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By Ted Gioia
$18.45
By D. D. Guttenplan
$23.10
$23
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We’ve all heard of Publishers Clearing House, but this is a whole new ballgame, people. Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films team has come up with a game that offers each player the fictional (sigh) amount of $3 trillion, the same amount the Iraq war is projected to cost the U.S., and a whole virtual mall’s worth of fun “shopping” items to buy.
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AP photo / Gregorio Borgia
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The pope is set to land Tuesday for a whirlwind visit to America, his first since assuming the mantle of the Roman Catholic Church. A spokesman has indicated that Benedict XVI will address the church’s sex abuse scandal, a topic around which protests are expected.
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White House / Sheahlah Craighead
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With the concession of his main rival, conservative media mogul Silvio Berlusconi is set to take up a third term as Italy’s prime minister. Although a divisive and controversial figure, Berlusconi offered “An affectionate kiss to all Italians” over the news.
Posted on Apr 14, 2008
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By Robert Fisk — The president’s twisting of words in an attempt to justify continuing the war has become sickening.
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It’s hard to believe, but Fox News is already 12! As the Murdochian news channel faces the inevitable growing pains of its ‘tween age, working hard to define President Bush’s legacy before he leaves office and displaying as many American flags as screen space will allow, “Daily Show” correspondent John Oliver salutes Fox with his own special tribute.
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AP photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta
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Bush administration officials Vice President Dick Cheney, current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft were among those who deliberated over, and eventually approved, the use of “harsh interrogation techniques” (which some would call torture) at meetings following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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By Eugene Robinson — No, it’s not your imagination: The “debate” about Iraq, and I use the word loosely, becomes ever more surreal as the occupation drags on.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The problem with the debate over our future course in Iraq is that the two sides are not even talking about the same things.
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MoveOn has a new ad that ties John McCain to the Bush administration’s “victory is just around the corner” approach to selling the Iraq war. Will that tired line still work five years later? We’ll find out in November.
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AP photo / Duane A. Laverty
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Despite some congressional resistance, it seems Gen. David Petraeus’ recommended “pause” in U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq will take effect after July. On Thursday, President Bush (whose approval ratings have plummeted to a new low) essentially deferred the withdrawal issue to his successor.
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By Marie Cocco — The same kinds of mismanagement and dysfunction that are at work in Iraq continue to plague veterans when they seek medical care at home.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when Gen. David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the U.S. war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then—as it would be to repeat the charge now.
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By Marie Cocco — The latest plot twists are stunners, even as they unfold against the scandalous backdrop of the Bush administration’s sorry regulatory record.
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By Eugene Robinson — Oh please oh please oh please. I know it’s undignified to beg, but please let John McCain pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate.
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More shocking details are emerging from the 2003 81-page memo by former Justice Department senior lawyer John Yoo, who determined that the commander in chief can order poking out of eyes, slitting of body parts and throwing acid at prisoners, and none of that would constitute torture because it would not result in “death, organ failure or serious impairment of bodily functions.”
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White House photo / Paul Morse
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George W. Bush has said that history will determine the greatness of his presidency. According to an informal poll by George Mason University’s History News Network, 98 percent of historians polled rated Bush’s presidency a failure. Sixty-one percent ranked him last among presidents, while only 4 percent placed him among the top two-thirds.
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Dario Castillejos, Dario La Crisis —
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By Joe Conason — The most puzzling aspect of John McCain’s political persona is his habitual attraction to George W. Bush’s bad ideas.
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DoD / Dan Heaton
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The Department of Homeland Security has received approval from Congress to ignore dozens of environmental laws in order to construct a 670-mile border fence. Environmentalists are worried about the impact the project could have on endangered species, and several property owners have attempted to obstruct the construction process.
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Agence France-Presse
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As the train that is the Bush administration begins to slow, the president has attended his last ever NATO summit. Speaking to alliance leaders Wednesday, Bush asked for patience and resolve to “finish the fight” in Afghanistan, a war now in its seventh year.
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AP photo / Carol Phelps
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By Robert Scheer — A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and soon you’re talking real money. But when it comes to reporting on what the Bush war legacy has cost American taxpayers, the media have been shockingly indifferent to the highest run-up in military spending since World War II.
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After throwing the first pitch of the 2001 World Series, President Bush said he “felt the raw emotion” of the fans. The same could be said for his latest trip to the mound, where he endured the boos of thousands.
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By Eugene Robinson — Quite a “defining moment” in Iraq, wasn’t it? At this rate, John McCain is going to be proved right: The war will last a century.
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Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has announced what the media are calling a “massive overhaul” of America’s regulatory agencies, but columnist and liberal economist Paul Krugman isn’t impressed. Krugman doesn’t think the administration’s cosmetic solutions will mitigate our current economic crisis or prevent the next one.
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Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has launched a $300-million ad campaign in hopes of getting every last SUV-driving, thermostat-cranking Bush voter to see the fluorescent light. Warm monger William H. Macy narrates the first of what will surely be many ads.
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By Andy Borowitz — The president has confirmed that his gutting of the Endangered Species Act is part of a broader plan to phase out the environment entirely by the time he leaves office.
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AP photo / Reed Saxon
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By Stanley Kutler — With our economic and financial crises deepening, government insiders reportedly are debating whether we need to restore some regulation—or not. Given the state of things, we can expect further woes and no regulation.
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By Marie Cocco — Some days, there’s just no forgetting that Dick Cheney is still the vice president. We’ve had a few of these recently, with Cheney traveling to Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East on what might be called a goodwill mission, if the person making the trip were not Dick Cheney.
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By Marie Cocco — The housing crisis brings to mind Gordon Gekko, that fictitious ambassador of Wall Street whose words, then and now, remind us why uninhibited capitalism just doesn’t work.
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runcynthiarun.org/votenader.org
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By Chris Hedges — Those of us who oppose the war, who believe that all U.S. troops should be withdrawn and the network of permanent bases in Iraq dismantled, have only two options in the coming presidential elections—Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney.
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By David Sirota — The Federal Reserve Bank’s decision last week to address the housing crisis by extending $200 billion of taxpayer-financed credit to Wall Street banks was met with a stunned reaction typical of surprising events. But really, the move was the expression of longstanding isms that routinely package corruption as sound public policy.
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Tab, The Calgary Sun —
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By Marie Cocco — Back in 2006, the Iraq Study Group said that all U.S. combat brigades in Iraq should be out by now. They also warned that an escalation, or “surge,” “would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq.”
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By Joe Conason — John McCain says that when it comes to Iraq, Americans should look to the future, but that’s to be expected of such an enthusiastic supporter of the disaster.
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The New York Times / James Hill
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By Patrick Cockburn — All governments lie in wartime, but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any other conflict since the First World War.
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By Robert Fisk — The Independent’s Robert Fisk looks back at five years of catastrophe in Iraq and is reminded of Winston Churchill’s depiction of Palestine as a “hell-disaster.”
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thewashingtonnote.com
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Five years, nearly 4,000 dead Americans, millions of killed or displaced Iraqi civilians and $500 billion later, George W. Bush still thinks the Iraq war was a good move. In remarks leaked on the eve of his speech marking the anniversary of the war, the president says the high costs “are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq.”
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By Eugene Robinson — The Democratic presidential candidates squabble over real or imagined racial sensitivities, the Republican presidential candidate stages photo opportunities with the troops in Iraq, and meanwhile the financial system is coming apart at the seams.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries, and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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By Scott Ritter — As we approach the fifth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, I find myself thinking back on how we got ourselves into this predicament. ... As I examine where we are today and contemplate our future and those who are positioning themselves to play a role in Iraq, it seems to me that there is at least one such incident, a dinner party I attended at the home of Ahmed Chalabi in June 1998 that is worthy of a more public illumination.
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report takes a look back on the last five years of the Iraq war and asks whether the fiasco will go on for another half-decade.
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By Marie Cocco — The overdose of Reagan nostalgia to which we’ve been subjected during the Republican presidential primaries is as understandable as it is misplaced.
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AP photo / Richard Drew
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By Robert Scheer — Tell me again: Why should we get all worked up over the revelation that the New York governor paid for sex? Will it bring back to life the eight U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq that same day in a war that makes no sense and has cost this nation trillions in future debt?
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Adm. William Fallon, head of the U.S. Central Command, resigned on Tuesday, explaining that his reputation as an obstacle to President Bush’s military designs had become too much of a distraction. Fallon was often reported to be a thorn in the side of the president and his other military advisers, a role both the admiral and administration officials strongly deny.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Stanley Kutler — The president must be delighted with the Arizona senator, a candidate who is credited as a foreign policy authority despite his devotion to the long-term occupation of Iraq.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Liberals who have sung the praises of John McCain in the past confront a fascinating test of consistency, integrity and political commitment now that McCain is the virtually certain Republican nominee. It could be an amusing moment. I should know, since I’m one of them.
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bloomberg.com
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Mitt Romney could be headed back to political prime time now that conservative heavyweights, including The Weekly Standard, are pushing him as John McCain’s best bet for vice president. Romney’s economic know-how, it is argued, along with his popularity with the Bush wing of the party, makes him a safe choice.
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The Lotto Symbolizes the False Promises of Barracuda Capitalism
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