"No one wants to suffer a beat-down. No one
wants to be humiliated or embarrassed. I was shocked at Jon Stewart's behavior. I wish he knew about a lot of things that
I had done, because I think he would've thanked me instead of attacked
me...I think the attack on CNBC and the attacks on me were
gravely misplaced. It was rather remarkable in that it was so clear that
his goal was to just destroy me. One day he'll answer for
it."
-- Jim Cramer, crushed by Jon Stewart, Link
But Jim, at the time you said Stewart was right and you deserved
an ass-kicking.
Why are you getting brave now?
Excerpt: It wasn't exactly the Miracle of Cana.
Obama did not change water into wine. But he almost did. Instead, Obama
changed what protesters tried to make an ugly
scene about abortion into a triumphant message about faith-based politics...
Proving that crackpots never disappear, the protests
were organized by perennial loser Alan Keyes, who is still looking
for a political race he can win, and Randall
Terry, who admitted he only joined the Notre Dame protest in order to breathe
new life into his organization, "Operation Handjob."
Sadly, they were able to persuade 74 American Catholic bishops to join
them...
Catholic bishops, by definition, are right-wing
crazies.
Even on the thorny issue of abortion, Obama dared
suggest, common ground was possible: "Maybe we won't agree on abortion,
but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching
decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions."
And on that issue, too, Obama called for honest,
thoughtful, faith-based debate: "Each side will continue to make its case
to the
public with passion and conviction. But surely
we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature."
Even as Obama was urging people to reason together,
three protestors kept shouting "Abortion is murder."
But they were shouted down by the audience, and
all three white males were escorted out of the arena."
Funny, if they had been protesting Bush, they would've been arrested.
Why do the cops only arrest Democrats?
My good friend The
Hollywood Liberal was arrested in New York in 2004. His crime?
Following a policeman
as he led protesters across the street where they were arrested for
being on the wrong side of the street.
But when you bother a Democrat they merely make you leave.
"Republicans who are dragging Pelosi into the
torture debate are, perhaps unwittingly, encouraging Democrats to defend her with a full investigation of
the Bush White House -- unless, of course, she does have something to hide... Democratic leaders seemed content to let sleeping
dogs lie, but the GOP counter-offensive claiming that Pelosi knew about torture opens the door to a full investigation
to settle the matter -- if for no other reason, so that the Speaker can defend herself. Republicans cannot complain
about an investigation if they are going to hurl accusations that must
be examined."
-- Craig Crawford,
Link
Fine - so hold hearings with everybody under oath and let's
see what happens.
Excerpt: After inheriting two bungled wars, the Obama
administration has gotten a pass from citizens troubled by economic fears.
The president even ventured a mild joke during
a "60 Minutes" interview. "If you had said to us a year ago that the least
of
my problems would be Iraq, which is still a pretty
serious problem," Obama said, "I don't think anybody would have believed
it."
That grace period appears over. Recent events
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan make it clear that all the charm and
good intentions in the world haven't altered
the fundamental situation.
Six years into the American occupation, there's
still no assurance that Iraq won't careen into civil war after U.S. troops
withdraw.
Sectarian violence has risen ominously. A recent
Pentagon report obtained by The New York Times concluded that only 17 of
175
Iraqi army battalions and two of its 34 National
Police battalions can stand on their own. Surge or no surge, the political
compromises
necessary to sustain democracy haven't been made.
Iraq remains three nations under one name. The
Bush/Cheney team's blunders -- invading on the cheap, bungling the occupation
-- have left the president no good options. They
broke it. But after U.S. troops pull out, Obama will own it.
One thing's for sure - they're Obama's headache now.
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Quotes
"Is it a potential Mexican standoff?
Democrats feel they have the goods on the (Bush bastards) to drag out hearings on what they knew about
Iraq and when. Now Republicans have the goods, presumably, on Nancy Pelosi about what she
knew about interrogation and when. So to avoid mutual self-destruction, both parties cease
and desist."
-- Neil Cavuto, liar and whore,
Link
Pelosi is expendable.
If it can be proven that she knew, she
needs to step down.
Regarding Obama's reversal on releasing the detainees
abuse pictures.
As a loyal democrat and patriot, I find no better
opportunity to resolve the torture issue once and for all than at this
time.
You have 11% approval rate Cheney, running around
espousing how wonderful torture is. You have Colin Powell’s former
chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson completely contradicting,
WITH FACTS, every point Cheney makes regarding torture.
You have Charles Duelfer, former WMD investigator
in Iraq, coming out and saying that the only reason they tortured
detainees was to get an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection.
You have Nancy Pelosi saying the CIA lied to her.
Jesus Bart. What more could you have to win with?
When I have a 2-balls and no strikes count when
pitching, I have the batter right where I want him/her.
This is an 0-2 count, and you want Obama to turn
into Harry Reid?
ha ha No, we can't have that.
Cenk is correct. This is stupid to appease the
generals.
Uh, Obama . . . you’re the Commander in Chief,
remember?
And, at the end of the day, it’s not like the
Republicans can say
the Dems went after them. Cheney started the
whole “Cheney” Reaction.
Sheryl
This reminds me of Clinton and the the gays-in-the-military issue in
1993.
That prick Sam Nunn announced that Clinton would jeep his campaign
promise "Over my dead body." Sam Nunn was busy planting road mines in Clinton's presidency so Bill
was forced to play defense.
Putting the right-and-wrong of it aside for a moment, Should Clinton
have risked his presidency on that? Or was he right to back down, and then go on to have perhaps the last
eight great years my generation will see?
(That's f-ing sad, but probably true.)
Obama handled this clumsily, but "betraying the military" isn't a label
he needs right now.
Like with Clinton, should Obama have risked his presidency and the
next eight years on those photos? If
Obama has a failed presidency, we could be looking at another 4-8 years
of Bush-like nightmares.
I'm thinking he doesn't need another mega-disaster on his plate right
now.
That's just my opinion - your opinion is just as valuable.
Excerpt: Gregory is fascinated by Pelosi, and how shiny
she is! On the matter of her being briefed on torture, Gregory reports
something widely known: "There is no evidence
she was pushing back even internally." But that's only part of the story!
Pelosi is not the onion, she's the peel! There
is no evidence that ANY of the people briefed on these techniques pushed
back,
even internally. One would imagine that watching
Nancy Pelosi sidestep her way through an ungainly press conference
might inspire someone to track down the rest
of those who were briefed and stayed silent.
Gregory reports, "Other people who were [at these
briefings], Republicans who were there, are saying it is clear as day.
What they were asking for and what they were
already doing." Does Gregory not realize that these sources have openly
confessed to the very thing that the press is
trying to hound out of Nancy Pelosi?"
It's the job of the whore press to excuse the crimes of Republicans
and hound Democrats for possible or potential rule infractions.
In other words, 4,300 dead soldiers and an empty Treasury can be excused
but almost-sex with an intern needs to be fully investigated.
"Due to "process" reporting we have learned
that the Torture Years were not the responsibility of the (Bush bastards) the legal counsel who found legal justification
for them, the medical personnel who stood by and watched, the talking heads who justified torture based upon a TV show,
or the actual torturers who unquestioningly did the dirty work. Now the
Village elders have decided that Nancy Pelosi is a
witch who turned us into awful people and by burning her we will be made
whole again." -- TBogg, Link
But isn't Pelsoi held to a higher standard than the GOP
troglodytes?
We expect a Democrat to say no to torture, not encourage it by
assuring
the torturing bastards that they won't be held accountable for
their crimes.
The guy who did that under-the-credit-cards-thimb
cartoon you posted Friday was recently laid off
by his newspaper (the Memphis Commercial Appeal)
and now he can't find another steady job doing
what he does so well. His work is syndicated
but I imagine that's not nearly enough to pay the bills.
He's looking at the possibility of losing his
home.
"One of the biggest mistakes that is made in
Washington is this notion you have to dumb things
down for the public."
-- Obama, who probably had his fingers crossed when he said that, Link
One big reason Gore and Kerry "lost" is they were too smart
and many people wanted to drink a beer with the stupid guy.
Excerpt: The single most pertinent question that Dick
Cheney is never asked -- at least not by the admiring interviewers he has
encountered so far
-- is whether he, Rumsfeld and Bush used torture
to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. As he tours television studios,
radio stations and
conservative think tanks, the former vice-president
hopes to persuade America that only waterboarding kept us safe for seven
years.
Yet evidence is mounting that under Cheney’s direction,
"enhanced interrogation" was not used only to prevent imminent acts of
terror
or collect actionable intelligence -- the aims
that he constantly emphasizes -- but to invent evidence that would link
al-Qaida with Saddam
and connect the late Iraqi dictator to the 9/11
attacks.
In one report after another, from journalists,
former administration officials and Senate investigators, the same theme
continues to emerge:
Whenever a prisoner believed to possess any knowledge
of al-Qaida’s operations or Iraqi intelligence came into American custody,
CIA interrogators felt intense pressure from
the Bush White House to produce evidence of an Iraq-Qaida relationship
(which contradicted
everything that U.S. intelligence and other experts
knew about the enmity between Saddam’s Baath Party and Osama bin Laden’s
jihadists).
Indeed, the futile quest for proof of that connection
is the common thread running through the gruesome stories of torture from
Gitmo to
Egyptian prisons to the CIA's black sites in
Thailand and elsewhere.
Joe has a good point.
If only Cheney would agree to a interview with a harsh interrogator
- like Letterman or Jon Stewart.
Excerpt: Anyone who has ever wasted good money on a clunker
knows the feeling. It's like a swift-kick in the groin followed
by weeks of fist-pounding rage. It's called buyer's
remorse; "Gawd, I wish I hadn't bought that piece of dogshite!"
No doubt there are a lot of former-Obama supporters
feeling that same agonizing sense despair even though it's
been less than three months since President Rainbow
took the oath of office.
What a disaster. Did anyone know it was gonna
be this bad?
For the record; I didn't vote for Obama because
I didn't like the way he backpedaled on wiretapping and because he
promised to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
(Like everyone else who voted for Ralph Nader; I got loads of grief for
it)
But I wanted Obama to succeed. I did. The country
is in too big a mess NOT to hope that he would succeed. But now...?
I think anyone who voted for Nader has given up their right to complain.
But, Obama is going to get his share of Democratic backstabbing, and
maybe more than his share.
It's my opinion Obama ran on a all-things-to-all-people platform and
naturally he'll pay for that as
those idealists get their dreams crushed by the harsh political realities
of the day.
Many Obama voters saw him as the "perfect" candidate and it turns out
he's human.
Bart, Russ Feingold said, "From what I've heard
so far, these photos should be released."
Somehow this reminds me of the videos kids make
of their malicious and vicious behaviour in order to memorialize their
stupidity.
Susan
Ain't life a bitch?
The cops want to arrest teenagers for "sexting" nude photos of themselves
but sexually torturing helpless prisoners left in your "care" goes
unpunished.
"I will buy Hawaii, Obama's birthplace, from
the United States and lease it to the Israelis who will go to live
there - so that they don't kill children in Gaza."
-- 12 year old Iranian presidential candidate Kourosh Mozouni,
Link
I see a couple of problems here:
Kid, you owe me $5 for stealing
my idea
Hawaii isn't for sale, but there's
plenty of land in Oklahoma that is
They don't want safety
- they want to be surrounded by millions of Arabs who want them
dead.
You see, the non-existant God "gave" them that "sacred
sand" and that means more to them than
watching their kids grow up safely and having kids
of their own.
It's called "religious insanity" and it's as common as
sand over there.
Pelosi should be thrown out of office for being
bone stupid.
If I were being briefed by the CIA, I'd ask for
a ttenographer, so as to have a paper record of any classified briefing.
Keep the transcript classified if you must,
but make a transcript and have everyone at the meeting sign it.
IF/When the day comes, you can just ask the President
to declassify those transcripts and use them in your defense.
No Stenographer, no meeting. Plain and simple.
Pelosi could've saved herself a LOT of trouble
just by thinking ahead.
And we thought Bush was the dumbest official
in Washington?
--dave, temporarily in Ashland,
OR
Yes, she HAS to have a way to record that meeting - otherwise the CIA
dude could ask for a meeting,
and ask, "So,
how's the kids and the family life going?"
and claimed he totally briefed her on everything.
If she's too stupid to defend herself against
lying Fascist dogs, then she ought not to be speaker.
Obama released the memos, so I thought:
"He's GOT to be one of the good guys. He could
have tried to cover up the crimes."
Then, Obama hid the pictures, so I thought:
"He's compromised. He's covering up the crimes." Now, I'm hoping this is all part of a grand political
strategy to ensure war crimes are prosecuted.
Every time you endorse Obama, you give me hope.
Every time Obama plays the game, I lose it.
Guess I'll keep reading BartCop.
Thanks,
Olivier in New Brunswick, Canada
Excerpt: When Obama reversed himself on releasing photos
of U.S. soldiers abusing detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq, he offered
the usual "patriotic" excuse, that the images
might fuel anti-Americanism and cost the lives of U.S. soldiers.
That argument has a powerful emotional appeal
– especially when juxtaposed against the abstract counterargument regarding
“the public’s right to know” – but the truth
is much more complex than Obama and other advocates for this secrecy acknowledge.
Indeed, one could argue that the sanitizing of
war by both U.S. politicians and the press over the last couple of decades
– supposedly
for “the good of the country” – has contributed
to the deaths of many more U.S. soldiers and foreign civilians than any
disclosure might have...
In my three decades-plus in Washington journalism,
I have witnessed the creeping opportunism behind this claim of doing “what’s
good
for the country,” which usually translates into
keeping unpleasant truths from the American people and spares politicians
and journalists
from the difficult task of having to speak ill
of some U.S. government actions.
But - Obama didn't torture anybody - he's not covering up his
crimes.
I'll ask Bob Parry the same question I asked you, the reader: Should Obama bet his presidency on those photos?
I think that's asking too much.
That's all Obama needs is for word to get out that he's not welcome
on an army base, not welcome
on any navy ship, not welcome to speak to any of the troops - that's
the last thing he needs right now.
I think those photos should've been released, and we can question his
reasoning
but he's not covering up his own crimes so let's remember that..
Last week, Cheney said that he would choose Rush
Limbaugh over Colin Powell when it comes to
the future vision of the Republican Party. George
W. Bush and Cheney did such a good job of destroying
the Republican Party that, as a Democrat, I have
encouraged Republicans to listen to Cheney.
In a party in which failure is considered to be
the new success, I wish Cheney all the success he deserves.
Marc Perkel
San Bruno
Thanks to Tally for spotting that.
Good luck in Vegas, Tally!
I'm rather disturbed about Obama's "compromise"
to the religious right to "offer a conscience exemption to Americans
who think abortion is wrong". What Obama doesn't
understand is the medical care is about the patient and not about the doctor.
Are we now going to allow Jehovah's Witness doctors
to refuse to give a blood transfusion to a bleeding patient because
the doctor has a moral problem? Do we allow Seventh
Day Adventist doctors to refuse to work on Saturday?
Obama is so willing to please everyone that he
loses track of the fact that the person who gets to choose is the patient.
If the doctor can't provide for the wishes of
the patient then they should get a job as a priest and stay out of medicine.
The last thing we need are Christian doctors
imposing their moral values on Atheists or Atheist doctors imposing their
moral values on Christians. Different people
have different values and who gets to choose?
The patient chooses. Not the doctor, not the government,
not God, not Obama. My body, my life, my choice.
I agree with Perkel.
We have pharmacists who don't want to dispense the Morning After pill.
Once we start making exceptions, we'll have doctors and nurses and
orderlies
refusing to assist certain patients and that's not how the medical
field should work.
What's next?
Born again pilots who refuse to fly passengers who aren't saved?
If you can't handle the job, find a new profession.
The pro-torture people, the Christians, are also
more likely to spank their kids.
The idea is the same:
"Do what I demand or I'll burn your ass with
a boatload of pain."
Think of it - the sexual humiliation of having
to drop your pants and bare your ass, perhaps even
in front of your brothers and sisters, and then
the intense pain to go with the humiliation?
All that's missing is Lyndie England smoking a cigarette.
On last night's Survivor finale, (I know
none of you watch - just like none of you watch America Idol :)
young J.T. from rural Alabama was faced with
a choice - do I keep my word or do I win the million dollars?
Turns out he did both.
Against conventional wisdom, he took the stronger
player to the finals, which impressed the jury,
but then the ungrateful rival repaid his kindness
by turning into a shark and stabbing him in the back.
The Moonie Times is co-hosting a seven-night Caribbean
cruise, "The Cruise for America," featuring some of the
lying-est pieces of crap in America. In addition,
I'll be bringing a couple of our top reporters to join in the discussion,
a chance for you to tell us what news matters
most to you.
This is an unprecedented opportunity for you to
affect public opinion across America. The Cruise For America speakers
regularly whore themselves out on FOX, CNN, MSNBC
and BBC. They write syndicated shit, NYT bestselling shinola
and advise government officials on things like
torture being OK..
And they want to hear from you. They want to know
what is on your mind. Your ideas, your opinions for moving America forward.
The Cruise For America is providing you with
once-in-a-lifetime access to a group of top political minds and influential
personalities.
The first time Nixon was elected President he
listened to his experienced advisors on the issue of hard drugs and chose
treatment over incarceration. He also gave
the green light to methadone clinics so people could meet their needs and
not
engage in crime to do so. Because people
realized they could get help and not jail, heroin and other hard drugs
use dropped.
The blue ribbon panel of conservative scientists
he convened to investigate marijuana use recommended decriminalization;
it was shelved, ignored.
When he was up for re-election he ran on a ‘get-tough-on-crime’
platform coupled with the realization that 15-20% of the
returning Viet Nam vets may be hooked on heroin
and started to back –off. Carter did nothing different but the election
of Reagan meant all the clinics were closed and
all the money diverted to interdiction and a massive expansion of government
into people’s lives, which, even under Clinton,
has continued to grow, unabated.
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It's going to be a weird week - I have appointments every day
so my schedule will be iffy
but I'm also recording some Bartcop Radio because I'm losing subscribers
due to the economy.
I don't know if more radio shows means fewer subscription losses but
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