Bush and Cheney Falsely Presented Iraq WMD Intelligence

Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush's Iraq war fumble freshly lays bare the truth that President George W. Bush intentionally misrepresented the intelligence related to Iraq's supposed WMD program and Saddam's alleged links to Al Qaeda to talk the nation into a war of his choice.

Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball on Tuesday night, former acting CIA director Mike Morell, author of a new book, The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, made clear the Bush-Cheney administration publicly misrepresented the intelligence related to Iraq's supposed WMD program and Saddam's alleged links to Al Qaeda.

Host Chris Matthews asked Morell about a statement Cheney made in 2003: "We know he [Saddam Hussein] has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Here's the conversation that followed:

GOP Can't Be Trusted To Keep America Secure

Jeb Bush and other Republican presidential contenders have a new and bogus spin on how the Iraq War began. They say Jeb's brother, Pres. G.W. Bush was misled into war by faulty intelligence. That's Not What Happened!

But here's the truth Jeb and the Republicans are evading: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, & Co. were not misled by lousy intelligence; they intentionally cherry-picked lousy intelligence to mislead the public into war.

Throughout the run-up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and their lieutenants repeatedly stated assertions about Iraq to justify war that were not supported by the professional the intelligence analysts.

An article published at New York Magazine and another published at Mother Jones are excellent refreshers on the history of the Bush administration trumping up reasons for America to invade Iraq, even though U.S. intelligence agency professionals could not find any factually convincing evidence Saddam Hussein had any connection to the Sept. 11, 2001 al Qa‘ida attack.

But that was not the first instance of a disastrous outcome from Bush administration officials dismissing intelligence agency reports. According to The Great War Of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, a new book by former acting CIA director Mike Morell, Vice President Dick Cheney thought al Qaeda was bluffing on its plan plan to fly commercial aircraft into high value buildings:

Republicans Troubled By Clinton Donors See No Conflict With Own Dark Money

Paul Blumenthal reports for HuffPo.

For four months, the Republican Party and its many presidential hopefuls have laid into likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over donations to a family foundation. That these attacks contradict the GOP's broader stand on campaign finance -- and call into question their own weighty burden of donor conflicts -- hasn't troubled them at all.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called contributions to the nonprofit Clinton Foundation “thinly veiled bribes.” The nation can’t afford the “drama” represented by those donations, according to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina asked Clinton to explain why contributions to the foundation “don’t represent a conflict of interest.” And the Republican National Committee has made the donations a central part of its campaign against Clinton.

Republicans, including those now running for president, defend dark money groups as a means to protect what they argue is the First Amendment right of donors to engage in political activity without "retaliation." Perhaps, that retaliation would come in the form of stories informing the public about how those donors are seeking to influence public policy.

Full story at HuffPo.

Imagine There's No More Religion

Three-quarters of Millennialls agree that present-day Christianity has “good values and principles,” but strong majorities also agree that modern-day Christianity is “hypocritical” (58%) and “judgmental” (62%). (PRRI)

Last week, Pew Research released a new survey finding a dramatic decline of Americans who affiliate with a church. That increase correlated strongly with the decrease in the number of Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelical Protestants over the past seven years.

Although a majority of Americans still identify as Christian, the decline in their number is widespread, occurring among the young and the old, black and white, well educated and not so well educated, in all regions of the country. In the poll, people were asked if they “identify” as Christian.

There are, according to Pew, now more Americans unaffiliated with religion than either mainline Protestants or Catholics. If the “nones” were a religious denomination, they would be the second largest in America, just after evangelical Christians. If the trend of the last seven years continues, the “nones” will become America's largest religious denomination by mid-century.