I wish I had a bullhorn to shout just how tired I am of hearing about how wonderful George W. Bush’s “bullhorn moment” was.
It will go down as one of the worst moments in American history because when he stood on the smoldering ruins amid the dust of the dead it was through that bullhorn that Bush’s Big Lie was first shouted to the world that the people who knocked down those buildings would soon be hearing from us.
It might have been a fairly good, better-late-than-never moment if all Bush had done was use that bullhorn to launch a war on Al Qaeda. It might have escalated into a great piece of historical stagecraft if we’d just gone into Afghanistan and stayed the course on a noble quest to kill Osama Bin Laden and all his Al Qaeda cowards who murdered our people.
But the words that echoed through Bush’s bullhorn into the smoldering 16 acres of lower Manhattan, the words that resounded across the grieving outer boroughs and the sorrowful suburbs and the stunned globe, were but an orchestrated setup for a grander diabolical scheme.
Because we fast gave up the hunt for Bin Laden for a bait-and-switch war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the rubble upon which Bush stood at Ground Zero shouting bull through his bullhorn.
Bush has now declared that half-a-buck stops on his desk for Katrina.
But he doesn’t ever mention that Osama Bin Laden is still out there roaming free and plotting more American murders. That stops on his desk, too.
Historians will refocus that bullhorn moment as the point of origin to exploit a terrible attack on America for a preconceived war in Iraq that had nothing to do with our dead.
Historians also will remember that directly after the terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 2001, killing 2,749, our fearless leader, with all that Texas Air Guard combat training, hopped aboard Air Force One and lammed to, um, Omaha.
Talk about heroic.
And as real heroes dug in the rubble for signs of life, shortening their own lives in the toxic air, Bush hid out. Then three days later, when the coast was clear, he arrived to shoot a Karl Rove-inspired reelection commercial and to launch a war in Iraq.
Soon as the deal was done, the GOPers started to bitch,
Though they closed no loopholes nor upped taxes on the rich.
Sure, right-wingers ain’t happy
About getting an ass-whupping from Pappy,
To which we say, “Shut up and eat your turd sandwich.”
“This year is starting to feel a lot like 2016, a primary field that contains Trump and all the other not-Trump candidates. The only difference between this contest and 2016 is that other candidates then ran (ostensibly, at least) as their own selves and not just lesser versions of the OG.”
A Utah parent filed a challenge to have the Bible removed from public school libraries, citing passages describing sex and violence. The committee appointed to review the complaint said the Bible may remain in high school libraries, but it will be removed from elementary and middle schools for containing “vulgarity or violence.”
“I’m going to leave it up to Kevin McCarthy to see if he wants to help defeat Putin,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Punchbowl News. “I mean, he’s been pretty good… But is the Republican Party going to be the party that bails out [Russian President Vladimir] Putin? I hope not.”
Southern Poverty Law Center: “In 2022, SPLC documented 1,225 hate and antigovernment extremist groups across the United States. Extremist ideas that mobilize these groups now operate more openly in the political mainstream. But the ascent of the hard right is not inevitable. We can push back against this rising authoritarianism and turn the tide.”
A new Yahoo News-YouGov poll found that 62% of Americans believe that Donald Trump should not be allowed to serve as president again if he is convicted of a “serious” crime. A slightly smaller majority — 52% — said they believe that Trump has committed a serious crime.
Gallup: “Seventy-one percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal, matching the high Gallup recorded in 2022. Public support for legally recognizing gay marriages has been consistently above 50% since the early 2010s.”
Wall Street Journal: “The number of homeless people in California grew about 50% between 2014 and 2022. The state, which accounts for 12% of the U.S. population, has about half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless, an estimated 115,000 people, according to federal and state data last year. It also has among the highest average rent and median home prices in the U.S.”
CNBC: Nonfarm payrolls in May increased by 339,000, better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimated.
The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in May against the estimate for 3.5%. May’s jobless rate was the highest since October 2022. Professional and business services led job creation followed by government and health care.