22
Mar
That’s not my poll, but it’s a dead-on appropriate question. Obama says it’s about the intended genocide Khadafi threatened. Well, that’s been going on unabated in Yemen, Sudan, and several parts of Africa. What’s so special about Libyans that other Africans don’t merit?
When Bush citied weapons of mass destruction and known threats coming from Iraq, a good chunk of the media claimed it was all about the oil. Libya has provided a lot more oil than Iraq ever did and so far, best I can tell, not one single person on MSNBC or CNN has questioned Obama about his intent regarding Libya. In fact, CNN has gone to more trouble to point out this action is nothing like Iraq. Attacking two genocidal dictators of oil rich nations is merely a coincidence according to CNN. What Bush did was bad, what Obama did justified. Only difference was the one Bush took out was attacking other countries repeatedly, the one Obama took out was not.
Check that, another difference was one country was threatening us with weapons of mass destruction, and had used them against others. The other was not.
Check that again, one had known terrorist organizations thriving and operating from their country, the other claims to be under attack from those terrorist organizations and had recently assisted us in targeting terrorist organizations.
Check that one more time. One had committed genocide against his own people, the other threatened to.
Check that yet again, one president asked Congress for approval to attack another country, one did not.
That’s more of your change you can believe in.
The prevailing story that liberals have hung their hat on for the last couple of years is Obama can’t win because he was strung with funding two wars. No economy can sustain that. Case closed. Sounds simple enough. Numbers should back that one up, right?
Look close at that again. Make sense? Try again. Without going into a whole lot of detail, quite simply, in his first year, Barack Obama spent more on his stimulus than the entire Iraq War. The CBO puts the actual cost of the Iraqi war at $709 billion. Not the $3 trillion cited by Obama.
It’s not that he was slightly wrong on an estimate or anything, he was way off. No one has a clue where that number came from. That amounts to about $100 billion a year. To put it in perspective, his stimulus plans have accounted for about $800 billion. A year. All those wonderful things he could have done with that $3 trillion never would have existed. He lied to you.
To put it in proper perspective, his one year of stimulus cost us more than the entire eight years of the Iraq War. Raise your hands, how many people benefited from the stimulus? We could have benefitted probably, but his special interests got it first. I’m not in a union, it didn’t do squat for me.
If we couldn’t afford those wars, then it’s obvious we can’t afford Obama.
H/T: K2.
Right as Obama is gearing up for another round of stimulus funding, Germany’s Angela Merkel blindsided him some of the craziest advice Obama’s probably heard since the last Tea Party rally:
It was immediately repeated by the German Chancellor. Now, before delving too deeply into the how’s and why’s of why Germans suddenly feel compelled to quit spending money we don’t have like drunken sailors, one pic that I enjoy:
Obama’s response will be that this is Bush’s fault.
But, for the time being, I’m all for the Germans’ suggestion. My peave of late has been foreign aid. As much money as we dole out all over the planet to people who never pay taxes on anything, or even return the goodwill for the most part, they don’t do what we tell them to. The ROI for most of the world is nill. Germany can freely dish out this advice, they don’t anything from the US directly. However, some countries wouldn’t be too happy with Germany’s suggestion at all. Right at the top would be Iran. That $65,000,000 just doesn’t seem to be doing much good at all. Next in line on my chop list, North Korea’s $2,000,000. Axe it. Next, Sudan’s $332,630,000. Wasted. And until Chavez cans his mouth and stops destroying Venezuela, strip that $5,000,000. For that matter, this list should be trimmed back, if not eliminated entirely:
| Angola | 42,107 |
| Benin | 11,958 |
| Botswana | 79,100 |
| Burkina Faso | 15,250 |
| Burundi | 30,254 |
| Cameroon | 1,785 |
| Cape Verde | 600 |
| Central African Republic | 150 |
| Chad | 7,475 |
| Comoros | 150 |
| Cote d’Ivoire | 103,600 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 95,119 |
| Djibouti | 6,394 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 45 |
| Ethiopia | 472,704 |
| Gabon | 200 |
| Gambia | 120 |
| Ghana | 48,962 |
| Guinea | 20,462 |
| Guinea-Bissau | 800 |
| Kenya | 569,440 |
| Lesotho | 8,950 |
| Liberia | 179,076 |
| Madagascar | 34,526 |
| Malawi | 76,306 |
| Mali | 53,246 |
| Mauritania | 6,950 |
| Mauritius | 340 |
| Mozambique | 290,197 |
| Namibia | 103,800 |
| Niger | 18,505 |
| Nigeria | 486,722 |
| Republic of the Congo | 100 |
| Rwanda | 161,648 |
| Sao Tome and Principe | 175 |
| Senegal | 49,993 |
| Seychelles | 100 |
| Sierra Leone | 23,650 |
| Somalia | 40,330 |
| South Africa | 575,527 |
| Sudan | 332,630 |
| Swaziland | 8,500 |
| Tanzania | 335,730 |
| Togo | 220 |
| Uganda | 345,778 |
| Zambia | 296,328 |
| Zimbabwe | 45,433 |
| Africa Regional – State | 43,125 |
| Africa Regional – USAID | 151,805 |
| Central Africa Regional | 12,300 |
| East Africa Regional | 32,985 |
| Southern Africa Regional | 19,600 |
| West Africa Regional | 56,482 |
| Burma | 15,850 |
| Cambodia | 45,371 |
| China | 7,000 |
| Indonesia | 186,304 |
| Kiribati | 40 |
| Laos | 4,250 |
| Malaysia | 2,690 |
| Marshall Islands | 60 |
| Mongolia | 10,440 |
| Nauru | 40 |
| North Korea | 2,000 |
| Papua New Guinea | 2,780 |
| Philippines | 99,221 |
| Samoa | 40 |
| Singapore | 500 |
| Solomon Islands | 150 |
| Taiwan | 575 |
| Thailand | 11,100 |
| Timor-Leste | 9,450 |
| Tonga | 695 |
| Tuvalu | 40 |
| Vanuatu | 115 |
| Vietnam | 99,515 |
| East Asia and Pacific Regional | 11,821 |
| Regional Development Mission -Asia | 32,800 |
| Albania | 25,035 |
| Armenia | 27,900 |
| Azerbaijan | 24,700 |
| Belarus | 10,000 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 37,845 |
| Bulgaria | 11,000 |
| Croatia | 2,800 |
| Cyprus | 11,000 |
| Czech Republic | 5,050 |
| Estonia | 4,000 |
| Georgia | 67,050 |
| Greece | 100 |
| Hungary | 3,100 |
| Kosovo | 127,670 |
| Latvia | 4,050 |
| Lithuania | 4,150 |
| Macedonia | 23,773 |
| Malta | 150 |
| Moldova | 16,950 |
| Montenegro | 8,700 |
| Poland | 29,200 |
| Portugal | 100 |
| Romania | 16,900 |
| Russia | 56,300 |
| Serbia | 50,524 |
| Slovakia | 3,000 |
| Slovenia | 1,200 |
| Turkey | 18,710 |
| Ukraine | 86,475 |
| Eurasia Regional | 26,643 |
| Europe Regional | 29,953 |
| Algeria | 2,265 |
| Bahrain | 20,950 |
| Egypt | 1,505,400 |
| Iran | 65,000 |
| Iraq | 397,000 |
| Israel | 2,550,000 |
| Jordan | 535,441 |
| Kuwait | 15 |
| Lebanon | 142,430 |
| Libya | 1,100 |
| Morocco | 28,505 |
| Oman | 14,400 |
| Qatar | 15 |
| Saudi Arabia | 365 |
| Tunisia | 4,387 |
| United Arab Emirates | 940 |
| West Bank and Gaza | 100,000 |
| Yemen | 33,753 |
| MERC – Middle East Regional Cooperation | 3,000 |
| MFO – Multilateral Force and Observers | 21,750 |
| Middle East Regional | 5,500 |
| Near East Regional | 87,000 |
| TSCTP – Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership | 4,917 |
| Afghanistan | 1,053,950 |
| Bangladesh | 106,835 |
| India | 77,382 |
| Kazakhstan | 18,950 |
| Kyrgyz Republic | 27,565 |
| Maldives | 195 |
| Nepal | 38,182 |
| Pakistan | 826,255 |
| Sri Lanka | 6,500 |
| Tajikistan | 28,582 |
| Turkmenistan | 9,475 |
| Uzbekistan | 7,940 |
| Central Asia Regional | 6,607 |
| South and Central Asia Regional | 5,500 |
| South Asia Regional | 2,700 |
| Argentina | 1,655 |
| Bahamas | 775 |
| Belize | 865 |
| Bolivia | 100,399 |
| Brazil | 8,647 |
| Chile | 1,575 |
| Colombia | 542,863 |
| Costa Rica | 660 |
| Cuba | 20,000 |
| Dominican Republic | 32,164 |
| Eastern Caribbean | 2,150 |
| Ecuador | 32,536 |
| El Salvador | 36,950 |
| Guatemala | 62,260 |
| Guyana | 24,780 |
| Haiti | 245,876 |
| Honduras | 49,128 |
| Jamaica | 10,564 |
| Mexico | 500,995 |
| Nicaragua | 38,071 |
| Panama | 8,200 |
| Paraguay | 8,406 |
| Peru | 103,023 |
| Suriname | 380 |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 600 |
| Uruguay | 250 |
| Venezuela | 5,000 |
| Caribbean Regional | 12,060 |
| Central America Regional | 16,696 |
| Latin America and Caribbean Regional | 34,098 |
| South America Regional | 4,200 |
| Western Hemisphere Regional | 142,786 |
| Coordinator for Counter-terrorism | 46,200 |
| Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | 60,000 |
| International Narcotics and Law Enforcement | 129,333 |
| International Organizations | 276,900 |
| International Security and Nonproliferation | 183,900 |
| Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs | 62,250 |
| Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons | 14,950 |
| Political-Military Affairs | 247,737 |
| Population, Refugees, and Migration | 809,000 |
| Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator | 1,411,421 |
| Asia and Near East Regional | 36,558 |
| Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance | 998,150 |
| International Disaster Assistance | 298,050 |
| Transition Initiatives | 40,000 |
| Office of Development Partners | 11,050 |
| Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade | 122,300 |
| Global Health | 410,048 |
| Global Health – International Partnerships | 156,912 |
| Capital Investment Fund | 171,000 |
| Development Credit Authority Admin | 7,600 |
| Inspector General Operating Expense | 40,600 |
| Operating Expense | 767,184 |
| Export-Import Bank | 2,500 |
| Export-Import Bank offsetting collections precluded from obligation | -41,000 |
| Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) | -170,000 |
| Trade and Development Agency | 50,800 |
| Peace Corps | 343,500 |
| Inter-American Foundation | 20,000 |
| African Development Foundation | 30,000 |
| Millennium Challenge Corporation | 2,225,000 |
| Treasury Technical Assistance | 29,000 |
| Debt Restructuring | 141,000 |
| Global Environment Facility (GEF) | 80,000 |
| Fund | 400,000 |
| African Development Fund | 156,055 |
| Asian Development Fund | 115,250 |
| Enterprise for the Americas Multilateral Investment Fund | 25,000 |
| International Development Association | 1,277,000 |
| International Fund for Agricultural Development | 18,000 |
| Arrears | [42,000] |
Now I’m sure Los Angeles will boycott me for suggesting it. But, it serves no real national interest whether Iran is communist, democratic, dictatorial, or whatever Sharia law makes them. If they don’t mess with us, there’s nothing to defend. If they do mess with us, use that $5,000,000 in technology to remind them why they should not mess with us. That’s defense. What’s going on now is just very expensive and unrewarding meddling.
There ya go Obama. Saved ya $27,000,000,000 and no one lost their job domestically.
Next we’ll straigthen up the United Nations.
Iran is one of the most notoriously bigoted countries on the planet. Just this week the whole world hada chuckle at how stupid they can be. A cleric decided women were the cause of earthquakes. They’re so sexist women pretty much have to cover themselves head to toe when in public. The Dark Ages have nothing on these people.
One of the places worse than Iran is The Congo. In 2007, this amazing report was released:
26 October 2007 – The scale and brutality of the sexual violence currently faced by women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, an independent United Nations human rights expert has told the General Assembly.
Yakin Ertürk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, told the Assembly’s Social, Humanitarian and Cultural (Third) Committee yesterday that the international community needs to intervene urgently to stem the widespread sexual violence.
Ms. Ertürk spent 12 days in the DRC in July, speaking to Government officials, UN agency staff, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and many female victims of violence.
She said she found that the perpetrators include armed militiamen, members of the Congolese armed forces, national police officers and, increasingly, civilians.
“The situation is most acute in South Kivu, where non-State armed groups, particularly foreign militia, commit sexual atrocities that are of an unimaginable brutality and aim at the complete physical and psychological destruction of women with implications for the entire society,” she said.
“In many cases, the scale and brutality of the violence amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The Special Rapporteur said the problem was not confined to the far east, which has been the most unstable and violent part of the DRC in recent years and the scene of mass displacement this year because of renewed clashes between the Government, breakaway sections of the military and armed militia.
In Equateur province, near the centre of the DRC, soldiers and police officers have also carried out systematic reprisals against local civilians, including mass rape.
Ms. Ertürk said a climate of impunity for crimes against women predominated across the country.
“Security and the justice system fall short of addressing the problems of sexual violence and women survivors of rape lack sufficient care. Survivors are often also socially stigmatized and they are systematically denied the compensation to which they are entitled under international and Congolese law.”
So, after releasing this incredibly damning report, what do you suppose the United Nations does? It adds the Congo to The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Here’s this year’s list of the new memebrs:
- Iran
- Belgium
- the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Estonia
- Georgia
- Jamaica
- Liberia
- the Netherlands
- Spain
- Thailand
- Zimbabwe
Only one of the new members makes the “best places to be a woman” list. It’s not in the Middle East or Africa. What makes it amazing to me is they will be joining China, Pakistan, and Iraq, THREE other members of the worst places to be a woman list. Now, I’m pretty sure the UN is rewarding women who have struggled in those countries. But, that’s not how those governments are using it, and that’s not how the United Nations is presenting it. Here’s their member list:
Membership of the Commission on the Status of Women at its 55th session ( 2011 )
They’re specifically promoting the countries.
Have I ever mentioned how useless I think the UN is any more?
TMZ.COM is running a very peculiar picture:
In case it’s not too clear, that’s SUPPOSEDLY John F. Kennedy chillaxin while FOUR, count em, FOUR, babes frolicking naked. Cool huh? Well, under some circumstances it would most definitely be. However, SUPPOSEDLY, at this time, his wife was in the hospital struggling to deliver a still-born baby. The baby died August 23, 1956. This does look like summer. And, JFK did return to be with her from a yacht vacation in the Mediterranean. This rumor is not new. The pic is. How the pic wound up with TMZ is vague. But, it certainly looks sorta kinda like JFK, and the boat definitely resembles the Honey Fitz ( Manitou ).
The trim, the glass front, the framing. It fits. Given his reputation, that fits too.
I would have tucked this away on Moonagewebdream, but the ramifications of what might have been if this pic had surfaced at the time are too immense. Think about it.
For starters, JFK was not well liked within his party. He was not their chosen son. He was not their preferred presidential candidate. He was up and coming in 1959. Emboldened by being young and brash, JFK, pretty much the face for Robert Kennedy, took on the established Democrat leadership in a move they didn’t expect. Emboldened by his increasing popularity, Robert Kennedy made a gamble that probably cost him and John their lives. He offered the VP spot to Johnson.
Now, if this picture had been floating around at the time, things probably would have been a lot different. And, I do mean a LOT. Given Massachusetts’ odd penchant for adoring bad characters, he would have probably stayed in the Senate. There he would have continued to have been a junior senator throughout the 60′s.
Some things would have been a LOT different. Some people speculate that the election was stolen from Nixon and that if anyone other than Kennedy had run they would have lost to Nixon. I don’t think so. This would have predated the primaries, and therefore the primaries most likely would not have split the Democrat party as bad as it did. In the Democrat primary, Kennedy only got about 62% of the vote. In the general election, he only got 49.7%. If the Democrat party had been more unified, it would have been a wide margin. This was due in some part to Kennedy’s religion. Being a non-factor if Johnson had led the ticket, I think Johnson would have won handily. However, you would not have had the famous Kennedy-Nixon debate. Maybe Nixon would have done better without that. But, toss in 10% boost in Democrat support and I think Nixon would have been toast.
Lyndon Johnson would have been President 1960-1964. Things would have been a LOT different.
- Kennedy tried to policy-wonk Vietnam and got us into an arrangement that was unwinnable by relying on the South Vietnamese government to control our troops. I don’t think Johnson would have ever gotten himself into that predicament. My gut feeling is he would have been more compelled to fight a war to win from the start. If that’s true, 1968 would have been a hell of a lot different.
- Kennedy wasn’t the only champion of minority rights. A lot of people were. The deaths of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. sparked riots and distrust that last a generation. This picture could have prevented all of that and allowed the process that Johnson was already supporting to continue peacefully and at a controlled pace. Instead, their deaths ignited a powder keg that no one had an answer to.
- Kennedy ignored white racism. Johnson went after it. He confronted the KKK on national television and outed them for what they were. The effect of what the Kennedys did was it pushed minorities into a position they weren’t comfortable with, and whites resented. It didn’t address the wrong attitudes of the whites or blacks. It just forced them into situations of confrontation. Johnson’s allies were addressing the attitudes of whites and blacks. I think things would have progressed a lot smoother, and more amicably if Kennedy had never been president.
- Johnson had pushed through Medicare and Social Security. Public health care was being debated when Johnson chose not to run in 1968. Health care, due to the Vietnam War, Cold War, and other issues, became a distraction to Nixon. If Johnson wasn’t so demoralized by the protests of a war that might not have been happening, we might very well have had public health coverage already.
- Following up on the previous paragraph, Nixon and Gerald Ford would never have been President.
- If Ford had never been President, Jimmy Carter would have lost.
- If Jimmy Carter had lost to a more conservative president, Ronald Reagan would never have replaced Carter in 1980. And, we would never have had the Iran Embassy takeover or the Community Reinvestment Act.
- If Ronald Reagan hadn’t been President, George HW Bush would never have been Vice-President, and therefore President.
- Bush begat Clinton due to his political ineptness. We would never have had the internet since Al Gore would never have been VP without Clinton. Additionally, I’ve argued that if a more security minded person had been president as opposed to a policy wonk and social liberal, 9/11 would never have happened along with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Both were our “friends” until Clinton.
- Clinton begat George W. Bush due to his, well, Kennedyesque actions with women.
- And, George W. Bush begat Barack Obama because he became such a lightning rod for liberals, following his perceived efforts to emulate a Reagan that never would have occurred.
Pretty heavy stuff huh? Instead of all that happening, this pic apparently became a joke for a car dealer for 40 years.
OK.
Ohh-kayyy was right:
No sooner than TMZ ran the story, The Smoking Gun fired right back with the original, confirmed by Playboy. Most reports are quick to point out that it wasn’t JFK on the boat. He was shot in 1963, the pic in 1967. No word yet on how much TMZ paid for the crinkled up Playboy spread. I’m scouring Hustler for Ronald Reagan look-alikes tho.
I’ve stolen that title from Classically Liberal. It’s not really the point I’m shooting for, but it’s close enough and the article is a riot. A lot of people have been claiming Obama’s socialist. I have for that matter. However, people supporting Obama have dismissed those claims as rhetoric. However, Obama’s White House PR person recently spoke of her admiration for Chairman Mao. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America are all over Obama’s Cabinet. So, there’s definitely a strong socialist streak in The White House and Congress right now. A lot of people are saying “so what?”. They’re claiming blurting out the S-bomb is just a scare tactic and those mentioning the S-bomb are radical right wing terrorist wannabes. Well, there’s a little more to it than that.
There are two types of people when discussing socialism. There are those who know what it is and its place in history, and those that don’t. That’s it. Some think they do, but, they still don’t. Now, regardless of taking sides, which anyone who knows me knows which side I’m on, the fact is still very simple that socialism is what it is and making the accusation that Obama is socialist is black and white. Socialism is what socialism is. Calling it something else or denying it doesn’t change what socialism is.
So, let’s run with the assumption that Anita Dunn gets her wish and Obama suddenly eschews the values of Chairman Mao. We’d have to look at history to understand why some people would fear socialism. Not the Communism part which freaks everyone out, but the socialism part. Socialism is defined by Dictionary.com as:
- a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
- procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
- (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Now, if you’ve got your own personal definition of socialism, stop here and go away. You’ll understand why if you do proceed. The shining example, as brought to our attention by the White House expert on Chinese Communist socialism, per Anita Dunn, is to stare adversity in the face and do it anyway.
That is very stupid. Dangerously stupid. Anita Dunn cites the fact Mao came from basically nowhere and took over China eventually. That’s all fine and good, but that has nothing to do with the political system she’s eschewing. Once Mao did take over, he initiated a chain of events that a lot of people have cited, but few have actually explained why. The problem with socialism is it is a top-down management style. All decision making is made by the government. Now, Obama and his bunch are saying this is good because all businesses are greedy and the government is not. However, the government doesn’t always get it right either. I cite Mao’s China from 1948-1952 as only one of the many examples of why socialism fails.
Mao was a moron, plain and simple. He believed that various Marxist principles could be used to produce bumper crops. Since the Maoists said that solidarity of the people made the people stronger, then the same applied to grains. Thus growing grains tightly packed together would make them stronger, not destroy crops. This was just one area where the Maoists tried to apply “scientific Marxism” to the physical laws of agriculture—applications that failed over and over.
So these experiments were dismal failures. But such failures are not enough to lead to a famine. Other factors come into play. One such factor was the fear of the dictator. Mao’s ideas failed but no one wanted to tell him. Tyrants could easily confuse the message with the messenger. So the incentive was to lie.
Local bureaucrats, instead of admitting that crops had been reduced, decided to write reports claiming that crops had increased. Those reports went to the superiors. The superiors, not aware of how much of the report was bluster, combined these exaggerated reports together. And they, thinking the reports were accurate, saw no harm in making them look even better by increasing the crop yields. And so it went. As the “data” accumulated it appeared that scientific Marxism was a success in agriculture. The top echelon of Mao’s China got reports that made them very happy.
Desperate for hard currency the Chinese officials decided to take advantage of their bumper crops and sell them outside China. So they confiscated a large section of what crops did exist for export. This meant that food was scarcer at the local level as the farms were depleted of their stock to fill the quotas for export. A year goes by and the next set of reports have to be prepared. Again no one wanted to be the first to prick the Maoist bubble. Nor did anyone want to report they had failed, not when everyone else was apparently so successful, as the reports clearly indicated. So once again they took the figures from the year before and added a bit to them. And the process repeated itself.
At the top levels of the government Communist officials received more data, carefully collected from across the country, indicating an even larger crop than the year before. So the quotas for export were increased.
More food was confiscated. But a problem arose. You can’t confiscate food that doesn’t exist. Authorities scoured the countryside and couldn’t find the crops that supposedly existed. The conclusion they drew was a simple one: the farmers were greedy, counter-revolutionaries who had obviously hidden the bumper crops. They were attempting to sabotage the revolution. So the officials, convinced the farmers had hidden food somewhere confiscated all the food they could find—which was actually all the food there was. The farmers had no hidden stocks, the data was wrong. The cumulative effect of lots of small distortions produced a massive error which resulted in the deaths of millions.
No one has a clue how many people starved to death in China from 1948-1952. Estimates generally range around 30 million, give or take 20 million or so. The reason they don’t know is because in socialist China of 1948-1952, crops counts were important, deaths not.
All thought it all, Chinese propaganda were telling people their government is good, the farmers starving to death were doing so because they were hiding their crops. No one questioned Mao’s claim that the greedy were starving to death by the millions. Even to this day, Anita Dunn apparently doesn’t.
OK, so you’ve got two situations here already. You’ve got me, who knows what socialism is, and knows the ramifications of socialism. Then, you’ve got Anita Dunn, who idolizes Mao for something he didn’t say or do.
Dunn claims he rose up against the Chinese government. Fact is he was groomed by the Chinese government and military to be leader. He did lead some revolts, but during the early part he kept his day-job as, get this one folks, a union organizer. He left that position to join an already occurring revolt. He rose to power not on intellect, as Obama’s peeps would have you believe, but on sheer brutality. The stories of Mao’s military torture tactics are stuff you don’t even see in gore movies.
Now, we’ve experienced this kind of top-down bureaucratic pandering that’s caused us all kinds of issues. Let’s go back eleven years. In 1996, President Bill Clinton attacked Iraq without any seeming provocation. He was under investigation. However, his justification was that Iraq was interfering with the United Nations inspections teams so that he could build weapons of mass destruction. This came from a report George Tenet presented to Congress. Clinton would do it again in 1998. Of course, he had “credible evidence” that Hussein was once again trying to amass WMD’s. Using the “evidence” Tenet presented to Congress, George W Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. Almost immediately Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats claimed they had been lied to. Not by Clinton, or by Tenet, but by Bush. A few years later the conclusion was that there never were any WMD’s in Iraq. This is just another example of socialist pandering resulting in horrific results. Now, in this case, the “evidence” Tenet had was justification to go to war with another country. OR, Tenet’s evidence was fabricated to impress his boss. OR, Pelosi lied when she said Bush lied. Bottom line, the “evidence” was collected by the President, used by the President, then used against his opposition by constantly changing. And no one asks a question. The very bottom line is this manipulation of facts by Tenet/Clinton cost a lot of US soldiers’ lives. It’s no different than Mao starving greedy farmers to death. Neither should have happened, and only happened because of information distorted to please the top dog. In China, there was no media to question Mao’s blatantly stupid moves. In the US, there is. However, if that media chooses not to ask any questions, it’s no different than Mao’s China.
25
Aug
A fellow had this to say, among other things:
….we had already seen two tax cuts sold on massively, easily documented false pretenses; a war launched with constant innuendo about a Saddam-Osama link that was clearly false, and with claims about WMDs that were clearly shaky from the beginning and had proved to be entirely without foundation. We’d also seen vast, well-documented dishonesty and politicization on environmental policy. Oh, and Abu Ghraib was already public knowledge.
And to hammer home his point:
Bloggers like Atrios or Kos? Again, if you read their archives what’s striking is how sane they come off compared with the “serious” voices of the time.
OK, so now six months in to a liberal’s panacea, we’ve seen at least two tax increases, with more promised via allowing those tax cuts he complains about to expire. The current President, who echoed the exact sentiments of Paul Krugman, Atrios, and Kos, is now doing exactly what Bush did in both Iraq and Afghanistan that Krugman, Atrios, and Kos have complained about. If it was so wrong and they were not a threat, why is he staying there “indefinitely”? This same president is also getting hammered on the issues of WMD’s in, you guessed it, the Axis of Evil Bush complained about that Atrios and Kos assured us were just political scare tactics. We’ve also seen, in six months, no doubt, vast, well-documented dishonesty and politicization on environmental policy as Obama has had numerous appointments withdrawn due to legal issues, and has already reneged on several environmental promises he made while campaigning. It’s gotten the point where even Greenpeace is panning Obama. He has also expanded Bush’s wiretapping policy, set up a White House tip line, moved investigations into the domestic enforcement agency, requested expanded internet surveillance, cozied up to Cuba while distancing Israel, totally undermined our international surveillance capabilities ala Jamie Gorelick, proposed a socialized health care model apparently no one wants, completely sold out to unions, and, his first budget will have more deficit than all eight of Bush’s combined. I mean, look at this again:
I’m sure I’ve overlooked other issues.
And, what makes it even more remarkable, he’s done all that in six months. Krugman had to list all eight Bush years to get a much smaller list.
Given all that, it makes complete sense to distrust anything the Obama administration says. That’s not reflexive, it’s rational. I resent Krugman’s insinuation because in order to believe that a completely biased opinion is rational is to assume all other opinions are irrational. To pick only certain issues to justify a rational conclusion is, well, not rational. That’s biased. Let’s look closer, shall we? First, the definition of bias:
a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.
Now, reflexive:
reflex; responsive
Now, rational:
endowed with the faculty of reason:
Now, if a person only allows one set of evidence to be presented to make the argument they’re rational, is that using reason, or, is that showing a particular tendency or inclination?
Now, the difference between me claiming I’m rational and using the same argument to show Krugman is reflexive is because I told people Obama would do these things last year. I’m not reflexive. I am rational in that I am simply re-iterating a reasoned assumption I made in the past and commenting on issues as they happen. Krugman just bitches and whines about everything Bush, even well after Bush is gone. That’s just not rational. He’s got bigger problems to deal with than prosecuting people long gone. But, he can’t do that. He’s too reflexive. Probably because the present sucks so bad.
25
Aug
It’s telling me that the policies of Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton/Janet Reno are back.
That was my opinion January 5 of this year when Obama put Leon Panetta in charge of the Central Intelligence Agency. As of now, the Central Intelligence Agency will not be allowed to glean intelligence from war prisoners. The Federal Bureau of Investigations will be doing that under a very strict set of guidelines. Those are the guys that investigate things. Now, what’s the big deal you ask? Think about these incidents and who was in charge:
- Waco
- Ruby Ridge
- Zaccarius Mussaoui, the 12th 911 terrorist.
- For that matter, 911.
- Terrorist Watch List
- Expanded wiretaps under Clinton ( and you thought Bush was bad. )
- Filegate
- Deep Throat ( when the FBI decides it needs a new president. )
- McCarthyism
On and on and on it goes. The FBI has had a history of lying, targeting people, political meddling, totally inept interventions, and most importantly, not having a clue how to deal with critical intelligence that led to the death of 2,000 people. So, when Obama appointed Panetta as the CIA Director, I stated then that we were returning to the days of Jamie Gorelick, Janet Reno, and the Wall. Today’s announcements seal it.
This is your better national security Obama promised. We’re back to 1993 again. Instead of worrying about foreign entities attacking the US, which is what the CIA does, you’re the target. If you claim to be a conservative, you’re the terrorist. If your neighbor thinks you’re a conservative, all they have to do is call the White House tip line. All that was missing was putting the federal enforcement agency in charge of gathering intelligence. Why bother seperating intelligence from enforcement? It worked so well for Clinton it got us into two wars and the worst terrorist attack in the history of our country. They did however, wipe out quite a few US citizens at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
Think about it.
19
Aug
I love Snopes.com. No telling what you’ll find there. Humor, movies, sports, paranormal, extra-terrestrial, politics, you name it, it’s there. One of today’s stories involve an opinion piece written by Charley Reese in 1985.
Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Everything on the Republican contract is a problem created by Congress. Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules?
Blame Congress. Unjust tax laws? Congress wrote them.
Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do. Americans dying in Third World rat holes on stupid U.N. missions? Congress allows it. The annual deficits?
Congress votes for them. The $4 trillion plus debt? Congress created it.
To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S. Constitution. If it’s not in the Constitution, it’s not authorized.
Then read your Constitution. All 100 percent of the power of the federal government is invested solely in 545 individual human beings. That’s all. Of 260 million Americans, only 545 of them wield 100 percent of the power of the federal government.
That’s 435 members of the U.S. House, 100 senators, one president and nine Supreme Court justices. Anything involving government that is wrong is 100 percent their fault.
I exclude the vice president because constitutionally he has no power except to preside over the Senate and to vote only in the case of a tie. I exclude the Federal Reserve because Congress created it and all its power is power Congress delegated to it and could withdraw anytime it chooses to do so. In fact, all the power exercised by the 3 million or so other federal employees is power delegated from the 545.
All bureaucracies are created by Congress or by executive order of the president. All are financed and staffed by Congress. All enforce laws passed by Congress.
All operate under procedures authorized by Congress. That’s why all complaints and protests should be properly directed at Congress, not at the individual agencies.
You don’t like the IRS? Go see Congress. You think the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agency is running amok? Go see Congress.
Congress is the originator of all government problems and is also the only remedy available. That’s why, of course, politicians go to such extraordinary lengths and employ world-class sophistry to make you think they are not responsible. Anytime a congressman pretends to be outraged by something a federal bureaucrat does, he is in fact engaging in one big massive con job. No federal employee can act at all except to enforce laws passed by Congress and to employ procedures authorized by Congress either explicitly or implicitly.
Partisans on both sides like to blame presidents for deficits, but all deficits are congressional deficits. The president may, by custom, recommend a budget, but it carries no legal weight. Only Congress is authorized by the Constitution to authorize and appropriate and to levy taxes. That’s what the federal budget consists of: expenditures authorized, funds appropriated and taxes levied.
Both Democrats and Republicans mislead the public. For 40 years Democrats had majorities and could have at any time balanced the budget if they had chosen to do so. Republicans now have majorities and could, if they choose, pass a balanced budget this year. Every president, Democrat or Republican, could have vetoed appropriations bills that did not make up a balanced budget. Every president could have recommended a balanced budget. None has done either.
We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that’s what majorities in Congress and presidents in the White House wanted. We have troops in various Third World rat holes because Congress and the president want them there.
Don’t be conned. Don’t let them escape responsibility. We simply have to sort through 260 million people until we find 545 who will act responsibly.
It has now been updated and is being circulated substituting Nancy Pelosi and President Obama. Big whup.
Charley Reese is an idiot.
I say that because he’s falling into the most common cop-out there is in politics and he’s been around long enough to know better. Blame everyone else but yourself. None of those 545 people are annointed. None of them are born to their position. Not one single person is a demi-god or super-power. Not one came from another planet with divine guidance. Every single one of them asked you to send them there. And once you do, it’s generally for a long time if not for lifetime. The last two Congress’s seniority make-ups looked something like this:
| 110 | 111 | |||
| 50+ | 1 | 0.23% | 1 | 0.23% |
| 40-49 | 2 | 0.45% | 3 | 0.68% |
| 30-39 | 18 | 4.08% | 16 | 3.64% |
| 20-29 | 59 | 13.38% | 47 | 10.71% |
| 10-19 | 183 | 41.50% | 143 | 32.57% |
| 0-9 | 178 | 40.36% | 229 | 52.16% |
| 441 | 439 | |||
| Average | 12.47 | 11.17 |
In the 110th Congress, nearly 60% of the members have been there more than ten years. Once the Obama revolution of 2009 was over, 48% of Congress has been there more than ten years. The average seniority dropped one year on average. Two hundred and ten of those members of Congress have served more than a decade. That’s forty percent of Charley Reese’s 545. And you know what, that’s not even counting the Senate. The Senate’s a little different animal, they are there for six years a shot. Congress gives people a chance to decide if they like their Congress or not every other year. Now, you think I’m being harsh on Charley? It gets even worse. A big part of the Obama “revolution” is the fact that seven members died in office. That took out 105 years of seniority. If they hadn’t died, the numbers for the 111th would have mirrored the 110th. John Dingell, the most senior, is now 83 years old. He has been in office for 54 years. That wouldn’t be so bad in my opinion but his district is Detroit, Michigan. Are those people happy with how things have progressed since 1955? Must be, they keep electing him. Bob Byrd is now 92 years old. He has represented West Virginia since 1959. In 1959, West Virginia had one of the worst economies in the country. Fifty years later, it still is with the fifth highest poverty rate in the country. Are West Virginians happy with that? They must be, they keep electing him.
My opinion is, people just don’t want to spend the time to examine candidates. That folks, is laziness. That is why most of the Congressmen, the Senators, and sometimes the President, don’t have to worry so much about what you think. The Democrat Party ran against the 109th Congress and the Republicans who controlled it purely on the irresponsible spending, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, out of control budgets, an economy that wasn’t up to their expectations, and corruption. Since that group took over, they’re throwing money wildly at everyone, still fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, budgets that are unfathomable, a collapsing economy, and several corruption scandals.
And you people keep voting the same ones back in office.
And Charley blames them.
If the public forfeits its right to choose, that’s not Congress’s fault. And, that is what allows all of Charley’s gripes to occur. Power corrupts when it’s absolute. In our case, it’s absolute through laziness.
On August 1, 2007, Obama posted on his site a long list of what he would do as President. Part of that included:
…..This brings me to the fourth step in my strategy: I will make clear that the days of compromising our values are over.
Major General Paul Eaton had a long and distinguished career serving this country. It included training the Iraqi Army. After Abu Ghraib, his senior Iraqi advisor came into his office and said: “You have no idea how this will play out on the streets of Baghdad and the rest of the Arab world. How can this be?” This was not the America he had looked up to.
As the counter-insurgency manual reminds us, we cannot win a war unless we maintain the high ground and keep the people on our side. But because the Administration decided to take the low road, our troops have more enemies. Because the Administration cast aside international norms that reflect American values, we are less able to promote our values. When I am President, America will reject torture without exception. America is the country that stood against that kind of behavior, and we will do so again.
Waterboarding’s out, everything else is still subject to interpretation.
I also will reject a legal framework that does not work. There has been only one conviction at Guantanamo. It was for a guilty plea on material support for terrorism. The sentence was 9 months. There has not been one conviction of a terrorist act. I have faith in America’s courts, and I have faith in our JAGs. As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.
Obama now supports indefinite detentions, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions by Obama’s definition. However, as many have argued before, detaining terrorists is not dealt with in the Geneva Conventions in the first place. So, I’m all for Obama’s decision. However, I am curious as to how the rabid left wing will respond. As noted in the link in this paragraph, several considered Bush a war criminal for detaining terrorists indefinitely. I now expect them to start labeling Obama as such OR acknowledge how hypocritical they are. I’m not holding my breath for either response.
This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.
That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are. And it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. The FISA court works. The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.
The wiretapping will continue as it was in the past. I fully expect Russ Feingold to either apologize to Bush, condemn Obama, or publicly admit how hypocritical he is.
The pictures of torture will not be made public either. I fully expected people who had complained for eight years about the cloke of secrecy of the Bush administration to go nuts, but this is what they are saying so far:
So, they trash Bush for eight years over not being transparent enough, then when Obama does it, it shows “he is open to changing his mind”.
How long will it take before these people finally admit that what they elected is no different than what they hated for eight years?
- We’re still in Iraq and not going anywhere soon.
- We’re still in Afghanistan and no closer to resolving it.
- We’re still wiretapping whoever The White House sees fit.
- We’ve still got detainees in Gitmo.
- We’re still detaining prisoners indefinitely with no guarantee of a court appearance.
- The White House is obviously withholding “criminal” activity from the public.
- Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose.
- North Korea is building bigger missiles.
- Terrorists are sixty miles from obtaining a nuclear bomb.
I would expect Nancy Pelosi to defend all of Obama’s flip-flops and abandonded campaign promises, but she’s got her own issues to deal with right now. It appears that she was in on the wiretapping, the torture, and about everything else she has railed against for eight years. However, as with Obama, the left blogosphere that railed rabidly against any Republican that was sitting in the same country as the issues occurring are now contorting themselves into pretzels trying to defend Pelosi as well:
So, regardless of Nancy saying it was criminal in 2003, the fact she lied about whether she was aware of what was going on is “yawn“. And, although Russ Feingold sought to censure Bush over illegal wiretapping, he has been noticeably silent on Nancy Pelosi’s involvement in them. In fact, the entire issue has suddenly become moot since it’s obvious that Nancy was right smack in the thick of it, and Obama plans to continue doing it. Where is Feingold now?
The hypocrisy to protect Obama at this point is sickening. However, I don’t think people like Feingold and the rabid left can hold out much longer. Heck, I’m saving irresponsible spending, economic policies, and a whole bunch of other issues for later.
