Smoke Still Curling In The Air

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Dick Durbin, Newt Gingrich, Michael Jackson...who the $#@! cares?! Read this from Tom Hughes...

Last week, I sent you the full minutes of a July 2002 meeting where the British intelligence chief -- having just returned to London from the White House -- told Prime Minister Tony Blair that, in regards to Iraq War planning, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" by the Bush administration.

Those minutes -- the "Downing Street Memo" -- finally made the front page of the Washington Post on Sunday. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) holds hearings on the matter later this week.

But now there's even more: As if we didn't have enough evidence that the White House sacrificed over 1,700 American lives to a war based on trumped-up charges, this past weekend brought news of yet another memo -- this time, the PERSONAL SECRET UK EYES ONLY briefing paper from that July 2002 meeting.

What does the new memo show? That British officials worried about "creat[ing] the conditions in which [they] could legally support military action" -- because they knew the facts made no case for the war Bush had decided to wage. Worse, it confirms the rudely obvious fact that Bush had no clue how to deal with Iraq after toppling the regime. To quote:

“A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point.”

See the new EYES ONLY briefing and the Downing Street Memo for yourself:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/memo

Together, these briefings give us the painful, raw truth. In 2002, George W. Bush fixed the facts. He didn't have an exit strategy. He still doesn't. And every day, our sons and daughters in Iraq pay a terrible price because of it.

We need to get out of this mess.

Democracy for America is looking for ideas - yours - on how best to spread the word on the Downing Street papers. Is it reprints in newspapers across the country? Is it a "Did You Get The Memo?" advertising campaign? Or, maybe, it's billboards in Crawford?

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/downingideas

Be creative. The best ideas always come from the grassroots. Later this week, we'll announce the campaign that you help design.

The facts in the memo and the briefing can't be twisted, and they can't be fixed.

Together, we're going to get them to as many people as we can -- because America deserves the truth about the White House's failed and misguided policy.

With thanks,

Tom Hughes
Democracy for America

Will I Get My Own Little Red Book?

Oh, this is just peachy. I'm trying to catch up on Email (mostly chain/borderline spam, though some REAL people actually did send some nice stuff, for which I'm much obliged), and here I come across this little number.

So it sounds like the Chinese are going to take all of the dollars they raked in because we, as a country, stupidly bought goods for practically nothing at Wal-Mart and other big-box retail stores (yep...I did too, though I try to avoid doing so with mixed results generally...more than anyone else, though, thank our spineless politicians for this), leading to the gradual demise of the manufacturing sector of this country that produced textiles, steel, and all manner of quality consumer goods unlike anything that had been previously seen before in the entire world, and now they're going after "name brands" to boost their own market share in this country.

Oh, but we should be glad about this (or so our MSM cousins tell us), because, as the story implies, this could actually lead to keeping more jobs in this country (if you can count a pulley manufacturer's supposedly heartwarming story of saving 40 jobs - a nice, warm, fuzzy media moment to be sure, though that literally is a drop of water in the ocean when you're talking about this country's workforce).

I just came back from a place where too many people took one more spin or roll of the dice than they should have and went bust, and the last damn thing in the world that I want to see is that happening to the rest of our eroding economy (once again, thanks to Bushco and all of the life forms that ensured his continued presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for this, though as I said above, our slavish kow towing to the Chinese, despite their abysmal human rights record and illegal trade practices, goes back to Clinton and before).

One more note also, by the way: that line in the story about "some lucky Americans saving a whole lot of money" has to do with the investor class, boys and girls. If you're reading this, the "haves" will get chateaubriand out of this, and if we're lucky, we'll get a pint container of Moo Shu Pork.

I'm sure "Outsourced American" will have a take on this shortly also.

I'm Back!

Got in from Las Vegas last night and will start posting again soon. Thanks for hanging in there!