Obama in graph form. A sustained trend toward optimism.
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Inconsistent Morality Of Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan on Clinton's perjury in a civil case:
"The Democrats had long labeled the impeachment debate a distraction from the urgent business of a great nation. But the Republicans argued that the pursuit of justice is the business of a great nation. In winning this point, they caught the falling flag, producing a triumph for the rule of law, a reassertion of the belief that no man is above it, and a rebuke for an arrogance that had grown imperial," - Peggy Noonan, December 21. 1998."Peggy Noonan on Bush's war crimes and torture memos:
"It’s hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, ‘Oh, much good will come of that.’ Sometimes in life you want to keep walking… Some of life has to be mysterious." - Peggy Noonan, April 19, 2009.One needed impeachment, one needs to be forgotten. Great set of consistent morals there. Why don't you keep walking, Peggy.
Liz Cheney's Silly SERE Argument
Dick Cheney is so unbound these days, he now has his daughter, not the gay one, but former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Liz Cheney, out on the news circuit trying to save the family name. Just like her Dad, she does way more harm than good.
Here's a quote from her MSNBC train wreck:"Everything that was done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SERE training."
SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. It's the training our troops go through to be ready in case they are captured, to resist torture, including waterboarding.
Here is where Liz just does not get it. She thinks if we do it to our own troops, ergo waterboarding isn't torture. One consenting waterboarding experience applied by trusted instructors does not equal 183 waterboarding experiences applied by hostile interrogators.
Does Liz think we waterboard American troops 183 times in SERE training?
Must be hard knowing your father is a torture advocate and brought America to it's depths of morality over a false war.
Here's a quote from her MSNBC train wreck:"Everything that was done in this program, as has been laid out and described before, are tactics that our own people go through in SERE training."
SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. It's the training our troops go through to be ready in case they are captured, to resist torture, including waterboarding.
Here is where Liz just does not get it. She thinks if we do it to our own troops, ergo waterboarding isn't torture. One consenting waterboarding experience applied by trusted instructors does not equal 183 waterboarding experiences applied by hostile interrogators.
Does Liz think we waterboard American troops 183 times in SERE training?
Must be hard knowing your father is a torture advocate and brought America to it's depths of morality over a false war.
Confessions Of A Hitman
Washington Post compiles a few interesting reflections from former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt:
On the Republican Party: "It is near-extinct in many ways in the Northeast, it is extinct in many ways on the West Coast, and it is endangered in the Mountain West, increasingly endangered in the Southwest... and if you look at the state of the party, it is a shrinking entity."Source: WaPo
Olbermann To Hannity: $1000 For Every Second
Keith Olbermann wants to keep Sean Hannity accountable. As Keith puts it, "another conservative talking big, living small".
Lawrence O'Donnell adds to the Hannity lameness.
Lawrence O'Donnell adds to the Hannity lameness.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Ed Show: 9/11 On Cheney's Watch. Wishes Same For Obama
The Ed Show on MSNBC is doing some great segments. Ed Schultz has a great straight-ahead delivery. Not as disdainful as Olbermann, not as quaint as Maddow.
This segment he takes on The Dick "13%" Cheney for wishing harm onto America for political gain every time he is on Fox.
Sen. Pat Leahy guests, flirts an invite for Cheney to talk to him under oath. Leahy sternly says, despite lack of Republican interest, he is not going to let these torture memos and Cheney go.
Ed sums up Cheney to close the segment, "This guy is nothing but a trash talking coward from the sideline".
Source: HuffPo
This segment he takes on The Dick "13%" Cheney for wishing harm onto America for political gain every time he is on Fox.
Sen. Pat Leahy guests, flirts an invite for Cheney to talk to him under oath. Leahy sternly says, despite lack of Republican interest, he is not going to let these torture memos and Cheney go.
Ed sums up Cheney to close the segment, "This guy is nothing but a trash talking coward from the sideline".
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Source: HuffPo
100 Days Of No
New video from the DNC about the Grand Obstructionist Party.
Not one of them vote out of line.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST affordable health care for all.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST creating green jobs.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST reforming education.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST decreasing the budget by half during President Obama's first term.
Not one of them vote out of line.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST affordable health care for all.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST creating green jobs.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST reforming education.
ALL 219 Republican males and females voted AGAINST decreasing the budget by half during President Obama's first term.
Circular Illogic: Using Torture Enables More War
There are consequences for using torture. This is not one-off use of torture. I think conservatives like to see it as one time, one insect, one slap, one waterboard kind of scenario. In and of itself, one person tortured is bearable to them.
They refuse to see that is was used all the time, against innocent people. And it was institutionalized from a top down decision process. That Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were the lone proponents, pushing for these uses of torture. They had the military carry it out for them, but it was them pouring that water down their throats. That is the image they refuse to see.
From a money standpoint, which is the only way they see things:
This is a post on torture, I won't even attempt to go into the medical costs it will take to care for all the veterans. Not to mention the biggest costs: the loss of life and the lifelong mental scars.
They refuse to see that is was used all the time, against innocent people. And it was institutionalized from a top down decision process. That Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were the lone proponents, pushing for these uses of torture. They had the military carry it out for them, but it was them pouring that water down their throats. That is the image they refuse to see.
From a money standpoint, which is the only way they see things:
This is a post on torture, I won't even attempt to go into the medical costs it will take to care for all the veterans. Not to mention the biggest costs: the loss of life and the lifelong mental scars.
Opposing The Actual Miracle Of Curing Blindness
Recent headlines regarding stem cell research. First from the US, second from the UK. Startling differences. Think of the lives improved and potential industries would could develop.
The same people who believe in a 2000 year-old story about curing blindness are the ones who oppose the actual miracle happening now.
Source: NYT
Source: TimesUK
"The Obama administration took the easy political path on embryonic stem cells last week by proposing to pay for research only on stem cell lines created from surplus embryos at fertility clinics but not on lines created in the laboratory to study particular diseases.versus
The proposal is not bold enough and will continue to deny federal financing to some potentially promising research. Still it is a significant improvement over former President George W. Bush’s rules that allowed federal support for work with only 21 stem cell lines already created from surplus embryos at fertility clinics."
"British scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time."We need to separate church from state, science from mythology.
The same people who believe in a 2000 year-old story about curing blindness are the ones who oppose the actual miracle happening now.
Source: NYT
Source: TimesUK
A List Of Who Defends Murder, Sadism And Torture
NY Magazine has a list of those who belittle the use of torture. A who's who of conservatives. All pampered, soft, old white guys. All men. None of them served. Guys like Cheney deferred 6 times. Yet they have some way of balancing murder, sadism and torture with spreading democracy.
Imagine if it were Obama under the the same conditions?
Source: NY Mag
Imagine if it were Obama under the the same conditions?
Source: NY Mag
You Gotta Love Charles Grodin
Charles Grodin on Hannity last night. Classic.
Let's see if Hannity keeps his word and gets waterboarded. You'll notice that it's typical Fox when the guest gets the better of the host, they just try to end the conversation or cut to a commercial.
Let's see if Hannity keeps his word and gets waterboarded. You'll notice that it's typical Fox when the guest gets the better of the host, they just try to end the conversation or cut to a commercial.
Creepy, Racist And Sexist. Republican?
Clean-cut "Craigslist Killer" suspect Philip Markoff:
Source: NY Daily News
At college, he was a member of the College Republicans and was fairly unremarkable except for the occasional offensive comment, said ex-classmate Joe Coe.Creepy, racist and sexist. Engaged while committing these murders of women. And a young Republican? Rush, Hannity and O'Reilly just lost a viewer.
"He was someone that had issues with people of color, had issues with women," Coe told CBS.
"He gave off a creepy vibe," said another SUNY classmate.
Source: NY Daily News
Five More Secret Legal Memos
With the Truth absent for the past 7 years, it seems the sunlight is coming back and we can see again:
Source: AP
Five previously unacknowledged secret memos revealing new information about the Bush administration's interrogation policies remain hidden in government file cabinets, a Senate report disclosed Wednesday.No secrecy in a democracy. Doesn't work. Eventually the truth makes its way out.
It's not just the memos' contents that are classified. Until Wednesday, their very existence was secret, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has a long-running Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain all records about the interrogation program.
Source: AP
The Greatest Lie Ever Told And Sold. I'm Not Buying It
Once you approach the Iraq War, as it really happened, that there was never any WMD, that there was never a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, you understand why Bush and his Administration had to torture so many people just to find a shred of imaginary evidence.
A child would think they were WMD there and now we can't find them. They were never there! Let that sink in, they were never there. It was a massive lie.
Why waterboard a guy 183 times in a month? It's the desperation of knowing you are in a lie that makes you do things like that. TELL US WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR!
Why did they wiretap so many calls with so few interpretors, when they know that cell phones are not used for operational directives, it's all face to face messaging. We are a new world fighting an old world. Our technology can't do it all.
We need to start framing this war and subsequent atrocities as they really happened. Not wishful "what we know now" bullshit. To pretend otherwise is worst outcome yet.
A child would think they were WMD there and now we can't find them. They were never there! Let that sink in, they were never there. It was a massive lie.
Why waterboard a guy 183 times in a month? It's the desperation of knowing you are in a lie that makes you do things like that. TELL US WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR!
Why did they wiretap so many calls with so few interpretors, when they know that cell phones are not used for operational directives, it's all face to face messaging. We are a new world fighting an old world. Our technology can't do it all.
We need to start framing this war and subsequent atrocities as they really happened. Not wishful "what we know now" bullshit. To pretend otherwise is worst outcome yet.
Sheppard Smith Gets Truthy
Sheppard Smith, keepin' it real, drops the f-bomb.
"I don't give a rat's ass if it helps. We are America, We do not f*ckin' torture".
"I don't give a rat's ass if it helps. We are America, We do not f*ckin' torture".
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Bush Medals Tenet: Now We Know
The Presidential Medal of Freedom. 2004. Their secret is over.
The guy who thought up the torture and the guy who carried out the torture:
The guy who thought up the torture and the guy who carried out the torture:
Bush Is Pol Pot 2.0
In the continuing "What Tyranny Really Is" series:
Source: NYT
"waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.The GOP wishes it could back in time, when white males ruled the world. In lieu of that, they decided to bring torture tactics from the past to the present.
Source: NYT
GOP Has An Eye For Terror?
"Could tell just by looking at them", GOP Strategist Phil Musser.
Lawrence O'Donnell tears this guy a new one.
No need for trials, evidence, courts. Just look at them. Bush and Republicans in a nutshell: bigotry, stupidity and violence.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/tpmtv
Lawrence O'Donnell tears this guy a new one.
No need for trials, evidence, courts. Just look at them. Bush and Republicans in a nutshell: bigotry, stupidity and violence.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/user/tpmtv
Putting Your Torture Cart Before The Horse
The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part determined to find evidence that wasn't there. Just an obsession to justify war and torture.
Still the conservatives buy into it. The social scientists turn out to be correct. Once a person buys into the propaganda they can never change their minds. They are prisoners of their own gullibility.
As Andrew Sullivan points out:
A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the interrogation issue said that Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanded that the interrogators find evidence of al Qaida-Iraq collaboration.Bush's "If you are not with me, you are with the terrorists" sounds a lot different these days. Sounds more like "if you're not with my terrorism, you're about to be a target, home and abroad".
"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."
It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document.
Still the conservatives buy into it. The social scientists turn out to be correct. Once a person buys into the propaganda they can never change their minds. They are prisoners of their own gullibility.
As Andrew Sullivan points out:
The first reason to use torture is to prevent a ticking time bomb that could kill millions; the second reason is as a routine part of intelligence gathering; the third is to produce false confessions to justify a war already planned. Torture is a powerful weapon, isn't it? Look how many it corrupted so completely and so fast.Source: McClatchy
Oprah Tweets, Traffic Jumps 43%
Oprah joins Twitter, announces it on her show, overall Twitter traffic jumps 43%. Additionally, on April 17th, the day of Winfrey’s first Tweets, 37% of visits to Twitter.com were new visitors, Hitwise says.
Source: http://twitter.com/oprah
Source: http://twitter.com/oprah
What Tyranny Really Is [cont]
Add this to the list:
1. Is this legal?
2. What would we do if someone did this, or had done this, to us?
George the Tyrant telling his henchmen what to do, not listening to anyone, instilling his will against the laws of the day, borrowing ideas from the worst history has to offer. Textbook tyrant.
Source: NYT
The Bush administration did not hear a "single dissent" in seeking approval of its torture program, in part, because Cabinet members and senior lawmakers did not know waterboarding had been prosecuted as a war crime after World War II. The officials also did not know that the military training program on which the techniques were based was designed to counter "torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War."Nice to know these two questions never came up:
1. Is this legal?
2. What would we do if someone did this, or had done this, to us?
George the Tyrant telling his henchmen what to do, not listening to anyone, instilling his will against the laws of the day, borrowing ideas from the worst history has to offer. Textbook tyrant.
Source: NYT
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Newsflash: A Principled Republican Speaks
Mike Bloomberg, a real Republican, thinks the Government should not be involved in your personal life, including who you can love and marry. Equal rights for everyone is pretty basic. Gay marriage is an extension of that.
I guess Rudy the Catholic, who had that right three times, doesn't understand that.
Source: ThinkProgress
I guess Rudy the Catholic, who had that right three times, doesn't understand that.
Source: ThinkProgress
Bush Shakes Hands With Islam
Wow, conservatives must really have cared when the President shook hands with Islam.
President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House in April 2002. Karimov was elected to a second term in January 2000 against token opposition with 92.5 percent of the vote under conditions that were neither free nor fair. Dare we say near Dictatorship?
"Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights".
Here is a line from the State Department regarding Uzbekistan in 2000:
The Nexis database found no references on Fox News in 2002 to Bush's handshake with Karimov.
No one cares who shakes hands with people. Not then, not now. It's a character assassination plot by Fox geared towards xenophobic diplomacy weaklings who see every handshake as a "Charlie Daniels Band-shake-hands-with-the-Devil" transference of power only determined by the winner of a fiddle jamming contest.
Source: MediaMatters
President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House in April 2002. Karimov was elected to a second term in January 2000 against token opposition with 92.5 percent of the vote under conditions that were neither free nor fair. Dare we say near Dictatorship?"Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights".
Here is a line from the State Department regarding Uzbekistan in 2000:
"The Government's human rights record remained very poor, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens cannot exercise the right to change their government peacefully; the Government does not permit the existence of opposition parties."Venezuela, just to give context, is a democratic country.
The Nexis database found no references on Fox News in 2002 to Bush's handshake with Karimov.
No one cares who shakes hands with people. Not then, not now. It's a character assassination plot by Fox geared towards xenophobic diplomacy weaklings who see every handshake as a "Charlie Daniels Band-shake-hands-with-the-Devil" transference of power only determined by the winner of a fiddle jamming contest.
Source: MediaMatters
Did the Tea Parties Succeed?
Chris Cillizza has a post on how effective the tea parties were. His site, The Fix, asked for comments. The post drew over 500 comments, which ran the gamut from lucid and insightful to Unabomber-esque rants.
Some of the good comments:
Some of the good comments:
"If the goal of the tea parties was to have a forum for middle-aged white people to gather in relatively small numbers to hold up anti-Obama signage, then yes, it was a success."Source: The Fix
--JohninMpls
"The tea parties were successful in rallying and energizing a defeated party base. However the tea parties also finished the redefinition of the Republican base that began in the 2008 elections. The Republican base has moved even further to the right whereas the last election shows the country has moved more to the left."
--peteywheatstraw
"The 'bought and paid for' tea bag parties just demonstrated how ignorant a small group of hard core right wing conservatives are. Those with the gold made the rules and these dupes followed. Their arguments and signs made no sense."
--saami
What Tyranny Really Is
What is tyranny?
Total extra-constitutional power of the president to suspend habeas corpus, detain anyone in the US without charges, and torture them including be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, water-boarded.Is your partisanship so deep it erodes any moral faculties or critical reasoning? Eight years of Bush/Cheney Torture™ later, after a single stimulus package and three months of Obama, Fox News is predicting fascism.
or
Taxation in a representative democracy with a top tax rate in line with the Clinton era.
Bush Is Jar Jar Binks
George Lucas once said in an interview with Maureen Dowd, “George Bush is Darth Vader, Cheney is the emperor.”
Amy Davidson at The New Yorker has a serious problem:
Source: Matthew Yglesias
Amy Davidson at The New Yorker has a serious problem:
"Bush as Vader is ludicrous. The comparison betrays a failure on Lucas’s part to understand the resonance of his own characters, which explains a lot, especially about Episodes I & VI. Other than being the father of twins, Anakin Skywalker, born a slave, with extraordinary abilities (the “best pilot in the galaxy”), has almost nothing in common with Bush, born to privilege and not much of an advertisement for the notion of a natural aristocracy.I see Cheney as more Jabba. Chuck Norris as Darth Maul?
Is Jenna going to be Luke and bring him back from the Dark Side? If we are going to play this game, Bush has more in common with Count Dooku, the Jedi dropout turned warmonger, or, better yet, Jar Jar Binks, who, after a buffoonish youth, improbably rises to a prominent political position and obliviously fronts for the soon-to-be emperor in getting the “Star Wars” equivalent of the Patriot Act passed."
Source: Matthew Yglesias
How Does "We Don't Torture" Look With Blood On Your Hands?
Substitute "we don't torture" coming out of Bush's mouth with:
"I only had one drink" coming out of an alcoholic's at a police stop.
"Trust Me" coming out of a used car salesman.
"I don't cheat" coming out of a guy busted using prostitutes.
I hope all those people who can't stand Bill Clinton for his "I did not have relations with that woman" line are aware of the difference between a blow job and institutionalized torture spread around the globe in secret prisons using torture manuals written for the sole purpose of giving legal cover for known illegal activities in breech of international laws and treaties.
Or maybe they don't.
"I only had one drink" coming out of an alcoholic's at a police stop.
"Trust Me" coming out of a used car salesman.
"I don't cheat" coming out of a guy busted using prostitutes.
I hope all those people who can't stand Bill Clinton for his "I did not have relations with that woman" line are aware of the difference between a blow job and institutionalized torture spread around the globe in secret prisons using torture manuals written for the sole purpose of giving legal cover for known illegal activities in breech of international laws and treaties.
Or maybe they don't.
Regulatory Umbrellas Needed Again
via Andrew Sullivan:
A quote from Mark Thoma pointing out regulation in banking works:
The other key factors behind the sub-prime mess were human failure, greed and the failure of self-regulation. Since humans are crafty and always look for the advantage within regulation, how do you curb such inevitable behavior? If we are serious, two ideas would be more forceful punishment of contra-regulatory activity and higher marginal rates of taxation.
Not sure the get-rich-quick Ponzi boys on Wall St. can handle that, but it is what the public voted for last November.
Source: Economists View
A quote from Mark Thoma pointing out regulation in banking works:
"...after decades and decades of instability in the 1800s and early 1900s, followed by the massive bank failures of the early 1930s, regulations were imposed to stabilize the banking system. The result was sixty years of calm in the financial sector. That's hardly a failure of regulation. It wasn't until the shadow banking system began growing outside of the regulatory umbrella that problems began to reemerge..bringing about another decades long period of relative stability will require the regulatory umbrella to be extended to cover all firms within both the traditional and non-traditional (or shadow) banking system, hedge funds included."The risk takers should not be the banks, but their entrepreneurial customers.
The other key factors behind the sub-prime mess were human failure, greed and the failure of self-regulation. Since humans are crafty and always look for the advantage within regulation, how do you curb such inevitable behavior? If we are serious, two ideas would be more forceful punishment of contra-regulatory activity and higher marginal rates of taxation.
Not sure the get-rich-quick Ponzi boys on Wall St. can handle that, but it is what the public voted for last November.
Source: Economists View
"We Don't Torture" Is Bushspeak For I Love You [To Die]
Have to check this segment from last night's Daily Show:
The GOP thinks it's not upsetting that we torture, but that we now know that we torture? Karl Rove shouting like a spoiled child, "all of these techniques have now been ruined!"
Jon Stewart on the efficacy of 183 waterboards in a month, "I assume after 90 waterboardings you're not trying to drown me".
NOTE: Peggy Noonan's exact quote from the video, just so you can remember how a journalist with no credible soul looks and sounds like:
The GOP thinks it's not upsetting that we torture, but that we now know that we torture? Karl Rove shouting like a spoiled child, "all of these techniques have now been ruined!"
Jon Stewart on the efficacy of 183 waterboards in a month, "I assume after 90 waterboardings you're not trying to drown me".
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| We Don't Torture | ||||
| ||||
NOTE: Peggy Noonan's exact quote from the video, just so you can remember how a journalist with no credible soul looks and sounds like:
"Some things in life need to be mysterious," Noonan said on Sunday about the release of the torture memos. "Sometimes you need to just keep walking. ... It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that."
Impeach Bush's Torture Enabler Who Now Has Lifetime Appointment
ThinkProgress has a online petition to get Jay Bybee, author of the Bush torture memos and current federal judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, impeached and removed from public office.As then Assistant Attorney General he gave legal cover for known illegal interrogation techniques, created torture manuals with Orwellian euphemisms wrapped in legal fantasy. These sometimes lethal [remember we killed quite a few] Bybee gems of humanity include:
Slam a detainee's head against a wall: "any pain experienced is not of the intensity associated with serious physical injury."These techniques are illegal by U.S. statute and international treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory. Bybee attempted to give legal cover to illegal acts, and thus broke the ethical, professional, and legal standards that should govern lawyers. Impeachment is the only option.
Slap a detainee's face: "The facial slap does not produce pain that is difficult to endure."
Place a detainee into stress positions: "They simply involve forcing the subject to remain in uncomfortable positions."
Waterboard a detainee: "The waterboard...inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever."
As Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) put it, "It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law."
Sure was nice of Bush to gift the known controversial Bybee with a lifetime appointment. I sure trust this guy's interpretation of the laws.
Source: http://thinkprogress.org/impeach-jay-bybee/
Monday, April 20, 2009
Newt: Lying Or Just Stupid?
Newt Gingrich, a former history professor mind you, has made a career of being historically off-target to stir up his pre-K toddler-minded GOP following.
Claims Presidents never met Russian dictators? Not only did they, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan are in the video, but what about George Bush's man crush on Putin?
Finding fault with Obama's brief handshake with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez at a summit last week, Newt seems to forget Chavez, although not a fan favorite, was elected twice in a democratic country and has massive oil fields we get oil from. Do we undermine democracy? Do we destabilize oil prices? Is that what diplomacy is about?
Nice to see the news holding up these ill-informed pundits for once.
Source: http://www.dailykostv.com
Claims Presidents never met Russian dictators? Not only did they, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan are in the video, but what about George Bush's man crush on Putin?
Finding fault with Obama's brief handshake with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez at a summit last week, Newt seems to forget Chavez, although not a fan favorite, was elected twice in a democratic country and has massive oil fields we get oil from. Do we undermine democracy? Do we destabilize oil prices? Is that what diplomacy is about?
Nice to see the news holding up these ill-informed pundits for once.
Source: http://www.dailykostv.com
The Torture Memos We All Knew Were Coming
Yesterday's NYT Editorial on Bush Administration torture memos:
The conservatives, confronted with the truth about their idols, cower with their childish new leadership spewing non-sequiturs like "Obama is a fascist".
Really? You end torture, secret prisons and rendition and restore habeas corpus and Rule of Law and you're called a fascist? The absurdity is staggering. It's like having a conversation with a child who's only comeback is a warped reversed "I know you are but what am I".
With all the harsh reality, Conservatives offer not one second of remorse or candidly rethinking your devotions? It's just another day, another attack, another stone they can throw at the new President.
For those of us who suspected this behavior from the start, what do you say to a person calling Obama all these names? They don't know the definition of the words they use, yet support a political party that did the very same things they decry for 8 years. Unreal.
Source: NYT
"These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation. They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values.That's where we are at. It's a bad movie and we had to sit through it all. The Mayberry Machiavellians are caught with their hands in the torture cookie jar that they made. They asked themselves if it was OK to torture and got their own lawyers to back them up. Idiotic logic.
It sounds like the plot of a mob film, except the lawyers asking how much their clients can get away with are from the C.I.A. and the lawyers coaching them on how to commit the abuses are from the Justice Department. And it all played out with the blessing of the defense secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence director and, most likely, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney."
The conservatives, confronted with the truth about their idols, cower with their childish new leadership spewing non-sequiturs like "Obama is a fascist".
Really? You end torture, secret prisons and rendition and restore habeas corpus and Rule of Law and you're called a fascist? The absurdity is staggering. It's like having a conversation with a child who's only comeback is a warped reversed "I know you are but what am I".
With all the harsh reality, Conservatives offer not one second of remorse or candidly rethinking your devotions? It's just another day, another attack, another stone they can throw at the new President.
For those of us who suspected this behavior from the start, what do you say to a person calling Obama all these names? They don't know the definition of the words they use, yet support a political party that did the very same things they decry for 8 years. Unreal.
Source: NYT
"183 Times In One Month" Is Their Legacy
The Bush and Cheney mindset, the arrogance and hubris, reduced to one sentence:
It is simply an empirical fact that president Bush broke the law and violated his oath of office by ordering the torture of prisoners. Under the constitution, Bush has no legal right to do so without Congress' passage of legislation repealing the laws and treaties governing such torture.
Then he lied about it.
The Rule Of Law is a bitch, George. You may want to hide in the bottle again.
183 times in one month.That's 6 times a day! You shake my hand 183 times and I'd call it torture let alone taking me to the edge of my life with sadistic medieval waterboarding.
It is simply an empirical fact that president Bush broke the law and violated his oath of office by ordering the torture of prisoners. Under the constitution, Bush has no legal right to do so without Congress' passage of legislation repealing the laws and treaties governing such torture.
Then he lied about it.
The Rule Of Law is a bitch, George. You may want to hide in the bottle again.
Boehner: Try To Explain Reality To My Confused Activists
From this weekend, House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) discussion with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos:
And take it one step further, he wants George to go out and explain the truth to the misguided conservative activists so the confused John can continue to not understand the facts and spread his deception.
Source: ABC News
STEPHANOPOULOS: [O]n the issue of taxes, I think it's 43 percent of people who file taxes pay no income tax at all. For the middle fifth of taxpayers, they're paying just about 3 percent in federal income tax this year.Boehner suggested Stephanopoulos should try to "go out and explain" the relatively low tax burden, we'll call them the facts, "to the hundreds of thousands of people" who attended far-right rallies last week. In essence, do my job, but do it the correct way. What a challenge. You really showed him.
BOEHNER: Well, you want to go out and explain that to the hundreds of thousands of people around America that showed up for these rallies.
And take it one step further, he wants George to go out and explain the truth to the misguided conservative activists so the confused John can continue to not understand the facts and spread his deception.
Source: ABC News
Thrice Married Adulterer Rules On Gay Marriage
How is he going to fit 9/11 into his argument?
New York Gov. David Paterson (D) unveiled a proposal to permit gay marriages last week in the Empire State. Seems the poster boy for conservative morality Rudy Giuliani has taken a position against:
Rudy was a Republican in the most liberal city in America. A true melting pot. Now that he is trying to be such a hard liner for the Right Wing, it's so sad.
Source: Washington Monthly
New York Gov. David Paterson (D) unveiled a proposal to permit gay marriages last week in the Empire State. Seems the poster boy for conservative morality Rudy Giuliani has taken a position against:For those who've forgotten, Rudy Giuliani has been married three times. The first was to his cousin. He left his second wife, Donna Hanover, by announcing it in a press release -- before telling his spouse. After Hanover kicked him out their home for alleged serial adultery, Giuliani marched in a St. Patrick's Day parade with his mistress.Rudy the Catholic has ruined two marriages, has an estranged relationship with his kids, is a serial adulterer, his infidelities documented, yet he has the upperhand on marriage over a gay couple? He is going to represent the sanctity? And rumor has it marriage #3 ain't working out.
Rudy was a Republican in the most liberal city in America. A true melting pot. Now that he is trying to be such a hard liner for the Right Wing, it's so sad.
Source: Washington Monthly
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