From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Yeah. Okay. Let's Put Another Bush in Office. Sure.
Today is the anniversary of one of the most idiotic days in American history---the day Republicans shot our country in the face and expected a parade of sweets and flowers for it. It's the twelfth dumbstickiversary of the invasion of Iraq. As always, we mark the occasion with a reminder of some of the lying or just moronic statements made by the band of neocons (and their propaganda-catapulting enablers) who orchestrated the debacle and even today have no regrets. Please feel free to hurl rotten tomatoes as you see fit...
On Sept. 7, 2002, [Judith Miller] and fellow New York Times reporter Michael Gordon reported that Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb." As proof, she cited unnamed "American intelligence experts" and unnamed "Bush administration officials." Subsequently, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all pointed to Miller’s story as justification for war. On April 22, 2003, she told PBS’s Newshour that WMD had already been found in Iraq: "Well, I think they found something more than a ’smoking gun.’"
---Think Progress
"Saddam Hussein's baby powder program-
related activities must be stopped!"
"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
---George W. Bush (10/7/02)
"We’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily."
---John McCain (9/29/02 and 1/22/03)
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
---Colin Powell, United Nations Speech (2/5/03)
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." ... "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
---Dick Cheney (8/28/02) and (3/16/03)
"Those WMDs must be around
here somewhere. HehHehHeh..."
"[T]he area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
---Donald Rumsfeld (3/30/03)
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like [Tom] Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."
---Joe Scarborough (4/10/03)
The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," in a culinary rebuke of France stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq.'
---CNN (3/12/03)
Ted Koppel: [Y]ou’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is going to be done for $1.7 billion?
Andrew Natsios [Agency for International Development]: Well, in terms of the American taxpayer's contribution, I do. This is it for the U.S.
---Nightline (4/23/03)
And seven years ago today, as the sands were running out of the Bush presidency's hourglass, the biggest war hawk of them all
finally dropped all pretense on national TV:
Martha Raddatz: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
Cheney: So?
Martha Raddatz: So? You don’t care what the American people think?
Cheney: No.
Is it really worth rubbing their faces in their own muck every year on this occasion? I take the late
Molly Ivins' view from April 29, 2003, barely a month after Shock 'n Awe:
The United States, which insisted it could not give United Nations weapons inspectors so much as 10 days more to search, so dangerous were these WMDs, now says it needs months to find them. In the meantime, we are clearly being set up to put the whole issue of WMDs down the memory hole.
Maybe the American people can be brainwashed into forgetting why we supposedly went to war. Near as I can tell, our national memory span is down to about two weeks, and the media have been spectacularly unskeptical on this issue. But the rest of the world is not going to forget that WMDs were our primary reason for an unprovoked, pre-emptive war.
And how did the steely-eyed Republican Commander-in-Chief and his chickenhawk cheerleaders pay for all the unnecessary carnage and chaos? They put it on our national credit card. And the idiots who in 2009 fell all over themselves to join the suddenly-deficit-obsessed tea party slapped yellow ribbons on their cars, ran over Dixie Chicks CDs with steamrollers and called the war protesters traitors. To them I say: there ain't a middle finger big enough.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold...
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, March 19, 2015
Note: Don’t forget to bring your blast shields to this evening's jazzercise class, as this time we'll be using live hand grenades. Thx.
-
2 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Sarah Brightman
blasts off in a Russian Soyuz rocket on her way to sing from the Space Station :
166
Days 'til the
Atlanta Science Festival:
2
President Obama approval rating in Gallup's ongoing approval poll:
47%
Amount that those who make $50k would need to make to consider themselves rich:
$200k
Amount those making $100k would need to make to consider themselves rich:
$500k
(Source: Pew Research Center)
Results if an election for president between Hillary Clinton and Scott Walker was held today:
55%-40%
(Source: CNN poll)
Drop in the cost of rooftop solar panel systems since 2008:
80%
(Source: International Business Times)
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Could I suggest something kind of grown-up? Despite Rumsfeld's rationalizing, we are in a deep pile of poop here, and we're best likely to come out of it OK by pulling together. So could we stop this cheap old McCarthyite trick of pretending that correspondents who are in fact risking their lives and doing their best to bring the rest of us accurate information are somehow disloyal or connected to al-Qaida?
Wrong, yes, of course they could be wrong. But there is now a three-year record of who has been right about what is happening in Iraq, Rumsfeld or the media. And the score is: Press---1,095, Rumsfeld---zero.
---March, 2006
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Coming soon if this Kickstarter campaign succeeds: Disco Dog!
-
CHEERS to the best little budget in Washington. Meteor Blades is right---budgets released by the House Progressive Caucus always get short shrift by reporters in favor of the ones by the slash-and-burn Republicans or the slash-and-burn-disguised-as-centrism "moderates." Don’t wanna risk giving those pesky reg'lar folks too much influence in the land of We the People By Which We Mean Corporations:
The fifth annual CPC alternative---“The People’s Budget: A Raise for America”---is about as close to common sense as Congress gets. And it is honest: Its numbers are carefully laid out and add up. It actually says what it would invest in and how it would pay for it. On the investment side, the CPC expands investments in areas vital to our future. It would rebuild America, modernizing our outmoded infrastructure. It would invest to lead the green industrial revolution that is already forging markets and creating jobs across the globe. …
It would repeal the ridiculous law that bans Medicare from negotiating bulk discounts on drugs. It would curb insurance company gouging by giving consumers a public option in health care. It would end the pernicious and wasteful subsidies to oil and gas companies.
Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans released budgets that call for a total repeal of Obamacare, cuts to Social Security, and an expansion of our already absurdly-huge military. Guess whose budget got more press…theirs or ours? Good guess.
CHEERS to FLOTUS in flight. First Lady Michelle Obama is in Japan and Cambodia for a few days to meet 'n greet, grip 'n grin, and show the world yet again that when it comes to awesomeness among current spouses of world leaders, America is an exceptional nation. Here's what she's up to today and tomorrow (which, due to the time change, I think is a week before yesterday):
Arriving in Tokyo wearing a dress
by Japanese designer Kenzo Takada
On Thursday, she will hold separate meetings with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie. She also plans to meet with the Emperor and Empress of Japan before heading to Kyoto, on Friday. A White House statement said the First Lady will announce a partnership between the U.S. and Japan on the Let Girls Learn initiative, which aims to help educate the 62 million girls globally who do not attend school.
On Friday, she will head to Cambodia, which is one of 11 countries initially included in the initiative. It is the first time that a sitting U.S. first lady has visited the Southeast Asian country.
The right-wingers will complain that she's just using her position to take a "free vacation" and that she should've saved taxpayer money by doing it all on Skype. They're so cute when they're jealous.
JEERS to the meanest prick in Maine. Yes, of course I'm talking about our meathead governor, Paul LePage. Half a dozen years ago voters overwhelmingly approved a bond measure "to invest in land conservation, water access [and] wildlife habitat." Some of that money still needs to be officially allocated, but guess what? Our governor is doing what all asshole Republicans do: taking it hostage…
"Suck it, voters."
For the second time in two years, Gov. Paul LePage is using voter-approved bonds as a bargaining chip in his policy battles with the Legislature, a strategy that could have implications for dozens of land conservation projects across the state. … [T]he governor is withholding $11.4 million in bonds for the Land for Maine’s Future program. The move, which drew sharp criticism from land conservation advocates, is aimed at gaining political leverage with lawmakers as LePage pushes to increase timber harvesting on state-owned lands in order to pay for residential energy-efficiency programs. … The governor’s stance raises doubts about the long-term future of a program that has enjoyed broad support among voters, landowners, conservation groups and sportsmen.
Next time you hear a Republican complaining about "the will of the voters" being "flagrantly violated" (see, for example, their pearl clutching over court rulings nixing gay-marriage bans), tell 'em about what our governor just did. Then count how many times they stammer, "But but but…" If it's over twenty, you win a free Slurpee.
JEERS to a distinct lack of feathers. It used to be a tradition coinciding with the mid-March St. Joseph Day celebration in San Juan Capistrano: the return of the swallows to the mission there. It was a sure and eagerly-awaited sign of spring. But thanks to urbanization and the destruction of their nests during a construction project, the swallows flipped the Mission the bird and now they set up their homes elsewhere a few blocks away. A scientist is trying to lure 'em back:
Come back! We even put
mints on all your pillows!
Dr. Charles Brown is offering temporary housing to the birds as the second phase of his years-long experiment. During the first phase, Brown broadcast the sound of swallows singing at the mission. Brown will [also] wheel in a temporary stand-alone structure with prefabricated nests to remind the little birds how much they used to love nesting at the mission and to encourage them to start building their own nests again.
Among those hoping it works: young single people on a budget. It's a cheep date.
JEERS to information we did not need to know. Glenn Beck says he's done with the Republican party. Back 'o the line, buddy.
-
Ten years ago in C&J: March 19, 2005
CHEERS to universal teddy care. This is sweet---to help ease kids' fear of hospitals, an Idaho medical center had them bring in their stuffed animals for a "checkup." Unfortunately, special counselors had to be brought in to help the children cope with the "bill."
-
And just one more…
JEERS to the Very Seriousest of the Very Serious People. Since the universe is taking a bit of time this week to look back at the clusterfuck that was the Iraq War, it's worth pulling this gem out of cyber-storage. This is Tom Friedman's rationalization for why inflicting pain and punishment on Iraq was teh awesome. Literally, he told the Middle East: "Suck on this"...
What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow?
Well Suck. On. This. Okay? That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.
On the one hand, what a typical American know-it-all bully jerk. On the other hand, if someone's going to present himself as an expert on sucking, I can think of few people more qualified than Tom Friedman.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
President Barack Obama says he hopes his presidential library is built in Cheers and Jeers but there are "some entanglements." The Chicago Tribune didn't include any explanation from Obama about the entanglements. But there has been debate over C&J's bid because it calls for the library to be built in a kiddie pool.
---AP
-