SaltonSeaSaga: "'Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.'
Wendell Berry"
I met Sam on his photo shoot at Salton Sea Beach, and me being just a hobbyist photographer, I introduced myself. He said simply that he was a writer and photojournalist. He did not elaborate, but told me to go to his site, http://www.samlow.com ----
His article is an accurate depiction of the plight of the Salton Sea.
Jim
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
I think it's important that the Republicans, who unanimously opposed passage of this bill, read this post gleaned from the blog of Michael Moore. Too bad, I say. Just too damned bad. Cry in your beer.
The Great Thing About the Health Care Law That Has Passed? It Will Save Republican Lives, Too (An Open Letter to Republicans from Michael Moore)
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:
Thanks to last night's vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.
Thanks to last night's vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.
Thanks to last night's vote, after your cancer returns for the third time -- racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive -- your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.
Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we've made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you're upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that's a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I'm sure he could make that into a movie for you.
But the reality is that these health insurance companies have only one mission: To take as much money from you as they can -- and then work like demons to deny you whatever coverage and help they can should you get sick.
So, when you find yourself suddenly broadsided by a life-threatening illness someday, perhaps you'll thank those pinko-socialist, Canadian-loving Democrats and independents for what they did Sunday evening.
If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They'll also get to cap an individual's annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they'll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren't poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It's truly a banner day for these corporations.
So don't feel too bad. We're a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered -- and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won't be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that's ok with you.
If you don't mind, we're now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business -- because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, "How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?"
Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We're doing better. And we're doing it for you, too.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
The Great Thing About the Health Care Law That Has Passed? It Will Save Republican Lives, Too (An Open Letter to Republicans from Michael Moore)
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:
Thanks to last night's vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.
Thanks to last night's vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.
Thanks to last night's vote, after your cancer returns for the third time -- racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive -- your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.
Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we've made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you're upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that's a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I'm sure he could make that into a movie for you.
But the reality is that these health insurance companies have only one mission: To take as much money from you as they can -- and then work like demons to deny you whatever coverage and help they can should you get sick.
So, when you find yourself suddenly broadsided by a life-threatening illness someday, perhaps you'll thank those pinko-socialist, Canadian-loving Democrats and independents for what they did Sunday evening.
If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They'll also get to cap an individual's annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they'll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren't poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It's truly a banner day for these corporations.
So don't feel too bad. We're a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered -- and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won't be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that's ok with you.
If you don't mind, we're now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business -- because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, "How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?"
Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We're doing better. And we're doing it for you, too.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
Friday, February 26, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
The problem with the banks is really very simple, but politicians try to mask it with complicated terminology. In a free market economy we must let businesses that make bad decisions suffer the consequences. These banks are owned by shareholders who have taken on the potential risk and reward of these banks. We have the FDIC that offers limited protection up to $100,000 per account to prevent a run on the bank, and to protect the majority of people’s savings. The biggest part of the problem is the “savior” mentality, that we can save these banks. The best way to have sustainable banks is to allow them to fail if that is the result of their bad business decisions.
— Chris Lyons
— Chris Lyons
After today's disastrous ruling by the supreme court that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, we are now, officially, a fascist state. (The definition of fascism is the combining of corporations, governments and the military.) Once the corporations own the government our military becomes their beck and call billy club around the world for their profits--not only that but with this kind of influence they will only allow those who will agree to transfer the greatest amounts of our collective tax wealth to them through wars, contracts, subsidies, etc. They will have it all and social safety nets will be drastically reduced to feed this horrible beast.
We need a constitutional amendment and we need for everyone in this country to sign onto the idea. So when you get this email, if you will copy and paste it into a new mail each time so it doesn't end up as one of those indented messes after 10 reiterations, that would be great. People for the American Way are starting an action page to get the word out and to take action against this anti-democratic abortion that has been inflicted upon us. I really hope you sign on and pass this on to EVERYONE. it is the most important email I have ever sent; yes, even more important than the contamination of our food sources with (genetic mutation) and chemicals because now that company will own Washington. It is the end of America and democracy if we allow this decision to stand. We may as well be piss ants for the corporations to burn under their magnifying glasses as they laugh all the way to the bank with our tax dollars. They've gotten a lions share of them for many years not but you ain't seen nothing yet. If we can't change this, it is the beginning of the end.
Pigs at the trough.
Shelley
Jim Pankey, USN (Ret.)
http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Amend&autologin=true
We need a constitutional amendment and we need for everyone in this country to sign onto the idea. So when you get this email, if you will copy and paste it into a new mail each time so it doesn't end up as one of those indented messes after 10 reiterations, that would be great. People for the American Way are starting an action page to get the word out and to take action against this anti-democratic abortion that has been inflicted upon us. I really hope you sign on and pass this on to EVERYONE. it is the most important email I have ever sent; yes, even more important than the contamination of our food sources with (genetic mutation) and chemicals because now that company will own Washington. It is the end of America and democracy if we allow this decision to stand. We may as well be piss ants for the corporations to burn under their magnifying glasses as they laugh all the way to the bank with our tax dollars. They've gotten a lions share of them for many years not but you ain't seen nothing yet. If we can't change this, it is the beginning of the end.
Pigs at the trough.
Shelley
Jim Pankey, USN (Ret.)
http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Amend&autologin=true
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Listen to Dick Cheney now, denying that the Bush administration used torture. What a sonofabitch. We have a PRESIDENT who is loathe to start an investigation into the lawbreaking actions (too numerous to mention) of the Bush administration. We have a PRESIDENT who seems to be hiding behind the White House curtains, which are still as opaque as when Bush was president.
When are the politicians going to be held accountable--when are investigations going to reveal the truth? Probably never. I am considering moving out of the former United States of America---I'm tired of the trickery and slickery dickery cocksuckers running the country into ruin. I'm tired of promises, lies, and deceit. If they can't be held responsible, how are the citizens of the country to react?
Jim Pankey, USN (Ret.)
When are the politicians going to be held accountable--when are investigations going to reveal the truth? Probably never. I am considering moving out of the former United States of America---I'm tired of the trickery and slickery dickery cocksuckers running the country into ruin. I'm tired of promises, lies, and deceit. If they can't be held responsible, how are the citizens of the country to react?
Jim Pankey, USN (Ret.)
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Rush Limbaugh: 20 Years of Lies and Hate
Saturday, 02 August 2008
Jeff Koopersmith reviews OxyContin addict Rush Limbaugh's twenty years of hate-filled moronic mockery that has helped destroy our nation.
Welcome, Wingnuts!
And props to the good people at propeller.com and American Review who are sending all this great Web traffic our way. We're compiling the funniest and stupidest hate mail you've been sending our way for our very popular Cro-Magnon Mail feature! And remember to visit us regularly… but only after you've taken your blood pressure and psych meds; APJ takes no responsibility for health problems caused by exposure to the truth.
August 2, 2008 – Geneva (apj.us) – The dim bulbs at Human Events had to think of something to celebrate this week so they could send their several hundred readers more spam from their “advertisers” – which include fraudulent “health care providers” and everyone who types for them giving away their stockpiled books which never sell, for free.
Human Events also had to find a hero, which is a difficult thing for the ultra right. Father Coughlan, Heinrich Himmler and Joe McCarthy are all dead, so they chose today's outstanding hate monger: Rush Limbaugh, the radio drug addict who used his maid as his “connection” to buy illegal heroin-based drugs and risked her life in doing so.
Of course, we could count of Ann Coulter – the wannabee Rush – so in love with that pig that she moved next door to him a few years ago. Of course, Rush lives in a house – a thirty million dollar compound. Ann lives in a dump – a two family atrocity on a questionable street in Palm Beach which lost half it’s value the moment she bought it. Of course, Rush must have been delighted she moved sort of “into the neighborhood.” Now they can have lunch or dinner together in a real restaurant instead of having to make bologna sandwiches at home. You see, when Rush first moved to Palm Beach he found out that when he walked into a restaurant, half the people would walk out, shouting at him – even threatening him.
In other words, Rush is a pariah – even in Republican stronghold Palm Beach. Coulter is a piranha and a pariah. Together they can at least try to go out without being stoned by people who don’t think that Condi Rice is a God.
To get to the point – Ann felt she just had to really kiss the very fat rump of Limbaugh this week, so she decided to rewrite history and claim that Rush “invented radio”.
In a way, that’s true. Limbaugh invented modern hate radio, radio for the stupid and insane, radio the paranoid and ignorant, radio for those fearful of change and longong for a return to the imaginary “values” of a past America, and radio that liberals love to listen to – because Rush is just one big comedy act to us. Dark humor it’s called.
Ann Coulter thinks that Rush’s “story” is like something from a movie. She actually writes, in a breathless gush worthy of Leni Riefensthal, “Forging his own path against all odds and under constant attack, in the end, the hero triumphs!”
The reader barfs.
I think what she meant was that he was fired over and over again for unacceptable deceitfulness and bigotry and finally, after this mode became popular in certain redneck parts of California, he finally found his niche: appeal to the dumbest asses on earth and make them think they’re brain surgeon material.
The father of Western education, John Locke, said it best: “The masses are asses”.
Ann mentions that she clerked for a federal court judge in Kansas City after she barely made it out of law school. She probably did that because, deep down, she wanted to be a prosecutor – and imprison all those black people who used and sold drugs so white people could be safe, white people like Limbaugh who could freak out all day and night on Oxycontin by using his poor maid as a drug mule – and get away with it.
I might mention that the judge she clerked for, Pasco Bowman II, was a Reagan appointee and, just by chance (wink wink), his court – the 8th Circuit Court in St. Louis, made up of Pasco Bowman, James Loken and Clarence Beam – accommodated Big Loser Kenneth Starr by removing Judge Henry Woods of Little Rock from one of Starr's sham Whitewater frauds.
Judge Bowman was frightened that Judge Woods would be far too smart for Starr’s weasel-based fables. Starr was known to be most interested finding the “Right,” as in a right wing Judge rather than finding justice. Even that ruse failed – and Coulter was probably part of it in one way or another (let's not forget Ann's role in passing around tapes of “private” conversations between Monica Lewinsky and Divine lookalike Linda “Judas” Tripp). Starr couldn’t find even a corrupt judge who would listen seriously to his hoodwink arguments.
Anyway, Coulter lets us in on what must be the world’s best kept secret: that Rush is part of the “prominent” Limbaugh family! She claims every lawyer in the Midwest has heard of the Limbaughs. Wow! Well I guess every family has to have at least one disgrace and Rush is it.
Coulter claims that Rush “spurned” the law, spurned college and “went on radio.”
She forgets why he “spurned the law and college” – but if I told you why you wouldn’t believe me. I will anyway: he was a clown. The funniest conclusion Ms. Coulter draws here that Limbaugh laughed at education – “because he wanted to” – this, naturally, being evidence that he was a “conservative.”
Huh? Well, I guess that is correct in a way – the so-called conservatives who have somehow become Neofascists in the last thirty years do just that, don’t they? They do whatever they feel like: declaring illegal wars, killing a million innocent women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing the Constitution in the toilet, enriching themselves personally drenched in the blood of our soldiers who they make believe they care for, destroying America’s economy, and making the world detest our wonderful country.
Yes, those conservatives! They do what they want.
Even Coulter has to admit – and she does – that Limbaugh was fired over and over again from radio – not because of his “distinctive brand of conservatism,” but for hate-baiting blacks, gays, lesbians, liberals (also known as people who can read and comprehend rather than using Cliff Notes), and any other typical Nazi target he could find.
Liberals never said that Rush was in radio for the money as Coulter claims. Liberals believed Rush should be exposed for the fraud he is: a liar, a bigot, a hate-filled evil fat clown, and worse.
Coulter believes Rush Limbaugh is a success. Of course she does – because people like her measure success by how much money you earn. Rush earned every nickel and he did it by hawking fraudulent and misleading products. Reliable companies that advertised on radio wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole. I’ve always wondered how much money his kind of advertisers stole from Rush’s audience – who, by definition, must be dumber than wood.
This is Coulter’s best sentence: “Perhaps some of Rush’s imitators are in it for the money, but when Rush was coming up, there was absolutely no reason to believe three hours of conservative talk radio was the path to big bucks.”
She forgot to add – imitators “like me”
Coulter thanks Limbaugh for making it “easier” for people like her to become successful at bigotry and hate mongering. I guess he deserves her thanks, but that’s like saying that Hitler made it easier for Saddam or George W. Bush for that matter.
She applauds Rush for “flushing out” liberals and making us use our “talking points” against him. This is her biggest lie. In fact, we liberals love Rush’s free-for-all use of the radio waves – he makes liberals look smarter every day. How Coulter can use the word “us” referring to herself and Rush is the biggest laugh.
Here’s a fact: Coulter is nothing. Limbaugh, like Stalin, is monumental – a monumental hate-filled fraud.
Coulter goes on with her weasel comparisons – “there was no FOX News, no Drudge Report. Rush just had to stand there taking the bullets by himself.” Bullets? You mean Treasury Bills, don’t you?
Even more ridiculous is putting Matt Drudge in a league alongside FOX. As I recall, FOX briefly broadcast Drudge – then fired him! Further, Drudge often tells the truth – which is more than I can say for Coulter or Limbaugh. Both are merely hired ideological whores for evil in my judgment.
I’m not sure anyone criticizes Mr. Limbaugh any longer. Why bother? He’s now a bit player on a very big stage. There are so many Rush Limbaughs who are so much dumber and more mean-spirited than he that he’s merely another egg in the rotten dozen. Look at Sean Hannity, for instance: a high school dropout thug with an IQ that matches my dog’s.
As for Coulter’s rehash of how “large” the Neocon audience is today, I remind her that her ludicrous books are taking up a football field’s size warehouse and that Rush’s numbers are way down. However, he is popular.
Again, “the Masses are Asses” – or at least that’s the theory Rush works from, the same one that thrust Hitler to power: “the Big Lie.” Rush is the certainly one of the biggest liars.
Coulter couldn’t find any recent criticism of Limbaugh because no one really cares to bother. So, she dug up a 17 year-old list of criticisms against conservatives from a world renowned news source, The Syracuse Post-Standard, that published a list of Rush-based tag lines. I won’t bother you with the full list, but she misses the point – as usual – because she measures success by money. That’s the only thing she knows. She counters Limbaugh’s thoughtful critics not by defending his hate-mongering, but by reminding us how much money he has accrued.
As always, in these days of Obama, Coulter manages to inject some anti-black racism into her column, this time talking about Limbaugh’s lies and hate speech and actually quoting him: “When the [black] illegitimacy rate is raised, the Rev. Jackson and other black leaders immediately change the subject."
Then Coulter follows telling us that Jesse Jackson decries “children having children”?
Yes, and…?
She must be drinking again.
Coulter feels that liberals believe Rush Limbaugh is stupid. This is absolutely not true. Limbaugh is uneducated. He is a dolt. He knows nothing of what he speaks about. Yet he isn’t at all stupid. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer – a clown, a Bozo of bluster, a hate-filled puppet who does a great job of it.
I would wager he is close to genius on that scale – but then, so are a lot of serial killers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.
Saturday, 02 August 2008
Jeff Koopersmith reviews OxyContin addict Rush Limbaugh's twenty years of hate-filled moronic mockery that has helped destroy our nation.
Welcome, Wingnuts!
And props to the good people at propeller.com and American Review who are sending all this great Web traffic our way. We're compiling the funniest and stupidest hate mail you've been sending our way for our very popular Cro-Magnon Mail feature! And remember to visit us regularly… but only after you've taken your blood pressure and psych meds; APJ takes no responsibility for health problems caused by exposure to the truth.
August 2, 2008 – Geneva (apj.us) – The dim bulbs at Human Events had to think of something to celebrate this week so they could send their several hundred readers more spam from their “advertisers” – which include fraudulent “health care providers” and everyone who types for them giving away their stockpiled books which never sell, for free.
Human Events also had to find a hero, which is a difficult thing for the ultra right. Father Coughlan, Heinrich Himmler and Joe McCarthy are all dead, so they chose today's outstanding hate monger: Rush Limbaugh, the radio drug addict who used his maid as his “connection” to buy illegal heroin-based drugs and risked her life in doing so.
Of course, we could count of Ann Coulter – the wannabee Rush – so in love with that pig that she moved next door to him a few years ago. Of course, Rush lives in a house – a thirty million dollar compound. Ann lives in a dump – a two family atrocity on a questionable street in Palm Beach which lost half it’s value the moment she bought it. Of course, Rush must have been delighted she moved sort of “into the neighborhood.” Now they can have lunch or dinner together in a real restaurant instead of having to make bologna sandwiches at home. You see, when Rush first moved to Palm Beach he found out that when he walked into a restaurant, half the people would walk out, shouting at him – even threatening him.
In other words, Rush is a pariah – even in Republican stronghold Palm Beach. Coulter is a piranha and a pariah. Together they can at least try to go out without being stoned by people who don’t think that Condi Rice is a God.
To get to the point – Ann felt she just had to really kiss the very fat rump of Limbaugh this week, so she decided to rewrite history and claim that Rush “invented radio”.
In a way, that’s true. Limbaugh invented modern hate radio, radio for the stupid and insane, radio the paranoid and ignorant, radio for those fearful of change and longong for a return to the imaginary “values” of a past America, and radio that liberals love to listen to – because Rush is just one big comedy act to us. Dark humor it’s called.
Ann Coulter thinks that Rush’s “story” is like something from a movie. She actually writes, in a breathless gush worthy of Leni Riefensthal, “Forging his own path against all odds and under constant attack, in the end, the hero triumphs!”
The reader barfs.
I think what she meant was that he was fired over and over again for unacceptable deceitfulness and bigotry and finally, after this mode became popular in certain redneck parts of California, he finally found his niche: appeal to the dumbest asses on earth and make them think they’re brain surgeon material.
The father of Western education, John Locke, said it best: “The masses are asses”.
Ann mentions that she clerked for a federal court judge in Kansas City after she barely made it out of law school. She probably did that because, deep down, she wanted to be a prosecutor – and imprison all those black people who used and sold drugs so white people could be safe, white people like Limbaugh who could freak out all day and night on Oxycontin by using his poor maid as a drug mule – and get away with it.
I might mention that the judge she clerked for, Pasco Bowman II, was a Reagan appointee and, just by chance (wink wink), his court – the 8th Circuit Court in St. Louis, made up of Pasco Bowman, James Loken and Clarence Beam – accommodated Big Loser Kenneth Starr by removing Judge Henry Woods of Little Rock from one of Starr's sham Whitewater frauds.
Judge Bowman was frightened that Judge Woods would be far too smart for Starr’s weasel-based fables. Starr was known to be most interested finding the “Right,” as in a right wing Judge rather than finding justice. Even that ruse failed – and Coulter was probably part of it in one way or another (let's not forget Ann's role in passing around tapes of “private” conversations between Monica Lewinsky and Divine lookalike Linda “Judas” Tripp). Starr couldn’t find even a corrupt judge who would listen seriously to his hoodwink arguments.
Anyway, Coulter lets us in on what must be the world’s best kept secret: that Rush is part of the “prominent” Limbaugh family! She claims every lawyer in the Midwest has heard of the Limbaughs. Wow! Well I guess every family has to have at least one disgrace and Rush is it.
Coulter claims that Rush “spurned” the law, spurned college and “went on radio.”
She forgets why he “spurned the law and college” – but if I told you why you wouldn’t believe me. I will anyway: he was a clown. The funniest conclusion Ms. Coulter draws here that Limbaugh laughed at education – “because he wanted to” – this, naturally, being evidence that he was a “conservative.”
Huh? Well, I guess that is correct in a way – the so-called conservatives who have somehow become Neofascists in the last thirty years do just that, don’t they? They do whatever they feel like: declaring illegal wars, killing a million innocent women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing the Constitution in the toilet, enriching themselves personally drenched in the blood of our soldiers who they make believe they care for, destroying America’s economy, and making the world detest our wonderful country.
Yes, those conservatives! They do what they want.
Even Coulter has to admit – and she does – that Limbaugh was fired over and over again from radio – not because of his “distinctive brand of conservatism,” but for hate-baiting blacks, gays, lesbians, liberals (also known as people who can read and comprehend rather than using Cliff Notes), and any other typical Nazi target he could find.
Liberals never said that Rush was in radio for the money as Coulter claims. Liberals believed Rush should be exposed for the fraud he is: a liar, a bigot, a hate-filled evil fat clown, and worse.
Coulter believes Rush Limbaugh is a success. Of course she does – because people like her measure success by how much money you earn. Rush earned every nickel and he did it by hawking fraudulent and misleading products. Reliable companies that advertised on radio wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole. I’ve always wondered how much money his kind of advertisers stole from Rush’s audience – who, by definition, must be dumber than wood.
This is Coulter’s best sentence: “Perhaps some of Rush’s imitators are in it for the money, but when Rush was coming up, there was absolutely no reason to believe three hours of conservative talk radio was the path to big bucks.”
She forgot to add – imitators “like me”
Coulter thanks Limbaugh for making it “easier” for people like her to become successful at bigotry and hate mongering. I guess he deserves her thanks, but that’s like saying that Hitler made it easier for Saddam or George W. Bush for that matter.
She applauds Rush for “flushing out” liberals and making us use our “talking points” against him. This is her biggest lie. In fact, we liberals love Rush’s free-for-all use of the radio waves – he makes liberals look smarter every day. How Coulter can use the word “us” referring to herself and Rush is the biggest laugh.
Here’s a fact: Coulter is nothing. Limbaugh, like Stalin, is monumental – a monumental hate-filled fraud.
Coulter goes on with her weasel comparisons – “there was no FOX News, no Drudge Report. Rush just had to stand there taking the bullets by himself.” Bullets? You mean Treasury Bills, don’t you?
Even more ridiculous is putting Matt Drudge in a league alongside FOX. As I recall, FOX briefly broadcast Drudge – then fired him! Further, Drudge often tells the truth – which is more than I can say for Coulter or Limbaugh. Both are merely hired ideological whores for evil in my judgment.
I’m not sure anyone criticizes Mr. Limbaugh any longer. Why bother? He’s now a bit player on a very big stage. There are so many Rush Limbaughs who are so much dumber and more mean-spirited than he that he’s merely another egg in the rotten dozen. Look at Sean Hannity, for instance: a high school dropout thug with an IQ that matches my dog’s.
As for Coulter’s rehash of how “large” the Neocon audience is today, I remind her that her ludicrous books are taking up a football field’s size warehouse and that Rush’s numbers are way down. However, he is popular.
Again, “the Masses are Asses” – or at least that’s the theory Rush works from, the same one that thrust Hitler to power: “the Big Lie.” Rush is the certainly one of the biggest liars.
Coulter couldn’t find any recent criticism of Limbaugh because no one really cares to bother. So, she dug up a 17 year-old list of criticisms against conservatives from a world renowned news source, The Syracuse Post-Standard, that published a list of Rush-based tag lines. I won’t bother you with the full list, but she misses the point – as usual – because she measures success by money. That’s the only thing she knows. She counters Limbaugh’s thoughtful critics not by defending his hate-mongering, but by reminding us how much money he has accrued.
As always, in these days of Obama, Coulter manages to inject some anti-black racism into her column, this time talking about Limbaugh’s lies and hate speech and actually quoting him: “When the [black] illegitimacy rate is raised, the Rev. Jackson and other black leaders immediately change the subject."
Then Coulter follows telling us that Jesse Jackson decries “children having children”?
Yes, and…?
She must be drinking again.
Coulter feels that liberals believe Rush Limbaugh is stupid. This is absolutely not true. Limbaugh is uneducated. He is a dolt. He knows nothing of what he speaks about. Yet he isn’t at all stupid. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer – a clown, a Bozo of bluster, a hate-filled puppet who does a great job of it.
I would wager he is close to genius on that scale – but then, so are a lot of serial killers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.
a bill went before the senate yesterday that would allow homeowners who
are facing foreclosure to file bankruptcy so that a court could
renegotiate the terms of their contract with the banks. this is common
for all business and for people who own 2 or more homes, yachts, jets,
etc. anyone rich may file bankruptcy if they find themselves in
trouble.. the house of representatives passed this bill overwhelmingly
with more than a 2/3rds majority. in the senate, corporate democrats
crossed party lines to vote with 100% of republicans for the banks and
not for the people. they did not pass this bill and they did not pass
it because they are in the pockets of the banks. (they're also trying
to keep a bill protecting consumers from predatory lenders credit card,
rate hikes and fees, bogged down as well. we know who republicans work
for, now we're finding out who the corporatist democrats are working for
too.) we cannot stop the economic melt down until the banks take the
losses for the bad, unsustainable loans they made. they must
renegotiate terms so people can stay in their homes. they need to take
their losses and stop foreclosing on the American people because they
know that the government will keep throwing money at them to make sure
they don't have to take that loss. until that loss is taken, any
recovery is just an illusion based on another empty bubble.
here are a list of the democrats who voted against the people and for
the banks. please pass this on so that people who voted for these
crooks will know them come next election and give them the boot they
deserve. if we'd wanted corporate interest and corporate interest along
served, we would have voted for republicans AGAIN.
Baucus, Bennet, Byrd, Carper, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson
(NE), Pryor, and Tester.
From Shelley's blog...
are facing foreclosure to file bankruptcy so that a court could
renegotiate the terms of their contract with the banks. this is common
for all business and for people who own 2 or more homes, yachts, jets,
etc. anyone rich may file bankruptcy if they find themselves in
trouble.. the house of representatives passed this bill overwhelmingly
with more than a 2/3rds majority. in the senate, corporate democrats
crossed party lines to vote with 100% of republicans for the banks and
not for the people. they did not pass this bill and they did not pass
it because they are in the pockets of the banks. (they're also trying
to keep a bill protecting consumers from predatory lenders credit card,
rate hikes and fees, bogged down as well. we know who republicans work
for, now we're finding out who the corporatist democrats are working for
too.) we cannot stop the economic melt down until the banks take the
losses for the bad, unsustainable loans they made. they must
renegotiate terms so people can stay in their homes. they need to take
their losses and stop foreclosing on the American people because they
know that the government will keep throwing money at them to make sure
they don't have to take that loss. until that loss is taken, any
recovery is just an illusion based on another empty bubble.
here are a list of the democrats who voted against the people and for
the banks. please pass this on so that people who voted for these
crooks will know them come next election and give them the boot they
deserve. if we'd wanted corporate interest and corporate interest along
served, we would have voted for republicans AGAIN.
Baucus, Bennet, Byrd, Carper, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson
(NE), Pryor, and Tester.
From Shelley's blog...
Friday, April 17, 2009
'TORTURE MEMOs'
I voted for Obama, thinking he would get us out of Iraq, thinking he would pursue criminal charges against the Bush regime for torture policies (see the TORTURE MEMO---how would you like your son or daughter to be subject to that cruel and inhuman treatment?) and spying against the citizens of the U.S.
I was wrong. Obama seems hell bent to appease the Republicans and drink their tea.
With such policies of continued appeasement of criminality and ignoring the law, we have everything to fear.
Jim
I voted for Obama, thinking he would get us out of Iraq, thinking he would pursue criminal charges against the Bush regime for torture policies (see the TORTURE MEMO---how would you like your son or daughter to be subject to that cruel and inhuman treatment?) and spying against the citizens of the U.S.
I was wrong. Obama seems hell bent to appease the Republicans and drink their tea.
With such policies of continued appeasement of criminality and ignoring the law, we have everything to fear.
Jim
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Deliverance from the Fox in the Hen House
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The verge of bankruptcy brought me to California. Spurred by a boom-and-bust cycle in western Colorado, packing up the kids and the trailer and moving further West was the only way to survive.Looking back now, dueling banjos play the tune from "Deliverance" in my head, providing levity -- for a brief moment. But the parallels between then and now are no laughing matter.
Place: Western Colorado.
Time: Early 1980s.
Political situation: Arab oil embargo; President Jimmy Carter initiated the Synfuels Corporation -- a publicly-funded investment bank designed to free Americans of dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
Plan: Pump 88 Billion dollars of tax payer's money into Synfuels to encourage domestic fuel production. In Colorado, it was oil shale, a sedimentary rock that can be heated to release hydrocarbons that can be distilled into synthetic oil.
Problem: Heads of major oil companies flooded into Grand Junction with joy abundant, an implausible plan, and both hands held out. Trusting those in the oil industry to find alternative forms of domestic fuel was not a good idea. Jimmy Carter trusted the fox to guard the hen house.
Thus, the oil shale industry was born, bringing tens of thousands of people and hundreds of businesses to western Colorado. By golly, it was a boom! Towns with names such as Rangeley and Rifle were born -- prosperity for all! Reporters were silent.
But this is where the Rorschach test pattern, which looked like a picture of progress and hope at first, began morphing into demonic ink blots painting a long-term picture of despair. We reporters had not put the pixels together...yet.
Ronald Reagan got elected, proclaiming big government was the problem, not the solution, and some key government subsidies were, according to Mr. Reagan, part of that problem. By 1986, the Synfuels program was terminated and the flow of money stopped.
But it was too late. Mountains were bombed and giant grain mill-sized distilleries were filled with shale rocks containing precious fossil fuel.
I witnessed it all as a very green cub reporter. Just 24 years old when the Synfuels program peaked, I found myself gazing up at the skyscraping retort with breathless awe other reporters/cheerleaders openly shared. We hoped it would work. People in Grand Junction were happy and buying lots of everything, including advertising on radio and television.
The retorts roared and shook from the intense heat "experts" assured us would easily seduce the fuel from the shale. What came out? Well, to be proper, it was the sound of deflating tires. To be Colorado Crude, it sounded like a wet fart.
Those who speculated on the rapid boom, those who built the buildings and homes and businesses supporting tens of thousands of newcomers to western Colorado went suddenly, and shockingly, bust.
One acquaintance, who built a high-rise to house oil company executives, took the elevator to the top of his boom-time building and threw himself off. A temporary millionaire, he died a pauper. Does this sound familiar? At this point, the boom was in the rear-view mirror and the only things in demand were a U-Haul trailer and an on-ramp to Interstate 80. The housing market collapsed, jobs evaporated, and my girls and I hit the road -- arriving in the Bay Area, which, ironically, was booming.
Lesson learned: Had reporters done some research and reporting, we might not have lifted our pom-poms with so much enthusiasm when the oil companies came to call. We did not have Google's library at our fingertips, and Grand Junction's Mesa County library did not have books explaining the particulars of oil shale. Oil shale was never a promising source of crude and it was used mostly at that time by backwards Eastern European countries with dictators -- places Like Romania -- where, if one was lucky enough to have a fireplace, the shale rocks were used like coal.
If only I had known then what I know now: that corporate greed is insatiable and when coupled with a little collusion from the government, the little guys paying taxes get a good butt-kicking.
Today, those working to get Wall Street out of trouble are the same people who used to run it. They cannot conceive of any plan other than shoring up an already broken, corrupt, inadequate, unpatriotic, every-man-for-himself system.
Putting Wall Street "experts" in charge of changing Wall Street is much like putting oil company CEOs in charge of finding alternatives to fossil fuels. Is the fox loose in the hen house again?Concerned and cautious of those who criticize without offering potential solutions, here are two from a gal who's seen one too many booms turn into boondoggle.
Most Americans work for corporations. Most corporations require employees to invest their retirement money in the stock market. That should stop. (I hear you gasping!) It's the employees' money; let them do what they want to with it. We now know that even giants fall.
On the housing front, empower average, regular workers, the real worker-bees of this top-heavy management world. Challenge the workers of this country to put their rage and sense of impotence aside and help. How, you ask? Here's one plan.
Why not give those willing to buy repossessed homes at bargain basement prices a one-time pass on capital gains taxes? Construction workers now drawing unemployment checks could do their magic on fixer-uppers and, without paying capital gains, they might be able to sell them and make a few bucks. It's a lot like the formula the "go-to guys" who started this mess are using.Finally, here's my most defining boom and bust cycle lesson. The size of the government has doubled since 1995 and the number of investigative journalists watching over that government has, well, dwindled. That's a formula for more greed and corruption.
Warnings need special delivery from reporters before the tsunami hits and the strumming of the banjos delivers us to despondency. Reporters cannot be government and corporate mouthpieces.
As I write this, down the block from my home sit two repossessed homes. A wonderful, older couple -- both former hippies -- built the homes with their own hands. Strangled by mortgage payments they could not make, they threw the keys on the banker's desk, packed up the U-haul, hugged the neighbors goodbye, and pulled out the driveway looking for the nearest freeway on-ramp. Waving goodbye, I heard the banjo play.
Painfully Ironic P.S: There is talk of reviving the oil shale industry.
Financial Crisis
The Recession
Economy
The verge of bankruptcy brought me to California. Spurred by a boom-and-bust cycle in western Colorado, packing up the kids and the trailer and moving further West was the only way to survive. Looki...
The verge of bankruptcy brought me to California. Spurred by a boom-and-bust cycle in western Colorado, packing up the kids and the trailer and moving further West was the only way to survive. Looki...
More in Politics...
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The verge of bankruptcy brought me to California. Spurred by a boom-and-bust cycle in western Colorado, packing up the kids and the trailer and moving further West was the only way to survive.Looking back now, dueling banjos play the tune from "Deliverance" in my head, providing levity -- for a brief moment. But the parallels between then and now are no laughing matter.
Place: Western Colorado.
Time: Early 1980s.
Political situation: Arab oil embargo; President Jimmy Carter initiated the Synfuels Corporation -- a publicly-funded investment bank designed to free Americans of dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
Plan: Pump 88 Billion dollars of tax payer's money into Synfuels to encourage domestic fuel production. In Colorado, it was oil shale, a sedimentary rock that can be heated to release hydrocarbons that can be distilled into synthetic oil.
Problem: Heads of major oil companies flooded into Grand Junction with joy abundant, an implausible plan, and both hands held out. Trusting those in the oil industry to find alternative forms of domestic fuel was not a good idea. Jimmy Carter trusted the fox to guard the hen house.
Thus, the oil shale industry was born, bringing tens of thousands of people and hundreds of businesses to western Colorado. By golly, it was a boom! Towns with names such as Rangeley and Rifle were born -- prosperity for all! Reporters were silent.
But this is where the Rorschach test pattern, which looked like a picture of progress and hope at first, began morphing into demonic ink blots painting a long-term picture of despair. We reporters had not put the pixels together...yet.
Ronald Reagan got elected, proclaiming big government was the problem, not the solution, and some key government subsidies were, according to Mr. Reagan, part of that problem. By 1986, the Synfuels program was terminated and the flow of money stopped.
But it was too late. Mountains were bombed and giant grain mill-sized distilleries were filled with shale rocks containing precious fossil fuel.
I witnessed it all as a very green cub reporter. Just 24 years old when the Synfuels program peaked, I found myself gazing up at the skyscraping retort with breathless awe other reporters/cheerleaders openly shared. We hoped it would work. People in Grand Junction were happy and buying lots of everything, including advertising on radio and television.
The retorts roared and shook from the intense heat "experts" assured us would easily seduce the fuel from the shale. What came out? Well, to be proper, it was the sound of deflating tires. To be Colorado Crude, it sounded like a wet fart.
Those who speculated on the rapid boom, those who built the buildings and homes and businesses supporting tens of thousands of newcomers to western Colorado went suddenly, and shockingly, bust.
One acquaintance, who built a high-rise to house oil company executives, took the elevator to the top of his boom-time building and threw himself off. A temporary millionaire, he died a pauper. Does this sound familiar? At this point, the boom was in the rear-view mirror and the only things in demand were a U-Haul trailer and an on-ramp to Interstate 80. The housing market collapsed, jobs evaporated, and my girls and I hit the road -- arriving in the Bay Area, which, ironically, was booming.
Lesson learned: Had reporters done some research and reporting, we might not have lifted our pom-poms with so much enthusiasm when the oil companies came to call. We did not have Google's library at our fingertips, and Grand Junction's Mesa County library did not have books explaining the particulars of oil shale. Oil shale was never a promising source of crude and it was used mostly at that time by backwards Eastern European countries with dictators -- places Like Romania -- where, if one was lucky enough to have a fireplace, the shale rocks were used like coal.
If only I had known then what I know now: that corporate greed is insatiable and when coupled with a little collusion from the government, the little guys paying taxes get a good butt-kicking.
Today, those working to get Wall Street out of trouble are the same people who used to run it. They cannot conceive of any plan other than shoring up an already broken, corrupt, inadequate, unpatriotic, every-man-for-himself system.
Putting Wall Street "experts" in charge of changing Wall Street is much like putting oil company CEOs in charge of finding alternatives to fossil fuels. Is the fox loose in the hen house again?Concerned and cautious of those who criticize without offering potential solutions, here are two from a gal who's seen one too many booms turn into boondoggle.
Most Americans work for corporations. Most corporations require employees to invest their retirement money in the stock market. That should stop. (I hear you gasping!) It's the employees' money; let them do what they want to with it. We now know that even giants fall.
On the housing front, empower average, regular workers, the real worker-bees of this top-heavy management world. Challenge the workers of this country to put their rage and sense of impotence aside and help. How, you ask? Here's one plan.
Why not give those willing to buy repossessed homes at bargain basement prices a one-time pass on capital gains taxes? Construction workers now drawing unemployment checks could do their magic on fixer-uppers and, without paying capital gains, they might be able to sell them and make a few bucks. It's a lot like the formula the "go-to guys" who started this mess are using.Finally, here's my most defining boom and bust cycle lesson. The size of the government has doubled since 1995 and the number of investigative journalists watching over that government has, well, dwindled. That's a formula for more greed and corruption.
Warnings need special delivery from reporters before the tsunami hits and the strumming of the banjos delivers us to despondency. Reporters cannot be government and corporate mouthpieces.
As I write this, down the block from my home sit two repossessed homes. A wonderful, older couple -- both former hippies -- built the homes with their own hands. Strangled by mortgage payments they could not make, they threw the keys on the banker's desk, packed up the U-haul, hugged the neighbors goodbye, and pulled out the driveway looking for the nearest freeway on-ramp. Waving goodbye, I heard the banjo play.
Painfully Ironic P.S: There is talk of reviving the oil shale industry.
Financial Crisis
The Recession
Economy
The verge of bankruptcy brought me to California. Spurred by a boom-and-bust cycle in western Colorado, packing up the kids and the trailer and moving further West was the only way to survive. Looki...
The verge of bankruptcy brought me to California. Spurred by a boom-and-bust cycle in western Colorado, packing up the kids and the trailer and moving further West was the only way to survive. Looki...
More in Politics...
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Submitted by Lullaby Academy on Wed, 02/11/2009 - 8:10pm.
from The Huffington Post...
Obama: Reopen the 9/11 Investigation -- Part 1by Melissa RossiFebruary 10, 2009
Patrick Leahy has a point when he urges President Obama to open investigations about the Bush administration. However, he's not pointing at the issue that we need to start with. Namely, September 11th. What really happened? More than a few people know - and I am not alone in calling for those who know to start talking and fess up. Let's not let this go the way of the JFK assassination - and whether with subpoenas or on their own volition, I demand that Dick Cheney, George W. Bush - both of whom refused to testify under oath during the 9/11 Commission proceedings -- Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Larry Wilkerson, George Tenet, Robert Mueller and the rest - as well as Bill Clinton and Al Gore (both of whom also refused to testify under oath) -- start talking, and in a public arena. And I'm calling on the Obama administration to open up a probe and unravel the web of deceit.
Before we tuck the Bush administration into bed and hiss, "Nighty Night, you lying scoundrels," before we go on to lock the door on that heinous era of American history, we do indeed need to probe what happened under their watch. But the event that most concerns me is what happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Oh yeah, that's history, old news, the 9/11 Commission figured it all out, right? Except that members of the 9/11 Commission say it was "set up to fail" and that the investigation was severely hampered. So do assorted former members of the CIA, who demand a fresh look at the events of that day.
So, President Obama - leader of a new era in the United State - serve your people: pull out that can opener and pry open that can of worms.
In following posts, I will outline some of the most mysterious coincidences and events that deserve re-examination - and there are many, including how strange things happen whenever Dick Cheney's around and the missile defense program is slated to be cut as I note here and here. But let's start with the premise that all was not told, and we deserve to know the truth about this catastrophic event that so changed the world -- and boosted the military budget to new highs.
While the Obama administration is fresh - and even though we're all grappling with this economy - I urge Americans to demand that this be a top priority, and not to let Obama shrug off this "mystery" that was cloaked by his predecessor.To be continued....
Obama: Reopen the 9/11 Investigation -- Part 2by Melissa RossiFebruary 11, 2009
So many dastardly acts were committed during the Bush administration (many of them by the Bush administration) that it's hard to nail down the worst. Senator Patrick Leahy recently suggested formation of a "Truth Commission" to investigate the interrogation, torture, and shredding of civil liberties that occurred as part of the Bush administration's "War on Terror" and as Sam Stein reported here directly approached Obama about opening investigations.
I humbly suggest that the Obama administration should start by investigating the event that set the dominoes tumbling and would so shake the world that it would lead to a panicked Congress giving the previous administration a blank check for military funding (which now chomps more tax dollars than anything else in the government budget including Social Security) and a steadfast nod to questionable military adventures that sucked us into a black hole (Iraq and Afghanistan), while Congress effectively shut its eyes to the erosion of Americans' rights, the boosting of power of the executive office, the gagging of the press, and a nonstop disinformation campaign to hoodwink the American people - as well as the Bush administration's approval of extreme treatment of suspects and prisoners that might constitute war crimes.
I'm still troubled by September 11, 2001. Not merely the terrifying events of the attacks that day, but the fact that it still hasn't been fully explained. It could be and it should be. The Bush administration never came clean with "what really happened" - but the Obama administration needs to set history straight on what unfolded that day, and detail the role played by the Bush administration in it.
As more new information has emerged contradicting the official 9/11 Commission report or appearing to fill holes in it - reports about finding the black boxes of the hijacked airplanes, inconsistencies about Flight 93 (did it explode from a bomb onboard, was it shot down, or did it indeed crash as a result of the passenger rebellion?), contradictory reports about the identities of the hijackers and other reports that point to a number of Cheney-commissioned war games ongoing that day that the Bush administration never fully brought to light - and as the weakness of the 9/11 commission itself has come into the public arena -- the Obama administration owes it to the American people to reopen that can of vipers and in this sifting through the events try to figure out what really happened to debunk the fallacies - be they conspiracy theories that don't hold water or the suffocating blanket of disinformation continually dropped on Americans by the Bush administration.
Only with a new investigation into 9/11 can the needed light be shed on this dark moment. This time we need a commission:• that is properly funded (the previous commission started with a piddly $3 million budget compared to $50 million to investigate the Space Shuttle disaster ),• duly empowered (the previous commission, noted its co-chair Lee Hamilton "had a lot of trouble getting access to documents and to people" and was hesitant to use its subpoena power),• given unfettered access to needed information and parties (Bush, Cheney, Bill Clinton and Gore refused to testify under oath),• with members that owe and want no favors to or from the parties involved (executive director of the 9/11 commission Philip Zelikow had been vying for a job with the Bush administration when he served on their transition team in 2000-2001 and post-investigation was appointed to the weighty federal post of counselor of the State Department in 2005).• Willing to "name names" and point fingers• Conduct its hearings in the light of day - not behind closed doors - and make interviews part of the public record.
To aid future historians and to help the American people understand what truly unfolded over the past eight years, to set the record straight and answer the many unanswered questions, we need to petition Obama to spend but a few million dollars to dig further into the details of 9/11. And as part of that investigation, the investigation needs to look long and hard at how the Bush administration's (particularly Dick Cheney's) preoccupation with missile defense, which it was making the number 1 focus of its lobbying efforts, directly influenced the tragedy that unfolded on that tragic Tuesday in September 2001.
Melissa Rossi is the author of What Every American Should Know about the Middle East and What Every American Should Know about Who's Really Running the World, among other books in her series with Plume/Penguin Books.
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You guys know what to do...
Spread this far and wide. This is a breakthrough in the left-hood gatekeeper community. The blocks could start falling real quick now.
The biggest obstacle has been the taboo of the topic. This may help push it through and force it to be confronted in which we know what happens then.
from The Huffington Post...
Obama: Reopen the 9/11 Investigation -- Part 1by Melissa RossiFebruary 10, 2009
Patrick Leahy has a point when he urges President Obama to open investigations about the Bush administration. However, he's not pointing at the issue that we need to start with. Namely, September 11th. What really happened? More than a few people know - and I am not alone in calling for those who know to start talking and fess up. Let's not let this go the way of the JFK assassination - and whether with subpoenas or on their own volition, I demand that Dick Cheney, George W. Bush - both of whom refused to testify under oath during the 9/11 Commission proceedings -- Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Larry Wilkerson, George Tenet, Robert Mueller and the rest - as well as Bill Clinton and Al Gore (both of whom also refused to testify under oath) -- start talking, and in a public arena. And I'm calling on the Obama administration to open up a probe and unravel the web of deceit.
Before we tuck the Bush administration into bed and hiss, "Nighty Night, you lying scoundrels," before we go on to lock the door on that heinous era of American history, we do indeed need to probe what happened under their watch. But the event that most concerns me is what happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Oh yeah, that's history, old news, the 9/11 Commission figured it all out, right? Except that members of the 9/11 Commission say it was "set up to fail" and that the investigation was severely hampered. So do assorted former members of the CIA, who demand a fresh look at the events of that day.
So, President Obama - leader of a new era in the United State - serve your people: pull out that can opener and pry open that can of worms.
In following posts, I will outline some of the most mysterious coincidences and events that deserve re-examination - and there are many, including how strange things happen whenever Dick Cheney's around and the missile defense program is slated to be cut as I note here and here. But let's start with the premise that all was not told, and we deserve to know the truth about this catastrophic event that so changed the world -- and boosted the military budget to new highs.
While the Obama administration is fresh - and even though we're all grappling with this economy - I urge Americans to demand that this be a top priority, and not to let Obama shrug off this "mystery" that was cloaked by his predecessor.To be continued....
Obama: Reopen the 9/11 Investigation -- Part 2by Melissa RossiFebruary 11, 2009
So many dastardly acts were committed during the Bush administration (many of them by the Bush administration) that it's hard to nail down the worst. Senator Patrick Leahy recently suggested formation of a "Truth Commission" to investigate the interrogation, torture, and shredding of civil liberties that occurred as part of the Bush administration's "War on Terror" and as Sam Stein reported here directly approached Obama about opening investigations.
I humbly suggest that the Obama administration should start by investigating the event that set the dominoes tumbling and would so shake the world that it would lead to a panicked Congress giving the previous administration a blank check for military funding (which now chomps more tax dollars than anything else in the government budget including Social Security) and a steadfast nod to questionable military adventures that sucked us into a black hole (Iraq and Afghanistan), while Congress effectively shut its eyes to the erosion of Americans' rights, the boosting of power of the executive office, the gagging of the press, and a nonstop disinformation campaign to hoodwink the American people - as well as the Bush administration's approval of extreme treatment of suspects and prisoners that might constitute war crimes.
I'm still troubled by September 11, 2001. Not merely the terrifying events of the attacks that day, but the fact that it still hasn't been fully explained. It could be and it should be. The Bush administration never came clean with "what really happened" - but the Obama administration needs to set history straight on what unfolded that day, and detail the role played by the Bush administration in it.
As more new information has emerged contradicting the official 9/11 Commission report or appearing to fill holes in it - reports about finding the black boxes of the hijacked airplanes, inconsistencies about Flight 93 (did it explode from a bomb onboard, was it shot down, or did it indeed crash as a result of the passenger rebellion?), contradictory reports about the identities of the hijackers and other reports that point to a number of Cheney-commissioned war games ongoing that day that the Bush administration never fully brought to light - and as the weakness of the 9/11 commission itself has come into the public arena -- the Obama administration owes it to the American people to reopen that can of vipers and in this sifting through the events try to figure out what really happened to debunk the fallacies - be they conspiracy theories that don't hold water or the suffocating blanket of disinformation continually dropped on Americans by the Bush administration.
Only with a new investigation into 9/11 can the needed light be shed on this dark moment. This time we need a commission:• that is properly funded (the previous commission started with a piddly $3 million budget compared to $50 million to investigate the Space Shuttle disaster ),• duly empowered (the previous commission, noted its co-chair Lee Hamilton "had a lot of trouble getting access to documents and to people" and was hesitant to use its subpoena power),• given unfettered access to needed information and parties (Bush, Cheney, Bill Clinton and Gore refused to testify under oath),• with members that owe and want no favors to or from the parties involved (executive director of the 9/11 commission Philip Zelikow had been vying for a job with the Bush administration when he served on their transition team in 2000-2001 and post-investigation was appointed to the weighty federal post of counselor of the State Department in 2005).• Willing to "name names" and point fingers• Conduct its hearings in the light of day - not behind closed doors - and make interviews part of the public record.
To aid future historians and to help the American people understand what truly unfolded over the past eight years, to set the record straight and answer the many unanswered questions, we need to petition Obama to spend but a few million dollars to dig further into the details of 9/11. And as part of that investigation, the investigation needs to look long and hard at how the Bush administration's (particularly Dick Cheney's) preoccupation with missile defense, which it was making the number 1 focus of its lobbying efforts, directly influenced the tragedy that unfolded on that tragic Tuesday in September 2001.
Melissa Rossi is the author of What Every American Should Know about the Middle East and What Every American Should Know about Who's Really Running the World, among other books in her series with Plume/Penguin Books.
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You guys know what to do...
Spread this far and wide. This is a breakthrough in the left-hood gatekeeper community. The blocks could start falling real quick now.
The biggest obstacle has been the taboo of the topic. This may help push it through and force it to be confronted in which we know what happens then.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
From Commondreams.org:
djprof March 27th, 2009 3:14 pm
Like most wars the US has instigated and engaged in via proxy corporate-connected dictators, this war is also an invisible war to most Americans. In relation to real reporting during the Vietnam war: the media tried, and tried very hard to disguise and deceive the public. It simply wasn't as sophisticated in that kind of business, and wasn't as completely controlled by corporations as it is today. There is one question that I feel must be answered in full: What role did the US play in generating what is now a war against terror in Afghanistan? Obama and others might say that it's a moot question; better to focus on what is now. But any shrink will tell you: until and unless the roots of a malady are confronted and resolved, the chance of a long term cure is slim. Obama needs to say what everyone there and throughout much of the world knows; namely that WE, the US of A were the ones who began the whole thing. We did it by funneling vast amounts of money and weapons to religious factions, while encouraging them to foment fundamentalist beliefs. Sure, there have always been fundamentalists (we have more than our share here in the US), but it was the US with the guidance of the CIA who baited the trap for Russia to invade Afghanistan in response to a growing instability associated with extreme fundamentalists. WE were the greatest perpetrators of what is now the war on terror. WE created the terror. And we did it for two main reasons. First, to suck the USSR into a Vietnam type quaigmire that would accelerate its decline. And second, to gain yet another foothold in the countries that surround Iran. Look at the map folks!!! WE were the ones who created Saddam. WE were the ones who courted Pakistan, even though we knew they were developing nuclear bombs. WE were the ones who, again and again, propped up dictators throughout most of the ring of countries surrounding Iran. Turkmenstan is now being courted by western companies for its natural gas (and, of course, the control that goes with it). France is currently hot to trot for the energy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/18/business/AS-Turkmenistan-Franc...
Will Obama address the deep, deep involvement of the US that has brought Afghanistan from a peaceful and beautiful country to the hell hole it now is? Sure! As soon as he addresses our true motives for decimating Iraq, maintaining the best of ties with Saudi Arabia- that land of true 'corporate democracy/ AKA fascism), and labeling Iran as the world's leading exporter of terrorism. This is all such a crock of merde!!! We march into any country, under any pretense no matter how absurd, destroy that country, and yet, should a neighbor of that country try to help it resist, it is labeled a terrorist state. This economic meltdown has a silver lining to it: As falls the value of the dollar, so falls the power the US has to continue it rape of other countries. And as those rapes decline, the raping of Americans who are not among the elite will accelerate. Painful to watch it happen. But countries have karma just s people do.
djprof March 27th, 2009 3:14 pm
Like most wars the US has instigated and engaged in via proxy corporate-connected dictators, this war is also an invisible war to most Americans. In relation to real reporting during the Vietnam war: the media tried, and tried very hard to disguise and deceive the public. It simply wasn't as sophisticated in that kind of business, and wasn't as completely controlled by corporations as it is today. There is one question that I feel must be answered in full: What role did the US play in generating what is now a war against terror in Afghanistan? Obama and others might say that it's a moot question; better to focus on what is now. But any shrink will tell you: until and unless the roots of a malady are confronted and resolved, the chance of a long term cure is slim. Obama needs to say what everyone there and throughout much of the world knows; namely that WE, the US of A were the ones who began the whole thing. We did it by funneling vast amounts of money and weapons to religious factions, while encouraging them to foment fundamentalist beliefs. Sure, there have always been fundamentalists (we have more than our share here in the US), but it was the US with the guidance of the CIA who baited the trap for Russia to invade Afghanistan in response to a growing instability associated with extreme fundamentalists. WE were the greatest perpetrators of what is now the war on terror. WE created the terror. And we did it for two main reasons. First, to suck the USSR into a Vietnam type quaigmire that would accelerate its decline. And second, to gain yet another foothold in the countries that surround Iran. Look at the map folks!!! WE were the ones who created Saddam. WE were the ones who courted Pakistan, even though we knew they were developing nuclear bombs. WE were the ones who, again and again, propped up dictators throughout most of the ring of countries surrounding Iran. Turkmenstan is now being courted by western companies for its natural gas (and, of course, the control that goes with it). France is currently hot to trot for the energy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/18/business/AS-Turkmenistan-Franc...
Will Obama address the deep, deep involvement of the US that has brought Afghanistan from a peaceful and beautiful country to the hell hole it now is? Sure! As soon as he addresses our true motives for decimating Iraq, maintaining the best of ties with Saudi Arabia- that land of true 'corporate democracy/ AKA fascism), and labeling Iran as the world's leading exporter of terrorism. This is all such a crock of merde!!! We march into any country, under any pretense no matter how absurd, destroy that country, and yet, should a neighbor of that country try to help it resist, it is labeled a terrorist state. This economic meltdown has a silver lining to it: As falls the value of the dollar, so falls the power the US has to continue it rape of other countries. And as those rapes decline, the raping of Americans who are not among the elite will accelerate. Painful to watch it happen. But countries have karma just s people do.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Arianna Huffington: Larry Summers: Brilliant Mind, Toxic Ideas
Larry Summers is one of the top economic minds of his generation, but his core beliefs and assumptions helped lay the groundwork for the current crisis. As Treasury Secretary under Clinton, he played an important role in allowing commercial banks to get into the mortgage-backed securities game. He also backed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed financial derivatives to be traded without any oversight or regulation. So it was on his watch that the credit-default swaps warhead that has blown up our economy was launched. In 2000, Summers declared: "The traditional industrial economy was a Newtonian system of opposing forces, checks and balances... While, in contrast, the right metaphors for the new economy are more Darwinian, with the fittest surviving." He forgot to add the part about the fittest surviving by being bailed out by the rest of us.
Larry Summers is one of the top economic minds of his generation, but his core beliefs and assumptions helped lay the groundwork for the current crisis. As Treasury Secretary under Clinton, he played an important role in allowing commercial banks to get into the mortgage-backed securities game. He also backed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed financial derivatives to be traded without any oversight or regulation. So it was on his watch that the credit-default swaps warhead that has blown up our economy was launched. In 2000, Summers declared: "The traditional industrial economy was a Newtonian system of opposing forces, checks and balances... While, in contrast, the right metaphors for the new economy are more Darwinian, with the fittest surviving." He forgot to add the part about the fittest surviving by being bailed out by the rest of us.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Colin Powell’s former chief of staff: Cheney is ‘evil,’ his fearmongering is ‘assisting’ al Qaeda.
Weeks after President Obama was inaugurated, Dick Cheney gave an interview to Politico slamming Obama’s detainee policies and warning that he was making America less safe (charges he repeated again last Sunday). Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff who left the Bush administration in protest, wrote an essay on the Washington Note last evening slamming Cheney’s fearmongering. Wilkerson calls Cheney “evil” and says his detainee policies were only “assisting” terrorists:
Cheney went on to say in his McLean interview that “Protecting the country’s security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.” I have to agree but the other way around. Cheney and his like are the evil people and we certainly are not going to prevail in the struggle with radical religion if we listen to people as he. […]
But al-Qa’ida will be back. Iraq, GITMO, Abu Ghraib, heavily-biased U.S. support for Israel, and a host of other strategic errors have insured al-Qa’ida’s resilience, staying power and motivation. How we deal with the future attacks of this organization and its cohorts could well seal our fate, for good or bad. Osama bin Laden and his brain trust, Aman al-Zawahiri, are counting on us to produce the bad. With people such as Cheney assisting them, they are far more likely to succeed.
Wilkerson also writes that Powell and Richard Armitage “labored to ameliorate the GITMO situation from almost day one” but that Rumsfeld and Cheney were “[s]tanding resolutely” in the way and would “have none of it.”
Weeks after President Obama was inaugurated, Dick Cheney gave an interview to Politico slamming Obama’s detainee policies and warning that he was making America less safe (charges he repeated again last Sunday). Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff who left the Bush administration in protest, wrote an essay on the Washington Note last evening slamming Cheney’s fearmongering. Wilkerson calls Cheney “evil” and says his detainee policies were only “assisting” terrorists:
Cheney went on to say in his McLean interview that “Protecting the country’s security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.” I have to agree but the other way around. Cheney and his like are the evil people and we certainly are not going to prevail in the struggle with radical religion if we listen to people as he. […]
But al-Qa’ida will be back. Iraq, GITMO, Abu Ghraib, heavily-biased U.S. support for Israel, and a host of other strategic errors have insured al-Qa’ida’s resilience, staying power and motivation. How we deal with the future attacks of this organization and its cohorts could well seal our fate, for good or bad. Osama bin Laden and his brain trust, Aman al-Zawahiri, are counting on us to produce the bad. With people such as Cheney assisting them, they are far more likely to succeed.
Wilkerson also writes that Powell and Richard Armitage “labored to ameliorate the GITMO situation from almost day one” but that Rumsfeld and Cheney were “[s]tanding resolutely” in the way and would “have none of it.”
Friday, March 13, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
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