by Turkana
Dick Cheney has strong words for the president. According to the Associated Press:
Former vice president Dick Cheney accused the White House of dithering over the strategy for the war in Afghanistan and urged President Barack Obama to "do what it takes to win." "Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," Cheney said Wednesday night while accepting an award from a conservative national security group, the Center for Security Policy.
I have news for Dick. Afghanistan is lost. It was lost because of your administration. It was lost because of your incompetence. It was lost because of your lunatic agenda.
1) Your administration allowed Osama bin Laden to get away, when he could have been caught or killed, at the battle of Tora Bora. Dick.
2) Your administration disastrously shifted its focus from those who had attacked us on 9/11 to those who had nothing to do with it. Dick.
3) Because of that, the Taliban grew stronger both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, while Al Qaeda also regrouped and grew stronger in both countries. On your watch. Dick.
4) In fact, both countries ended up having to negotiate with the Taliban. On your watch. Dick.
5) And then your administration began running around blaming our allies for your disaster. Dick.
Everything that is now wrong in Afghanistan is your fault. Dick. That President Obama even has to be worrying about Afghanistan is proof that you didn't do your job. Dick. That 9/11 even happened was due to your administration's having been asleep at the wheel. Dick.
President Obama does have to figure out what to do about the Afghanistan disaster he inherited from your administration. Dick. But he is being deliberate and circumspect. Something you were not. Dick. Something for which the entire world has suffered. Dick.
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"In 1969 and during the first half of 1970, I was a wet-behind-the-ears, 29-year-old staff aide in the West Wing of the Nixon White House,'' Alexander said today. "Based upon that experience and my 40ty years since then in and out of public life, I want to make what I hope will be taken as a friendly suggestion to President Obama and his White House: don't create an enemies list.''
In 1971, Alexander recalled, Nixon adviser Chuck Colson compiled a list of "persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration." He said he thought the administration should "maximize our incumbency . . . [or] to put it more bluntly, . . . use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."
Alexander presents a list of who he percieves as Obama's 'enemies' - health care giant Humana, Fox News, Wall Street, and John Kyl (because he made noises like he'd refuse federal stimulus money and the White House called him out on it).
But what Alexander fails to consider is that Obama's White House is taking on those who stake out extreme positions, and even make shit up, to try and undermine the president's agenda - Fox News and Kyl in particular. If Kyl decides to grandstand and tell his constituents that he's going to refuse the stimulus money, isn't it fair play to call him out and put him on the spot for it? If Glenn Beck goes on Fox' air and calls Obama a racist, does it not make sense to view Fox as an opponent?
Nixon, by contrast, laid out his enemies list out of paranoia and spite. Nixon's petty mindset is the stuff of legend, and he planned to actively use the workings of the government - the IRS in particular - as a club against his enemies. Big difference.
It says a lot that Republicans like Alexander reach for the worst villian they can find to demonize Obama - and name a Republican. I think there's a little projection going on here.
Update: Steve Benen has more.
Bush will speak for twenty minutes to motivate an audience that will pay $4.95 a person. People are hoping he will show how a little effort can destroy a main political party, strip a nation of all credibility and sympathy, and commit a series of officially sanctioned war crimes. That takes motivation.
...
Below is the last motivational session Bush gave to unmotivated individuals:
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/10/22/george-bush-motivational-speaker/#more-16377
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Maine's Republican Senator Olympia Snowe brought gasps to the Beltway when she uttered the deep yet obtuse phrase, "When history calls, history calls..." and voted for the Senate Finance Committee's health insurance reform bill. She voted for it because it didn't have the dreaded public option. We wouldn't want to save taxpayers money and give them more choices, would we?
TPM talked to Snowe today and she said "it would be difficult" to allow a health care bill to come to a vote in the Senate if it had the dreaded public option. Difficult? DIFFICULT? You want difficult, Senator Snowe? Try getting turned down for insurance because of pregnancy, past C-section, or being a victim of domestic violence. How about going bankrupt from health care expenses, even if you have insurance? What about the 45,000 people per year who die because they don't have health insurance? Do you think maybe it is difficult for them and their families?
Spare us your concern, Senator Snowe. We have government administered Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans' Administration, and federal employee health care systems providing quality care for a reasonable price and the country has not imploded. History IS calling, Senator Snowe. We have the best opportunity in 50 years to save taxpayers money, make small and large businesses more competitive, and greatly improve medical care for tens of millions of Americans. If you can't vote for that, Senator Snowe, go ahead and vote no. But if you aren't willing to answer the call of history, at least have the decency to vote for cloture and stand out of the way of the people who are.
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No more blasphemy laws, please
It's very nice of Obama to have occasionally acknowledged the existence of freethinkers in his speeches, but it doesn't mean much when his administration endorses blasphemy laws.
The public and private curtailment on religious criticism threatens religious and secular speakers alike. However, the fear is that, when speech becomes sacrilegious, only the religious will have true free speech. It is a danger that has become all the more real after the decision of the Obama administration to join in the effort to craft a new faith-based speech standard. It is now up to Congress and the public to be heard before the world leaves free speech with little more than a hope and a prayer.
Free speech doesn't mean you only have the right to say things that the majority agrees upon — it is also the right of a minority to offend the majority. I don't know why that is so hard to get across to some people.
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Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now
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War against Xmas shopping season begins:
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Someone remind me again
So why this:
An amendment that would prevent the government from working with contractors who denied victims of assault the right to bring their case to court is in danger of being watered down or stripped entirely from a larger defense appropriations bill.
Multiple sources have told the Huffington Post that Sen. Dan Inouye, a longtime Democrat from Hawaii, is considering removing or altering the provision, which was offered by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and passed by the Senate several weeks ago.
The Senate is filled with bleeping sleazeballs and Pro-Rape Inouye is very high up on the list.
John Cole is right: With Democrats like Inouye, who needs the GOP?
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are "entitled" to some of Iraq's crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq."Entitled"? Sort of like the way that the United Fruit Company was "entitled" to control Nicaragua or the British East India Company was "entitled" to control South Asia?
I didn't see any U.S. oil company making large donations to the Treasury to help offset the cost of the Iraq War. If anything, when the price of oil spiked, the oil companies made huge profits and I didn't see them offering to share any of it.
"Entitled", my ass.
Jesus Horatio Christ on Roller Skates! Does anybody now no longer argue that the entire TARP program, as put together by Paulson, was not riddled with insider preferences and good-ole-boyism? Paulson let Lehman Brothers fail, but there was no way that he was going to let his asshole-buddies at Goldman Sachs be thrown out on the street.
Needless to say, the Goldman Sachs alumni in the Obama Administration will make goddamn sure that nothing is ever done about this.
Bet you won't hear a peep out of any of the Wingnuts on this either. They're all about defending the rich and screwing over the middle class and the poor.
Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll says. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_re_us/us_climate_poll
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