The war that began March 19, 2003, was justified to the country by alarming claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and connections to al-Qaida terrorists—almost all of which turned out to be false. Some of the most senior officials in the U.S. government, including President Bush himself, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, asserted these claims in public with absolute confidence, even while privately, ranking U.S. military officers and intelligence professionals were voicing their doubts. Hubris: The Selling of the Iraq War, a documentary special hosted by Rachel Maddow that will air Monday night on MSNBC at 9 p.m. provides new evidence that the dissent within the administration and military was even more profound and widespread than anybody has known until now.

David Corn writes:

"One chilling moment in the film comes in an interview with retired General Anthony Zinni, a former commander in chief of US Central Command. In August 2002, the Bush-Cheney administration opened its propaganda campaign for war with a Cheney speech at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. The veep made a stark declaration: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." No doubt, he proclaimed, Saddam was arming himself with WMD in preparation for attacking the United States."

"Zinni was sitting on the stage during the speech, and in the documentary he recalls his reaction":

"It was a shock. It was a total shock. I couldn't believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program. And that's when I began to believe they're getting serious about this. They wanna go into Iraq."

But, this is but a glimpse. There is much, much more.

The film is based on Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War."

Also, "congratulations" are in order to David Corn. Corn is the reporter for Mother Jones magazine who broke the story of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s remarks that 47 percent of Americans “believe they are victims” is among the winners of the 64th annual George Polk Awards in Journalism.

Lawrence O'Donnell condemned NRA president Wayne LaPierre on Friday for his press conference about the Newtown massacre in a special edition of his MSNBC show, "The Last Word."

O'Donnell doesn't usually work on Fridays, but he made a special exception for LaPierre. The gun lobbyist called for armed police officers in every school. To say his comments were widely criticized would be an understatement.

O'Donnell called LaPierre a "lobbyist for mass murderers," and blasted him for trying to score cheap points with NRA members during his press conference by making a point to note that the media had gotten a fact wrong about the power of the gun shooter Adam Lanza used.

“Is there really something to quibble about in how powerful a bullet is when it is heading toward a six-year-old at the speed of 3200 feet per second," asks O'Donnell. "What kind of desperate, cornered rat would dare to mention that the Sandy Hook shooter could have used a more powerful bullet? Could have what? Done more damage? Made the bodies of six-year-olds even more difficult to identify?"

All of O'Donnell's comments were spot on, and I'm just going to give you the full text of the rest of his remarks, and I give him extra kudos for getting through his commentary without a single word that needed bleeped!

"So today, the NRA announced that it has a solution. Complete solution to gun violence in America, mass murders in America. Their solution is the national school shield program, a police officer with a gun in every school.

Now, he didn`t announce a national movie theater shield program with a police officer in every movie theater in America. Wayne LaPierre has in fact never spoken one word about 6-year-old Veronica Moser Sullivan, who was murdered in that movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, along with 11 other people, and 58 wounded, 58.

All of that, death and savagery was delivered from an ammunition delivery system so big it isn`t called a magazine. It`s called a drum. It holds 100 rounds.

Wayne LaPierre is the lobbyist who made it possible for the mass murderer in the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater to be able to shoot and kill and wound so many people without reloading even once.

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[Video: Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball features portions of President Obama's push for the Buffet Rule.]

President Obama appeared in Florida Tuesday to make the case for the “Buffett Rule,” a policy he introduced in this year’s State of the Union address. The rule would institute a minimum federal income tax of 30 percent for Americans who make more than $1 million a year.

The administration argues that the rule is designed to prevent the widespread tax evasion that allows top earners to avoid much of their social duties. It takes its name from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has publicly called for wealthy Americans to be taxed at higher rates than their mid-level employees.

As Bill Scher of Campain for America's Future notes, "President Obama's 30% rule is squarely within the 33% "principle" that President Bush articulated and nearly every Republican member of Congress at the time supported."

There is no justification for a backer of the Bush tax cuts to abandon that principle and filibuster President Obama's Buffett Rule.

Unless, Republicans want to articulate a new principle: "no one in America should have to pay more than a third of their income to the federal government ... and no multimillionaire who lives off of stocks and dividends should pay more than a sixth of their income to the federal government."

And as Think Progress noted, back in September 2011, when President Obama first debuted the Buffet Rule, they "climbed into the wayback machine and found a video of President Ronald Reagan decrying “crazy” tax loopholes that allowed a millionaire to pay a lower tax rate than a bus driver." Watch it here.

Now as the Senate prepares to vote on the Buffet Rule bill that would ensure that the wealthy pay a minimum 30 percent tax rate, Think Progress has found more Reagan video footage:

In this video, President Reagan describes a letter he received from an executive who wanted to come to Washington and tell Congress why it’s “wrong” that he was able to “take advantage of the present tax code” to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

In order to have a healthy economy, it needs to work for everyone and not just the wealthy 1 percent. The Buffet Rule bill will end those tax loopholes that enable the wealthy to pay less in taxes than middle class workers.

And if it was good enough for The Gipper, the GOP should love this bill.

On the “Rewrite” segment of his show Wednesday night, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell said the only way for the New York Police Department to remain respectable was for the department to terminate any officers who prevent reporters from covering protests.

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that he had ordered officers to avoid interfering with media access. However, earlier in December police officers prevented the New York Times from photographing arrests at an Occupy Wall Street protest.

O’Donnell said officers that violated the non-interference policy should be fired, not just disciplined.