Perhaps We Need To Speak Louder

Dennis Kucinich, this past week, released 35 criminal counts against george bush, calling for Impeachment, spending about five hours of the House floor outlining the charges.

35 criminal acts against America. Terrorist acts pulled off by the biggest "homegrown" domestic terrorist in America today.

He is being ignored by the media.

We all need to condemn the corporate media for their continued betrayal of the public trust by its silence on this. This betrayal is even worse than the corporate media aiding bush lies that got us into the illegal, immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq.

It is true that the brave Representative from Ohio has been marginalized and demonized by those in the corporate media. However, we must remember that that marginalization and demonization have not just been by the corporate media. There have been many willing partners in crime from within the political establishment.

More specifically, those within the democratic party.

People like Nancy Pelosi, the republican shill that pretends to be a democrat. Like Harry Reid, someone that has apparently been AWOL lately.

The corporate media blackout has had allies. For this blackout to be broken, Progressive Democrats of America, Move On and every other progressive group need to call for Senator Obama to publicly call for Impeachment. Make it clear that if he does not do so, right now,

We need to make the same case for every politician running. That if they do not support Kucinich that we will publicly not support them and will indeed support a more suitable candidate. One that hears the voices of We The People that allow them to have the job that they hold so dear.

Most importantly, having Senator Obama and others making it clear that they support an Impeachment investigation will force the corporate media to cover the story. This will then provide the evidence needed to convince the American public just how deep and insidious the crimes of the Bush Administration are.

This simple act of courage by progressive groups could propel Impeachment into the minds and consciousness of the public of our country. It can make the oft-heard term "holding their feet to the fire" have real meaning and relevance.

On the other hand, to not push this will do one thing and one thing only. It is unarguable that the democratic majority has proven to be worse than spineless. For progressives to not publicly pressure their leadership in this manner will actually reward them for their cowardice.

At this stage, this is the only leverage we have left.

Impeachment really is this important, and you all know it.

Make them prove that Impeachment was not taken off the table because they had something to hide under the table. Or we can assume that they did have something to hide, in which case, they do not deserve our support. It will be proof positive of their complicity, the fact that they are coconspirators in the crimes of the bush administration

If we all come to that horrifying reality, we can then be truly aware of how bad the situation is that we find ourselves in. It also gives We The People the responsibility to create real and lasting change for ourselves and the world in which we live.

This is America's opportunity to shine. To regain that respect we once had as a nation. We can once again say that we are proud to be an American.

Or we can allow these crimes to go unpunished. Ignored. We can send a clear message to all future administrations that they can do whatever, whenever they want to us regardless of constitutional laws that were meant to protect our rights.

The choice is ours to make.

A National Call For Impeachment

The crimes of this administration are enormous: a widespread policy of torture and murder; a war that has killed a million Iraqis, 4,000 U.S. service members and devastated the lives of so many more; sophisticated programs for spying on U.S. citizens; lying to the public.

The future threats posed are ominous.

As Ramsey Clark recently wrote: "In his remaining eight months, bush will continue to threaten other nations in violation of international law and clearly intends to commit new aggressions in his belligerent presidency.

If not stopped by impeachment he may strike Iran's nuclear projects and immerse the United States in avoidable war for a generation far more exhausting than any we have known."

Today, Tuesday June 3, is the National Call-In Day for Impeachment.

Take a moment right now and call Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee at 202-225-5126, 202-224-3121, 202-225-3951, 313-961-5670, or 734-675-4084.

Demand that articles of impeachment be introduced by July 4.

Over one million people have voted to impeach bush, cheney and other high officials for high crimes and misdemeanors. It's time for Congressman Conyers to hear from you.

As Ramsey Clark wrote: "It is imperative that We, the People of the United States, demand of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and its Chairman John Conyers that they immediately commence consideration of the many allegations of impeachable offenses by bush, cheney and other civil Officers of the Untied States and present a comprehensive Bill of Impeachment for Committee consideration by July 4, 2008.

"I ask every American who cares about the integrity of our nation and the welfare of our People and those we assault to immediately demand Chairman John Conyers and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives commence hearings on a Bill of Impeachment of bush, cheney and others by July 4, 2008."

We will not rest until bush and his cabal have been held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and mass deprivation of civil rights and civil liberties.

This is an unstoppable movement for justice.

Make your call now!

www.impeachbush.org

War Crimes

You Say Recession, I Say Depression

Negatively loaded economic terms such as "recession" and "depression" rarely make a lot of news, simply because neither is used that frequently in polite company.

A Gallup poll released today, however, may actually allow these words to creep into a national discussion:

More than three in four Americans think the United States is in a recession according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Tuesday...

...Seventy-six percent of to those polled said the economy is in recession, compared to 22 percent who said it is not, USA Today said.

Asked if the United States could slip into a depression lasting several years, 59 percent said it was likely and 79 percent said they were worried about it, the newspaper reported...

The poll was taken even before the Bear Stearns bailout had been thoroughly digested by a disgusted American public. One wonders, as the media has bandied about another pejorative phrase - "bank run", to describe the initiating event of the Bear Stearns collapse last week - how much worse the same poll would look if taken today.

There's not a lot that one can add to this gloomy poll, other than it's rather surprising that it's taken so long for the depth of U.S. economic woes to fully sink into the American psyche.

Remember - and don't let any of your acquaintances forget - what we're experiencing is a direct result of GOP fiscal policies that were elevated to the high art of social theft during the bush years.

The GOP pyramid scheme is collapsing.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

In April 2007, US Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced Articles of Impeachment against Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney.

On that day two articles were introduced that possibly thwarted the administrations efforts to invade Iran by exposing Cheney’s plan and holding Cheney’s feet to the fire about his role in defrauding the American people and Congress over the invasion of Iraq.

Less than a year later Kucinich has brought to the table over 50 more articles strengthening the impeachment campaign against Cheney and his pawn, bush, and vows to keep them coming.

Michigan congressman John Conyers is feeling the pressure from the voices of We The People and is being forced to do his job and seriously consider the impeachment issue and Florida state representative Robert Wexler is aggressively pushing for impeachment also.

Each day more and more members of congress are jumping on the impeachment bandwagon realizing that the people want to see these blatant criminals held accountable for their actions. The same voices of the people that voted them into the office they ever so fragiley hold, because these same voices that voted them in have the power and ability to vote them out.

This week Thursday marks the end of America’s fifth year in Iraq and things just keep getting worse every day that we remain there. The “surge” is NOT working and it NEVER has. It can in no way, by any stretch of the imagination be considered as a mission accomplished.

The results in Iraq reflect the actions of a bumbling oaf with no plan for American exit and looking back at the invasion’s beginning, there was no plan ever from the start. The senile actions of this cowboy run invasion and occupation have had a global impact and will no doubt place george bush as the worst president ever in our history books.

With an approval rating in the toilet and the end of his reign of terror coming to a close, it is imperative that we introduce that cheney/bush tag team to something foreign to them.

Accountability.

This month we have seen the courageous actions of the people of Brattleboro Vermont file criminal charges against bush and cheney issuing local warrants for their immediate arrest if they step foot in town. Other towns in Vermont are following suit and my hope is that this will morph into a nationwide movement.

If we, AS AMERICANS, don’t take action, what message does this send to future administrations? It’s time to wake up America and realize that the big red white and blue dildo being shoved up your ass is beginning to hurt.

A Plea For American's

Dear Fellow American who is living in this country as the neocons bring us to the brink of disaster,

Two weeks ago, the House took a bold step demanding accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration by holding former White House Council Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in Contempt of Congress for blatantly ignoring congressional subpoenas for over 8 months.

Though it was not a surprise, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives stating that he refuses to call a Grand Jury to enforce those contempt citations.

The Attorney General’s letter, effectively claiming that members of the executive branch are immune from congressional subpoenas, calls for quick action.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Chairman Conyers have smartly decided to pursue a civil lawsuit to force Bolton and Miers to appear before Congress. We should pursue a lawsuit – but I think we can do even more.

While a court may order – months from now –that Miers and Bolten must appear before Congress, by then George Bush and Dick Cheney will have largely accomplished their goal of running out the clock on the investigation into this Administration’s politicization of the Justice Department. Even a successful outcome in federal court might only mandate that they appear, at which time the witnesses are likely simply to continue their obfuscation by claiming executive privilege of the 5th Amendment in person.

The House of Representatives must re-establish its legitimate rights as a co-equal branch of government. Congress cannot allow its power to be summarily ignored and justice delayed.

The House was correct to hold these renegade White House officials in contempt, and much credit should be given to Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Conyers for pushing for that outcome. Now, we must go further: The House must immediately consider taking the following actions:

- Initiating impeachment hearings that would likely break through the reckless claims of executive privilege made by the Bush Administration.

- Approve a resolution that calls for an inherent contempt citation which would give the House Sergeant at Arms the power to bring Miers and Bolton before Congress.

As you may know, 17 of my colleagues, including four of my fellow members of the Judiciary Committee have joined my call for impeachment hearings. This is not an issue between Democrats and Republicans. As members of Congress, we have an absolute duty to enforce the checks and balances prescribed by our Constitution.

We have ceded too much for too long, enabling George W. Bush to assume a unitary imperial Presidency. It is long past time to secure accountability for those who have, by all appearances, committed significant breaches of our laws and trust.

Mukasey’s claims are simply the latest in a long line of outlandish legal arguments ranging from the idea that we can selectively cherry-pick from torture laws to the concept that the Vice President is no longer part of the Executive Branch (except, of course, when he needs to claim Executive Privilege).

Over the past months, I have received tens of thousands of emails and letters from you expressing your great support for my efforts. Your encouragement and activism on these causes are much appreciated. I continue to work hard on your behalf and hope you feel these updates are valuable.

With kind regards,

Congressman Robert Wexler
www.WexlerForCongress.com

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

As the House of Representatives takes the time it needs to negotiate a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the White House has launched a public assault on the legislative body.

The administration is poniting their pudgy little fingers in false claims that the House has endangered the country by letting the Protect America Act (PAA) expire and should pass the bill already approved by the Senate.

The Senate bill, however, is unconstitutional and contains immunity for the telecommunications companies that aided the president’s warrantless wiretapping program.

In a February 22nd letter to the House Permanent Select Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell made several misleading claims.

Here, the ACLU refutes some of the administration’s arguments.

The Administration claims that:

• FISA's requirements, unlike those of the Protect America Act and the bipartisan Senate bill, impair our ability to collect information on foreign intelligence targets located overseas.

• …"because of the hurdles under FISA's emergency authorization provisions and the requirement to go to the FISA Court within 72 hours, our resource constraints limit our use of emergency authorizations to certain high-priority circumstances and cannot simply be employed for every foreign intelligence target” and that "our intelligence professionals need to be able to obtain foreign intelligence from foreign targets with speed and agility."

The Facts:

• The NSA and CIA have unfettered authority to wiretap at will outside the United States. FISA only regulates domestic spying. No matter what, in an emergency situation, the government can begin a wiretap immediately. Probable cause is a very low evidentiary threshold, so if the government does not have enough of a justification to obtain a judge’s approval (within 72 hours) there is probably not a very good reason for them to believe there’s an emergency in the first place.

• Let’s not forget that this push to amend FISA started because the administration claimed that there was a simple “foreign to foreign” fix needed. There is substantial agreement that a FISA warrant should not be needed to intercept communications between foreigners in foreign countries. Since July, the administration and DNI have consistently asked for a mile under the guise of an inch. If the foreign to foreign fix is all that is needed, it would easily pass with overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral cooperation. The fact is the administration wants Congress to legalize the warrantless domestic wiretapping program that was disclosed over two years ago (to the outrage of many in Congress, it should be noted) and to make sure the phone companies emerge from their role in the program without a scratch.

The Administration claims that:

• The FISA Court requires a showing of probable cause before it will authorize surveillance and satisfying the probable cause requirement will result in unacceptable gaps and delays in monitoring communications of foreign terrorists overseas.
  
• …"it makes no sense to require a showing of probable cause for surveillance of overseas foreign targets who are not entitled to the Fourth Amendment protections guaranteed by our Constitution."

The Facts:

• Wrong again. In an interview last year with PBS’s “Frontline,” James Baker, head of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, said the following on the ability of FISA applications to move quickly:

  Frontline: “So you're saying FISA can move very rapidly.”

  Baker: “Very rapidly. Extremely rapidly. I just want to explain that the reason we do it that way is because we're under a 72-hour clock, and we don't want to start the clock running sooner than we need to. It is challenging to finish these applications within 72 hours, so we don't want to start the clock one minute sooner than we need to. It's just a very practical decision. ...

“The point is, there's been no loss of foreign intelligence information. That's the key thing. ... The American people have not been put at any risk because of this process going on. The collection was not ready until it was ready, and once it was ready, we went and got the attorney general's approval. I'm not saying that we can always do it in one minute, but we can do it pretty quick, and we know how to do it, and we've done it many, many times .”

The Administration claims that:

• …“we have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act."
  
• The Intelligence Community and Department of Justice have worked over the past week with our private partners – whose assistance is essential to our intelligence collection efforts – to mitigate this problem caused by Congress' failure to act, but we have nonetheless missed intelligence information that we could have been collecting to protect the country.

The Facts:

• The day after writing the letter to Congress cited above, Mukasey and McConnell backtracked and admitted that telecom cooperation with surveillance under existing orders is continuing. The fact that there is no FISA backlog, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, is not challenged by the administration. Security experts Rand Beers, Richard Clarke, Don Kerrick, and Suzanne Spaulding wrote a letter to Mukasey and McConnell chastising them for their misleading statements about a loss of intelligence: “For new targets that are somehow not covered by the existing authorizations, the FISA court can issue an order, which the telecom companies are legally obliged to follow. Telecommunications companies will continue to cooperate with lawful government requests, particularly since FISA orders legally compel cooperation with the government.”

• Any delays or loss of intelligence rests squarely on the shoulders of the president who refused to sign another extension of the Protect America Act. The administration can’t have it both ways. It cannot flatly refuse to extend a law and then blame Congress for the consequences.

The Administration claims that:

• …"[e]ven prior to the expiration of the Protect America Act, we experienced significant difficulties in working with the private sector because of the continued failure to provide liability protection for such companies."
  
• According to a statement from the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: "[A]lthough our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the on-going uncertainty and have indicated that they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists…Even with the cooperation of these private partners under existing directives, our ability to gather information concerning the intentions and planning of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets will continue to degrade because we have lost tools provided by the Protect America Act that enable us to adjust to changing circumstances."

The Facts:

• If the government is having trouble compelling its “private partners” to help in its intelligence gathering, it is most likely because the government is asking them to do something that is not authorized under the law. These companies would have no choice but to comply with a legal directive. Any lack of cooperation or “loss of tools” the administration is bemoaning is its own fault. The fact is plain and simple: a warrant compels cooperation and provides immunity. If the government can’t come up with the probable cause it needs to satisfy the FISA court, then these “private partners” are probably correct to not go ahead with the administration’s wink and nod yet again.

What Have We Gained?

Within the next two weeks, the number of American troops killed in Iraq is likely to reach 4,000, assuming that the average number of fatal casualties per day remains steady.

It is an arbitrary number, given meaning by the fact that the nation may briefly take notice, but a day will come in this presidential campaign when Sen. John McCain must explain what he thinks we have gained by the sacrifice of those men and women.

But I would like to pose that question to every idiot war monger out there that supports bushies OCCUPATION of Iraq.

What have we gained?

At what cost?

Is it worth it?

Consider the costs...

• $275 million per day.
• $4,100 per household.
• Almost 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed and more than 60,000 wounded. Not to mention those that have come home with UNTREATED PTSD and other diseases and war related illnesses being brought back home that will haunt America for generations to come.
  
• Over 100,000,000 Iraqis killed and 4 million refugees created.
• America, under bush, has become the disgrace of the world.
• Exponential growth of global terrorism.
• Funding the war has bankrupted the U.S. and is rapidly pushing us toward a severe economic recession if not a full blown depression.
  
• A war that will be paid for by our children's children.

So I ask again: What the fuck have we gained???

bush Fucked Us All

THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.

Australia also faced a real bill much greater than the $2.2billion in military spending reported last week by Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, Professor Stiglitz said, pointing to higher oil prices and other indirect costs of the wars.

Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.

The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.

"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.

That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.

Professor Stiglitz, an academic at the Columbia Business School and a former economic adviser to president Bill Clinton, said a further $US500 billion was going to be spent on the fighting in the next two years and that could have been used more effectively to improve the security and quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world.

The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said.

Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, he said.

The public had been encouraged by the White House to ignore the costs of the war because of the belief that the war would somehow pay for itself or be paid for by Iraqi oil or US allies.

"When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn't focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired.

"(Then defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said 'baloney', and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion. We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion.

"Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that."

Five years after the war, the US was still spending about $US50billion every three months on direct military costs, he said.

Professor Stiglitz and another Clinton administration economist, Linda Bilmes, have produced a book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, pulling together their research on the true cost of the war, which does not include the cost to Iraq.

One of the greatest discrepancies is that the official figures do not include the long-term healthcare and social benefits for injured servicemen, who are surviving previously fatal attacks because of improved body armour.

"The ratio of injuries to fatalities in a normal war is 2:1. In this war they admitted to 7:1 but a true number is (something) like 15:1."

Some 100,000 servicemen have been diagnosed with serious psychological problems and the soldiers doing the most tours of duty have not yet returned.

Professor Stiglitz attributed to the Iraq war $US5-$US10 of the almost $US80-a-barrel increase in oil prices since the start of the war, adding that it would have been reasonable to attribute more than $US35 of that rise to the war.

He said the British bill for its role in the war was about 20 times the pound stg. 1billion ($2.1 billion) that former prime minister Tony Blair estimated before the war.

The British Government was yesterday ordered to release details of its planning for the war, when the country's Information Commissioner backed a Freedom of Information request for the minutes of two cabinet meetings in the days before the war.

Commissioner Richard Thomas said that because of the importance of the decision to go to war, the public interest in disclosing the minutes outweighed the public interest in withholding the information.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-26397,00.html

Bruce Rocks

A great couple of protest songs from "The Boss"

From the Today show last September.

Enjoy!

America's Economic Disaster

Who is a REAL domestic terrorist?

It seems that bush, that piece of shit American traitor, has succeeded in accomplishing on of Osama bin Laden's goals.

Bankrupting the United States

Despite what our asshole president claims, the economy is floating in a toilet awaiting the inevitable flush as the bowl keeps filling up with the turds of a failed presidency.

"It's . . . poetic justice, in that the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end."

--Warren Buffett, American investor

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

--John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)

"New money that enters the economy does not affect all economic actors equally nor does new money influence all economic actors at the same time. Newly created money must enter into the economy at a specific point. Generally this monetary injection comes via credit expansion through the banking sector. Those who receive this new money first benefit at the expense of those who receive the money only after it has snaked through the economy and prices have had a chance to adjust."

--Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992), Austrian economist

When Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says the economic situation is worsening, you'd better believe him. In fact, the U.S. credit markets are collapsing under our very eyes, and there is no end in sight as to when this will stop, let alone reverse itself.

1. Leading economic indicators for the U.S. economy are falling.

2. Consumer confidence sentiment is falling as mortgage equity withdrawals are drying up.

3. Employment numbers are falling.

4. The January 2008 report on the U.S. service economy indicates that it contracted early in the year for the first time in 58 months.

5. The number of new jobless claims is still dangerously high.

6. The housing crisis is getting up steam; banks have to place larger and larger subprime losses on their balance sheets, thus undermining their capital bases and bringing many of them to the brink of insolvency.

7. The credit-ratings agencies are under siege.

8. Bond guarantee insurance companies are in the process of loosing their triple-A ratings and some are on the brink of bankruptcy.

9. The $2.6 trillion municipal bond market is about to take a nosedive, if and when the bond insurers do not pull it through.

10. The leveraged corporate loan market is in disarray.

11. The more than a trillion dollar market for mortgage- and debt-backed securities could collapse completely if the largest American mortgage insurers continue to suffer crippling losses.

12. Large hedge funds are losing money on a high scale and they are suffering from a run on their assets.

13. In the U.S., total debt as a percentage of GDP is at more than 300 percent, a record level (N.B.: in 1980, it was 125 percent!).

14. And, finally, the worldwide hundreds-of- trillion dollar derivatives market could implode anytime, if too many financial institutions go under during the coming months, as most of these transactions are inter-institution trades.

The overall economic picture remains bleak.

This mess all began in the early 2000s when the Fed and the SEC adopted a hands-off approach to financial markets, guided by the new economic religion that "markets can do no wrong." What we are witnessing is the failure of nearly 30 years of so-called conservative debt-ridden and deregulation-ridden economic policies.

It must be understood that the most recent subprime problem really began in 2000, when the credit-rating agency of Standard & Poors issued a pronouncement saying that "piggyback" mortgage financing of houses, when a second mortgage is taken to pay the down-payment on a first mortgage, was no more likely to lead to default than more standard mortgages. This encouraged mortgage lending institutions to relax their lending practices, going as far as lending on mortgages with no down-payment whatsoever, and even postponing capital and interest payments for some time. And, with the Fed and the SEC looking the other way, a fatal next step was taken. Banks and their subsidiaries decided to follow new toxic and risky rules of banking.

Indeed, while traditionally banks would borrow short and lend long, they went one giant step further: they began transforming long-term loans, such as mortgages, car loans, student loans, etc., into short-term loans. Indeed, they got into the alchemist business of bundling together relatively long-term loans into packages that they sliced into smaller credit instruments that had all the characteristics of short-term commercial paper, but were carrying higher yields.

They then sold these new "structured investment vehicles" (SIVs), for a fee, to all kinds of investors who were looking for higher yields than the meager rates that alternatives were paying. And, since banks were behind these new artificial financial assets, the credit agencies gave them an AAA rating, which allowed regulated pension funds and insurance companies to invest in them, believing they were both safe and liquid. They were in for a shock. When the housing bubble burst, the value of real assets behind the new financial instruments began declining, pulling the rug out from beneath the asset-backed paper market (ABCP), which became illiquid and toxic.

With hardly any trading on the new instruments, nobody knew the true value of the paper, and thus nobody was willing to buy it. This crisis of confidence has now permeated to other credit markets and is threatening the entire financial system as the contagion spreads.

As late as 2003-04, then Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was not the least worried by the subprime-financed-housing-mortgage bubble but was instead encouraging people to take out adjustable rate mortgages, even though interest rates were at a 30-year low and were bound to increase. Even in late 2006, newly appointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke professed not to be preoccupied by the housing bubble, saying that high prices were only a reflection of a strong economy. Mind you, this was more than one year after the housing market peaked in the spring of 2005. History will record that the Fed and the SEC did nothing to prevent the debt pyramid from reaching the dangerous levels it attained and which is now crushing the economy.

On a longer span of time, when one looks at a graph provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) which shows the relative importance of total outstanding debt (corporate, financial, government, plus personal) in relation to the economy, one is struck by the fact that this ratio stayed around 1.2 times GDP for decades. Then, something big happened in the early 1980s, and the ratio started to rise, with only a slight pause in the mid-1990s, to reach the rarefied level of 3.1 times GDP presently, nearly 200 percent more than it used to be.

The adoption of massive tax cuts coupled with government deficit spending policies, and deregulation policies, by the Reagan and subsequent administrations, all culminating in a grotesque way under the current administration, contributed massively to this unprecedented debt bubble. It took many years to build up the debt pyramid, and it will take many years to unwind it and to reduce this cumulative mountain of debt to a more manageable size.

That is the big picture behind this crisis. It is much bigger than the S&L crisis of the 1980s, which looks puny in comparison with the current one. That is why I think this crisis will linger on for at least a few more years, possibly until 2010-11.

Willie Nelson - A Fed Up American

American icon Willie Nelson says he supports efforts to impeach bush and "throw the bastards out," adding that the administration will do anything to stay in power, including staging an event to cancel the election.

In his second appearance this month, Nelson told The Alex Jones Show today that he supported Dennis Kucinich's attempt to impeach bush, adding, "If you break the law you have to pay for it one way or
another and if these guys haven't broke the law nobody has."

"The deck's been stacked and we need to figure out a way to get a new fresh deck in there in the deal and I don't know how else to do it except throw the bastards out," said Nelson.

But the award winning star of stage and screen was quick to clarify that he didn't see the Democrats as any kind of viable alternative.

"We went through a couple of elections now and we didn't do anything, we thought we did but come to find out that the voting machines are crooked, everything's stacked against us, the politicians that we vote for won't stay and fight and they won't count the votes."

Nelson agreed that an elite cherry picked presidents and leaders to do their bidding against the interests of the people.

"They find them and they groom them and they put them in office and tell them exactly what to do and you give the speeches will small words and big letters and let them go," said Nelson.

"I really believe that George Bush believes he's right, he believes what he's saying and that makes it even more pathetic because to have someone that wrong think they're right and have him be the leader of our country - that's a scary thought," he added.

The star also re-iterated a warning made during his last appearance on the show, that the Bush administration could potentially stage an event to postpone or cancel the presidential election.

"It could be anything and anything will work because they have everyone scared to death, I just think there are people out there who will do anything to stay in power, anything to keep what they have, they've already proven they'll do anything to keep it," he said.

Reacting to the big response his last appearance on The Alex Jones Show generated, Nelson said "I think it would take courage not to say something, I usually say what I think and it's harder for me to shut up."

"I don't have the ability to remain quiet when all this stuff is going on all around us," he added.

Nelson clarified his previous comments about Building 7 after the news media attempted to skew his words and claim he said that no planes hit the WTC on 9/11. Nelson made it clear he was talking about WTC 7, which imploded symmetrically within seven seconds on the late
afternoon of 9/11 despite the fact that it was only hit by minimal debris from the falling towers and not a commercial airliner.

"I was talking about the third building that nothing hit and yet it fell as if it was hit the same way, all three buildings fell the same way, but the third building wasn't hit by anything," said the country music star.

Nelson's contention that the twin towers were deliberately imploded received media attention after his first appearance on the radio show two weeks ago.

President's Day

Let this President's Day serve as a reminder that there is a criminal holding the office of the Presidency who must be held accountable and impeached as required by the Constitution of the United States.

With the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaching, impeachment activists are in high gear across the country. The war is an ongoing crime against the people of Iraq and the people of this country, but the perpetrators and torturers in chief go unpunished. The violations of civil rights and civil liberties in the United States by the administration are unbounded.

Let us remember the words from Keith Olbermann, MSNBC show host. Let these words burn into your soul.



It is now increasingly common to hear people including some in the mass media and in Congress say as Mr. Olbermann does on this video, "As recently ago as 2006, we spoke words like these with trepidation. The idea that even the most cynical and untrustworthy of politicians in our history, George W. Bush, would use the literal form of terrorism against his own people was dangerous territory. It seemed to tempt fate, to heighten fear.

"We will not fear any longer. We will not fear the international terrorists, and we will thwart them. We will not fear the recognition of the manipulation of our yearning for safety, and we will call it what it is: terrorism. We will not fear identifying the vulgar hypocrites in our government, and we will name them. And we will not fear George W. Bush."

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

I found this story and immediately thought of my most avid listener and rabid fan, Sue Cauler.

David Crosby is telling a George Bush joke.

"Don't you think it'd be a good idea," he says, chuckling, "if we had a law that said you can't have control of nuclear weapons unless you can pronounce the word nuclear? I'm just asking."

Neil Young stares intensely at his jovial bandmate and—strangely for a guy who wrote a song called "Let's Impeach the President"—reprimands him.

"That comment is a polarizing comment," Young says harshly. "It doesn't have to do with the grass roots of the country in the Midwest. It takes people and separates them."

Despite assorted health scares and surgeries that come with passing 60 and decades of rocker excess, things are as they always were with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

In a half-hour conversation, Graham Nash mostly sits quietly and listens. Stephen Stills, just a few weeks after having prostate cancer, laughs loudly and interjects with jokes. As in their music, Crosby and Young guide the discussion, alternating perspectives and sometimes clashing.

The four gathered at the recent Sundance Film Festival to promote a new movie, "CSNY Deja Vu," that tracks their 2006 tour playing songs from Young's "Living With War" album.

Young directed the documentary under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey. And as he does in jousting with Crosby, he seems to thrive on the rancor that resulted from the tour.

Fans entered arenas around the country apparently expecting "Our House" and "Teach Your Children." Instead, they got protest songs: "Lookin' For a Leader," "Living With War," and the aforementioned tune with a chorus that goes, "Let's impeach the president for lying ... abusing all the power that we gave him."

Fans are shown storming out mid-song, ripping up their tickets and threatening to punch Young's face in. This was post-Dixie Chicks, but before public opinion widely turned against the Iraq war. One of Young's stage props was a human-sized microphone that he leaned out over front rows.

"This movie is about when people started talking again, when people started taking the country back, when people started saying well, it is patriotic to have an opinion," Young said. "That's what the time of that movie is. ... We were riding a wave along with everyone else. It was bigger than anybody."

Young put together the "Living with War" album rapidly, and the result was a raw, ragged sound full of passion and anger. He felt he had to make it because no mainstream artists had spoken out against the war. It's an assertion that his bandmates were quick to correct.

"Imagine if one of these young pop stars had suddenly had an epiphany and started doing this," Young said. "That would've really been good. But that didn't happen."

Nash cut in, saying, "What about that great video ('Mosh') from Eminem?"




Young ignored his bandmate. He continued, "I was hoping something like that would happen. Because it wouldn't just be me, somebody from the '60s."

Crosby cut in, saying, "It does happen. It just doesn't happen enough. That girl Pink. That little pop girl Pink. That song 'Dear Mr. President,' that's a good song."



Young ignored him, too.

"Nobody except the pop mainstream has guaranteed airplay," Young said. "There are people that could've turned it around and forgotten about 'Shake Your Booty' for a few minutes. But nobody was moved to, and the people that were moved to were people that nobody would play."

After recording, Young got Crosby and Nash into a car and played his new album for them. They agreed instantly to tour with him. Stills found out later, and said he went along more reluctantly .

"I would've told them we'd get booed out of the building," Stills said. "We happened to catch the country in the first stages of the argument. And they'd have it on the way out of the building. The kids arguing with the parents."

Nash nodded, adding, "I would like to have taped maybe 1,000 car rides home from our concert."

"That's why we need the reverse radio," Young offered. "The radio that when it's off, it's recording. I got that idea from the Bush administration."

"A ninja team out in the parking lot sticking those in," Crosby said.

Young: "No, they'd just install them at GM."

Crosby and Nash, touring together, continue to open their sets with the Nash's 1971 anti-war song "Military Madness." But Young has moved on. He released a new CD last fall, "Chrome Dreams II," focused on love and relationships and with nary a mention of Iraq.

"The way I like to do it is if you're going to sing about war, sing the whole album about war. Just stay on that and drive it into peoples' heads. And that's what we did. But you can't do that over and over again or it's like television. It just completely bores you and numbs you."

Which brings us back to the band leader's takedown of Crosby's crack about Bush.

"A lot of people have problems pronouncing words and spelling things correctly. It doesn't mean that they're not intelligent," Young tells Crosby. "You've got to give the guy credit. Do I agree with him? No. Do I think he's stupid? No. Do I think he's a leader? Yes. He led. He took this country where he wanted to take it. And he steadfastly stuck with it all the way."

UPDATE: Wexler Pushes For Impeachment

Allow Me To Open Up Your Eyes

Last week, bush gave Congress his last State of the Union speech. Proving that the presidency erodes a man--he looked worn, haggard, colorless and beaten.

His words rang vacant, hollow and scratched like fingernails across the chalkboard of Americans' sense of honesty.On January 20, 2001, he raised his right hand and placed his left hand on the Holy Bible, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

You know that god damn piece of paper.

Concerning the basics of our U.S. Constitution: he violated his oath of office and created a boondoggle of a legacy as he poured $3 trillion onto our national debt. He oversaw the loss of millions of jobs, accelerating trade deficits and foisted a complete fraud on us as to national security from terrorism with his failure to secure our borders. What about how he affected American families? What did he do to us on a personal level? What did he do to preserve, protect and enhance our lives?

Last week, in Denver, Colorado, 21 year old U.S. Army soldier Duncan Crookston died after five months of misery. He suffered both legs blown off, his right arm amputated and his left hand cut from his body. He suffered horrific burns. His young wife sat by his bedside for five months only to see Crookston's life slip away.

That same sickening scenario repeated itself 3,900 times in the past six years since bush declared an unlawful war against a sovereign nation--after he strutted across an aircraft carrier with a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished!"

It means 3,900 family members trusted this psychopath to carry out his oath of office, but instead, he deceived them and us--into a vain war. He maintains his corrupt war with no plan for withdrawal-only more death and chaos. While he prolongs his personal war in Iraq, he protects the Korean border with 35,000 U.S. troops while allowing millions of illegal aliens and uncounted terrorists full access across our southern borders for the past seven years.

Any president with a brain larger than a prairie dog's would have sealed our southern borders on 9/12/01 as the oath of office demands, which is probably the reason bush didn't. While he kills or maims our kids in Iraq, thousands of our citizens suffered death from illegal aliens who drive drunk, murder, rape, rob and distribute drugs. All of those nightmares would have been prevented if he had followed through on his oath of office by securing our borders.

The other results of his Iraq War? He poured $1 trillion down a rat hole in Iraq and Afghanistan that hasn't improved those countries one iota-and hasn't caught Bin Laden or made this country safer. He killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. He inflamed the rest of the world against us. Over 75 percent of the troops from other countries pulled out. He's maimed and amputated 29,000 of our finest kids who trusted his felonious judgment and exposed them to Depleted Uranium.

Every year U.S. Army military suicides rise with 2007 topping at 121 kids. Dr. William Polk, author of "Violent Politics" told Congress last week, "More than 500,000 of our troops will need a lifetime of mental health care following their multiple deployments in Iraq." Bush spent 30 minutes insisting on how much progress we're making in Iraq.

Instead of taking care of the economic business of our nation, he watched annual trade deficits grow to $700 billion. He forced our country to borrow $2 billion daily to float our economy. Bush watched 10 million more illegal aliens cross our borders while he said, "They come to do the jobs that Americans won't do."

Migrants do those jobs at slave wages, but they enjoy anchor babies at our expense, free breakfasts and lunches in our schools on our tax dollar and 400,000 convicted felon illegals enjoy free room and board in our prisons. Meanwhile our middle class sank into a new 'poor class' here in America. The facts show that those migrants, now 20 million strong, degraded our culture through lack of assimilation, and now, because of bush's non-enforcement policies, we must tolerate, "Press 1 for Spanish or 2 for English."

We must tolerate millions of illegals marching in our streets demanding rights they do not possess in our country, which they unlawfully entered.

Fallout while bush languished in the presidency:

1. Greatest foreclosure fraud on housing in American history.

2. No national energy policy.

3. No immigration policy that leads to a stable U.S. population.

4. Nothing advanced to employ 14 million unemployed Americans.

5. Horrific $9 trillion debt.

6. $3.50 a gallon gas.

7. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare bankrupting.

8. War on Drugs a total and complete failure and waste of $560,000 billion during his watch.

9. Worked to dissolve America's borders by signing the Security, Prosperity Partnership that will destroy our sovereignty and force us into the North American Union with Canada and Mexico.

10. Patriot Act took away individual liberty.

bush's legacy stems from his lack of integrity.

Our predicament stems from his violation of his oath office.

He proves himself the most inept, incompetent and disastrous president since Wilson and the Federal reserve bank and Income tax debacle.

Are you Fed Up yet?

Ownership Society

Remember the "ownership society," fixture of bush's speeches for the first four years of his presidency?

"We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property," Bush said in October 2004.

Washington think-tanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Fallujah." Yet in bush's final State of the Union address, the once-ubiquitous phrase was conspicuously absent.

And little wonder.

It will no doubt be a major part of bush's failed presidential legacy. Just another nail in his coffin. Just another failure on top of the shit heap that is bush's presidency.

The idea was simple: if working-class people were put in a position to own their own home as opposed to renting, they would flock to the banks offering the sub prime loans in droves. And they did.

But this was only an illusion of ownership as proved by the current mess of what happened when those subprime rates adjusted.

Under 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanic Americans own a home," bush observed in 2002. "That's just too few." He called on Fannie Mae and the private sector "to unlock millions of dollars, to make it available for the purchase of a home"-an important reminder that subprime lenders were taking their cue straight from the top.

Today, the basic promises of the ownership society have been broken. Now we have the subprime mortgage crisis, with more than 2 million homeowners facing foreclosure on their homes. Many are raiding their 401(k)s-their piece of the stock market-to pay their mortgage.

The mass eviction from the ownership society has profound political implications. We are seeing a return of the very class consciousness that the ownership society was supposed to erase. And what is bushs solution?

Bail out the banks and fuck the former homeowner.

BUSTED!!!!!!!

From: Michael Moore's Website

Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.

The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.

According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.

Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.

Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter.

"It is an advisory thing," said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters.

So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001.

Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury — lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq.

He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war.

Daims also said he believed Bush and Cheney were also guilty of espionage for spying on American people and obstruction of justice, for the politically generated firings of U.S. attorneys.

Voting to put the matter on the town ballot were Chairwoman Audrey Garfield and board members Richard Garrant and Dora Boubalis.

Voting against the idea were board members Richard DeGray and Stephen Steidle.

Daims said the names submitted to the town clerk's office were the second wave of signatures the petition drive had to collect, because he had to rewrite the wording of the petition.

He said he gathered nearly 500 signatures in about three weeks, and he said most people he encountered were eager to sign it. He started the petition drive about three months ago.

"Everybody I talked to wanted Bush to go," he said, noting that even members of the local police department supported the drive.

"This is exactly what the charter envisioned as a citizen initiative," Daims said. "People want to express themselves and they want to say how they feel."

He said the idea is spreading: Activists in Louisville, Ky., are spearheading a similar drive, and he said activists were also working in Montague, Mass., a Berkshires town.

The article asked the town attorney to "draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities."

The article goes on to say the indictments would be the "law of the town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro police ... arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro, if they are not duly impeached ..."

Daims said people in Brattleboro were willing to "think outside the box" and consider the issue.

Daims had no compunction in comparing Bush and Cheney with one of the most notorious people in history.

"If Hitler were still alive and walked through Brattleboro, I think the local police would arrest him for war crimes," Daims said.

A Legacy Of Failure

As bush prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address, it’s worth revisiting the first speech he gave to a joint session of Congress.

His lies tonight will provide an opportunity to reflect on the kind of president bush was.

The speech delivered seven years ago points to the very different sort of president he might have been.

bush began his February 2001 address by hailing the new spirit of cooperation he hoped would characterize his relations with Congress. “Together we are changing the tone in the nation’s capital,” he declared. The new president’s top priority would be education. He intended to marry the liberal desire for more federal money to the conservative demand for higher standards.

The rest of the speech was similarly moderate in tone and substance. bush planned to use part of the enormous fiscal surplus he inherited for a broad-based tax cut. But he also wanted to expand Medicare benefits, preserve Social Security, extend access to health care and protect the environment. He concluded with an exhortation to bipartisanship — in Spanish. “Juntos podemos,” he said. “Together we can.”

bush seemed genuinely to want to be the kind of president indicated by that first address.

He meant to build a broad coalition on the model of his governorship in Texas, where he worked closely with Democrats in the Legislature, made his chief cause correcting racial disparities in education, and was re-elected in 1998 by an almost 40 percentage point margin, including 27 percent of the black vote and at least a third of Latinos.

What happened to this bush???

bush never completely abandoned the compassionate conservatism we glimpsed that night seven years ago. His second speech to Congress, nine days after Sept. 11, 2001, reflected his instinctive response to the attacks, which was to appeal for national unity in a non-partisan manner. bush’s third speech to Congress (his first formal State of the Union address, in 2002) is remembered for its reference to the “axis of evil.” But the president also boasted about his cooperation with such Democrats as George Miller and Ted Kennedy on education policy. His strongest emphasis was on public service. He proposed doubling the size of the Peace Corps and called on every American to commit at least 4,000 hours — two full working years — to community service.

The following year, in 2003, bush pressed his case for invading Iraq and uttered the infamous 16 words (“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”). But alongside that disingenuous indictment, bush presented Congress with a new raft of centrist-minded initiatives: $450 million to minister to the needs of children of prisoners, $600 million to treat drug addicts, $1.2 billion for hydrogen-powered cars, $10 billion in new money to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean.

And so on, in each subsequent speech. In 2004, bush used weasel words to describe the missing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He claimed to have disrupted “dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.” But when he turned to domestic matters, the president unveiled a new science and math program for low-income students and a program to help former prisoners re-enter society. He included an eloquent plea for the kind of immigration reform that would “reflect our values and benefit our economy.”

To this day, bush’s compassionate conservatism has never vanished completely. Some of bush’s signature programs, like his initiative to provide AIDS drugs to Africans, have had meaningful effects. But others haven’t lived up to their rhetorical promise.

What about that special training for defense lawyers in capital cases (pledged in his 2005 State of the Union address)?

The initiative to encourage mentoring for at-risk children (2006)?

The grants to extend health insurance coverage (2007)?

Such gestures tended to linger in the air only as long as it took bush to make them.

So often with bush, compassionate government began and ended with the heartfelt public empty promise. He was too distracted by war and foreign policy, and too bored by the processes of government to know what the American people want.

And of course, bush’s left hand acted as if it didn’t know what his right hand was doing. After his first year in office, Democrats burned by his political strategy of polarization were disinclined to work with him on shared goals.

The Compassionate Conservative will surely pay us a final visit tonight.

He remains an appealing character, but a largely fictional one. I wonder how the last seven years might have turned out if he had actually existed.

In this, the final year of a failed presidency, I bet bush does too.

The Time Is NOW!

As we all know, Nancy Pelosi's "Capitulation Congress" will do absolutely everything it can to avoid a battle with bush over his utter contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law and even Congress itself.

Remember Pelosi's 2006 campaign reason No. 1 for electing a Democratic Congress?

"Subpoena power."

So what about all those subpoenas bush flagrantly and illegally defied in 2007?

Never mind, says Pelosi.

House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides.

Yet another bush smoke screen.

Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would "step on their message" of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks.

Ah, "bipartisan unity." If that phrase means anything, doesn't it require compromise by both parties? So why is it that since Reagan came to Washington in 1981 -- including the eight years of President Clinton -- "bipartisan unity" has always meant Democratic capitulation to Republicans?

Every progressive knows what Republican Grover Norquist famously said: "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape."

At the moment, the Washington establishment -- and Democratic "leaders" -- believe the slightest hint of constitutional conflict would terrify financial markets and trigger a depression. (ANOTHER bush smoke screen)

So if "bipartisan unity" is the issue above all other issues, why doesn't the Washington establishment demand that bush show some bipartisanship by respecting lawful and entirely justified congressional subpoenas?

American business leaders arrogantly tell foreign leaders that economic growth is impossible without the "rule of law." Well, without the basic legal tool of subpoenas, there is no rule of law.

Just imagine what bush would say if Vladimir Putin defied subpoenas from his parliament. By refusing to hold bush in contempt, Congress is allowing bush to be more of a dictator than Putin.

Personally, I believe the single most important thing Congress could do to prevent a depression and restore the pillars of our legal-economic system is to get to the source of all White House legal obstruction by starting impeachment hearings for Dick Cheney as advocated by Rep. Robert Wexler.

Why?

First, consider the alternatives.

Financial markets around the world think a $150 billion economic stimulus is utterly useless in the context of the massive collapse of the U.S. mortgage industry and the banks that tried to milk it. That's precisely why global markets plunged 5 percent to 10 percent on Monday.

Why did the mortage industry collapse?

Simple: bush's government stopped regulating it and let the banks create a gigantic bubble by offering reckless and even criminal mortgages to people who could not afford them.

Who in the White House waged war against all forms of economic regulation?

Dick Cheney, of course.

And speaking of war, another major reason for our profound economic problems is Iraq. After predicting a cost-free war, bush's disastrous occupation has already forced him to borrow $500 billion from China and the Arab oil monarchies, driving down the dollar and discouraging foreign investment.

Who demanded the war in Iraq?

Dick Cheney, of course.

Speaking of oil, the indirect economic costs of Iraq have dwarfed the direct budget costs. Oil was under $30 per barrel before bush's invasion, but the political instability caused by the invasion has helped drive oil near $100 per barrel. This has driven up costs throughout the economy, cut business profits and slashed consumer spending power.

Another drag on the U.S. economy is hard to measure but still large -- corruption.

bush and his huge donor "Rangers" brought crony capitalism to Washington and killed competitive bidding in favor of corrupt no-bid contracts. The result was predictable -- massive waste and cost overruns.

Who was the driving force behind bush's crony capitalism?

Dick Cheney, of course.

bush's disastrous and failed policies in all three areas -- economic regulation, foreign/military policy and government waste -- have driven the U.S. economy to the verge of another Great Depression.