*Liberal Reality-Based Truth Anger & Humor*
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
Palin the Liar Incites Riots
Totally misleading promo ad makes it appear that Sarah Palin sat down for interviews with Toby Keith and LL Cool J. for her new Real Americans show. Sarah's New FOX show. Faux all the way. But the interviews were done ages ago and not with Palin. False advertising. She will simply introduce pre-recorded segments totally unrelated to her or her views. She wasn't in the room when these two men gave the interviews. MUST Palin and FOX lie for ratings? Asked if Mr. Keith was ever interviewed by Ms. Palin, Ms. Schock said, “Absolutely not.” Looks like they've pulled the LL Cool J segment after the public found out the truth.
Everything this woman touches turns to shit.
And yet...McCain is so desperate he has Palin stumping for him after she probably lost him the last election. He knows the rabid right wingers will show up to froth for Sarah. Has he NO pride left? The fact that he's being challenged by Abramoff-connected JD Hayworth isn't good enough ammo for him to win? He STILL needs Palin? Pathetic. Six of one, Hayworth/Abramoff, half dozen of the other McCain/Keating Five. They're both crooks slurping up dough at the taxpayer trough. Arizona deserves better.
Why does John McCain condone the slightly slutty look of Palin? He wouldn't put up with it if Cindy dressed that way, yet Republicans accept Palin's trailer trash looks. Women politicians who wish to be considered for their gravitas, study habits, ability to analyze problems and come up with solutions tend to be far more conservative in their attire, and that's on both sides of the aisle.
Could these women be elected if they decided to dress like Sarah Palin? I think not. Would Kay Bailey Hutchison ever go without her panty hose? Would Diane Feinstein have achieved as much dressed this way?
We expect more of our first ladies too.
How can anyone take the lying Sarah Palin seriously? She dresses in a very tacky manner, she takes pride in knowing next to nothing, she enjoys inciting people to riot. Surely Republicans can do better than The Church Lady Gone Wild.
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Pretentious People: -People who "protect" their tweets. I'll never tweet but for those who do, what's the fucking point if you then hide your tweetitude and twittiness from the world unless they gain your pompous permission? Cowardly assholes who don't want to be judged? Scaredy cats shouldn't be ALLOWED to twitter. Put it out there or shut the fuck up and stick to email.
Morons: -All "housewives" on "reality" TV shows. They think we find them interesting. We don't, unless rubber-necking at car wrecks is your thing. They all suck. Especially Kelly Bensimon the fur wearer who doesn't "get" anything. She's "up here" with her enormous teeth and we're "down there" slumming. She's an aging bitch who should know when to give up the ingenue clothing. She cluelessly doesn't. These "women" are an embarrassment to the rest of us, totally disgusting women who married money or were born into it and/or see clawing each other to pieces to get more money as a good thing.
More Morons: -Apparently anyone from New Jersey. Jesus Christ, why don't they STOP the "people" who are showing up on "reality shows" and maligning their entire state? You'd think the home of Edison would rise up and scream, "WE'RE NOT ALL LIKE SNOOKI AND THE SITUATION!!" We've hit a new low in TV "shows" as pablum for the masses. "Nothin's a guarantee, it's the old 'one day at a time'...and that's all it's supposed to be I guess." Levon Helm Comments
The main drug of choice in America is television. Day after night after day there are mind numbing programs and commercials that jangle the nerves and paralyze the viewer. I haven't watched "the news" deliberately for almost three months. When I did tune in recently it was to see the exact same stuff/spin/slant being reported in December rehashed in March. Republicans still suck big time. Democrats are still afraid and almost ineffective. Sure, they passed the Health Care Bill at long last in the House. But what of the Senate? If even one Republican amendment passes, the entire package will go back to the House of Representatives for another difficult vote for Democrats in that chamber. More selling out of the public to special interests, more compromises away from anything progressive, more lying from the right. Same old same old. Quid pro quo: Although President Obama signed the $871-billion health care reform bill into law Tuesday, the Senate still must pass a package of "fixes" to that measure. The changes were demanded by House Democrats in exchange for supporting the Senate version of health reform in a vote on Sunday afternoon. So, I can't watch. Reading about it is quicker anyway. On the "regular" channels sans cable, nothing but tripe. "Reality" shows, a travesty and waste of space. Meaningless phony "celebrities" whose claim to fame is being limelight seekers. The dumbing down of America continues. Pipe dreams and Gambling shows. You too can be rich if you humiliate yourself on this game show first, buy this product while you watch. Only in America. Rags to riches. How unrealistic, yet the public is mostly attached to television several hours a day. What a waste of brain power, to sit hypnotized for hours. There are some good shows on television. If I only had to pay for ones I like it would be great. Movies. Educational shows. The History Channel. Get a TV guide and plan ahead. Don't just turn the TV on automatically. It isn't our friend, it's a tool to see something more interesting than most of the fare offered as "commercial television" where corporations rule. Netflix is worth it. Movies unedited, no commercials. Swear words just like in real life. Censorship rules language while many Americans can barely construct a sentence. The Grammar Channel wouldn't do well in the ratings. And bringing in money for advertisers is what it's all about. For the DIY crowd there's HGTV. And nowadays, that's all of us. No cavalry is arriving to help us any time soon. It's meant to be addictive. In the beginning it was hard to break away from being "informed" on current events. But all it did was upset me, so I needed to get away from all of it. I'm more focused on daily survival than I used to be. Thanks, Bush Administration, for all the thievery, lies, and destruction of our economy. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. They call it a recession, I call it a depression. Look around. People are struggling. We bailed out the banks and they tightened the reins on us. Thanks, Congress. Fees. Changes in terms. That's what WE got, while our oppressors received a bailout from its victims. Extortion by bullies. We had our lunch taken from us.
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Obama Didn't Disappoint Me. I had little faith in him to start with so there weren't any expectations to be shattered. His being "allowed" to run at all showed me clearly that he was already being managed by "the powers that be." Mostly more of the same, slow change at best, Republicans still call the shots from the sidelines and incite their ballistic members to riot. The last REAL progressive to run who actually excited me and gave me hope was Howard Dean and the media/GOP destroyed him with lies before the Iowa primary. He was leading. Suddenly and mysteriously Kerry "won" after a media onslaught of lies. Kerry had no intention of standing up for us, ever, he was more of the same detestable D.C. game-playing, greedy sham. He has too much invested in the status quo, he's an elitist from the start. His claim to fame was in not wanting to fight in Vietnam. Nobody wanted to fight in Vietnam. He had the money and influence to speak out. Few Americans had such power. Thousands just died following orders of the corporate leaders. He IS a corporatist, he and his wife are loaded from the same sources, corporate welfare for which WE pay. He didn't even TRY to run a campaign to win, he made a mockery of the support he was receiving from some of the left. He insulted us, he went skiing constantly, bike riding, wind surfing, yet he DID accidentally win but didn't contest the phony vote count in Ohio just like we knew he wouldn't. He didn't WANT to be president he likes it just fine in the financially remunerative senate. No real responsibility, lots of prestige and power, no need to be consistent on anything but merely show up and spinelessly vote on occasion while spewing long winded bullshit speeches that mean absolutely nothing and don't help any of us just his fellow rich friends and fellow yachtsmen and vacationers.
Same crap with Lieberman. Always in the game for himself and his wife, their financial well-being, not for the constituents, never for the people of CT or of the US. Lieberman "winning" in CT was a huge disappointment to me. I couldn't fathom anyone voting for him over Lamont. What the hell went wrong there? He had "friends" like Obama to support his illegitimate candidacy as a fake Democrat, he had racked up some IOUs and he used them to win as an independent, no accountability to anyone but himself. Another mistake made by Hillary Clinton, after what Lieberman did to her husband in 1998 she should have had more sense than to support that lying thug but she did. Maybe in her case it was personal due to her husband humiliating her. But Obama? What the hell was his point in supporting that cockroach...what deals were worked out there? Lieberman has more than stabbed Obama in the back repeatedly, yet he keeps coming back for more? What must Joe have on him? What secret power does he wield in back rooms? And the lying media again. Media that has been owned by a handful of right wing companies since the GOP "fixed" the FCC rules in 1996.
Edwards showed hope that he'd work for us, I believe he would have helped labor at the very least but of course he literally fucked it up for all of us with his personal life and a woman who eagerly and loudly destroyed his political career, hurt his wife badly and seems to take great pleasure in it. Apparently she hadn't heard of birth control and involved a child too. Edwards was ruled by his prick, the mistake of the ego that leaves a nasty stain. He fell for the compliments from a nasty woman and screwed up several lives. He could have been a contender but he destroyed all chances with his stupid choice of a liaison that hurt his wife the most but showed he could be owned by the GOP due to his inability to control himself. He proved himself to be a bad risk. What an idiot. What a fool. And for what? Five minutes of being told how cute he is? And a child is born...tragic.
The list of men in the GOP who have strayed from their marriages is far longer but they don't pay the price Liberals do. Democrats are held to a higher standard than those fake moralistic "family values" liars who get away with far more in the bedroom. They just don't have consciences so they stay put in their positions of power and aren't held accountable. Democrats get pushed out of contention once they stray. Edwards WAS a disappointment, as was Clinton. They fucked US not just their wives. We've been betrayed consistently by our politicians. The ones who DON'T screw around in their marriages are too busy stealing from us.
Several things must happen if we ever hope to have just and fair government in this country. First we have to educate the entire country. The U.S. seems to be filled with in-bred ignorant lumps who take pride in never reading a book, never examining anything with a critical eye and just barely existing from year to year watching TV, believing lies they're told by the TV screens, and wallowing in ignorance while regularly attending church and thinking they're better than everyone else in other countries. They have "religion" yet are the most judgmental people on earth. Christianity is like the Taliban in their narrow scope of thought. They're against anyone else's freedoms and can't bear to allow others to be who they are. They can't think beyond junior high school level. Their minds are closed. They "peaked" in the cess pool that is called High School. Their IQs are low, they eat too much, drive gas guzzlers and are idiots who drag us all down with their sheer idiocy. Oh, but to criticize them isn't allowed. We're number one. USA, USA, USA. Oh yes, they have "sports" to occupy their feeble minds. Yet they only tolerate people of other colors if they "win" games for them, they won't tolerate them in their limited lives. This is a country of racists and misogynists. Women haven't ever achieved equality. Women of color are on the lowest rung of society. To be judged by some fat white ignorant "church-going" farm boy is more than insulting for anyone who happens to be gay or black or female in this lowbrow country.
Election finance laws HAVE to be changed so that "poor" people have a chance of running too. Only the rich have a sliver of hope here. In other countries there are limits to the amount of air time candidates can use up before election day. In this country the richest people win. It's not fair to anyone but the rich and corporations. The 1996 FCC Regulations must be changed. As long as lies are allowed 24/7 unchallenged the "public" is lead along by the nose and has no access to facts. Those of us who DO delve into the facts know we're being lied to. Most folks have neither the time nor the inclination to research much about candidates' voting records, personal finances, connections to winger organizations, they accept what they're told by assholes like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, the entire Fox network which was designed as a propaganda tool by the GOP. They ARE the RNC...one big ad for their candidates, run by Roger Ailes a well known wing nut.
We who hit the streets to protest Vietnam, those of us in the age brackets born from 1946 to 1955 had real power at one time. We were making a difference But they killed all our leaders starting with JFK and made sure nobody who was truly Liberal ever had a chance to run effectively since. RFK's assassination was our last "warning" and they've been punishing us ever since for not embracing corporate rule.
The shrewdest move made by Dick Cheney and his administration was not to institute a draft for his wars. Rumsfeld destroyed the military by outsourcing its own functions so it has to rely on contractors just to eat or shower. Between those two men, Dick and Don, they have destroyed our country since they were in the White House with Nixon, got placeholder Ford to pardon Nixon. We had a chance to regain justice for all with Watergate, D and D made sure the executive branch became unassailable despite criminal activities. Both of those men belong in prison yet roam free to hurt us more every day, sending their disgusting progeny (Liz Cheney) onto Fox to do more damage.
Our credibility as a nation is in smithereens. The rest of the world REALLY wants us to regain our footing and be the decent nation we once were, they're bending over backwards to give Obama every chance to prove he's up to the task but he's too weak to handle the load. he's been handed the Nobel Peace Prize, more as an act of encouragement (or relief from Bush) than for anything he's done or will do. He's increased the number of troops committed to killing people in Afghanistan, he's bent over for the war hawks despite public opinion screaming at him to end these wars started by Bush and Cheney. He's not strong enough to stand up to the military industrial complex. Hell, he's too weak to stand up to little AIPAC runt Joe Lieberman. He has done nothing but bend over and accommodate the right wing in the name of bipartisanship when they have no intention of doing anything but further their own interests. If he can't see that they operate in bad faith every day he's living in total denial. I never expected him to do much but kowtow to the GOP in the first place but he's been even worse, he's given more power to them in this one year than even they could have anticipated. If he had been a real threat to them they would have had him neutered before he got to the White House. The most clever thing he did was to make Biden his VP, it was the best kind of protection he could have bought himself as Joe Biden might turn out to be a fantastic truly Liberal president, he has a moral compass unlike his "boss." Biden was against this Afghanistan troop increase but he was slapped across the face by Obama and Emanuel who are in fact far to the right of most Americans in the Democratic Party. Our party has been infiltrated and overrun by Republicans. Far too many are DINOs who never would have been elected without that "D" after their names. They behave just like the corporate assholes in the GOP. Our "purity" tests don't exist, apparently we'll allow anyone to run as a Democrat who has the money despite proof that they are going to vote with the GOP each and every time. They hate us. They screw us every day and take our money while smiling. The true Democrats are shouted down by the winger side of our party. We need to purge our party and send them packing to the GOP where they belong. Ben Nelson, Landrieu, these people aren't Democrats, they're scum.
This country is fed a steady diet of tripe daily. It's eagerly lapped up. Television is king. Television has destroyed intellectual curiosity, perhaps the most abused invention in the history of mankind, it's a brainwashing machine. Intellectualism of any kind is frowned upon as elitist George Bush has the intellect of a gnat and people could feel equal to or even superior to him so they "liked" him. Not that he needed to be liked, both of his presidential elections were stolen. To say so is labeled as conspiracy theory. I think to NOT know the elections were stolen is conspiracy theory. To believe the lies of ballots that were never counted and the facts makes us a banana republic. Florida was rigged by Jeb Bush, and Joe Lieberman helped. Al Gore made a huge mistake in letting his disappointment in Clinton's sexual proclivities cloud his judgement in choosing a VP running mate. I understand his disappointment in Clinton, I was disappointed too but to choose Lieberman, the one who made "bipartisan" attacks on Clinton possible was short sighted. Graham should have been his running mate...a decent man with real convictions. Gore fucked up and then didn't fight. Perhaps his family was afraid he too would be assassinated or "accidentally" die in a plane crash like Wellstone. Real Liberals just seem to have a way of dying in accidents. Ted Kennedy was supposed to be on that flight with Wellstone, (two for the price of one) and at the last moment changed his plans. That must have really upset the Wellstone murderers. They thought they'd get Ted too. What a disappointment for them. The second JFK Jr. started to gain momentum he had to be killed too. The mystery surrounding his death isn't probed at all. Just another "tragedy" for the Kennedy family.
The GOP will do anything to keep power. Why is it easy to imagine the Mafia killing off opponents but not Dick Cheney? He's FAR worse than any Mafia boss or underworld killer. He's a truly evil man who hasn't let anything or anyone stand in his way. He's definitely capable of murder. Why isn't he in prison? He and Rumsfeld ARE monstrous murderers. They'd kill anyone in their way. Their front man Bush liked to torture frogs when he was a child. He liked to burn pledges with hot wire coat hangers while he had his way paid through college. He saw nothing wrong with it. He too is a murdering thug. And he's skated too. Off to the world of motivational speeches, what a joke when he couldn't construct a sentence let alone a speech without aid. A privileged brat from an evil family of big money and thievery. Prescott Bush made his fortune in cahoots with Hitler but nobody ever mentions it. His funds were frozen after WWII but somehow FDR let him slide as it would have been "too destructive" to the nation to hold him responsible for his treason. One wonders what deals were cut. The Bush family is one of treason and greed, beholden to nobody but corporate buddies and log rolling funds off each others' fat backs. Their "dynasty" continues with more of them in the wings ready to run for office and steal all our taxes again.
Obama hasn't the guts for this job. A real Liberal would have put a stop to the wingers in the Democratic Party from day one. He's not able to stand up to them. Maybe he knows his days would be numbered if he did a thing to shake up the status quo. He shouldn't have run for president if he was so easily scared. It's going to take a REAL man or woman to change things. This country is too misogynistic to elect a woman president. Such a backward country filled with uneducated morons. Now THAT'S disappointing. "Nothin's a guarantee, it's the old 'one day at a time'...and that's all it's supposed to be I guess." Levon Helm/span>
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As a Boomer I saw and was part of the movement in this country to stop wars, increase tolerance, improve equality and provide assistance to those in need while taking more in taxes from those who use power and lack of ethics to become the richest people in this country. I've been told to Love it or Leave it. And things have gotten worse. First they killed our leaders then they used PR to make left-thinking people look like "Loonies" and to attach us to Manson, not Lennon. Our parents fought a war against Hitler. We knew about war. We actually studied it in school. There were documentaries. Our actions were examined. Now that's patriotism, to ask why we're doing what we're doing and how to improve.
But not the avaricious right wing. They've been there all along, I Me Mine.
Avarice is their common bond. Getting more.
Here's the truth. This country is corrupt and the wingers have been in charge the whole time...with their spin, and their jackboots on our necks. We have less "power" now than we did in 1968. They like war and they like the profits they can squeeze out of us while squealing about the flag and freedom they've already taken from us. THEY are the enemy. They have always been the enemy.
I'm no Naderite but one thing he said that has always been true is that there's not much difference between the two parties. They serve the money gods, not the people. With a few exceptions most Democrats look like Republicans to me.
The minute we boomers started to face sixty most of us realized it was all about survival and that our "movement" was truly dead and buried under the weight of corporate greed. Day to day finances are more time consuming than reading the latest compromise on Capital Capitol Hill.
In this "land of the free" we're supposed to have religious freedom but we still have fundamentalism crammed down our throats. To not follow a religion, religiously, is seen as a character flaw. If half those people who flock to huge mega-TV churches actually lived by do unto others the world would be a much better place.
We had it right; the humane ideas. Baby Boomers, we've been made null and void for a very long time. We were naive and believed love was the solution. Now a Blackberry commercial has ruined twisted and distorted "love", of which they know nothing, as merely a slogan to sell cell phones. all you need is love is a tool to them. But not for me. I remember.
Health care....it'll kill us. Financially we are at the mercy of corporate America.
Real Love....something our leaders don't recognize.
Generation Jones was a letdown. They didn't get it. Generation X? High tech non-thinkers.
We on the left have imaginations, those on the right don't.
There is still a chance that they will see....
But as I age, my optimism is dwindling. I'm tired. Time for our children to take up the banner.
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I love this kitteh's face. Reminds me of the time I put little red stockings onto my pootie, Spikey's feetsies and kept them on with rubber bands. She went wild all over the house trying to shake them off stopping to shake her feet as she ran up the stairs, she kept it up until I took them back off. But boy, we had such a great laugh over her furry antics.
I hope these thugs get the lumps of coal they deserve in their stockings this year, subpoenas. Happy New justice-filled Year.
And H/T Arthur Dent. :) The Night Before Christmas, by John Cleese.
Or are they just doing their homework while they wait? Before President Obama's speech at West Point, December 1, 2009, (text and video) several cadets were pictured by Reuters photographer Shannon Stapleton et al. The cadets were reading books. My guess is that they were catching up on reading assignments. Catching up during finals week(s).
Books assigned by the cadets' professors? Compilation of five actual cadets reading books, photographed before the President's speech. Two cadets were pictured reading the same book, "Kill Bin Laden", one reading "On Killing", one reading Thor's novel, one reading an unknown book.
(None of the pictures below are photoshopped.)
The cadets deserve a commission for the book sales I'm sure they precipitated. In any case, it's worth having a deeper look due to the minor fuss "some bloggers" on the right are making over it as a planned protest against the president but it sure looks like homework assignments being done while they waited in the auditorium. ~~~~ BOOK ONE: Company A3 Freshman West Point Cadet Konrad Bunde with the book, Kill Bin Laden by Dalton Fury. "Dalton Fury" is the nom de plume of a former Delta Force Army major who led the secret mission to catch Osama bin Laden two months after the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.
Non-Fiction. The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world--an operation of such magnitude that it couldn’t be handled by just any military or intelligence force. The best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America’s supersecret counterterrorist unit formerly known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; more popularly, the elite and mysterious unit Delta Force. Continued at link.
Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon ordered a top secret team of American commandos into Afghanistan with a single, simple order: kill Osama bin Laden. It was America's best chance to eliminate the leader of al Qaeda. The inside story of exactly what happened in that mission, and how close it came to its objective has never been told until 60 Minutes and correspondent Scott Pelley reported this story last fall. The man you are about to meet was the officer in command, leading a team from the U.S. Army's mysterious Delta Force - a unit so secret, it's often said Delta doesn't exist. But you are about to see Delta's operators in action. Why did the mission commander break his silence after seven years? He told 60 Minutes that most everything he'd read in the media about his mission is wrong and he wants to set the record straight. "Our job was to go find him, capture or kill him, and we knew the writing on the wall was to kill him because nobody wanted to bring Osama bin Laden back to stand trial in the United States somewhere," the mission commander tells Pelley. In 2001, just 10 weeks after 9/11, he was a 37-year-old Army major leading a team of America's most elite commandos. Even now, 60 Minutes can't tell you his name or show you his face... Fascinating, continued reading and video at link.
So, the Bush administration stopped Delta Force from capturing Bin Laden and completing their mission; they (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) didn't want him killed as his family had connections to the Bushies and they didn't want him caught alive as he might tell tales on them. They let him escape. The Neocons didn't WANT Bin Laden caught "dead or alive" or they'd have no "excuse" later to invade Iraq which they'd planned since 1998. Our cadets at West Point are only as good as their "orders" will allow them to be. Perhaps they realize this. Dalton Fury's 60 Minutes video also embedded here. Stymied by "higher-ups"?
...they didn't get approval from a higher level. "Whether that was Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, I'm not sure,"...[The next option]...But they didn't do that either, because Fury says that plan was also disapproved. He says he has "no idea" why. "How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" Pelley asks. "In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," Fury says.
Another West Point student reading the same book. A class assignment?After all West Point teaches about war. I'm unable yet to identify the book on the right but the cover is possibly an Afghani woman wearing a burqa. (Photo:Julie Jacobson/AP)
~~~~ BOOK TWO: The second book being held up by a West Point Cadet (to the Right in the picture) is "The Apostle", a formulaic fictional thriller by Brad Thor. (Photo:Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Fiction Master of suspense and #1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor returns with his most riveting international thriller yet. A new administration and a new approach to dealing with America's enemies have left covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath without a job. But when American doctor Julia Gallo is kidnapped in Afghanistan, the terms of her ransom leave the president with only one course of action. In a dangerous assignment that the United States government will deny any knowledge of, Scot Harvath must secretly infiltrate Kabul's notorious Policharki Prison and free the man the kidnappers demand as ransom - al-Qaeda mastermind, Mustafa Khan. But when Harvath arrives, he quickly learns that there is more to the kidnapping than anyone dares to admit. And as the subterfuge is laid bare, Harvath must examine his own career of hunting down and killing terrorists, and ask himself if he has what it takes to help one of the world's worst go free.
A "new administration" with a different approach? Interesting. Are the cadets learning about the changes in policy since the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden after a failed eight years under Bush and Cheney? And an interesting choice of fiction by this cadet, if it was in fact HIS choice. The "ending" isn't clear yet. We'll see in a year and a half what reality brings us. Secret operations were the mainstay of the Bush administration's wars in the shadows while spouting "mission accomplished". It's a good thing this is fiction or I might be irritated. Brad Thor, author, laughing all the way to the bank?
~~~~ BOOK THREE: West Point cadet with the book On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.), former West Point Psychology Professor, Pulitzer Prize nominee, former Ranger with an inside perspective on how war affects our troops. (Photo:Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Non-Fiction The good news is that the vast majority of soldiers are loath to kill in battle. Unfortunately, modern armies, using Pavlovian and operant conditioning, have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. The psychological cost for soldiers, as witnessed by the increase in post-traumatic stress, is devastating. The psychological cost for the rest of us is even more so: contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's conditioning techniques and, according to Grossman's controversial thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder and violence, especially among the young. ON KILLING is an important study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects the soldier, and of the societal implications of escalating violence.
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Close-up of the same cadet. (Photo:Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
LT. COL. DAVE GROSSMAN, U.S. Army (Ret.) Director, Warrior Science Group, www.killology.com
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is an internationally recognized scholar, author, soldier, and speaker who is one of the world's foremost experts in the field of human aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime.
Col. Grossman is a former West Point psychology professor, Professor of Military Science, and an Army Ranger who has combined his experiences to become the founder of a new field of scientific endeavor, which has been termed “killology.” In this new field Col. Grossman has made revolutionary new contributions to our understanding of killing in war, the psychological costs of war, the root causes of the current "virus" of violent crime that is raging around the world, and the process of healing the victims of violence, in war and peace.
He is the author of On Killing, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; has been translated into Japanese, Korean, and German; is on the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant's required reading list; and is required reading at the FBI academy and numerous other academies and colleges. Col. Grossman co-authored Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence, which has been translated into Norwegian and German, and has received international acclaim. Col. Grossman's most recent book, On Combat, has also placed on the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant's Required Reading List and has been translated into Japanese and Korean. Continued at link.
The meaning(s) of these books to the cadets is only newsworthy if we have actual interviews with all of them stating they "meant" something by their choice(s) of reading material, otherwise all anyone can do is speculate. I'm speculating that they're doing their homework, allowed by the school, as they waited for the President to give his speech. Was a novel assigned for a class or is this the student's personal choice? We don't know yet. The other two books would be good textbooks, especially the third book written by a former West Point professor of psychology. If they were doing something wrong I doubt their superiors would let them get away with it at a military academy, in front of cameras ready to broadcast the president's speech live nationwide. Making some sort of protest or political statement is probably in violation of West Point's regulations for cadets in the presence of their Commander in Chief. IF that's what they were doing. IF it was to show lack of respect for President Obama I find that perturbing for the double standard since no such displays were EVER allowed around Bush or Cheney. Therefore, it's hard to believe this reading activity wasn't condoned by the professors at West Point. Much ado about nothing.
Before the president's speech the students were studying and reading. (AFP/Getty Images via Yahoo)
After the speech President Obama was "mobbed" by many of the students who appeared happy to meet him. (Photo:Jim Young/Reuters)
~~~ UPDATE: December 4, 2009 The reason wingnuts are so excited about "The Apostle" being spotted in the hands of a West Point cadet, Thor is bosom buddies with "Lonesome Roads" Beck. Glenn Beck Talks with Brad Thor This is just frightening.
June 17, 2009. THOR: I think we have people here who hold office who are under the influence of foreign operatives. I don't think it's a lot but I think there are a handful of them. I think they have been here for a while. You know this whole idea that we were not going to turn to socialism overnight but we were going to do it drop by drop like water on a stone, spoonful by spoonful. Listen, if you understand and Glenn, I've got to tell you one of the neatest things about becoming friends with you has been my desire to learn more about politics, the history of my country.
He's taking "history" lessons from Glenn Beck? The spelling bee OLIGARHY man? Heaven help us. Ignorance comes in many forms. Add Thor to the list.
UPDATE: December 4, 2009: A different take. Per Raw Story, the cadets were "caught" reading when they shouldn't have been. I beg to differ. Cadet waiting for president caught reading anti-Obama book Rawstory's view is that the books in question were meant as insults to President Obama, in particular the fictional "The Apostle" as the "president" in this novel is depicted as: (a poorly-veiled caricature of Barack Obama) engaging in an adulterous affair, manslaughter, and perjury. Hogwash. That description bears no resemblance whatsoever to President Obama.
The 60 Minutes video outlines the author's issues in Kill Bin Laden with the Bush/Cheney administration. The Apostle (fiction) is by an author with a right wing following of armchair chickenhawks. A thriller is a thriller, it's written to make money. Mr. Thor states his ultimate hero is Reagan, a man who "thought" he served but only did so in the movies. Lt. Col. Grossman's book "On Killing" is about how war affects the psyches of all involved. He taught at West Point, to produce a textbook is SOP.
Most of the other "sources" on this non-story are from the right wing "media" and they're claiming that the cadets meant to insult President Obama. They're assuming the books were chosen as a protest of some kind by the students. That's highly unlikely. They sure look like textbook assignments in the full picture of events that evening.
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Nasty piece of work, Liz Cheney is now a "panelist" on Fox News along with PNACer Bill Kristol, winger Juan Williams et al. In her October 11 debut she falsely claimed to speak for "most Americans" while smearing President Obama; she doesn't, she just makes things up like her father always does. She's a chip off the old block, lying almost as well as her war criminal daddy. It's a nifty technique, toss out a lie and claim it's true and of course since she's on Fox there's no challenge. It worked well for the Bush/Cheney gang of thugs and she's using the same methods, coincidentally keeping her name and face out there. Chris Wallace ate it all up with glee. They don't want Dick held accountable for his war crimes. Liz Cheney's Debut As Fox News Sunday Panelist: Obama's Nobel Is 'A Farce'
"What the committee believes is, they'd like to live in a world in which America's not dominant. And I think if you look at the language of the citation, you can see that they talk about President Obama ruling in a way that makes sense to the majority of the people of the world. Americans don't elect a president to do that. We elect a president to defend our national interest. They may believe that President Obama also doesn't believe in American dominance and they may have been trying to affirm that belief with the prize. I think, unfortunately, they may be right, and I think it's a concern."
It's the same method daddy used, "I think" followed (or preceded) by a lie. She unpatriotically attacked the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and the committee which awarded it to him while defending her daddy and Bush for their failed foreign policies and torture. She has no business commenting on the service of others in the military. Her father refused to serve when his country desperately needed him, he avoided the Vietnam draft via five deferments. What a load of hypocritical crap! She's wearing her little flag lapel pin and has the Cheney Family condescending sneer down pat; she's Dick Cheney in a wig and heels; a Chickenhawk just like her father (and Bush) and equally disgusting.
CHENEY: There’s this big piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning that says that it was a number of different concepts for ways that we could capture or kill al Qaeda leaders in the days after 9/11. I am really surprised that the Democrats decide that that’s what they want to fight over. I mean, if they want to go to the American people and say that they disagree with the notion that we ought to be capturing and killing al Qaeda leaders, I think it’s just going to prove to the American people one more time why they can’t trust the Democrats with our national security.
If a Democrat were to do this to Bush while he was "at war" it would be decried as the height of treason. Those who cast aspersions in any way shape or form on Bush and/or Cheney were called Un-American in the mode of "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" rhetoric of the Neocons. Yet, Liz Cheney feels free to toss out her lies on the media branch of the GOP, propaganda blastfax central, Fox News.
Lying traitor to the United States Liz Cheney, in her continual attempts to undermine the President of the United States and protect her war criminal father, went again onto Fox to promote her new "organization" Keep America Safe and spread more lies with a two minute slanderous video. Her "group" via this libelous video claims the President Obama is wasting time in the White House and not working hard enough to defend us. She must have forgotten his lazy predecessor's failure to keep America safe while he rested up in Texas. She must have forgotten her own father dragged us into wars, tortured people who hadn't been charged with any crimes and created more terrorists every day during the nightmarish eight year occupation of our White House by her father and Bush.
Part of this Lizzie's organization's mission statement includes not pursuing the CIA investigation of Cheney outing an agent via another fake "grassroots" campaign of calling right wing radio stations. Their first "action" is of course to attack President Obama via this libelous video with the headline, "Welcome To Keep America Safe"
The "board" of Keep America Safe: Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol and Debra Burlingame. (Debra Burlingame is the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame, III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. She is the co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America and a director of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Foundation at the World Trade Center.)
Palling around with the always wrong PNAC loon Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney insinuated that the rest of us DON'T want to keep America safe. This unprincipled woman who via nepotism worked in the state department of the Bush Administration is as ugly as her father in thought and deed. The only question now is what she'll run for in which election. Her family is filthy rich. Cheney/Palin 2012? Or perhaps she'll run for one of the positions up for grabs in Virginia where she lives. Governor? Or maybe she'll challenge Senator Jim Webb for Macaca's former seat. She's busily defending Bush and Cheney's war crimes but also said, "I Very Well May" Run For Office, a frightening thought. She could resort to writing pornographic novels as did her mother, whatever happens she's not going away which is very bad news for America. May and June of this year alone, 22 appearances on TV (mostly Fox) to defend her daddy.
Has Lizzie forgotten that Bush took more vacations than even Reagan, including the entire month of August 2001 during which time he ignored intelligence reports stating that Osama Bin Laden was determined to attack America? Has she forgotten that his golfing, biking, fishing, fundraising and jogging, and early bed time took precedence over everything else and that "some say" he allowed 9/11 to happen through his sheer negligence. Negligence and stupidity.
"Stop the terrorist killers, now watch this drive" George the Incurious Vacationer:
By this time of year one into the Bush/Cheney administration we had already been attacked by terrorists in planes as predicted by our own intelligence. Bush ignored the warnings. Obama on the other hand has stepped up to the plate and kept us safe from ANY attacks while dealing with the HUGE mess both here and abroad that her daddy and Bush left behind. Bush spent 487 days at Camp David and 490 days during 77 trips to his "ranch" in Crawford, Texas. Of his eight years (2,922 days) occupying our White House he took a total of 977 "official" vacation days alone, a third of his time in office. CBS news correspondent Mark Knoller documented Bush's vacation days. (I emailed him once back in 2003 and asked him if he planned on writing a book, he said he didn't have time as he was busy tracking and reporting on Bush. Other journalists referred to Knoller's stats.) How nice for Georgie to only be present two thirds of the time for his highly paid job. Most folks get two weeks off per year. The average American worker gets 112 vacation days in eight years but Bush took 977 vacation days that we know of. Liz Cheney can try to re-write history but it won't work. Thanks to Knoller we have the facts. And thanks to youtube and the internet we have proof of his lack of a work ethic. Aside: Dick Cheney had all his medical bills paid for by US, benefiting greatly from taxpayer funded health care he opposes that would more than likely be denied most of us as a pre-existing condition after his heart attack. He also remained obese, causing most of his medical problems himself by drinking and eating fattening foods. His medical claims to a for-profit insurance company out here in the real world would be denied as would his multiple surgeries. His "death panel" would have some questions about whether or not he was a good risk for more surgery. Socialized medicine has worked out really well for Dick; we paid for it all.
Dick should be in prison.
Speaking of propaganda: I've heard "some people say" that Politico is a fair and balanced news site, their contributors often appear on cable news shows to give their opinions. I have begged to differ for a long time, they're extremely shady, e.g. Labeling President Obama "Radical" by taking, of all people, Liz Cheney's and Bill Kristol's right wing hawkish word for it. In politics framing is everything. Get it out there, report it as fact then report on the report reinforcing the fake fact. They "create" their own "news" then repeat it as truth and factual via right wing TV and radio, newspapers and internet sites. George Lakoff was and is correct. It's all about framing and using questionable headlines, only making corrections or retractions later that usually don't get the same "front page" attention.
Glenn Greenwald asked and answered, May 4, 2007,Who funds and runs Politico? The President and CEO of The Politico, Frederick J. Ryan, is also the Chairman of the Board of the Reagan Library and a known conservative.(Frederick Ryan via the Allbritton Communications Company
The President (Reagan) today announced the appointment of Frederick J. Ryan, Jr., to be Assistant to the President. November 4, 1987 Since February 1985 Mr. Ryan has been responsible for the White House Office of Private Sector Initiatives as well as serving as Director of Presidential Appointments and Scheduling. Mr. Ryan began serving at the White House in February 1982 as Deputy Director of Presidential Appointments and Scheduling. In February 1983 he was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Appointments and Scheduling. Mr. Ryan was previously an attorney with the Los Angeles law firm of Hill, Farrer and Burrill. While engaged in his practice, he published several articles on various aspects of the law.
Mr. Ryan graduated from the University of Southern California (B.A., 1977) and the University of Southern California Law Center (J.D., 1980). He was born April 12, 1955, in Tampa, FL. Mr. Ryan is married and resides in Washington, DC.
So the President and CEO of The Politico worked in multiple positions in the Reagan White House, and was continuously promoted until he rose to the level of Assistant to the President. And his close connection to the Reagan family and the Reagan presidency continues through today.
The Politico's primary (perhaps sole) funding source is the Allbritton Company, of which Frederick Ryan is an employee. The Allbritton family's leader, Joe, was CEO of Riggs Bank when Riggs pleaded guilty to a series of illegal financial transactions with right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his brutal military that took place throughout the 1990s and into 2001.
Huffington Post reported this one on October 8, 2009, the DNC is right to be upset. The offending headline. It's trash.
"Top Politico editor" Jim VandeHei defended the story, telling Sargent: "We will look for the political angle in virtually any story where we run a lot of entertainment and personality items. It was quick item based on FEC data alone."
Nothing on The Politico can be taken seriously with this kind of ownership and background.
The Politico's "publisher, Robert L. Allbritton, 37, scion of the banking and media family that once owned the defunct Washington Star, said in an interview that he would finance The Politico for 'the foreseeable future' and has committed to paying for expensive campaign travel. He has hired a staff of about 50 people, almost half of them journalists," ... The Politico's biggest boosters are Matt Drudge and George W. Bush, and it is run by a Reagan loyalist. At the very least, those facts are worth considering. ... When Joe Allbritton was CEO of Riggs Bank, Riggs, in 1997, purchased the company owned by President George W. Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, and Jonathan Bush then became a top Riggs official serving alongside Joe Allbritton. That was discovered when, in 2004, Riggs agreed to "pay a record $25 million in civil fines for violations of law intended to thwart money laundering," apparently allowing Saudi money, among others, to be laundered through its bank while both Allbritton and Jonathan Bush were its top executives.
You can't believe everything you read, discriminating minds need to search deeper for the truth. Questioning our sources is part of being informed. Add politico to the list of Conservative News Sources although it's not listed yet. It's time MSNBC stopped having representatives from politico on the air without identifying their intent. It's time people stopped thinking they report the truth in an unbiased manner, they don't. I've witnessed Jim VandeHei (co-founder of Politico) spewing lies on Hardball and Countdown without his true slant exposed nor the source of his funding revealed.
Steve King, Republican, Iowa, 5th Congressional District. Asshole of the Day. His BEST vote ever, denying relief funds to Katrina victims. Let's see if he helps out Georgia next...by denying any aid to flood victims there. He ONLY cares about dreaded Government if it benefits HIM and his future in the House of Representative where he gets socialized medicine for which WE the people pay.
Meet the Lawmaker: Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) By Jordy Yager - 09/21/09 05:53 PM ET ... Many people’s votes are based on how it will affect their political power and their stay in office, as opposed to the long-term good of the country. That’s the worst. ... What vote would you like to redo? Rep. King: I don’t really go back and re-live that sort of thing. Some of the big votes that I’ve thought about, some of the jury’s still out. And at this point, maybe I’d answer that question another way, probably the singular vote that stands out that went against the grain, and it turns out to be the best vote that I cast, was my “no” vote to the $51.5 billion to [Hurricane] Katrina. That probably was my best vote. But as far as doing something different again, I don’t know.
This same "man" believes that Congress is too partisan? Has he looked in his mirror lately? King's right...he's the worst.
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We the people pay for a national health service plan for our employees in government from the local level up to the national level. Government insurance is paid for by taxpayers to those we elect to represent US. They gladly take it. People who work in government are given their health insurance by US, the taxpayers, as part of an incentive to do a good job for US. People who are "civil servants" are eligible for government insurance WE provide. They gladly take our socialized medicine for themselves yet deny it for the rest of us as "socialism" and anti-American. For the rest of us they advocate that we buy insurance from for-profit companies who deny us care when we need it most. They accept large campaign contributions from insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. WE mean nothing to them because we're not big donors.
I'd love to hear Congressional members' stories (including all their staffers) about how they were denied health care by "the government". I'd love to hear how they were forced to have abortions and forced to appear before death panels. I'd love to hear how they couldn't get the medications they need by their taxpayer funded insurance. I'd love to hear why they don't believe that WE are worthy of the same coverage we provide for THEM.
Why don't these folks support the insurance industry they love so much instead by buying for-profit insurance? Most of the people in Congress are wealthy enough to afford what we can't, yet they take welfare from us.
Senate Finance Committee: Max Baucus - age 68 Chairman - 39 years with taxpayer funded insurance "Chuck" Grassley - age 76 - 51 years with taxpayer funded insurance
Jay Rockefeller age 72 - 32 years with taxpayer funded insurance Kent Conrad age 61 - 35 years with taxpayer funded insurance Jeff Bingaman age 66 - 31 years with taxpayer funded insurance John F Kerry age 66 - 37 years with taxpayer funded insurance Blanche Lincoln age 49 - 25 years with taxpayer funded insurance Ron Wyden age 60 - 31 years with taxpayer funded insurance Chuck Shumer age 61 - 35 years with taxpayer funded insurance Debbie Stabenow age 49 - 28 years with taxpayer funded insurance Maria Cantwell age 51 - 17 years with taxpayer funded insurance Bill Nelson age 67 - 33 years with taxpayer funded insurance Robert Menendez - age 55 - 23 years with taxpayer funded insurance Thomas Carper - age 62 - 34 years with taxpayer funded insurance
Orrin Hatch age 75 - 33 years with taxpayer funded insurance Olympia Snowe age 62 - 34 years with taxpayer funded insurance Jon Kyl age 67 - 23 - years with taxpayer funded insurance Jim Bunning age 76 - 32 years with taxpayer funded insurance Mike Crapo - age 58 - 26 years with taxpayer funded insurance Pat Roberts - age 73 - 42 years with taxpayer funded insurance John Ensign age 51 - 13 years with taxpayer funded insurance John Cornyn age 57 - 24 years with taxpayer funded insurance
If Congress believes that government insurance is socialism why do they accept it for themselves? They say they detest socialism in any form. If they hate it so much, why don't they refuse the socialized medicine we the taxpayers provide for them?
Why don't they stand up and fight for their beloved insurance companies instead by getting their insurance from THEM instead of from US? They do what the insurance companies want them to do, they refuse to do what WE want them to do. They even want to TAKE Medicare away from our older population. They take it for themselves, though. They need to be punished by US and handed over to the vicious insurance companies for their own medical needs instead. They need to put their money where their crooked mouths are and support K Street right back, buy their own health insurance just like the rest of us.
It's time to strip Congrss of the same insurance they deny their constituents. Perhaps then and only then will they start to show some justice for all instead of only for themselves and their rich friends.
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We don't need Palin acting as Newt Gingrich's trial balloon tester. First he tossed out the "Death Panel" phrase, then she used it, then he defended HER use of it. C'mon now you liars, how stupid do you think we are? Don't answer that. As long as THE propaganda stations that carry Rush Limbaugh and Fox News dominate, the misinformation will continue to fly. They're pretty desperate to still be using Mrs. Quitter Barracuda as their spokesperson. Her "base" of teabaggers, birthers, and deathers just LOVE her. The rest of us deserve a break from the hot air. She should stay home now and take care of her family, perhaps read a few books...other than The Bible. She seriously needs to broaden her horizons before she opens her mouth in public again.
For a woman who wants the media to leave her children alone she sure exposes them to the cameras a great deal when it suits her purposes. I don't care a whit about her offspring, SHE's the dangerous one. Ignorant opinionated people usually are.
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WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated his praise for waterboarding Al Qaeda terrorists on Monday, calling it a "well done" technique that gathered valuable information from unusually bad guys. "I'm a strong believer in it," Cheney told a National Press Club audience. "I thought it was well done."
I'd like to see those well done techniques used instead on unusually bad guys who were occupying our White House...if it's as effective as Sick Dick claims, (contrary to expert opinions) we might find out the truth about 9/11, the torturing, the rigged linking of Saddam to 9/11 that he now claims he never even intimated, let alone insisted existed...day in and day out until we attacked Iraq. Dick has gone from believing waterboarding is a "no brainer" in October 2006 to strongly believing in it now.
Cheney answered written questions after speaking at a ceremony for reporting awards named for the late President Gerald Ford, whom Cheney served as White House chief of staff. Cheney said the controversial policy of simulating drowning grew out of a CIA request for guidance on "what can you do that's appropriate and what you can do that's not appropriate."
I believe the "questions" were written by Dick himself. BTW, when is torture EVER "appropriate" for ANYONE? Is he saying the CIA begged for "guidance" on whether or not they could waterboard? Is he claiming the CIA wasn't aware of international laws regarding torture; The Geneva Convention? Is he claiming the CIA didn't know that we had hung Nazis as well as Japanese War Criminals for waterboarding because IT IS TORTURE? It seems more like Dick, Don, Fredo and Dubya were testing the waters to see what they could get away with "legally" to satisfy their sadistic need to inflict pain and suffering upon other people, guilty and/or innocent alike.
Notwithstanding Cheney's enthusiasm, waterboarding was banned by the Bush administration in 2003. President Obama has said waterboarding is torture and repugnant to American values. Cheney remains unconvinced. "I don't believe that we engaged in torture," he argued.
The rest of the world "believes" we tortured people. The folks at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and the other facilities in which we tortured them "believe" they were tortured. By now, FINALLY, most Americans "believe" we were torturing detainees. Yet Cheney "believes" we didn't engage in torture. What he "believes" is irrelevant. Torture was committed in our name. Everyone but those who perpetrated and helped enable it "believes" it WAS and IS torture. WE broke international laws. And from the looks on Rumsfeld's sickening face, Cheney's cruel mug, and Dumbya's gleeful cheery countenance while they talk about it they too "believed" they were torturing people, or else why bother to do it? They CLEARLY enjoy doing it to other people, I "believe", if you will. It's time to try out all these techniques on Dick and Liz Cheney since they don't "believe" any of it was really torture. Perhaps they could prove to us how it's really not torture at all. We'll start out with the easy ones...being chained to a wall naked with bags over their heads and snarling dogs very nearby, kept awake for eleven days in a row and not allowed to move...just for starters. I "believe" it will give them far more credibility. Hannity can join them to help prove we didn't actually torture anyone and that instead they were all very "well done" non-painful activities to which the detainees looked forward as part of a fun vacation at a resort; along with all that fabulous medical care, those yummy meals, the delightful hotel spa-like atmosphere at Gitmo. GOP Senator John Ensign wants to keep Gitmo open until the war on terror is over as all those detainees will immediately head here to kill us all, He said he was impressed by conditions at the prison and that average Americans would be "outraged because the kind of treatment they get is certainly not only better than anybody in an American prison, but they get better health care than the average American citizen does." "Their food is better than the food that they fed us as senators and staff that went down," he said. Gosh, sign me up...I need some excellent medical care and some awesome food. Perhaps he should ask himself why we Americans get such lousy health care instead? Nah, that might tax his little brain too much to "get" what he said.
Unlike many of his predecessors, the ex-veep has taken a high public profile since leaving office, criticizing the Obama administration for deciding to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and charging that Obama's policies have made America more vulnerable to another mass-casualty terrorist attack like 9/11.
Gee, we never even SAW him for eight years, didn't know where he was, what he was up to, unless he shot somebody and even then it was a day later (after he'd sobered up?) that his "representatives" went public and his victim Whittington APOLOGIZED for being in the way; but now Dick's on the boob toob along with his daughter 24/7 criticizing Democrats and casting aspersions on the voters for choosing such a dangerous man as Obama to be our Commander in Chief over the psychopathic McSame. At least THIS time the electorate sort of got to decide, unlike in 2000 when our choice in Florida was overturned by the Supreme Court and 2004 when Ohio had all those mysterious problems. The speed with which Kerry conceded gave me whiplash but wasn't a surprise at all. Dick's attacks on the Obama administration are unprecedented in their viciousness and frequency...and so soon after Inauguration Day too. Gore didn't start to speak out publicly regarding the Bush administration for three years. And he was correct. Dick waited a couple of WEEKS before commencing with his lying. In the interim he had henchmen such as drug addict Rush Limbaugh carry his water for him along with the rest of right wing radio and TV. Newt the thrice-married philanderer who was removed as Speaker and had to pay a $300,000 ethics fine is on TV just about every day pretending he has virtues and a right to speak out; Steele is out there almost every day at the very least apologizing to Rush Cyst-Boy Limbaugh, and the usual GOP thugs are doing their thing, attack, attack, attack and of course, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Do they EVER stop whining and lying? No.
He summoned up grim memories of that day in defending waterboarding, domestic surveillance and other controversial Bush programs.
Grim memories for whom. Surely not for HIM. He just saw "opportunities" coming his way. His commentary included FISA? Yup, spying upon other Americans (apparently just the Democrats) is justifiable in his opinion since we're all terrorists because we don't agree with him. He got that unconstitutional atrocity passed due to DINO help...unforgivable. DINOs are almost as bad as Republicans...and in some ways worse because they pretend to BE Democrats; wolves in sheep's clothing. At least if there's an "R after the politician's name we KNOW what we're dealing with. DINOs have no right to a "D" after their name. Maybe an "RD" for proper identification purposes. ~~~~ We need to purge the Democratic Party of those non-Democrats. They set themselves up to be blamed by wing nuts for the actual torture of detainees and then for being complicit in illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens. They voted along with the GOP to allow Dick, Fredo, Don, George et al to do whatever the hell they wanted. They fell for all of it...hook line and sinker. Not only are they traitors to our party but they're idiots too. They couldn't see a set-up if it bit them on the ass. ~~~~
"I looked at the world the morning after 9/11, and what I saw was 16 acres of ashes in downtown New York City," he recalled. "You could, if you looked closely enough on television, see footage of American citizens jumping out of windows on the upper stories of the Trade Center because it was better than being burned to death."
So he had a TV in the White House Presidential Emergency Operating Center (tuned in to Faux Gnus his fave, no doubt) where he and Lynne, Condi too, were supposedly on top of the whole situation. Yet, our Air Force failed to intercept any of the hijacked planes? For some unknown reason our military, the best trained in the world, didn't scramble immediately per SOPs upon being informed of the FIRST hijacked plane, instead, per Cheney, Bush supposedly ordered them to scramble from Air Force One much later? There should have been no need for that order if it happened that way...as Cheney claims...it should have happened automatically. This topic is for another post but for now just label me (if you must) extremely "skeptical". I don't believe the "official story"...it's not as if Dick and Dubya can be held up as the world's finest most ethical moral men and the most honest truth tellers. They open their mouths....lies just automatically pour out. Let's not forget the history of the Bush family and the FACT Don and Dick were in the White House to urge Ford to pardon Dick Nixon. Watergate was training ground for those crooks...and Ford wasn't bright enough to know he was being totally used by thugs. They were several steps ahead of him. His "job" was to sell the American public on the notion that it would be too disruptive to prosecute Nixon, that we couldn't handle it as a nation. That to follow up on Dick Nixon's crimes wasn't worth the trauma it would cause Americans and that it would distract us from getting on with the running of the country. It worked. However, we were capable of multi-tasking and we still are. We can prosecute criminals and get on with our current problems as well. Ford's failure to allow us to hold Nixon accountable for his crimes only opened the door for the thugs including the Bush Crime Family to get stronger....we ended up with even worse crimes being committed in our names. If Obama does the same thing and allows the Bush/Cheney administration to "walk" we'll have lost ALL credibility with the rest of the world and the true terrorists, The Bushes, Dick and Don, will have won. As for Dick looking at the world on 9/12...it was via TV too. Dick sure as hell wasn't out there on the streets of New York surveying the damage first hand the next day as he intimates, he was back at one of his undisclosed locations. On 9/11 Dubya, on Air Force One, went to meet with several WTC CEOs conveniently gathered in Omaha "out of harms way", while Dick was technically "in charge" on 9/11 and our Air Force seemingly stood down. How else can we explain the incredibly long delay in a response of any kind by our Air Force?
Under the circumstances, "We would have been absolutely, totally irresponsible if we hadn't taken the view that we had to do everything in our power in order to prevent that next attack," Cheney added.
What NEXT attack did he mean? The other three hijacked planes on 9/11 or some "other" next attack? Instead of fighter planes arriving immediately in NY to intercept the second plane...they just didn't. Why not? And the third plane, or the fourth? It was up to the passengers to deal with the situation? Oh, and 9/11 happened on THEIR watch. The first attack wouldn't have happened at all if George W. Bush hadn't DELIBERATELY IGNORED the intelligence he received the month before while vacationing in Crawford, Texas. Bin Laden determined to attack...even Condi had to admit that one in front of Congress...using the lamest of all lame excuses that nobody could possibly have anticipated an air attack on American soil.
He admitted he has zero "tolerance or patience" for second-guessers.
And zero tolerance or patience for anyone who ever disagrees with him on ANY topic...he's a brutally cruel fat little man with nothing on his mind but hatred and control. His response to questions..."Go fuck yourself!" or "So?" Again, facts. Yeah, I kinda see his point, I have zero tolerance or patience myself for second-guessers like Dick and Liz who are NOT privvy to the same intelligence the Obama administration is now, and I have even less tolerance and patience for total liars...both of them qualify for my wrath as they lie like rugs each time they part their sneering lips.
"If I had it to do all over again, I would do exactly the same thing. ... Those individuals who wished us harm and who were prepared to kill thousands of Americans ... got what they had coming to them," he said.
Um, does he mean the Iraqis or the Saudis? We were attacked by Saudi Arabians on 9/11 and they all supposedly died in the ensuing explosions. Who exactly was it who "got what they had coming to them?" Iraqis plucked off the streets? Afghanis dragged out of their own houses? Canadians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Who exactly "got what they had coming to them"...all our detainees since 9/11? Anyone who ever contradicted Dick? Anthrax, anyone?
On other topics, Cheney opposed Obama's decision to force General Motors into bankruptcy - "Some companies succeed, and some companies fail" -
Dick's no-bid contracts for Halliburton and KBR definitely didn't fail...they made a financial killing as successful companies whose headquarters (Halliburton) are now in Dubai. Dick's bailout of his Wall Street buddies didn't seem to bother him...just any company with union workers' jobs at stake. The hypocrisy and lies are just phenomenal, and to think that they've gotten away with any or all of it is untenable and simply unacceptable. Have people simply forgotten the HUGE amounts of money they insisted upon "to support the troops", $700 Billion twice late last year, where did all that money go? Certainly not to protect our troops on fourth and fifth rotations...but to help Dick's "companies" make more and more profits at the expense of our military and their families.
And on he went, expressing his opinions...unchallenged...as usual. Yes, Dick...your opinions are SO well respected. That barn door can't be closed, the horses have already bolted. He took the time to slander President Obama's HIGHLY qualified Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Perhaps he feels his own court cases will end up in front of the Supreme Court after he's officially charged as a war criminal and traitor to the United States so he desperately needs as many Scalias on the court as possible to keep his pasty ass out of jail the same way they got it into our White House in the first place.
-and predictably disagreed with Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court.While it's Obama's prerogative to name whoever he wishes, Cheney noted, "I don't think I would have nominated her."
"Nothing personal against the nominee," he carefully added. "The President's made his call. ... He won the election. ... But if it were my nomination to make, I think I would have gone with somebody with a little more conservative bent."
Nothing personal Dick? First of all it wasn't your nomination to make even if you were still Vice President, that's the titular President's job. Dick would have chosen somebody "bent" more like activist judge Scalia with whom he goes shooting? Somebody conservatively bent like Alito who stated his Italian-American status made a difference and would make him a better SC judge, Clarence Thomas, rumored to be an African American, who claimed his pulled-up-by-the-bootstraps-via-affirmative action struggles would make him more fair? Or Roberts the religious wing nut? So, somebody whose rigidity and total lack of compassion for anyone who "thinks" differently from the way they do would have been preferable to Dick? What a surprise. Dick would MUCH prefer another Supreme Court justice who favors corporations' over people's rights. But so much more importantly, Dick would have chosen a nominee who will favor HIM and HIS needs over the people of the United States if he has to rely upon them down the road.
My advice to Dick : Keep on talking. You're brilliantly helping to finish off the GOP. Anyone who agrees with you is also an asshole, including George and the rest of the "administration" from hell, war criminals all. My advice to Liz: Keep on yammering away about how we didn't torture and how your "father" is such a swell guy. Keep creating those lovely sound bites for when you run for office. Will it be the House or the Senate or Veep to Jebby-the-pig-nosed-boy? Daddy can get you LOTS of donors. He can threaten them with his shotgun if they don't donate to the Liz Cheney for next biggest asshole in politics campaign.. Release ALL the memos, ALL the evidence Dick claims exonerate his actions. ALL OF IT. He and Liz only want "selected" memos released...she's quite the little sidekick, "rhymes with witch" as Bar would say.
Yup, I'd bet my last dollar she's running...maybe an interim "job" in Congress...and then.....
Liz called President Obama "un-American" and ridiculously says Obama Finds it "Fashionable to Side with Terrorists". Fashionable? Is she just as insane and cruel as her old man? Apparently so. Lynne's no softie either. She's hard as nails and writes porn to boot. A morally bankrupt "family" just as bad as the BFEE. But keep it coming Liz, it really does dig a deeper hole for "dad" and his future.
Poppy and Shrub want Jeb to run for president to continue the BFEE Dynasty.
Jeb Would Make a 'Great President,' Bush Says By Bill Brubaker Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 11, 2006 The second -- and current -- President Bush suggested yesterday that his younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would make a "great president." "I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," Bush said in an interview with Florida reporters, according to a story on the St. Petersburg Times Web site. If that sounds familiar, the Bush brothers' father, former president George H.W. Bush, made a similar statement last year, telling CNN's Larry King that Jeb Bush would be "awfully good" as president.
"This guy's smart, big and strong. Makes the decisions," the first President Bush said then.
Cheney has the perfect VP choice for him. Bush/Cheney in 2012? Eight more years of BFEE/Cheney rule? Our nation will never survive such a travesty.
"She’s awesome. Everyone wants her to run," said a close friend. [...]
"She’s a chip off the block!" said a longtime friend. [...]
"It’s a two-fer. She comes off a bit better than he does sometimes," a conservative consultant said.
Asked about the possibility that Liz Cheney might make a run for office, Republican operative Karl Rove responded, "She might!"
Daddy has the bucks and inside information on how to lie really, really well...Dick could make it happen. She's got "Conservative" support already. You betcha!
Conservatives: Liz Cheney Should Run for Office ... A forceful defender of the administration and her dad, Liz Cheney has been appearing on TV with greater regularity. She brings to the screen a combination of her dad's steely focus and her mom's softer touch. "It's a two-fer. She comes off a bit better than he does sometimes," a conservative consultant said.
Some supporters want her to continue in her role and suggested to Whispers a battle plan for the coming year:
"She could start with a major speech on national security," said one. "Heritage [the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank] could have her in for a big speech on national security. C-SPAN would cover it for sure." After that she could set up shop in one of the think tanks and build a base of support and knowledge that would put her in position to take a major position in a future Republican administration. She is a former Bush State Department aide, and some people are even suggesting that she consider doing more military policy so that she could take the policy under secretary's position in a Republican administration when her children are older. Clearly, those supporters are looking past a two-term Obama administration.
I'm sure she already has a nanny or two. So they'll run in 2012 if right wing radio and TV can smear Obama enough to take him down in time, but definitely by 2016 if they can't "fix" it soon enough. All Lizzie has to do is run for a "lesser" position to flesh out her barbaric resume between now and 2016. The Bushes and the Cheneys have NO intention of going gently into that good night. They'll crush anyone's balls who gets in their way.
How bloody DARE she make these statements!! Obama is "siding with the terrorists", not supporting the military and making us more vulnerable to attack? Fuck you, Liz!
Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney, accused Barack Obama of finding it "fashionable" to "side with the terrorists"...on Fox News. Continuing a media blitz in defense of the Bush administration's interrogation policies, Cheney accused the current president of making the country more vulnerable to attack and not supporting the military. By disclosing photos of detainee treatment -- which the Obama White House has been compelled to do by court order -- she proclaimed the president was aiding and abetting those determined to attack the United States.
"I think that it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step," she said. "I have not seen the pictures, I don't know what is in them. But clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and women in a very negative light.
At least she admits that the American men and women who were doing her dad's bidding under orders were indeed doing something in a very negative light.
And I have heard from families of service members, from families of 9/11 victims, this question: When did it become so fashionable for us to side, really, with the terrorists? For us to put information out that hurts American soldiers." "If [the president] really cared about" about these soldiers, Cheney concluded, he wouldn't be releasing these photos that show them "in a negative light."
Twice she admits that those photos cast American activities in a negative light...but it's Obama's fault, not her dad's. She's as good as her old man at twisting the truth into "beliefs" and "I think" and putting out false statements based solely on her "views" without allowing any questioning of the validity of her lies. FACT: We tortured. The pictures have already been released and probably "recruited" many more terrorists than if we HADN'T tortured anyone. She should be blaming "dad" for creating more terrorists. Which "family members" of 9/11 victims would call up Liz to complain? She fails to mention the 9/11 victims family members who still BLAME Cheney for creating more terrorism and for torturing people "in our name"...they surely didn't ask our government to crush the testicles of young men in front of their parents to make up for their losses. As for supporting our troops...KBR, the subsidiary of Halliburton who won the no-bid contract to supply our troops have given them electric shocks while they shower, contaminated food and water, inadequate armor, and when they return to the U.S. no support from the VA because Dick and George CUT the budget for veterans. But as I've said many times before, this is perfect for her run for office. Lovely sound bites just like her father's, Democrats will get you attacked, killed, ruined by terrorists; take all your money; take your stuff; enable all terrorists; turn us into a Communist country, take your guns, take your Bible, be mean to you, enable "old Europe" to ridicule you; humiliate you in the eyes of the world and show you in a negative light. Perfect for her run for office. She and Jeb would be the perfect GOP ticket for 2012 and/or 2016. Also as I've said many times, Jeb isn't going anywhere...he'll be running for Prez. mark my words. Not that anyone has marked them before as I've said ad nauseum: They WILL run Jeb and Liz would be his perfect sidekick. Absolutely a dream ticket. (Sorry, Sarah, too bad about that teen pregnancy spanner in the works...hahaha.)
Formalities were left at the door. "We are seeing a situation where this administration, for some reason, continues to release information that is helpful to the terrorists," Cheney declared. "Releasing details about what was involved in the enhanced interrogation program, releasing the techniques involved in that program, helps the terrorists. It helps them train to those techniques, it takes those techniques completely out of the realm of possibility for future presidents to use. So it was a very damaging thing to do. ... They seem to be only interested in releasing things that really paint America in a negative light."
In addition to accusing Obama of siding with terrorists, Cheney also argued that Attorney General Eric Holder, by offering to work with foreign governments, was refusing to "stand up and defend American sovereignty."
(Videos of her "performances" at links, btw.) Releasing "technique information" is "helpful" to train their own members how to use them? I think the prisoners themselves at Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and our other secret detention centers told a few of their friends and family members and The Red Cross what we'd done to them already...it was hardly a secret. Now she's accusing Holder of failure to defend our sovereignty? How about that pesky "rule of law", Liz? Shouldn't your daddy and George be held to the same standards the rest of us are held to by our laws? Oh, that's right, if Dick doesn't like a law, he has it changed either via a "bill" presented by one of his GOP henchthugs or a signing statement put in front of Dubya made whatever he did suddenly "legal" and above board. Hey, Liz, you know what cast us in a negative light? Torturing people, in violation of international (and human) law. Ignoring Geneva Conventions that are there to PROTECT our own troops too should they be held captive by other countries. Now they can say, well, America does it so it must be okay for us to do it too. What a lying conniving rotten woman she truly is. Apple-tree-rotten. And she's produced five offspring to continue in her horrible pump prints.
If torture was such a swell idea, why did Dick, Don, Fredo and Dumbya deny we were doing it? Why didn't we go up the chain of command THEN to get to the ones who ordered the torture in the first place? Instead, we punished low level troops who were indeed "following orders" and where have we heard that excuse before? Yup, the Nazis. I voss juhst followink orhdurrs.
General Karpinski was the highest ranked member of the military they chose to take the rap. She tried to tell the world what was going on in our name, Rumsfeld's lies and plans...but she was punished severely, first demoted then relieved of her command. The Bushites hate "disloyalty" more than they hate the terrorists. I'd like to see a split screen of Liz and General Karpinski. Lies vs. Truth.
Maybe some of the people who "got what was coming to them" were the kids at Abu Ghraib?
Children said among Abu Ghraib prisoners (Agencies) Updated: 2005-03-12 09:23 Children held by the U.S. Army at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison included one boy who appeared to be only about 8 years old, the former commander of the prison told investigators, according to a transcript.
"He looked like he was eight years old. He told me he was almost 12," Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski told officials investigating prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. "He told me his brother was there with him, but he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother. He was crying." Karpinski's statement is among hundreds of pages of Army records about Abu Ghraib the American Civil Liberties Union released Thursday. The ACLU got the documents under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about abuse of detainees in Iraq.
Karpinski did not say what happened to the boy in her interview with Maj. Gen. George Fay. Military officials have previously acknowledged that some juvenile prisoners had been held at Abu Ghraib. ... Rumsfeld and his spokesmen have repeatedly said that the defense secretary and his aides never authorized or condoned any abuses. ...
Hey, Don...Dick has admitted to torturing detainees making you a liar buddy. Hahahaha. Like we didn't already know that...but he chucked you, his BFF, under the bus.
Karpinski said Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, then the No. 2 Army general in Iraq, told her in the summer of 2003 not to release more prisoners, even if they were innocent.
"I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians. We're winning the war," Karpinski said Wodjakowski told her. She said she replied: "Not inside the wire, you're not, sir."
Perhaps this unfortunate child was one of the detainees whose testicles were crushed in front of his parents in order to make them "talk" as Yoo said Bush could "legally" do if he found it "necessary". 12 years old. Beyond criminal. Rummy, Dick, George, Fredo and the whole lot should be in prison. They are most definitely torturers and war criminals with no morals whatsoever. General Karpinski tried to blow the whistle and tell the truth about what was going on at Abu Ghraib but was punished for her "disloyalty" instead.
Karpinski demoted in prison scandal.In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. in June 2004, Karpinski said, "I believe I was a convenient scapegoat" for the Pentagon for the Abu Ghraib scandal.
The Bush "Administration" got its best lawyers (oxymoron) to declare the torturing of children legal. The charming (not) John Yoo covered Bush's ass on that point. The "president" aka Decider, gets to decide who can be tortured "legally" and it includes children. In front of their parents.
It was while General Wojdakowski served under General Sanchez that he became involved in Abu Ghraib. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, a general who was later disciplined for her role in the scandal, placed Maj. Gen. Wojdakowski at a meeting in late November at which there was extensive discussion of a Red Cross report that cited specific cases of abuse.[1]
In November 2006, the German government received a complaint seeking the prosecution of Wojdakowski for alleged war crimes. The complaint alleges that during his tenure he was legally responsible for the U.S. torture programs.[1]
Other co-defendants include: Donald H. Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Stephen Cambone, Ricardo S. Sanchez, Geoffrey Miller, Thomas M. Pappas, Barbara Fast, Marc Warren, Alberto Gonzales, William J. Haynes, II, David Addington, and John Yoo.
01/08/06 "revcom.us" -- -- John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody – including by crushing that child’s testicles.
This came out in response to a question in a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel.
What is particularly chilling and revealing about this is that John Yoo was a key architect post-9/11 Bush Administration legal policy. As a deputy assistant to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, John Yoo authored a number of legal memos arguing for unlimited presidential powers to order torture of captive suspects, and to declare war anytime, any where, and on anyone the President deemed a threat.
It has now come out Yoo also had a hand in providing legal reasoning for the President to conduct unauthorized wiretaps of U.S. citizens. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole wrote, "Few lawyers have had more influence on President Bush’s legal policies in the 'war on terror’ than John Yoo."
This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.
Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him? Yoo: No treaty. Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo. Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that. ... Yoo said, "If you are trying to draw a moral equivalence between the Nazis and what the United States is trying to do in defending themselves against Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, I fully reject that. Second, if you’re trying to equate the Bush Administration to Nazi officials who committed atrocities in the holocaust, I completely reject that too…I think to equate Nazi Germany to the Bush Administration is irresponsible." ...
If it thinks crushing a child's testicles is okay, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, acts like a duck, it's a Nazi.
Some people like me just want to know the truth, including David Lynch.German interview re: "Loose Change" a documentary that should be watched by every American...if they have the courage to think critically and have an open enough mind to question authority. We have a RIGHT to know what really happened.
David Lynch video. Starting at 2:46 on the clock; first he discusses his quest for "knowing" things using the example of Marilyn Monroe's death.
Anyone without questions is either stupid or just doesn't WANT to know the truth. Not wanting to know the truth about EVERYTHING in our lives shows lack of intellect and/or curiosity....and fear. Massive fear. There are far too many American ostriches...how long can they go on believing "History" will tell the true story as Bush the war criminal asserts? Willful ignorance ought to be a crime.
"It's too big. It's like sump'n no one wants to think about..." David Lynch
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