President Obama gives almost an hour long speech slamming opponents of the Iran nuclear deal, and reminding his audience that these critics were the same warmongers who supported Iraq war.

Courtesy of CNN: 

President Barack Obama issued a blistering rebuttal to opponents of the Iran nuclear deal as he sought to bolster congressional support for the agreement with a major speech on Wednesday. 

He declared that lawmakers risk damaging American credibility if they vote to scuttle the deal and equated them with those who pushed for war with Iraq -- and with the mullahs in Iran. 

"It's those hardliners chanting 'death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal. They're making common cause with the Republican caucus," Obama said. 

"If Congress kills this is deal, we will lose more than just constraints on Iran's nuclear program or the sanctions we have painstakingly built," Obama said. "We will have lost something more precious: America's credibility as a leader of diplomacy. America's credibility as the anchor of the international system."

I watched this speech today and was struck by just how detailed Obama was in itemizing exactly what makes the Iran deal so good for maintaining peace.

But what made me actually sit up and applaud was when the President reminded folks that the politician who are the biggest critics of this deal, are also the ones who beat the war drums the loudest for the idea of invading Iraq.


The 2002 Iraq vote, which spawned foreign policy headaches for the past two administrations, was driven by war-hungry politicians, Obama claimed. He said Wednesday that opponents of his agreement with Iran were deploying similar arguments ahead of the September vote in Congress. 

"None of these arguments hold up. They didn't back in 2002 and 2003 and they shouldn't now," Obama said. "The same mind-set, in many cases offered by the same people who seem to have no compunction with being repeatedly wrong, led to a war that did more to strengthen Iran, more to isolate the United States, than anything we have done in the decades before or since."

Now that's how I like to hear my President deal with his critics. By publicly spanking them over the fact that every problem they see they want to solve with the blood of our American service men and women.

The President also mentioned that literally EVERY other country who has commented publicly supports this deal, with the exception of Israel of course. Who have their own reasons for wanting to keep their people frightened and focused on the Iranian bogeyman.

It is a good speech, and extremely informative speech. (If you do not have time to listen to the entire thing here is a transcript.)

Of course the speech did not go over very well with the conservatives.

In fact Breitbart got their panties in a wad over the President's assertion that the conservative critics of the deal over here were "making common cause" with the hardliners in Iran.

Yep that truth really stings doesn't it?

Dan Rather calls out the war hawks urging Obama to start another conflict overseas.

Courtesy of Mediaite:

 “All of these people on television, some of whom I have enormous respect for, it unsettles me to hear them say, listen, we the United States have to ‘do something’ in Ukraine, we have to ‘do something’ in Syria, we have to ‘do something’ in the waters around China, we have to ‘do something’ in Iraq, we have to ‘do something’ about ISIS. What they’re talking about are combat operations. 

“My first question to anyone who’s on television saying ‘We have to get tough, we have to put boots on the ground, we have to go to war in one of these places’ is: I will hear you out if you tell me you are prepared to send your son, your daughter, your grandson, your granddaughter to that war for which you are beating the drums. If you aren’t I have no patience with you, and don’t even talk to me.”

Yes, exactly this. 

I think Dan Rather has been treated terribly by his colleagues who should have come to his aid when he was being railroaded after he reported that George W. Bush had received preferential treatment to get into the National Guard and avoid being drafted, and that once there had shirked his responsibilities. 

In fact though the documents used for the report have been challenged, the allegations are in fact correct.

Personally I think we need more prominent newsmen like Rather to say it like it is and point out over and over that those beating the war drums the loudest are those who know their children, and children's children will never have to bleed to death in the sands of a foreign land.

Fox's Eric Bolling pushes for holy war with ISIS. Well this isn't helping.

Courtesy of Mediaite:

He said, “There’s a common denominator with these murderous thugs: they’re Islamic, they’re radical, they’re extremist, and they’re purely intolerant. It’s time to wake up.” And as far as Bolling’s concerned, the persecution of Christians and the call by one terrorist for the flag of Allah to fly at the White House just go too far: “You want a holy war? We’ll give you one. It just may be time to unleash hell on radical Islam. Don’t worry, Islamic jihadists, your 72 virgins await.”

If you listen to Bolling the only two groups he mentions by name are the Christians and the Jews. Every other group that is being terrorized, including many that are Muslim is of no real consequence.

After all if you are going to promote a holy war, it helps to have each side clearly defined by their different religious affiliations.

As I said yesterday, this situation needs to be addressed in terms of humanitarian needs, NOT religious intolerance.

It does not matter that ISIS, or any other group, wants to draw America into a holy war. We are a secular nation, despite Christian revisionists attempting to paint us otherwise, and we need to move forward as a country that cares for ALL people without regard to their skin color, country of origin, or religious beliefs.

And seriously just when is Fox News finally going to be identified as a hate group?

Upton Sinclair had the Republican party's number decades ago.

Not an honest or ethical man among them.

Like a who's who of "WTF?"

Ending Iraq war a "desecration of the memory of forty-four-hundred Americans that gave their lives to liberate Iraq." WTF Michele Bachmann?

Courtesy of TPM:

Expanding on her statements during Saturday night’s foreign policy debate, GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann attacked President Obama for fully drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq, and claimed incorrectly that his war policies have left the country with a choice between releasing terrorists or killing them. 

“President Obama was given a war that is won in Iraq, and he’s choosing to lose the peace,” Bachmann claimed on Meet the Press. “That’s a desecration of the memory of forty-four-hundred Americans that gave their lives to liberate Iraq.” 

Obama is removing all troops from Iraq by year’s end, pursuant to an agreement between the two countries that dates back to the Bush administration. U.S. and Iraqi officials had discussed allowing a small number of troops to remain in Iraq past the deadline, but those discussions deadlocked over U.S. concerns that American troops would not be given immunity in Iraqi courts.

I am used to this lunatic saying the most outrageously stupid things imaginable, but this one almost made my brain explode.

So one has to ask just how many more American deaths would honor the memory of our already dead service men and women?  Or how many more Iraqis for that matter? You don't honor the dead by needlessly adding to their number.

However, as crazy as it seems, Bachmann's mindset about the war is not hers alone, the rest of the Republican field, with the exception of Huntsman and Paul, are not too far distant from her bizarrely stated position either.

Let's face it, Republicans know all about how to start the killing, but nothing about how to make it stop.