National debt when Jimmy Carter arrived at the White House: $660 billion.
Added during Carter's four years: $337 billion.
Added during Ronald Reagan's eight years: $1.6 trillion.
Added during George H. W. Bush's four years: $1.6 trillion.
Added during Bill Clinton's eight years: $1.5 trillion.
Added during George W. Bush's seven years, nine months: $4.5 trillion.
Portion of the $9.5 trillion added to the national debt during the past 31 years and seven months that came during Republican presidencies: $7.7 trillion.
Percentage of that $7.7 trillion added during George W. Bush's two terms: 58%.
It's an amazing time to be alive. We survived Kate Smith on the radio. We survived Bush, though not all did. It's morning, time to wake up.
There are no longer any questions we cannot ask. Nothing about our country we are not allowed to know.
We are Americans. This is our country. This morning we take it back -- from the CIA, the military, the bosses, the Warren Commission, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, the 911 Commission.
Our children will study lies no more.
We want to know, we need to know, we deserve to know who killed Bobbby, Martin, JFK, Wellstone. Did we land on the moon? Is Bigfoot real? How about UFOs?
C'mon, there are no wrong questions, remember?
How do we explain to our children the war on drugs goes with "this Bud's for you?" Prisons, poverty, trees, wind power --we can talk about all of it -- because we are Americans again. We are not the subjects of the FBI or CIA or the U.S. Army or Wall Street. We do not torture, kill children, bomb, rape, mutilate. We are Americans.
We are Americans.
Why is Leonard Peltier in prison? Why did we fund death squads in El Salvador? We overthrew elected governments in Chile, Iran, Greenland? Really? Why?
We have to know.
We need to know.
We deserve to know so that we may tell the world.
We are Americans.
"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." – Thomas Paine