Anyone following attempts to hold George W. Bush and gang accountable knows about Vince Bugliosi’s best-selling book, which has finally just been mailed to all district prosecutors. Everything you can do to make a prosecution of Bush for murder happen is posted here. I just watched a still incomplete version of the forthcoming film of [...]
How Jerry Brown Saved Chrysler and Why the Republicants Are Acting Un-American.
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Have you noticed how since the Big O got elected America has lightened up? I mean all of a sudden its OK to be American. We are starting to see that we can laugh at jokes about ourselves. I mean if the President can laugh it must be okay for all of us to do [...]
LaVena Johnson: Raped and Murdered on a Military Base in Iraq
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LaVena Johnson was found dead on a military base in Balad, Iraq, in a tent belonging to military contractor KBR, a spinoff and former subsidiary of Halliburton.
Dissing Rice
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Let’s see if I got this right. The prime minister of an allied government disses the U.S. Secretary of State, says he went over her head and got her boss, the President of the United States, to countermand her intention to vote for a resolution at the United Nations and gloats over the fact that [...]
“President Obama, Meet Citizen Bob, Who Answered Your Call”
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President Barack Obama of the Capitol of Washington, it is my most sincere honor to introduce you to Citizen Bob Alexander of the State of Washington, who by the standards you have set to ‘give our all’ has valiantly answered your call. In fact, Citizen Bob answered that call long before you were President. He [...]
George Bush and Bill Clinton — in Bed Together
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Of all the damaging things George Bush did, let’s not forget his “War on Sex” and his “War on Abortion.” During the last eight years, anti-abortion, anti-birth control/contraception, anti-homosexual, and anti-sex education advocates have had free reign to implement their policies with full support of government funds, agencies and personnel. Through directives, cutting-of-funds, non-enforcement, and [...]
Who Should Obama Look to for Advice?: Jimmy Carter
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At the request of President-elect Barack Obama, President George W. Bush convened an awkward meeting of all living former presidents at the White House to meet, and presumably give advice and encouragement to, the new guy. The body language of the participants in the summit photo, taken in the Oval Office, said it all. The [...]
What Took You So Long to Figure It Out? Bush Has Always Been Rotten Even When He Had a 91% Approval Rating
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They are trying so very hard it is almost sad, in a way—were it not for all the broke people, and scared people. And dead people. It’s the Bush people, including Mr. Bush himself, trying to gather up some shreds of dignity before they are out the door. Their final con game: “We did a [...]
w(me) the People: w’s Legacy Project
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President w, by way of a reporter, gave the nation a forewarning, regarding his awful, illegitimate, prevaricating, corrupt, woeful, horrible, horrendous, dreadful, terrible, appalling, deplorable, treasonous, frightful, ghastly, horrifying, revolting, hideous, despicable, monstrous, gruesome, (reader’s choice)–legacy, after his first presidential election coup. Very early into w’s presidency, a press party was held at the White [...]
Pardon Me, Scooter?
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On July 2, 2007 George W. Bush commuted the sentence of convicted felon and former top White House staffer Scooter Libby for his convictions on five felony counts of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. He didn’t pardon Libby but, instead, issued a Grant of Executive Clemency before Scooter Libby even served a single [...]
The Inauguration: “It’s Priceless. I Cried Out of Happiness. There Is Hope.”
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The two of us threw our support behind Barack Obama’s candidacy early on and are deeply gratified that this gifted, inspiring man will become our president Tuesday. America and the world will be immensely better with Barack Obama and Joe Biden at the helm—and with Michelle Obama as First Lady. We tear up typing the [...]
We Can No Longer Afford the Empire
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Somebody is going to have to whisper in President-elect Obama’s ear that the unipolar moment has passed and that the United States can no longer afford its informal worldwide empire. Even though the looming economic meltdown will likely be serious—and maybe even cataclysmic—the foreign policy chattering classes of both parties are on autopilot and have [...]
Speaking of Blanket Pardons
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There’s a blanket pardon I want President Bush to issue and one I want him not to. Both would involve preemptively pardoning people before they’re charged with any crime, much less convicted, and doing so without naming them. One would be decent, just, and Constitutional; the other would be none of those things. One would [...]
Stimulus Plan: The Need and the Size
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The core problem we face is not access to capital. The Treasury has already flooded Wall Street and the banking system with money, committing nearly $350 billion; the Federal Reserve Board has exchanged Treasury bills for some $2.2 trillion of troubled assets; other agencies, such as the FDIC, have guaranteed trillions more. But there has [...]
Just Go, Mr. Bush. Please, Just Go
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President George W. Bush will be finally leaving Washington after what seemed an eternity. He will be leaving behind a country that is poorer, weaker, more polluted, more indebted, more divided and more unequal. He soiled the U.S. Constitution and breached the wall between Church and State. The whole society is less scientifically literate and [...]
Poor Leon Panetta Won’t Know What Hit Him When He Hits The CIA
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by Charley James Talk about setting up a bright, highly competent, loyal, nice guy for failure. When Barack Obama named former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta to run the Central Intelligence Agency yesterday, he picked a man whose biggest plus is having loudly protested the agency’s use of torture including waterboarding and other “enhanced [...]
Stimulate the Economy by Mending Our Safety Nets
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Lots of talk this week about the proposed stimulus. One high priority ought to be the most vulnerable members of our society. The safety net created in the 1930s to protect Americans from extreme poverty is in tatters. Now that we’re in the worst downturn since the Depression, that safety net needs mending. This should [...]
Casualties of War: Shared Truth and Empathy
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by Gene Rothman – If you do not feel genuine empathy for both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, especially civilians on both sides, I invite you to stop reading now. This is not for the politicians, the “freedom fighter/terrorist” on either side, or the mainstream media commentators. It is for the Palestinian mother in Gaza, [...]
A Big ‘Hoorah!’ to the New York Times’ Dexter Filkins
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In a devastatingly critical examination of the narco-state formerly known as Afghanistan, the New York Times’ Dexter Filkins today documents case after case of widespread corruption on a massive scale in the Afghan government, including officials ranging from low-level, local bureaucrats right up to the brother of President Hamid Karzai. Filkins shows the difficult situation [...]
“Please Cry For Me, I’m Al Gonzales.”
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Like tens of millions – and growing – of his increasingly desperate countrymen, he is out of work and cannot find a job; worse, nobody in his chosen profession will even interview him. His previously good friends don’t want to publish his story so he is reduced to keeping a journal for his sons. He [...]
The “Bush Effect” – Hopefully for a Third and LAST Time
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Third time’s a charm, maybe? I’ve compiled three of these lists now. In 2006, I issued the first one, looking back on everything George W. Bush has adversely affected since he first arrived in the Oval Office. Just a damage assessment, really. At the time, I thought it would be instructive to look back, at [...]
Economics 101: Who’s Up, Who’s Down
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by Robert Brent Toplin – Customers at my local Barnes & Noble store are likely to get the impression that books about Franklin D. Roosevelt are all the rage these days. When they stand in line to pay the cashier, they come upon a large display of volumes dealing with FDR and the Great Depression. [...]
Did George Bush Sr. Kill Kennedy and Frame Nixon?
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by David Swanson Russ Baker’s new book presents an account of the U.S. government that is both remarkably new and extensively documented. According to this account, George H. W. Bush, the father of the current president, devoted his career to secret intelligence work with the CIA many years before he became the CIA director, and [...]
White House, US Media, Picking Sides In Israeli Terror Bombings
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by Charley James – By now, no one should be surprised that the White House is taking its usual, uneven and heavy-handed approach in reacting to the gargantuan Israeli shock-and-awe bombing of densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
The Debate to Come over Wall Street, Autos, and Everything Else: Cyclical or Structural?
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by Robert Reich – First prediction for 2009: A widening gap between the public’s view of the bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit, and the views of the direct beneficiaries. The public believes the bailouts will permanently change these industries, but industry insiders don’t really want to change.
Why I Love Rachel Maddow
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by Charley James – A few nights ago, Rachel Maddow was discussing the Wall St. bailout on her MSNBC show with guest Dr. Laura Tyson. Tyson, a former economics advisor to Pres. Clinton and now a professor at UC-Berkeley, was defending the banks who received bailout money for their total lack of disclosure or transparency [...]
Ruth Marcus Should Know Better
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by Charley James – Last Saturday, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus came up with an unusually convoluted bit of punditspeak about forgiving Dick Cheney his self-admitted war crimes and crimes against humanity including lying the country into war, illegal wiretapping, outing Valerie Plame-Wilson, torturing prisoners of war and – oh, right – telling Fox News’ [...]
The Economy: Do We Have Any Idea What We’re Doing?
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by John Peeler – It is a commonplace these days to argue that the Bush administration helped to bring on the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression by clinging blindly to the dogma of the free, unregulated market as the solution to every problem. That is certainly an accurate accusation. At virtually every opportunity [...]
Washington’s Darkest Secret
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by Charley James – According to both the 9/11 Commission report and Richard Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, in the summer of 2001 former CIA director George Tenet raced around Washington clanging “alarm bells” to anyone who would listen about a possible al Qaeda attack on the United States. The CIA and the National Security [...]
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Three Little Words
“I screwed up.” Sounds like a simple, ordinary, and harmless little thing to admit, unless of course you’re the President of the United States. We haven’t heard the likes of this in at least eight years. No wonder everybody in the media is almost literally erupting about it. They can’t believe their ears. Seems THAT [...]