ourassholepresident

A photograph of his daughter, Leia Ryan Baum, was placed inside the uniform of Sgt. Ryan John Baum during visitation at a funeral home in June 2007. "That's all he wanted to do, is come home and put her on his chest," said Dana Baum, Sgt. Baum's mother.

That's right, this guy died and never got to hold his daughter or see his wife again. He died in Iraq fighting for a war that was never justified in the first place, but aggressively pushed by Bush and his administration, based on flawed intelligence that they knew was flawed:

Yeah, that's him joking about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hilarious! Yuck it up, Lieberman.

Apparently, Bush feels a bit bad that his words led to him being perceived as a "guy really anxious for war." But WE all really know he's just a big joker who didn't mean anybody harm, right? He had no choice but to go to war...I mean, he didn't go to war, he sent all of those soldiers to war (4000 dead as of March 2008), and they killed a bunch of Iraqis in the process (104,000 on the low end as of January 2008, according to Iraqi Health Ministry). But, at least things are going well in Iraq now.

I just wanted to remind you of this, and remind myself: WE put these people into power. Every time we don't speak out about something, willfully remain uneducated, and let someone tell us "the way to do things," we risk losing our rights and our lives.

Contact your representatives and tell them what you think. Follow their activity and find out what committees they're on. Vote. It's your government.

Thanks to BagnewsNotes for clueing me into that amazing picture.