As rescue efforts continued in Manhattan at the World Trade Center, both the North and South towers crumbled to the ground under the intense heat from the raging fires. With four passenger planes crashed, two towers down, and the Pentagon severely damaged, the death toll rose to a chilling 2,976 people. With the world on our side, the American people demanded that President George W. Bush prepare an immediate and unmeasured response to the most devastating acts of terrorism ever experienced on American soil.
2003 — SECOND GULF WAR/IRAQ WAR
A desert vacation gone wrong
Viva Iraq
When it comes time to get away from it all and really let loose, Las Vegas has been the preferred vacation destination for adult men for years. The bright lights, the gambling, the alcohol, and the disproportionate number of insanely hot girls has pulled men into this desert oasis for decades.
Despite the fact that Vegas off ers every vice anyone could ever want, in 2003, the Middle East — obsessed triad of Republican leadership, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, began making plans for hundreds of thousands of their closest military friends to visit their preferred sand pit in the sun, Iraq. The thoughts of women all veiled up and covered from head to toe along with the lure of oil-driven riches proved to be irresistible for the three fun-loving pals with an infection of neocondral disease.
Prelude to a Military Kiss
Much like a gambler with a propensity for addiction, the Bush family had been to Iraq once before and couldn't wait to get back. The First Gulf War ended in 1991 when former president George Bush Sr. negotiated the end of the conflict with a cease-fire. Bush the elder got most of what he wanted from his excursion to the desert, but like that one casino where you suffered from Reginald Denny — like luck, Bush didn't have a perfect trip either. In this case, Saddam Hussein was left in power because when Iraqi troops fled Kuwait, Bush had no mandate from the United Nations to order the United States military to march into Baghdad and forcibly remove the America-hating dictator. Disappointed but not completely deterred, Bush ordered coalition forces to pack up and come home.
DURING THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY, BUSH, THE STORY-TELLING SENIOR, WOULD RELAY ACCOUNTS OF HIS FANTASTIC TRIP TO THE IRAQI DESERT OASIS. Between AA meetings, George Jr. heard fantastic tales of easy wars and surging political popularity and thought if he was ever in a position to go, he would do just that.
Getting to the Desert, Whatever It Takes
When the U.S. Supreme Court handed the presidency to George Bush Jr. in the 2000 election, they effectively put George in the position to fulfill his dreams of the kind of desert invasion, his father had enjoyed. Plus, he wanted to get back at that casino that was so unlucky for his father and remove Sad-dam Hussein from power. With his commitment unwavering, George began poking around, looking for an excuse to order an Iraqi vacation.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks Bush and his desert-hungry companions, Cheney and Rumsfeld, saw an opportunity. No attention was paid to the fact that it wasn't a great reason, as there was no direct link between Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. Nonetheless, it was still a reason. In response to the attacks, on September 20, 2001, George announced his new “War on Terror” along with the “Bush Jr. Doctrine,” a philosophy of pre-emptive military action. MUCH LIKE A HUSBAND REMARKING TO HIS WIFE THAT THE GUYS ARE GOING TO VEGAS IN JUNE, BUSH WAS SETTING THE TABLE FOR HIS TRIP.
The United States Makes Up a Story
Looking for foreign travel companions, Bush approached the United Nations about joining him on his proposed trip to Iraq. He tried to entice them with thoughts of hot, skin-blistering temperatures, but nearly everyone turned him down. Not deterred, Bush, along with his puppet, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, ignored the need for a U.N. blessing for their travel plans and instead pumped America up for war. Looking out for his friends and former colleagues at Halliburton, Dick Cheney beat the drum of war nonstop until the United States Congress passed a resolution in October 2002, authorizing the use of force against Iraq.
To justify the offensive to the American people, George stated that the invasion was necessary to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, end Saddam's support of terrorism, and free the people of Iraq, hoping Americans would buy at least two out of the three. Frustrated by the lack of international support for bringing hell to Baghdad, Bush and Blair were left with only a small coalition of the willing that included the ass-kissing nations of Spain, Italy, Poland, Australia, and Denmark when hostilities commenced in March 2003.
The Morning After
The aftermath is the stuff of recent legend. Bush famously stood in front of an enormous “Mission Accomplished” banner while on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln for a televised speech on May 1, 2003. Oddly enough, despite George announcing the end of major combat operations in the war with Iraq, as of 2009, U.S. troops were still deployed in Iraq, heroically continuing to try to accomplish the mission he said was accomplished.
To date, no weapons of mass destruction have been located in Iraq and the smoking gun between Hussein and 9/11 has never been established. American taxpayers continue to spend billions of dollars a month on the war, as the country's credibility in the international community is at an all-time low. UNLIKE A VEGAS VACATIONER WHOSE ALCOHOL-FUELED EXPLOITS RESULT IN WAKING UP BROKE, FULL OF REGRET, AND IN THE SAME BED AS A DEAD HOOKER, BUSH JR., CHENEY, AND RUMSFELD MAKE NO APOLOGY FOR THEIR DESERT VACATION GONE WRONG.
2008 MORTGAGE AND CREDIT CRISIS
Credit standards as loose as Tara Reid
WTF?
What the fuck just happened? These were the five words echoing across every city and town, big or small, throughout the United States during 2008. No state was insulated from this un-God-like question. One minute Americans were pulling the equity out of their rapidly inflating homes to purchase a gas-guzzling Hummer, and the next minute they were accessing the line of credit tied to their home to go to Vegas and buy a Vegas-style hummer from a working girl wearing a short skirt and carrying a small purse.
At the time, nothing seemed wrong with the spending. Every month, home values were appreciating significantly with no real end in sight. That was until chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke's head reappeared from his ass. As the country's financial system was blowing up in front of us and Middle America was demanding answers, some politicians and Wall Street executives were trying to deflect the possibility of investigations into the meltdown. As is the case more often than not, the whole thing started with someone's shortsighted good intentions.
Houses for Everyone!
One of the goals of both the Clinton and Bush administration was to increase home ownership among Americans. Henry Cisneros, Clinton's top housing advisor, in accordance with Clinton's goals of increased home ownership, loosened the mortgage restrictions for first-time home buyers, enabling them to buy a house they could never afford. In conjunction with the loosening standards, low interest rates coupled with huge sums of cash from foreign investors made credit easier than the captain of the cheerleading team to obtain. “Zero percent financing” and “no interest, no payments for five years” became standard procedure for consumers who might or might not be qualified for such regal treatment.
Although Clinton and Cisneros got the ball started, the Bush administration kept the good times rolling for homeowners and consumers. The home ownership rate, which had hovered around 64 percent for Americans from 1980 until 1994, began to rise. In 2004, this number peaked at almost 70 percent. Many of these loans were being made to people who would not be able to pay the loan back, earning the dubious “subprime loan” label.
IN 2007, BEFORE THE “WHO CAN SHIT THE BED BIGGER AND BETTER” DUELING STOCK MARKET AND HOUSING MARKET CRASHES, IT SEEMED EVERY AMERICAN HAD ONE OR MORE HOUSES. Even people without jobs had vacation homes, investment properties, and old-fashioned mistress-meeting condos. Cisneros, one of the architects of the mess, got caught mistress-meeting in his and was forced to leave office in
1997. As for Clinton, he was more of a home-office adulterer, using the oval office as his on-the-side location.
Bubblelicious
As home ownership and demand rose as fast as a gaydar around Ryan Seacrest, so did housing prices. With increased demand for housing, and credit standards as loose as Tara Reid, home prices began to skyrocket in 2006. Americans began to think real estate prices could only go up as fast as Jenna Haze could go down, and they acted accordingly. As home prices increased, Americans used their homes like piggy banks, taking the equity out of their house again and again to fuel outrageous spending habits. Immediate gratification was the order of the day, as well as a neighborly game of “Can you top this?”
Regulatory changes allowed mortgage originators to sell their loans to other institutions. These mortgages were often sold off in groups, disguising the real risk behind some of the riskier borrowers. Credit rating agencies like Standard and Poors rated these packaged loan products AAA — their highest safety rating. With the ability to quickly pass packaged loans off to somebody else, loan underwriting standards became nearly unnecessary. Nobody seemed to care if the home buyer was unqualified, as long as it blew up on somebody else.
Underwriters were pressured to inflate home values to help push loans through. Home buyers with no job, no income, and no assets became known as “Ninja Loans” in the industry. “No doc” loans and “Stated Income” loans allowed borrowers to make up any number for their annual income in order to fit the house they wanted. To make things even more comical, two-thirds of these subprime loans were of the adjustable-rate variety. The interest rate was set for one month or one year at a time, resulting in the required mortgage payment to go up if and when interest rates went up.
Despite being ninjas, millions of families could no longer keep up with their increasing mortgage payments. As the housing boom slowed, home values stopped their furious increases. Consumers, lulled to sleep by the easy credit, overextended themselves, buying second and third homes. As the party came to an end and the housing bubble burst, homeowners found themselves fucked and stuck and standing in long lines at the bank to turn in the keys to their now foreclosed home.
Fallout Boy
As the home-buying ninjas and other underqualified borrowers continued to default on their mortgages, institutions like Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual were forced to seek business partnerships with other nearly bankrupt entities to prevent themselves from going out of business. Major financial institutions reported losses of over $400 billion and climbing from the mortgage mess. The federal government, acting as the only entity large enough to do anything, injected $100 million into both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Not to be outdone, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, along with Bernanke, pulled congressional strings in order to get Congress to pass a $700 billion bailout package to rescue lending institutions and prevent panic in our financial markets.
The lesson for Americans in all of this was simple; if you find a company that is willing to lend you more money than you can afford to pay back to buy a house that you ultimately cannot pay for, don't worry about the guilt, the federal government will square things up with the lender after you move out and find a larger more unaffordable home for you and your family.
2008 THE 2008 ELECTION
The opportunity to end the George W. circus
Opportunity of a Lifetime
As the world community celebrated George W. being removed from office through timely term limits, the leaders of the Democratic Party made plans to capitalize on the opportunity of following one of the most unpopular commanders in chief in American history. Not exactly admired for his openness, intellect, or public speaking abilities, President George W. Bush managed to inspire those who are supposed to hate him, hate him, and those who are supposed to like him on the basis of party affiliation also hate him.
With an unpopular war, high oil prices, a sluggish economy, and a lack of respect internationally, the voting electorate had November 4, 2008, circled and highlighted on every calendar they could find as a constant reminder of when the opportunity to end the George W. circus would present itself.
Let's Get This Party Started
For Democrats, there was no shortage of eager, constitutionally qualified candidates willing to make themselves available for the job. Those with a chance and those with no chance correctly filled out the required paperwork to have their name on the ballot for the Democratic Party nomination. By the time the registration deadline passed, nine Democrats from nine different states confidently declared themselves fit to lead the country in a new direction.
Joe Biden: Long time Delaware senator who enjoys both 7-Eleven and Dunkin Donuts despite the handicap of lacking an Indian from India accent. Capable driver but train enthusiast, he commutes from Delaware to Washington, D.C. by train every day. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a not so good 40,000 to 1.
Hillary Rodham Clinton: New York senator and former first lady. Known mostly as the woman who enjoyed watching her husband's impeachment hearing. She publicly admitted to accepting wild Bill's apology for getting some late-night oral action from the not-so-attractive white house intern, Monica Lewinsky. Clinton also enjoyed telling those who would listen how the marks on her back were battle scars from her failed health care initiative while first lady and not from any BDSM role-playing activities with her it's hard to be faithful husband. Odds of winning the nomination when she entered the race: a near lock at 5 to 2.
Christopher Dodd: Connecticut senator with overambitious goals. Meeting the criteria of being thirty-five years old, fourteen-year U.S. resident, and a natural-born citizen, Dodd seized the opportunity of having a chance at the Democratic nomination. Unfortunately, Dodd overlooked the fact that the primaries are a popularity contest, and in order to win people must like you. Dodd proved he was unpopular everywhere, most often receiving less than 1 percent of the vote. Even with optical scanner mishaps, Dodd proved to be perhaps the most unpopular of those believing they were fit to serve in the capacity of the president of the United States. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a time-wasting 3 million to 1.
John Edwards: Former ambulance-chasing attorney turned one-term U.S. senator. Known for $400 haircuts, this crusader for the poor gets by in his undersized 28,000-square-foot home on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His political career took a shot to the sack when it was reported he had been enjoying some late-night banging with a woman not known to him as his wife. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: an “I have a chance if I can come across sincere” 15 to 1.
Mike Gravel: Every once in a while you get a candidate who owes the American people an apology for taking up some of its time with their ridiculous desire to be president. As of today the electorate is waiting to hear “I'm sorry” from Gravel. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a Bill Gates 50 billion to 1.
Dennis Kucinich: First in the hearts of Frank and Virginia Kucinich is their three-times-married son Dennis Kucinich. Dennis received most of his support from white men who found his freakishly hot and out of place wife Elizabeth the perfect candidate for first lady after having to endure the unattractiveness of the two Bush first ladies of recent memory. Just before the filing deadline, Dennis woke up one morning with his naked wife lying next to him, and he figured he had beaten impossible odds before. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: an unlikely nerd marrying a foreign hottie 500,000 to 1.
Barack Obama: The perfect American combination of half black, half white. Obama was blessed with his black father's Kenyan zeal for running great distances shoeless along with his white American mother's love of minorities. Known mostly for wanting to bring change we can believe in, this former community organizer campaigned on a platform of taking from the wealthy and giving to the larger voting population recognized as the middle class. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a not so good 75,000 to 1.
&
nbsp; Bill Richardson: A Mexican descendent, ultimately done in by a “pay to play” scandal involving his campaign. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a dollar to peso exchange 1.25 million to 1.
Tom Vilsack: Yes, he made a mistake, and like Gravel, he owes America an apology for his whimsical attempt to become president. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a Gravel-like 50 billion to 1.
Republican Successors to the Throne
With a fully inspired Democratic field of candidates on record as wanting the job of top adversary to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Republicans of today and ghosts of the past bravely stood up in the face of the Bush/Cheney disaster and promised to provide four years of strange. Those making the leap included:
Sam Brownback: Kansas senator whose prolife stance for rape and incest got him the votes of the hard-core “life begins at conception and everyone should live prolife” wing of the Republican Party. Brownback ultimately enjoyed discouraging results in large part for his anti-Republican stance on opening the borders and providing citizenship for millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of illegal immigrants. Odds of winning the nomination when he entered the race: a “you must not be serious” 750,000 to 1.
The Slackers Guide to U.S. History Page 18