But they – the Bush administration – chose not to listen to the wisdom of the Biden.
In 2006, Biden was a senator from Delaware gearing up for a presidential campaign when he proposed that Iraq be divided into three semi-independent regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Follow his plan, he said, and U.S. troops could be out by early 2008. Ignore it, he warned, and Iraq would devolve into sectarian conflict that could destabilize the whole region.
The Bush administration chose to ignore Biden. Now, eight years later, the vice president’s doom-and-gloom prediction seems more than a little prescient.
Old sectarian tensions have erupted with a vengeance as Sunni militants seize entire cities and the United States faults the Shiite prime minister for shunning Iraq’s minorities. While the White House isn’t actively considering Biden’s old plan, Mideast experts are openly questioning whether Iraq is marching toward an inevitable breakup along sectarian lines.
“Isn’t this the divided Iraq that Joe Biden predicted eight years ago?” read an editorial this week in The Dallas Morning News
No real news here. We all know that Dick Cheney will attack anyone who does not believe in sending American troops to fight and die in an unnecessary war. Something he’s all in favor for.
In an interview on ABC, Cheney spoke about fellow Republican and potential 2016 presidential candidate, Rand Paul, calling Paul an “isolationist” for his opposition to the war.
“Rand Paul … is basically an isolationist,” Cheney said on ABC’s This Week Sunday. “He [Paul] doesn’t believe we ought to be involved in that part of the world. I haven’t picked a nominee yet. But one of the things that’s right at the top of my list is whether or not the individual we nominate believes in a strong America, believes in a situation where the United States is able to provide the leadership in the world, basically, to maintain the peace and to take on the Al Qaeda types wherever they show up.”
Like Dick Cheney, John Bolton was a big pusher of the original plan that led to America’s invasion of Iraq. And like Dick Cheney, Bolton now blames Obama for Iraq.
But when Bolton made a stop to the Republican safe zone of Fox News, where blaming Obama is the foundation of their very existence, Bolton found out that there is a hot seat in Rupert’s building and soon realized that he was sitting in it. Dick Cheney found himself in that very seat a few days ago.
The conversation focused on the worsening conditions in Iraq and the decision to invade in the first place. When Bolton said that past decisions are “irrelevant to the circumstances we face now,” Kelly got animated.
“I know, you keep saying that but it actually is relevant to a lot of people out there who are wondering, ‘How did we get here?’ Is it not relevant to ask, ‘How did we get here?'” she asked.
“Well, it’s very interesting, but the decision-maker has to look at the environment we have now,” Bolton responded, saying it’s for that reason he is opposed to President Obama’s plan to send 300 military advisers to Iraq.
Kelly wasn’t done talking about Bolton’s role in the military misadventure.
“You know that a lot of people are out there tonight saying, ‘Well, weren’t you one of the people who was in favor of going into Iraq in the first place and Is that why you don’t want to discuss the past ten years and whether they were worth it?'” she asked.
Bolton said he would be “happy to discuss the past 10 years and we can start 10 years before that if you want,” but he stressed that it’s “not the question that America faces today.”
Republicans continue beating the impeachment drums because the guy in the White House is actually getting things done.
The South Dakota Republican Party passed a resolution at its state convention Saturday calling for the impeachment of President Obama, according to The Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
“Therefore, be it resolved that the South Dakota Republican Party calls on our U.S. Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States,” the resolution reads.
The resolution accused Obama of violating “his oath of office in numerous ways,” and mentions the recent trade of five Taliban members for captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, among other issues.
Delegates voted 191-176 in favor of the resolution.
“I’ve got a thick book on impeachable offenses of the president,” resolution sponsor Allen Unruh told the Argus Leader.
In this week’s address, the President previewed Monday’s first-ever White House Summit on Working Families where he will bring together businesses leaders and workers to discuss the challenges that working parents face every day and lift up solutions that are good for these families and American businesses. Many working families can’t afford basic needs like childcare or receive simple benefits such as paid family leave that are common in most countries around the world.
When hardworking Americans are forced to choose between work and family, America lags behind in a global economy. To stay competitive and economically successful, America needs to bring our workplace policies into the 21st century.
The so-called “Central Park Five”—the five young Black and Hispanic men wrongfully convicted of raping and brutally assaulting a jogger in Central Park in 1989—agreed to a settlement with the city of New York for $40 million, meaning each of them will get $1 million for every year they spent in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.
The settlement, which was first reported yesterday by the New York Times, brings a measure of closure to a case that has hovered over the city for the last 25 years.
Initially, the case served as an ugly symbol of rampant crime and out-of-control urban youths in the 1980s. Then when it was proven by DNA evidence that the jogger Trisha Meili—a 28-year-old investment banker—had actually been assaulted by murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes, it became an illustration of police and prosecutorial misconduct, and the difficulty for young men of color to be treated fairly.
The young men—Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam—maintained their innocence throughout the ordeal, claiming police railroaded them into making incriminating statements against themselves and each other.
At the time, the city’s newspapers howled for arrests, then-Mayor Ed Koch called it “the crime of the century,” and real-estate mogul Donald Trump took out ads calling for the return of the death penalty. Not many wanted to hear the story of the young men.
Rev. Al Sharpton, who suffered a heap of abuse for standing by them after they were arrested, yesterday told the New York Daily News, “We took a lot of abuse. The toll on these men and their supporters was terrible. I want to know we have things in place so that this doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m happy for them, but you know… money doesn’t give them those years back. It doesn’t give them their youth back,” Sharpton added.
The settlement still must be approved by the city comptroller and a federal judge. If it is approved, the amount for Kharey Wise — who spent 13 years in prison over the case — will amount to the largest settlement for a wrongful conviction case in New York City history.
While former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg fought the wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by the men, Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on a promise to stop fighting and settle up with them. De Blasio pledged to meet a “moral obligation to right this injustice.”
“Tonight, I see five young boys resting proudly on the shoulders of five grown men. A long time coming my friends,” Ken Burns, who co-directed the compelling 2012 documentary “The Central Park Five,” tweeted after the announcement.
Sen. Bill Perkins, who at the time of the case was president of the tenants’ association at Schomburg Plaza where three of the Central Park Five members lived, told the Daily News the settlement brought tears to his eyes.
“This chapter of our racist history needs to be closed and never repeated again,” Perkins said. “Hopefully this will never happen to anybody ever again.”
What the fuck is wrong with Chris Matthews? Of all the people for the “tough” Philadelphia talker to go after he chooses Elizabeth Warren? Are you fucking kidding me? What a slimy, chicken shit Matthews has become. Don’t go after people like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, John Boehner or Mitch McConnell. No, go after the ONE person in all of Congress who has the nerve to stand up for the American people on issue after issue. OK there is also Bernie Sanders, but Warren has been a real fighter from day one.
Matthews chastised Warren for not doing enough. NOT DOING ENOUGH!? He blamed the Democrats for not passing vital legislation. The DEMOCRATS?! Matthews has been around long enough to know how this shit works. He knows the Republicans control the House, the TEA PARTY controls the House. He knows the Republicans in the Senate filibuster everything. The TEA PARTY filibusters everything. He knows this shit inside and out because he has talked about it.
So..why go after Warren and the Democrats? This is a game that Matthews has been playing for years. He cares only about his ratings so he tries to grab as many viewers from both sides as possible. What he does is simply flip flop. He is no better than a guy like John McCain or Rand Paul, or Ron Paul, who tell one audience one thing and another audience the exact opposite. All in an attempt to get as many votes as possible from both sides. It’s a sneaky, shitty little game and it proves that Matthews is full of shit.
This is why he can say something very incisive one moment and then something totally idiotic the next. He wants to be MSNBC and FOX all wrapped into one obnoxious package. It’s about ratings folks, it’s about staying afloat when times have maybe passed you by. This is why he rarely lets his guests talk. If he had allowed Warren to explain the facts to his audience, he would be left with egg on his face. So he talks, asks a question, doesn’t let the guest answer and talks over them. It’s a basic bully host tactic. Works all of the time.
I would NEVER be a guest on a show when someone like Matthews or O’Reilly is in charge. They will always be in control, able to manipulate the conversation, cut you off, have the last word. Matthews likes to have morons like Michael Steele and John Feehery on his show. Anyone would seem like a genius sitting across from these Republican hacks. Notice you don’t see these guys on too many other shows. How would a guy like Feehery survive a bout with let’s say..Ed Schultz or Lawrence O’Donnell??
But let’s get back to Matthews and Warren. I’m glad she was able to get a few words in here and there. I heard something like “Stop this!” Warren was having enough of Matthews bullshit. Only the true idiots of America think Matthews has a valid point when he blames the President and the slight Democratic majority in the Senate for the failure to get legislation through. Who shut down the gov’t Chris? Who has blocked more legislation than any other Congress in history? What Congress has done less, and worked fewer hours?
Matthews knows the simple answer to these questions. He knows that no legislation can pass without the House. He knows that Warren is a fighter despite the obstacles. He knows lots of things. But the one thing he knows the best is that he loves his job and he wants to keep it. Like most of these people he wants to keep it till he drops dead on air. The ego is a very powerful thing.
It’s Matthews ego that turns the self proclaimed “straight talker” into a bullshitter of the highest order.
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
Megyn Kelly of Fox News stepped out of character on Wednesday during an interview with Dick Cheney and his spawn. Kelly apparently found herself actually denouncing Cheney’s lie that his record on the Iraq war was spotless.
“Time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well in Iraq, sir.” Kelly said to Dick. “You said there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the insurgency was in its last throes back in 2005, and you said that after our intervention, extremists would have to ‘rethink their strategy of jihad.’ Now, with almost a trillion dollars spent there, with almost 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?”
Cheney’s draw dropped as the the words from Megyn’s mouth navigated their way through the cobwebs of his brain. He was confused. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The sign on the camera said ‘Fox,’ but somehow he must have ended up on MSNBC. She looked like Megyn Kelly, but she was sounding like Rachel Maddow.
What da…?!
He had to say something. In his confused state of mind be blurted out, “No, I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan — I mean, Megyn.”
Then Rachel disappeared and Kelly reappeared. The questions got easier as the interview continued and he was able to relax and wallow in the muck of his talking points – blaming Obama for everything!
Breathe!
Those first few minutes had to be someone’s idea of a cruel joke! Ha ha! T’wasnt funny guys, T’wasnt funny at all…
In another interview, Chris Matthews of MSNBCs Hardball decided to go after Elizabeth Warren, the progressive congressional soldier from Massachusetts with the uncanny ability to speak the language of the hardworking American middle class.
Matthews, playing his now usual closet Republican role, tired attacking Mrs Warren on, among other things, creating wealth and opportunities for hard working Americans.
And like the true progressive soldier she is, Warren fought back, explaining to the Teaberry defender that the recipe for creating wealth is investing in the middle class, like we did after the Great Depression.
“Well, you know, this isn’t magic. We actually know how to do this. We did this for nearly half a century, coming out of the great depression until about 1980. We made the investments together that helped build opportunities for all of us.”
“I went to a commuter college that cost fifty dollars a semester. It opened a million doors for me. How could I go to a school that cost fifty dollars a semester? Because I grew up in an America that said, we collectively, all of us, are going to make those investments in education so that any kid, who works hard, who plays by the rules, who tries to get out there and make something of herself, is going to have a fighting chance to make that happen.”
Warren then explained exactly where things went wrong to Mr Matthews – in 1980 when the god of the Republican party got elected and implemented his reagonomics and the concept of Trickle Down Economics, that is, give to the rich and hope they’re not to greedy to throw some crumbs your way.
“It changed in the 1980′s,” Warren continued, “when the Republicans came up with a different vision. They said, ‘Eh, that’s not how you build an economy. The way you build an economy is you let those at the very top, the richest and the most powerful, keep more of their money and more of their power, and somehow it’s going to trickle down for everybody else.’”
Why all the hate? Why so much venom? What is it about this particular president that has Republicans so angry?
Throughout our history we have had both Democrats and Republicans in the White House, and these two groups have always, despite their differences, despite their hate for each other, they have found ways to come together to work on issues that will benefit the American people. So why is that so hard for these Republicans to work with this president?
What is it about Barack Obama that has Republicans turning their backs on policies they originally authored the moment Barack Obama adopted those policies?
What’s different?
It’s not because he’s a Democrat, like I said before, we have already had Democratic presidents in the White House. And it’s not because of his policies, in fact, much of the policies Obama has worked on and implemented, are policies that previous Democratic and to some extent, Republican presidents have tried. These policies are not new. Health care reform for example, was a top agenda item for both Democrat and Republican presidents for decades. And the basis of the law that Obama finally signed into law, was the brainchild of a Republican think tank.
So the difference clearly is not his party or his policies.
The only difference I can see between with this particular Democratic president and previous presidents, is the fact that he is a black man. Which would mean that the hate and the venom this president is facing is based on nothing else than the color of his skin, not the content of his character.
If he was a white Democratic president then the usual ideological bickering from the Republicans would happen. That’s what they have done historically. Democrats and Republicans will state that differences on issues, they will debate and even filibuster once in a while. But eventually, a consensus will be reached and… progress. Just like the Founding Fathers envisioned.
But he is not a white man. He is the first African American to hold the highest office in the land and some Republicans just cannot accept that fact.
And the Supreme Court said that racism was dead. How laughable is that?
And this is why I say they lie. I simply cannot believe that the Republican Senator representing Texas never heard of the Republican Representative from New York. Cruz is not a new comer to Washington, and neither is Peter King. Both have been frequent “guests” on many television shows over the last few years and they’re both in the same party. But Cruz insists that he never heard of the man, Peter King, a member of the Homeland Security Committee and Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
Rep. Peter King? Never heard of him, Sen. Ted Cruz says.
The Texas senator says he had never heard of the New York Republican who has repeatedly and harshly attacked him until recently.
“I don’t know Mr. King,” Cruz, a Texas Republican, said on CNN on Tuesday evening. “I’ve never met him. To be honest, I don’t think I had ever heard of him until he started getting on television attacking me.”
Before the senator’s comments, host Erin Burnett played a clip from last week of King calling Cruz “a fraud” and saying that the October 2013 government shutdown that he championed was ineffective.
In his appearance Tuesday night, Cruz elected not to push back, saying instead that there is too much bickering in Washington on both sides.
“He’s welcome to express his opinions, and he is entitled to them,” Cruz said of King. “I think there are far too many politicians in Washington in both parties that spend their time attacking each other rather than focusing on the substance.”
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