Friday, January 16, 2009

Headlines - Friday

 
Some excerpts from Bill Clinton's farewell address:

I have steered my course by our enduring values. Opportunity for all. Responsibility from all. A community of all Americans. I have sought to give America a new kind of government, smaller, more modern, more effective, full of ideas and policies appropriate to this new time, always putting people first, always focusing on the future.

Working together, America has done well. Our economy is breaking records, with more than 22 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the highest home ownership ever, the longest expansion in history.

Our families and communities are stronger. Thirty-five million Americans have used the family leave law. Eight million have moved off welfare. Crime is at a 25-year low. Over 10 million Americans receive more college aid, and more people than ever are going to college. Our schools are better, have higher standards, greater accountability and larger investments have brought higher test scores, and higher graduation rates.

More than three million children have health insurance now, and more than 7 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty. Incomes are rising across the board. Our air and water are cleaner. Our food and drinking water are safer. And more of our precious land has been preserved, in the continental United States, than at any time in 100 years.

America has been a force for peace and prosperity in every corner of the globe.

As for me, I'll leave the presidency more idealistic, more full of hope than the day I arrived and more confident than ever that America's best days lie ahead.

My days in this office are nearly through, but my days of service, I hope, are not. In the years ahead, I will never hold a position higher or a covenant more sacred than that of president of the United States. But there is no title I will wear more proudly than that of citizen.

George Bush's farewell address:

I destroyed all of the above. 9/11. Evildoers are coming. 9/11.

And this:

President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism.

Of course he'd rather look to the future. When he looks back at his past actions it must bring enormous pain. It does to most of America and the rest of the world.

###

Bernie & Ruth Madoff
 
How much did Ruth know, and when did she know it? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/business/15ruth.html?_r=1&hp
 
###
 
Dear Israel,
 
It's possible.

You're the supposed civilized, democratic state in this conflict. Act like it, and figure this mess out without killing more women and children.

### 

Just when you thought that maybe, just maybe, the separation of church and state might have a chance to be revived…
 
Democratic Ungerground reports: In a first for presidential inaugurations, Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia joined the Reverends Rob Schenck of Faith and Action and Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, both based in Washington, DC, in a prayer service inside the US Capitol today that included anointing the doorway President-Elect Barack Obama will pass through on his way to the platform to be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on January 20.

We used oil today to set apart the walkway and doors that will be the literal right of passage for Barack Obama as he ascends to the highest office in our land.

I'm not sure I understand the point of greasing the doorknob, but whatever.
 
###
 
Bush's final swan song: "I Did It Lie Way"

Move over, Frank, here's the real Chairman of the Fraud.

And now, the end is near;
And so I face, history's verdict.
My friends, I exploited fear,
With an assist, from Mr. Turd Dick.

I've lived, a life that's bull.
I went from drunk, to a more dry way;
But still, I acted high,
I did it … Lie Way.

Regrets, I'll admit a few
But then again, too much to mention.
I did, what I had to do
Crimes under the, Geneva Convention.

I plunged ahead, without a course;
Each reckless step, along Baghdad's highway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it … Lie Way.

Yes, EVERYtime, I'm sure you knew
Even a pretzel, I couldn't chew.
But through it all, there was no doubt,
That I was just, an arrogant lout.
I had the gall, and came up small;
And did it Lie Way.

I've spun the truth, and stayed aloof
Both New Orleans, economy losing.
And now, the mess I leave,
I find it all, so damn amusing.

To think, I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
Oh No, oh no not me,
I did it … Lie Way.

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not WMD, then he gets caught.
To act just like, the Veep's trained seal
With the devil, I made a deal
The record shows, I got exposed
And did it … Lie Way!

###

Bolivia cuts ties with Israel over what it's doing in Gaza: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/200911415461671162.html

"Not us! We keep sending weapons and cash and unanimously passing resolutions that say we agree with the genocide!" 

As of Thursday morning, the Israelis have now killed 1038 and wounded 4850 Palestinians. (we killed 1.2 million Iraqis)

The BBC reports that More than 300 of the dead are said to be children, 76 are women and more than 4,500 people have been injured, of whom 1,600 are children and 678 are women." In addition, many of the dead or wounded are just Gaza police and municipal authorities that the Israelis are counting as "Hamas" when they may be no such thing. Tens of thousands of civilians have been rendered homeless, which is to say that there are thousands of families and children without shelter in the middle of winter. (We displaced 4 million Iraqis)

Aljazeera English reports on babies who died because of the interruption in transportation and hospital care.

Thank God our Christian Congresscritters passed a resolution expressing unwavering support for this. And, that they continue to support the bloody, illegal war in Iraq. 

###

Sarah Palin Hates Beluga Whales

 

 

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is going to court to block protections for the diminishing population of Cook Inlet beluga whales off of her state. In an announcement from her office, Palin has again taken the lead in attacks on environmental protection policies.


There are fewer than 400 of the whales left in the inlet but Palin wants to delay any additional efforts to save them.

 
###
 
 
### 

If Susan Crawford thinks Qahtani can't be prosecuted because he was tortured, then it stands to reason that there's someone who can be prosecuted for the torturing.

Next time you hear some bloviating asshat mocking the bleeding hearts on the left who they claim want to invite terrorists over for slumber parties (yes I'm talking about you Joe Scarborough), remind yourself that it was Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Yoo and their fellow cretins who made the conscious decision that the information they thought they would get through torture was worth the risk of eventually tainting any evidence they received to the point where the prisoners might go free and their own freedom would be at risk for authorizing felonies and war crimes.

So be it, decisions like that cannot be without consequences.  Let the other shoe drop — or be thrown, whatever.  The jails are filled with people who don't think they did anything wrong, and quite a few who insist that they'd do the same thing that landed them in the slammer again under similar circumstances.  No regrets, no contrition, no absolution — but there is justice.

Bush has got a week to issue the pardons his lieutenants have been counting on for years.  As cowardly as it will seem when/if he does issue get-out-of-jail-free cards, far more cowardly would be to walk away from this, shirking responsibility as usual and letting those most loyal to a POTUS who valued loyalty above all else swing for his own crimes.

The Memory Hole:

I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party there are some people who believe that we really tortured.
--
Dick Cheney

It's torture. It's a means of extracting information that I didn't even believe these people probably had. It's a means of making their lives more miserable.
--
Chris Arendt, formerly stationed at Guantanamo

We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case [for prosecution].
--
Susan J. Crawford, (a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense) convening authority of military commissions

Hey Dick, that doesn't sound much like "the left wing of the Democratic Party," does it? Sounds more like a principled conservative with respect for the rule of law. 

When cases are thrown out of court because the accused was tortured, then there was torture.
When people who work in the prisons say they saw torture, then there was torture. When people coming out of those prisons say they were tortured, then there was torture.

Yes, Dick, there may be some people out there who believe we really did torture, you shitweasel. And those people may actually believe that torture isn't just wrong, but un-American, illegal, unjust, and illogical.

Those people are what you call "realists."

###

From Editor and Publisher: In an exit interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer for the "NewsHour", Vice President Cheney repeats claims that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qaeda. Asked if he made any mistakes in his eight years as V.P., Cheney only mentions underestimating the psychological harm Saddam had done to his own people (forgetting to acknowledge the psychological harm he and his pupet have inflicted on all of us). He said his administration bore no blame for the economic problem: "I think we had good economic policies, especially in the early years." And the terror threat was inherited because of the poor handling by previous presidents.

On polls showing he is overwhelmingly unpopular among the American people: "I don't buy that."

###

The Onion - Charles Barkley Finally Gets That Blow Job - now ready to run for governor.

###

Here's Max Blumenthals' video of a pro-Irsrael rally in NYC - these are your fellow citizens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FABqq_jjRRo&eurl=http://www.boomantribune.com/

My God. I think the quotes speak for themselves, don't you? A rather horrifying revelation that so many people are so callous toward the plight of the people in Gaza. I know that this doesn't represent the views of all New Yorkers or all American Jews. I know that many Jewish Americans would be appalled by the views expressed in this video. Nonetheless, its clear that a significant number of people view the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza as worth less than the value of Israeli lives. They also seem to believe that the collective punishment of innocent civilians in Gaza, including the deaths and injuries sustained by children as a result of the attacks by the IDF is morally justified, and that the Jews in Israel are the only real victims of this conflict. And that is simply horrific.

It is as if these individuals have learned nothing from the history of the Holocaust and all the other genocides carried out in the last century except one thing: Better them than us. I can't tell you how ashamed I am that people in America support the slaughter of the people of Gaza based on such heartless, cruel, selfish and immoral beliefs.

Perhaps they should study the Talmud a little more, before they express such evil thoughts and desires:

Jews are compassionate children of compassionate ancestors, and one who is not compassionate cannot truly be a descendant of our father Abraham.
-Talmud, Beitzah 32b

Those who have the capacity to eliminate a wrong and do not do so bear the responsibility for its consequences.
-Talmud, Shabbat 54b

One who destroys a single life is considered to have destroyed an entire world, and one who saves a single life is considered to have saved an entire world.
-Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:5

###

Obama barred from White House: http://www.teambio.org/2009/01/13/obama-barred-from-white-house/#more-6914

###

Recycle Runway: Campaign for Change Couture Collection

Glass-Evening-Gown

Okay, this is about the most fabulous thing I have seen in I don't know how long.  Nancy Judd has made a name for herself as the queen of recycling.  Her professional creds are impeccable, but it's her witty way around scissors and sewing machines that's different.  This Glass Evening Gown is just one of dozens of articles of clothing she's made from recycled objects.  Objets de trash, you might say.

But her boldest endeavor is the entire Campaign for Change Couture Collection, with the added component of attendance at one of the Inaugural Balls.  You can read all about it and her at her website, and even sponsor her trip if you feel so inclined.  (The Obama Cocktail Dress is to die for.)  Obamanos! 

###

The Times They Are A-Changin': FISA and the Future of American Democracy

These have been strange times indeed. The conservatives who have worked tirelessly - with the support ultrarich who have put a great deal of money into the effort - to turn the society upside down have succeeded in a lot of areas. For instance, for the first time in our history: 

http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2009/01/the-times-they-are-achangin-fisa-and-the-future-of-american-democracy.html

###

MR. LEHRER: The president has also said that he made some mistakes in the last eight years. Did you make any?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, make mistakes - I can think of places where I underestimated things. For example, talking about Iraq, the extent of which the Iraqi population had been beaten down by Saddam Hussein was greater than I anticipated. That is, we thought that the Iraqis would be able to bounce back fairly quickly once Saddam was gone or the new government established and step up and take major responsibilities for governing Iraq, building a military and so forth and that took longer than I expected.

You solipsistic asshole. "Bounce back?" We blew up their country and killed their leader and told them to loot all they wanted because freedom was untidy, and by the way screw your librairies and museums, we have oil fields to protect - you can always buy the priceless antiquities of Babylon back on Ebay, you stupid bitches. Sure, we'd just done all that in pursuit of weapons they didn't have and terrorists they didn't harbor, but why on earth would they not want to step right up and work with us? Honestly, I can't figure it out.

This has been a wingnut article of faith for some time, that everything would have been fine if the Iraqis had been properly grateful for the freedom killing we did of them, instead of acting like children throwing an IED tantrum, and you expect this sort of shit from Little Green F**ktards and the Freepi, but you don't expect it out of the mouth of the vice president of the United States. Or maybe you do, which is why in five days he's going to be unemployed.

###

I wouldn't necessarily call it lying. It's just that God has His own accounting practices: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-wouldnt-neccessarily-call-it-lying.html

### 

Would UN workers in Gaza live longer if they stopped giving Israel their coordinates?

Ehud calls it another big mistake. The bombing of UN headquarters that is. Yea right Ehud. It's getting harder and harder to keep track of Ehud's big mistakes. Once again the UN gave Israel its coordinates just like the UN truck driver last week and once again Apartheid Israel did its best to blow the crap out of them. I don't think Israel liked the UN reporting about all those civilian casualties. Take that UN workers. Does anyone remember the United Nations workers who gave Apartheid Israel their coordinates at their out post in Lebanon during that conflict? Yes they're dead too. Here is my recommendation to UN personnel. Do not give the animals in the Israeli Defence Forces your coordinates. Your chances of survival will be much greater. And thanks for your courageous work.

And yes, white phosphorous was used. Just like we used it in Iraq.

###

The sex abuse crisis - in which the Vatican became the de facto hub of an interational sexual criminal conspiracy in the 1960s and 1970s - had a special brutality in the frozen north. The Catholic church: dumped in Alaska. 

###

Paul Krugman: when you decide to "look forward rather than backward" when official wrongdoing is of the scale of that committed by the Bush Administration, you make a mockery of the entire concept of rule of law.

###

Mr. Bush, this is what badass looks like:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chesley B. Sullenberger III, pilot, US Airways Flight 1549.

And it's the only story we're going to hear about for days.

###

Another Gitmo prisoner released after the real judicial system, rather than Bush's kangaroo courts, examines the evidence against him - this time a 21 year old that has been imprisoned since he was 14.

###

Republicans don't like Eric Holder because - get this - he could be just like Gonzales! http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/ghost_of_gonzo_stalks_holder_hearing.php

Why do Arlen Sphincter and the Roadblock Republicans only seem to care about judicial independence when there's a Democrat in the White House but have no problem with nepotism and cronyism when it's a Republican in office?

###

It's a common reaction, Howie....everyone cramps up after spending time with Chimpy. Projectile vomiting, too. Oh, and the trots.

###

Former chief of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under Gov. Ted Strickland (D-OH) arrested for running hooker rating website.

###

GOP Rep. Steve King's middle name must begin with an 'a' and end with a 'hole.' Politico brings us the latest - now he's complaining that Obama is getting sworn in with his middle name, Hussein:

The congressman says he doubts Obama's sincerity when he explained that he chose to use his middle name so as to be historically consistent with past inaugurations, when America has heard the full names of its presidents echo from the inaugural stand.

"Whatever his reasons are," King said, "the one he gave us could not be the reason."

He continued: "The society is a little strange about this. If you're speaking the truth and in an effort to be objective, there should be nothing off limits in a free society, [but] there are many biases building and clearly a double-standard."

When the GOP wonders why it has sub-zero approval ratings, they need look no further than clowns like King.

###

Paging the Hague: here's another one that's admitting it

Outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden yesterday defended the agency's use of torture and advised the incoming Obama administration "against going too far in dismantling the agency's controversial counter-terrorism programs." "These techniques worked," Hayden said of the agency's interrogation program.

###

As one of his final actions in office, President Bush has proclaimed that Jan. 18 is National Sanctity of Human Life Day. In his official statement, Bush made it clear that his conception of "human life" includes the unborn:

All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world. We also underscore our dedication to heeding this message of conscience by speaking up for the weak and voiceless among us.

Hurricane Katrina

Iraq

Abu Ghraib

U.S. soldiers returning in the dark of night.

###

Hypocrites-R-Us

Yesterday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-1 to approve Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. Casting the sole "nay" vote was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who was concerned about Bill Clinton's "multimillion dollar minefield of conflicts of interest." Vitter has long been a Clinton foe, calling on President Clinton to step down in 1998 because of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. In 2007, Vitter also revealed that he had been a client of the D.C. Madam's escort service, (and wore diapers) but refused to resign.

###

No comments: