Thursday, May 21, 2009

Headlines - Thursday

Dick Cheney, who presided over the biggest attack on US soil and then profited from resulting wars, will be giving a rebuttal today to Obama's speech on national security.
 
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Least shocking headline of the day: Obama administration sides with Bush officials against outed Valerie Plame 
 
The Obama administration has decided to oppose the reinstatement of a civil lawsuit filed by outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

The move represents the first public position by the administration on the issue. Obama's position mirrors that of President George W. Bush, whose aides found themselves in the cross-fire after the agent, Plame Wilson, was outed by conservative columnist Robert Novak.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/21/obama-plame-lawsuit/

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h/t Rachel - Texas constructs US border wall to keep out unwanted Americans:
 
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The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has claimed another American hero. Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, an F-15E Strike Eagle with nine Air Medals, including one for valor for assaulting an Iraqi ambush position while under heavy anti-aircraft fire has been discharged for liking men instead of women.

As with a number of other principles, changing this insidious policy has been put on the back burner by the Obama Administration. Fehrenbach, who was born on an Air Force base and calls the Air Force his life, has been told that he is a danger to his unit and its morale. Of course, the soldiers who he protected from an ambush by attacking that enemy position were not particularly interested in the time who he dated. The military now appears to believe that it would have been better not to have him in the airplane at all so heterosexual soldiers could die without the corrupting influence of a homosexual.

His career and those of other gay soldiers, sailors, and air personnel is simply not a priority at this time.

For the full story, click here.  

Meanwhile, the real danger to troops and morale is the fact that prescriptions for antidepressants, sleeping pills, and painkillers has risen in the military to keep its warriors on the front lines. h/t Rachel: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=87894940845&h=aQ4R4&u=MiY-L&ref=nf
 
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If anybody asks, tell them Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has switched from the party symbolized by a donkey to the party symbolized by a horse's ass.
 
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Anyone who has a master's in creationist science in Texas or runs as a GOP candidate for president can tell you that the researchers have been duped by a recent fossil discovery. Since the Earth is only 10,000 years old, the radiometric dating is obviously wrong by roughly 47 million years and evolution is just a god-hating, atheist-advancing theory.

"Ida" is being called the "eighth wonder of the world" — except in Texas where it is being called a dead monkey.

Bill Nye might want to be consulted before the bring Ida to the Lone Star state. 

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If you are among the one-third of credit card users who do not carry a balance from month to month, you are considered a 'Deadbeat Paying Customer' by the industry. On the other hand, if you max out your cards, make minimum payments, occasionally exceed your credit limit, and miss a monthly payment every now and then, you are a 'Lifetime Preferred Customer'.
 
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The Nattering Nabobs of Knee-Knocking

There's nobody more weak-kneed than a chicken-hawk. The former Vice Capon and his nattering nabobs of knee-knocking prove that aplenty with their Chicken Little worldview. They whimper that if Guantanamo closes or the internees are granted actual non-simian trials, democracy as we know it is done for.

After the last 8 years, I'd say that fear comes a little late, but why quibble?

The GOPissTheirPants is worried about terror suspects coming to the US? Come on! We imprison more people than anyone other than China fer chrissakes. We have had actual cannibals in our state lockups. We have prison gang members with more access to firepower than the entire Coalition of the Inept. Where was all this hue and cry when our own criminals were locked up? I thought the Republican party was the "law and order party". What would St. Ronnie of Reagan say if he saw this disgraceful display of pants-wetting cowardliness?

More: http://www.teambio.org/2009/05/19/the-nattering-nabobs-of-knee-knocking/

And another thing from Wisco:

Wait, we can't even try them in the US? Why? If you think they'll build a mass accelerator cannon and escape with their army of robots, you're confusing a religious lunatic with Lexx Luthor. And we don't even know if they're all religious lunatics. Why? Because we haven't tried them yet!

But hey, we can't expect the criminal justice system to deal with a bunch of crazy cultists. Putting dangerous people in American prisons is just crazy talk. They're designed for pillars of society like serial killers, neo-nazi gangmembers, and child rapists. There's no way they could handle terrorists -- well, other than American terrorists like anti-abortion nut Eric Rudolph or Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. But I'm sure that -- all the random killing and mayhem aside -- Rudolph and Kaczynski are wonderful people and harmless as bunnies.

At the heart of this is an attempt by the right to embarrass Obama. Only extremely stupid people are worried about putting a member of al Qaeda in a US prison -- let alone trying one in a US court. And we aren't going to release someone who's actually guilty. Show of hands -- who thinks we ought to keep innocent people in custody forever? Who thinks that's justice?

Harry Reid says, "You can't put them in prison unless you release them."

What the hell is he talking about? "Can't put them in prison unless you release them?" Since when? Was Dahmer released, was Rudolph, was Kaczynski, was Tim McVeigh? Seriously Harry, if you could clear up what the hell you're talking about, that'd be great. Because right now it looks like shameless and stupid bullshit worthy of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.

If we can deal with guys who eat human hearts and shoot acid into people's brains, we can deal with terrorists. We have before. This whole issue is either people being stupid or pretending to be stupid. I won't make the distinction in the case of Harry Reid, because it doesn't make any difference.

As Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, "You are who you pretend to be." If Reid and Wisconsin State Rep. Dean Kaufert are pretending to be stupid, I say we take them at their word -- they're stupid.

Update: They voted overwhelmingly to support George Bush invasions of two countries without 'comprehensive plans', but now the lily-livered pantywaists have decided comprehensive plans are necessary to close Gitmo, so they have voted 90-6 against it. The 6 non-cowards were Democrats: Durbin, Harkin, Leahy, Levin, Reed, Whitehouse.

Can we finally put to bed the pipe dream that 60 Democratic votes in the Senate will matter?

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In 1995 when the Speaker of the House led the effort to shut down the federal government, Nancy Pelosi could have justifiably said of Newt Gingrich: "I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime. He is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes, and he dishonors Congress by his behavior." But she, unlike Newt Gingrich, was too classy to say something like that.
 
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The Goop: Lunatics & Cowards: http://www.kiav.net/?p=2038
 
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Modern Day Isaacs

Colleen Hauser has flown the coop. She has defied a court order to bring her sick son, Daniel Hauser, to a qualified doctor for essential medical care: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/modern_day_isaacs.php

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The Rude Pundit wonders about the craven Republican he-whore who exclaims about the Gitmo detainees "They get better health care than the average American citizen does" and then proudly stands in the way of Americans getting health care coverage. What's the real threat to the United States? What and who do we really need to be afraid of? What's an actual national security issue?

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R.I.P. American Auto Industry, 1896-2009
 
While everybody's bitching about AIG's bonuses and Citigroup's executive payouts, the same Obama administration that's handing the U.S. treasury over to Wall Street pirates is gutting the last bastion of good union manufacturing jobs in the country.
 
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60 years of terror by priests and nuns
 
The Guardian: The Pope has been challenged to hold an inquiry into the role of Catholic religious orders in Ireland's orphanages and industrial schools that led to the abuse of thousands of children.
 
Since Ratzinger has stated that homosexuality can be considered a "tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder", I'm sure he'll be investigating this. 
 
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Good thing we're spending $12 billion a month "fightin' them over there":

Four men have been arrested and charged in a plot to detonate explosives near at least one synagogue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and to shoot down military aircraft, authorities said Wednesday night.

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Three of the suspects are U.S. citizens and one is Haitian, Gov. David A. Paterson said last night, adding that the plot was considered "a serious threat."
 
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newt-the-theologian

Newt Gingrich, the hated former Speaker of the House and noted serial adulterer turned Catholic (and I bet Friday confession at his Parish is a rollicking good time!), says that current hated Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi is making the troops less safe and will be responsible for the next terrorist attack if they are not allowed to waterboard, or something.

Speaker Pelosi has damaged America's safety.

She's made America less secure by sending a signal to the men and women defending our country that they can't count on their leaders to defend them.

And every day they spend worrying about being politically persecuted is a day we are made more vulnerable to a nuclear attack on one of our cities, a biological attack on one of our subways, or a bomb going off in one of our malls.

Little Newtie fails to note that the killer pig death flu is probably the terrorists' biological weapon, and is her fault, too. Don't know how he could have missed that one. The man's game is clearly slipping.

 
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The Existentialist Cowboy with a 'recommended read' about how the war caused the crash.
 
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yogi

Our socialist magic negro overlord and re-education camp councilor is about to sign a bill that will allow concealed weapons in National Parks, because, woo-hooo, everyone needs a gun when liquered up camping and the tent next to you is making too much noise, or something.

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If you want to know what a progressive Democrat with a spine sounds like, check out this gem of a statement from Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat elected from a very Republican district in Florida, on why he voted against funding for the Afghanistan war.

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Even as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was being raked over the coals in Congress for the decision to cut funding to America's missile defense systems, Israeli defense officials have revealed that Israel's own Arrow 3 missile defense system will be "fully funded" by the United States yet again this year: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/20/us-promises-to-fully-fund-israeli-missile-defense-system-while-cutting-their-own/

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With the June 30 deadline for US troops to leave Iraqi cities rapidly approaching, the US desire to stay and the Iraqi government's desire to look like they're making the US adhere to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) seem clearly at odds. Yet, it seems, the two sides have found a rather clever loophole. Deciding that neither side really wanted the 3,000 US troops to leave southern Baghdad, the two have decided southern Baghdad really isn't part of the city of Baghdad, indeed not a city at all, and therefore not subject to the deadline. 

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From Anti-war Law Professor to Warmonger in 100 Days: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/47696,opinion,barack-obama-from-anti-war-law-professor-to-warmonger-in-100-days

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The Senate voted to confirm David Hayes as Deputy Interior Secretary last night, after Sens. Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) had blocked Hayes's nomination because Secretary Ken Salazar "had canceled oil and gas leases." Hayes became the first Obama pick to be rejected in a floor vote.

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Ahmed Ghailani, a Guantanamo prisoner and al Qaeda suspect, will be tried in the US for helping with the African embassy bombings in 1998. So far, none of his terrorist cronies have tried to break him out of prison. Reuters

 

 

 

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