Bold Progressives
by dday
Alan Grayson has defeated Rep. Rick Keller to pick up a seat in the House for the Democrats. This one is great. Grayson is a better Democrat, a guy who went after fraudulent defense contractors who were wasting taxpayer dollars in Iraq. He's a bold progressive. He's going to be a leader in Congress.
Here's Grayson on the Bush Administration:
I'm running because I'm fed up with the government mismanagement, the Bush administration's shameless pandering to war profiteers. I think they set out on a deliberate course to make this war good for the people who were their friends. And I want to try to hold them accountable when I'm in Congress. When I'm in Congress... the Bush administration's worst nightmare is going to be me with subpoena power because I know everything that they've done, and I'm going to hold them accountable for it.
Matt Stoller: But wait wait, let me just interrupt you there, the Bush administration's gone in 2009.
Alan Grayson: Oh but all the people they set up as the new kings and queens of America are still around. What Eisenhower said, that we need to fear the military industrial compex, has become true because they have manufactured a five year war that they want to perpetuate for a generation or even a century so that they can keep lining the pockets of their friends, the war whores.
Matt Stoller: So, people are going to say, let bygones be bygones, or let's have some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, what do you think needs to happen?
Alan Grayson: We don't need truth and reconciliation, we need punishment. We need people to be held accountable for all the mistakes that they made that have screwed us up in this war and screwed us up in this economy. The economy is falling apart, the chickens are coming home to roost. You cannot spend $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in America for a war that never should have taken place in the first place.
Matt Stoller: But be specific, what do you mean by punishment?
Alan Grayson: We'll put people in prison. We'll take away the thing that they care about the most, their money. They stole, they hurt the troops, they killed people, they hurt the taxpayers year after year and they've destroyed this economy. They're not going to get off scot-free.
Matt Stoller: Who's 'they'?
Alan Grayson: The people who have been running this government and their assistants who have been running companies like Halliburton. Think about it, we have a Vice President who was the head of Hallburton, who got a $23 million parting gift from them when he became Vice President. And he was the one who instigated this war and made Halliburton the largest army contractor in existence.
Awesome.
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