How We Got from George W. Bush to Donald Trump: Liberals Had More to Do with It Than We’d Like to Think

The arrival of Donald J. Trump feels like the completion of the cycle I was writing about in the early George W. Bush years. It is all too easy to get caught up in the moment, though fears are understandably high, and not think about the deep-seated anomalies and contradictions in the body politic that have brought America to the cusp of out-and-out fascism. Even if Trump’s policies turn out in the end to be not as fearsome as he has repeatedly stated, his explicit persona and policy positions take us very far out of the realm of normal democracy. It has become fashionable lately to excuse George W. Bush for being a “moderate” in comparison with Trump, but it should not be forgotten that Bush was the original American fascist; everything Trump, or a future would-be authoritarian, might do is predicated on the radical innovations Bush introduced in our political style, subverting the constitution and changing the balance between liberty and security in ways that have had permanent impact.

The Rehabilitation of George W. Bush

It says something about the state of affairs we’re in when George W. Bush emerges from the dung heap of history ostensibly smelling like roses. Were Bush from a less powerful country—one that has to follow rules it had no part in making, rather than one that sets rules it has no problem violating—he would be at The Hague before a war-crimes tribunal.

Instead, he is promoting his artwork—paintings of US veterans wounded in the line of duty—in a new book called Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors. Given that the illegal war he launched left so many dead or gravely injured, it might more properly be titled Victims of Hubris.

The Invisible Man: George W. Bush and a Hole in History

After Donald Trump blew into his dog saxophone and invited "Second Amendment people" to assassinate Hillary Clinton before she could appoint any judges, American politics went into China Syndrome meltdown mode in a way not seen since Preston Brooks beat Charles Sumner very nearly to death in the well of the Senate, 160 years ago almost to the day. Republicans who had endorsed Trump immediately fled en masse to Outer Mongolia to become anonymous yak herders, and witnesses reported seeing House Speaker Paul Ryan climb a large oak tree while muttering, "I hate this job, I hate this job, there's no place like home, I hate this job."

They should all be tried: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and America’s overlooked war crimes

The allegations against the man were serious indeed.

* Donald Rumsfeld said he was “if not the number two, very close to the number two person” in al-Qaeda.

* The Central Intelligence Agency informed Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that he “served as Usama Bin Laden’s senior lieutenant. In that capacity, he has managed a network of training camps… He also acted as al-Qaeda’s coordinator of external contacts and foreign communications.”

* CIA Director Michael Hayden would tell the press in 2008 that 25% of all the information his agency had gathered about al-Qaeda from human sources “originated” with one other detainee and him.

* George W. Bush would use his case to justify the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” claiming that “he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained” and that “he helped smuggle al-Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan” so they would not be captured by U.S. military forces.

None of it was true.

How Bush-Cheneyism Made Mideast in Its Image: Wars, WOT, With Us or Against Us

Thirteen years after the illegal US invasion of Iraq, it is worth considering its full impact on this country and on the region.  Bush-Cheneyism had a number of key pillars, among which these were prominent:

1.  Aggressive unilateral warfare, with the domestic advantage of making the public rally around the flag.

2.  Conspiracy-theory amalgamation of various threats into one (‘Saddam supports al-Qaeda’)

Revenge of the Simple: How George W. Bush Gave Rise to Trump

To hear GOP insiders tell it, Doomsday is here. If Donald Trump scores huge on tonight and seizes control of the nomination in the Super Tuesday primaries, it will mark the beginning of the end of the Republican Party, and perhaps the presidency.

But Trump isn't the beginning of the end. George W. Bush was. The amazing anti-miracle of the Bush presidency is what makes today's nightmare possible.

How the Bushes Misunderstood Cheney

We are probably too quick to declare any family that has produced more than one elected officeholder to be a political dynasty: many other democratic countries (India, the Philippines, Argentina) are far more dynastic than the United States. In 1979, the Kennedys were our leading political dynasty. Ted Kennedy was preparing to run for President, and many people thought it was inevitable that he would win.

‘The Attacks Will Be Spectacular’

"Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The CIA’s famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming.

Stephen Harper is the last remnant of George W Bush in North America

I frequently tell my American friends, who know little about Canada, that Stephen Harper is the last remnant of the George W Bush administration in North America. The response I get is usually a mixture of dismay and pity. Bush’s worldview and politics of fear have been rejected by Americans in the last two elections, many of whom now lament his era as a period of folly and hubris.

My American friends are also confused. How could Canada, a country widely regarded as being full of socially-progressive and tolerant people, elect someone from a party so antithetical to that image?

The Final Collapse of Bush’s Nation-Building: Kunduz Falls to Taliban

On Monday, the Taliban swept into the provincial capital of Kunduz, taking it in half a day from a large and well-equipped Afghan National Army force.  Tuesday’s riposte had only mixed success, with the ANA saying it had taken back the (no-empty) prison. An attempt to take back the airport failed, and when the Taliban captured an ANA tank, the US Air Force had to intervene to take it out lest it be used to drive an ANA rout.

Those who want the US to go into Syria in a big way should just consider what the Kunduz events mean.  Fourteen years after the US went into Afghanistan, it still has not been able to stand up a successful army to which it could hope to turn the country over.  How many orphans do the hawks want to adopt?

Jeb Bush Wants To Double Down On His Brother's Tax Cuts For The Rich

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush outlined a tax plan on Wednesday that broadly resembles the tax platform presented in 2000 by his brother George W. Bush. The main difference: Jeb would give even bigger tax breaks to the the ultra-wealthy.

The current income tax rate on the wealthiest Americans is 39.6 percent, where it stood when Jeb's brother ran for president in 2000. At the time, George W. pushed to cut the top rate to 33 percent. Jeb would slash it to 28 percent --  almost one-third less than the current rate.

George W. Bush Charged Veteran Charity $100,000 Speaking Fee For Fundraiser

Former president George W. Bush charged a veterans' charity $100,000 to speak at a fundraiser in 2012.

The former commander in chief was also provided with a private plane to fly to the event, which cost another $20,000, ABC News reports.

George W. Bush's CIA Briefer: Bush and Cheney Falsely Presented WMD Intelligence to Public

For a dozen years, the Bush-Cheney crowd have been trying to escape—or cover up—an essential fact of the W. years: President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their lieutenants misled the American public about the WMD threat supposedly posed by Saddam Hussein in order to grease the way to the invasion of Iraq. For Bush, Cheney, and the rest, this endeavor is fundamental; it is necessary to protect the legitimacy of the Bush II presidency. Naturally, Karl Rove and other Bushies have quickly tried to douse the Bush-lied-us-into-war fire whenever such flames have appeared. And in recent days, as Jeb Bush bumbled a question about the Iraq War, he and other GOPers have peddled the fictitious tale that his brother launched the invasion because he was presented lousy intelligence. But now there's a new witness who will make the Bush apologists' mission even more impossible: Michael Morell, a longtime CIA official who eventually became the agency's deputy director and acting director. During the preinvasion period, he served as Bush's intelligence briefer.

'Mission Accomplished' Was 12 Years Ago Today. What's Been The Cost Since Then?

On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush delivered a now-infamous speech aboard an aircraft carrier in which he declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" and that "in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." That speech, given less than two months after the U.S. initiated combat operations in Iraq, has been derisively labeled "Mission Accomplished" after the banner used as a backdrop.

In Rare Remarks, George W. Bush Argues Against the Lifting of Iran Sanctions

LAS VEGAS — Former President George W. Bush said the United States must show that it can follow through on its promises, and argued against the lifting of sanctions against Iran during rare remarks about foreign policy in a meeting with hundreds of Jewish donors here Saturday night.

Mr. Bush told the 700 donors attending a closed-door Republican Jewish Coalition spring meeting that he would not criticize President Obama, whose aim to degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State he applauded. But the former president nevertheless offered comments that many in the audience viewed as a tacit critique of his successor.

If You Want To Know The Problem With Indiana’s ‘Religious Freedom’ Law, Just Ask George W. Bush

Just one day after Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed a law that’s widely expected to give anti-gay businesses a license to discriminate, two of the state’s top Republicans are already backing away from the law. At a joint press conference held by Indiana Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R) and House Speaker Brian Bosma (R), both men said that they will “encourage our colleagues to adopt a clarifying measure of some sort to remove” the impression that the bill authorizes discrimination. It remains to be seen what, exactly, this “clarifying measure” will say, and if it will actually remove the bill’s protections for anti-gay business owners.

George W. Bush: Jeb Would Beat Hillary Clinton In 2016

George W. Bush says that he badly wants his brother Jeb to run for president -- and that if he were to face off against Hillary Clinton, he would "absolutely" beat her in a 2016 matchup.

"He knows I want him to run," the former president told Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. "If I need to reiterate it, I will: Run, Jeb. I think he'd be a great president."

Asked if he considered Clinton to be "formidable," Bush said, "Very much so. No question. So is he, though.

The Bush Administration Spent Billions on an Iraqi Army With 50,000 ‘Ghost’ Soldiers

Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi announced to his parliament on Sunday that inspectors had uncovered 50,000 non-existent soldiers in four divisions of the Iraqi Army.  Their pay was presumably being diverted to the officers in the division.  This ziggurat of corruption was one reason the army collapsed on June 9, allowing Daesh (what Arabs derisively call ISIL) to take Mosul.  The officers had many thousands fewer men than they claimed, and those they did actually have were damned if they were dying so the corrupt officers could go on with their double book keeping.

George W. Bush's Revenge: A Federal Appeals Court Goes on the Rampage

When George W. Bush departed the White House, he left behind a giant deficit and expanded government spending for Medicare drug benefits that caused conservatives to grumble. But he did make a mark that right-wingers can cheer—by shaping the federal courts for years, perhaps decades.

As Bush has retreated to painting, federal judges he placed on the bench have been implementing a conservative vision in some of the most contentious areas of federal law. The best example of this is a string of recent decisions on hot-button issues from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which the ABA Journal has dubbed"the nation's most divisive, controversial and conservative appeals court."

Bush/Cheney Created Conditions That Led Directly to ISIL

It takes a lot of gall for people like Dick Cheney to utter even one critical word about President Obama's strategy to eliminate the threat of ISIL in the Middle East.

In fact, it was the unnecessary Bush/Cheney Iraq War that created the conditions that led directly to the rise of the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL).