I don’t know about you, but I initially opposed both of George W. Bush’s post-9/11 wars — the Iraq campaign especially. Following the attacks of 9/11, a pitched battle arose between hawks and doves, with the former attempting to seize the moral high ground and
Writers, bloggers, commenters, and pundits nearly exhausted the dictionary in the runup to the president’s July 4th Trumpapalooza™. With his tanks, parades, flyovers, and personal address, Donald Trump’s appropriation of America’s Independence Day rightly earned descriptions ranging from inappropriate, disgusting, and self-serving to grotesque, Orwellian,
The United States was the world’s lone “hyperpower” when President George W. Bush launched his disastrous and unnecessary war with Iraq in 2003. An economic and military hegemon unchallenged by any single enemy or collection of rivals, the U.S. could and did act with impunity
The Washington Post published an alarming story yesterday on risky loans big banks are making to cash-poor companies and the devastating effects this mountain of corporate leverage could have if the economy starts to wobble (as it appears to be doing more and more lately). If that
Last week I wrote a diary arguing that Donald Trump, harebrained idiot, almost certainly lied when he said this during his speech in the Rose Garden on Friday: “This should have been done by all of the presidents that preceded me,” Trump said. “And they all
Trump doesn’t just lie. He makes up entire conversations that never happened. And he does it all the time. The latest? He claimed today during his press conference/harrowing public mental breakdown that “some” former presidents have told him they should have done what he’s currently doing
The passing of President George H.W. Bush this week presented Americans with an opportunity to reflect on a life lived in service to the United States. A child of privilege, at age 18 Bush nevertheless volunteered for the military after Pearl Harbor. A bomber pilot
George W. Bush gave a touching eulogy for his father today, and in its own way it was truly wonderful. His affection for his dad seemed genuine, and who wouldn’t want their son to send them off with such a muscular, yet tender, tribute? But one
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Mitt Romney made a not-so-bold promise about the stewardship he would provide for the American economy. “I can tell you,” he guaranteed, “after a period of four years, by virtue of the policies we'd put in place, we'd
I don’t care how many Werther’s Originals he hands Michelle Obama like a half-in-the-bag Wilford Brimley. He’s George W. Bush, and he’s terrible. How do I know? ISIS used to be a schlocky Saturday morning TV show that aired after Shazam! And before he took over,
Like a recurring biblical plague, they descend across the country. Despite the repeated warnings from both experts and lay persons of good faith and common sense, the media and tens of millions of people are nevertheless still shocked by their arrival. As predicted, they devastate
No sense makes sense Charles Manson O-tay, somebody is gonna have to walk me through this one. I know we've all been unfairly transplanted to the barren steppes of Trumpmenistan, but in what parallel universe does the salvation of the Republican Senate in the
When Senator John McCain was laid to rest on Sunday at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the nation lost one of the giants of American public life. For six decades, McCain served his nation as a naval airman, a military liaison to
During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump gave full-throated support for resurrecting the Bush administration’s regime of torture for terror detainees. But Trump’s brand of state-sanctioned sadism promised to go much further. Trump warned he would seek reprisals against the kin of suspected terrorists,
When it comes to the culpability for the dismal state of American politics and the accelerating erosion of our governing institutions, failure has a thousand fathers. At the top of the list of the usual suspects is Donald Trump, whose presidency of staggering incompetence, unsurpassed
As President Obama faced the looming re-election campaign in the spring of 2012, he issued a stern challenge to those critics of his approach to the Iranian nuclear program. “When I see some of these folks who have a lot of bluster and a lot
With apologies to Benjamin Disraeli, there are three kinds of lies Republicans are telling about their tax plan: lies, damned lies, and f**king lies. Constraints of space and time preclude listing them all, but here is a handful of the GOP’s most farfetched falsehoods. For
In recent years, “red state socialism” has become the hallmark of American federalism. That is, even as supposed GOP budget hawks loudly (and wrongly) decry “out of control” spending by Uncle Sam, less well-off Republican-controlled states generally benefit from a one-way flow of federal tax
“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” With that phrase, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States ensures civilian control over—and accountability for—the American military. While the power to declare war rests
We must never forget that a President exploited the tragedy of 9/11 to spread fear, lies and war in his State of the Union address. Remembering is the only way to keep it from happening again. Thankfully, Obama has resisted the urge to use his platform
