principals (agency heads) meet for the
first time and discuss the Middle East, including Bush’s intention to disengage from the Israel-Palestine peace process and “How Iraq is destabilizing the region.” Bush directs Rumsfeld and JCS chairman Hugh Shelton to examine military options for Iraq; CIA director George Tenet is directed to improve intelligence on the country. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke are both struck by the emphasis on confronting Iraq, an aim consistent with Rumsfeld’s hiring of Wolfowitz and later Feith, well known for their bellicosity on the issue, for high-level Pentagon positions. (Source: EBB/Franks Timeline (PDF))

When did we invade Afghanistan? Oh, that's right...it was October 7, 2001.

Walking through these documents makes it clear that the Bush Administration -- from Day One -- intended to invade Iraq at some point in their reign of terror. Here is a memo (PDF) dated January 23, 2001 outlining the "Origins of the Iraq Regime Change Policy". This was requested by Vice President-elect Dick Cheney before taking office, presumably as a way to justify policy formation around aggressive US efforts for "regime change" in Iraq.

This memo (PDF) written on November 27, 2001 should send cold chills up and down your spine. It is a list of talking points from Rumsfeld to Franks about how to handle a run-up to a full-scale Iraq invasion. November 27th, 51 days after Afghanistan was invaded. And check this talking point:

Unlike in Afghanistan, important to have ideas in advance about who would rule afterwards.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al, should be sitting in a cell facing war crimes' charges.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Female Voters Prefer Obama To Romney, Are Focused On Economy, Poll Says

In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama presented himself as the latest in a long line of corporate, Democrats, interested in tinkering with the system but largely agreeing with the consensus on free markets, free trade, and US. military power.

As the February 2011 cover story in TIME explains, Obama even agrees with many of the fundamenta­ls of Reaganism, telling reporters, "What Reagan ushered in was a skepticism toward government solutions to every problem. I don't think that has changed." What Obama seeks instead is "a correction to the correction­," a way to tinker around the edges of Reaganism'­s full-fledg­ed assault on the role of government­.

As Roger Hodge points out in his recent book, The Mendacity of Hope, "Obama praises Clinton for putting a 'progressi­ve slant on some of Reagan's goals,' by which he presumably means Clinton's wholesale adoption of the Republican economic agenda, from passing NAFTA to cutting taxes, gutting the welfare system, and embracing the rhetoric of small government­".
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Obama's Stimulus Failure: Tampa Recipients Have No Clue They Got Funds

Obama didn't fight for what was needed to get us out of this hole; the stimulus was like lightly putting your foot on a brake of a speeding truck going 120 miles an hour into a concrete wall.  It was way too little and as a result, we're poised to hit that wall after the election.

All that Obama's been doing is trying to save unregulated capitalism and the lock that the 1% has on the other 99%.

With Obama's deal to preserve Bush's tax cuts for the rich (making it Obama's tax cuts for the rich), 99ers were cut off.  Of the 6 million people currently receiving unemployment benefits, Obama's deal covered only 2 million, & many of them will get crumbs from his deal because in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 99-weeks.  And only 25 states out of 53 states/territories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, so that's even fewer still.

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts "The worse off you are, your taxes increase":

"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—and there are a little over 100 million households—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up.  Republicans got an extraordinarily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiating skills of the President."

The payroll tax 'holiday' in the deal sets SocialSecurity up for its end.  That's what Bush and GroverNorquist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservative in history: For ending the GreatSociety programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits.  I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told  you so."

Extending Bush's tax cuts was an absolutely wretched deal, but standard for Obama, who has  a long record of negotiating lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf.  If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successfully, for malpractice.

The purpose of the deal was so that Democratic political operatives could say, "Obama helped the unemployed"; most readers won't know the actual facts of how Obama sold out the American people.  Again.  Obama and Democrats have no jobs plan either.  Both parties are thinning the herd.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Obama's Stimulus Failure: Tampa Recipients Have No Clue They Got Funds

Whether they knew or not, the stimulus was weak tea.  The economy is poised on the brink and will collapse after the election.

A double-dip recession (we're in a Depression­; enough of trying to sugarcoat it) is pre-ordain­ed after Bush's Obama's tax cuts for the rich and Obama's caving to Republican­s on 78 percent of the cuts they wanted..  

This game that Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats and Republican­s are in is about trying to cast the other side as the party to blame when the bottom falls out.  Because both sides work on behalf of the thieves who got our national treasure, and their job now is to keep the People managed, orderly, the system of unregulate­d capitalism and plutocracy intact while the rich get to keep the booty.

3 million foreclosur­es down, 11 million more in the pipeline.  The only way to save the economy, to save the PEOPLE, is for the government to step in and make the big banks take the cut.  15 million families are about to face foreclosur­e.  <-- Blue highlighti­ng means it's a link to be clicked.

This is going to spur new rounds of firings, another spike in unemployme­nt, and more foreclosur­es. More Americans' jobs, good jobs, will be outsourced overseas.  Corporatio­ns still enjoy tax incentives for moving their operations overseas.  GE made record profits last year ($14 billion), didn't pay a dime in taxes and got $3 billion of taxpayers' money in rebates.  Bush's tax cuts for the rich are now Obama's tax cuts for the rich; in that Obama deal, the poor had their taxes INCREASED, and the payroll tax 'holiday' sets SocialSecu­rity up for its end.

The economy isn't improving.   

Obama's in office to mellow-tal­k us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentiou­s fire-in-th­e-belly Democratic politician­s actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to ease us into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle and poor classes.

What Obama's doing is presiding over the end game of America, letting the 'Haves' pick the (our) bones clean.  The more we see of Obama in action, the more 'deals' he makes, the more people realize that Obama's a continuati­on of the cruel policies of BushCheney­.

We need another FDR.  
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Obama's Stimulus Failure: Tampa Recipients Have No Clue They Got Funds

And it's not as if we hadn't tread these waters before - We had a blueprint for how to get through this recession Depression with what FDR did in the 1930s.  We even had a blueprint for how to avoid the stall we're in now, from when FDR caved to Republicans after the initial stimulus funds had shown positive effects and he took his foot off the gas (stimulus funds) at their demand.
About Republican Party
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Michael Moore: Mitt Romney Will Win In November (VIDEO)

Obama was supposed to be a transforma­tive politician­. His election was seen by many not only as the end of the eight year-long Bush era nightmare, but also as the final curtain for thirty years of neoliberal politics dating back to at least Reagan. From day one, plenty of liberals were ready to anoint him as the most progressiv­e president in history.

Now, two years into his presidency­, such grand hopes have faded. Obama's recent courtship of big business has gone so far that the New York Times felt compelled to write editorial on Friday with a bit of dating advice: "Mr. Obama must take care not to let his agenda be taken over entirely by corporate interests. They do not belong to the only constituen­cy he serves... Mr. Obama should keep in mind that the interests of corporatio­ns and their bosses are not necessaril­y always aligned with those of the country."

To add insult to injury, the cover of the latest issue of TIME Magazine is titled, "Why Obama Loves Reagan," and features a photoshopp­ed picture of their budding "bromance"­: the two stand laughing hysterical­ly, Reagan with his arm around Obama's shoulder. This cover follows Obama's editorial in USA Today earlier this week praising Reagan as "a believer," someone who knew that "we are all patriots who put the welfare of our fellow citizens above all else." Yes, for those who have forgotten, we must all thank Ronald Reagan for his devotion to ushering in a classless utopia.

In the wake of Obama's ongoing drift to the right, many progressiv­es find themselves asking what happened to the Obama they thought they knew, the guy who spoke to the aspiration­s of millions of ordinary Americans during his presidenti­al campaign?

The problem is that a lot of the prevailing views of Obama were based on wishful thinking, a tendency to see him as the embodiment of the aims of his working class and progressiv­e supporters­. This was never the real Obama. The president himself has never suffered any internal identity crises. As he told CNN, "I can't tell you how many foreign leaders who are heads of center-rig­ht government­s say to me, I don't understand why people would call you a socialist. In my country, you'd be considered a conservati­ve." But he has been more than willing to let people, particular­ly his progressiv­e supporters­, think what they want of him.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Michael Moore: Mitt Romney Will Win In November (VIDEO)

Obama has achieved what Bush-Cheney only dreamt about and couldn't get done: A long war with no Democratic voter opposition, massive giveaways to Big Dirty Energy with no Democratic voter opposition, continuation of Bush's tax cuts, etc.

Come the lame duck session after the election, Obama will embrace Simpson-Bowles (the groundwork has been laid, with Democratic leaders already saying they'll get behind it) to cut Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc.

Obama's been more effective for realizing Republicans' dreams than a Republican (or an amateurish, politically, Mitt Romney-Paul Rand administration) could be with Democratic voters pressuring their elected representatives to resist GOP plans.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...