From DownWithTyranny! 3 January 2010:

I don’t know which single book I liked most in 2009. The DWT Bookstore has pages of my faves– the ones Ken and I are always referring to– from Idiot America, Nixonland, Dateline Havana, Bloggers on the Bus and Turkmeniscam to The Progressive Revolution, The Eliminationists and, of course, Russ Baker’s Family of Secrets, a 600 page thriller that digs more deeply into the Bush Family than anyone has ever done. The paperback is now in its third edition and I’ve been urging Russ to work with someone on doing a synopsis that we could use to turn people on who are intimidated by books with hundreds of pages. Yesterday he finally sent me something that can be used here at DWT. He starts with the questions many of us have asked over and over again: “How did the spectacularly unqualified George W. Bush come to be the President of the United States, and arguably the most powerful person in the world? What lay behind his improbable rise and disastrous policies? Was there more to his controversial reign than the pundits’ standard bromides?”…

Read more, including excerpts from the book at the below link.

via DownWithTyranny!: Family Of Secrets– All Your Worst Fears About The Bushs Were True.

The economic events of the last couple of weeks has led many to darkly reminisce about Depression Era history.

Jon Hilsenrath, Serena Ng and Damian Paletta, authored an excellent piece regarding the present financial fiasco. In it, the authors describe the US financial system as undergoing treatment for a cancer that has already metastasized.

From the September 18, 2008, WSJ.com post - Worst Crisis Since ’30s, With No End Yet in Sight:

The body is trying to fight off a disease that is spreading, and as it does so, the body convulses, settles for a time and then convulses again. The illness seems to be overwhelming the self-healing tendencies of markets. The doctors in charge are resorting to ever-more invasive treatment, and are now experimenting with remedies that have never before been applied. Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, walking into a hastily arranged meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday night to brief them on the government’s unprecedented rescue of AIG, looked like exhausted surgeons delivering grim news to the family.

[snip]

Debt-driven financial traumas have a long history, from the Great Depression to the S&L crisis to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. Neither economists nor policymakers have easy solutions. Cutting interest rates and writing stimulus checks to families can help — and may have prevented or delayed a deep recession. But, at least in this instance, they don’t suffice.

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The above article also touches on how the US & others have dealt with such financial crises.  Follow the above ‘read more’ link for the entire post.

For anyone interested in reading a quality history of the Great Depression, this is a must read:  The Great Depression – America, 1929-1941, by Robert S. McElvaine.  Three Rivers Press, New York, 1984, 1993.  Also check out Professor McElvaine’s blog at huffingtonpost.com.

From the September 3, 2008 Colbert Report on Comedy Central:

Author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Colbert discuss past political conventions while touching upon this week’s Republican National Convention.

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Ron Suskind’s book forces Conyer’s to stop dragging his feet.

In a recent post, I noted Suskind’s expressions of sympathy for the pressure put upon his sources; indeed, his sources implicated Dick Cheney’s office and the CIA for forging a letter which implied a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Husein’s regime. It is alleged that the forgery was intended to bolster support, domestic and abroad, for the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Dick

If Suskind’s sources weren’t expecting such pressure, they should have been.  Regardless, they may breathe a little easier today, as the vice president’s aides soon may be absorbing some of the pressure over the potential scandal.  The Raw Story reported yesterday on the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, John Conyers, and his written correspondence, requesting answers regarding the allegations contained within Suskind’s book, The Way of the World.

These developments could inspire Conyers to begin impeachment hearings regarding Cheney’s behavior as VP.  Conyers and others have been widely criticized for dragging their feet on the matter.

I’ll include some excerpts from Raw Story below, but be sure to check out the whole article.  If for no other reason than it contains the text of Conyers’ letters to Former CIA Director George Tenet, former VP Chief of Staff I. Lewis Scooter Libby, VP advisor John Hannah, and former CIA Deputy Director (and Suskind source) Bob Richer.  The post also links to pdf files where the letters may be downloaded from.

I sincerely hope that I never receive a letter like that.

From The Raw Story’s John Byrne, posted August 20, 2008:

Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) issued letters of inquiry Wednesday to Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, regarding a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks…

Conyers asked that Richer “set up a time” to discuss allegations surrounding the false letter.

“According to recent allegations in your capacity as the former CIA Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations and Chief of the Near East Division, you were tasked by former CIA Director George Tenet to create the false letter and may even have seen the White House stationery on which the false letter assignment was reportedly written,” Conyers wrote Richer Wednesday. “Given your reported direct knowledge of these events, I am requesting that you contact Judiciary Committee staff as soon as possible to set up a time to discuss your involvement and knowledge of the allegedly false letter…”

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From Rawstory’s August 19, 2008 post, by way of the AP :

“There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers,” Woodward’s longtime editor, Alice Mayhew, said Tuesday in a statement. “This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes…”

According to Simon & Schuster, Woodward’s book “takes readers deep inside the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq.

“Based on extensive interviews with participants, contemporaneous notes and secret documents, the book traces the internal debates, tensions and critical turning points in the Iraq War during an extraordinary two-year period.”

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