A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say.
He left his military base in the early hours of the morning and opened fire in at least two homes; women and children were among the dead.
Nato said it was investigating the "deeply regrettable incident".
He is reported to have walked off his base at around 03:00 local time (22:30 GMT Saturday) and headed to nearby villages, moving methodically from house to house.Jesus Christ. I've been worried for a while now about how many young men and women are going to come back from ten years at war supremely messed up.
From LittleGreenFootballs:
I've looked at about a dozen right wing sites this morning to see how they'd react to the news from Afghanistan, and the comments at every single one of them were full of people celebrating the killings, praising the soldier who allegedly committed them, and denying there was any crime, while at the same time frantically trying to blame the crime on President Obama.
But the worst site by far is the right wing's premier news channel, Fox News:This is nothing! Wait until you see what happens to the n!qqqers here in the US of A when the new civil war starts!
[…]
THATS 15 LESS AFGAN POLICE WHO HAVE BEEN MUR D ER ING OUR TROOPS AND CIVILIANS
[…]
Obama just announced that he is personally going to provide fe la tio to every Afghani male to compensate for their loss.
[…]
The P O S P apoligizes to moooooooooooooslimes and doesnt have any respect for American solders ! Sent the ragehead obummerdeen and his entire family to Kenya where their dirty s c u m b a g b o d i e s belong !
[…]
This guy only did what the NewBIackPanthers promise to do to white babies.
According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, a clear majority of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan has largely been a waste of time, and a simple majority believe we should have come home yesterday.
Sixty percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been not worth fighting and just 30 percent believe the Afghan public supports the U.S. mission there — marking the sour state of attitudes on the war even before the shooting rampage allegedly by a U.S. soldier this weekend.
Indeed a majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 54 percent, say the United States should withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without completing its current effort to train Afghan forces to become self-sufficient.
Great Lakes ice coverage declined an average of 71 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report from the American Meteorological Society.
The amount of decline varies year to year and lake to lake, according to the report's lead researcher, Jia Wang, an ice research climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Wang's report said that based on Coast Guard scanning, satellite photos and other research from 1973 to 2010, ice coverage dropped most on Lake Ontario, 88 percent; the second-largest loss was on Lake Superior, at 79 percent.
You know what a gaffe is. It's when a politician slips up and tells the truth.
Rick Santorum deviated from the party line this weekend when he suggested that an improving economy could damage Republicans' chances in November. Santorum, whose campaign has helped bring social issues to the fore this year, let slip Saturday that the economy might not be a winning issue -- or even the main issue during the election."You hear now the media starting to say, oh well, looks like the economy is getting better," Santorum told supporters in Missouri Saturday night after winning the Kansas caucuses. "You know, the economy may be getting better and Republicans may lose their edge on that issue. Well, if that was the only issue in this race, that may or may not be the case, we don't know."
That comment sets him apart from the rest of the occupants of the GOP clown car, especially Rmoney who has made the economy his primary -- hell, his ONLY -- issue to campaign on. With the economy improving and that issue slipping away from them, Santorum appears to be looking for other issues to set himself apart from the former one-term governor. He always has social issues, but that is costing the republicans dearly right now as American women flee the GOP in droves.
What scares me is what that leaves on the table...foreign policy. The last person on the face of the earth I want in charge of America's foreign policy -- ever -- is a dominionist freak who wants to start a war with Iran to bring about the end times. And that, I fear, is exactly what Santorum is.
The former senator is vocal and passionate about Israel and the Middle East, and he indicated over the weekend that turmoil in the region might become a big issue in the election. "People say, 'Well what's gonna be the most important, oh jobs, jobs, jobs.' Well maybe not," Santorum said at a separate event Saturday. "We've got a country in the Middle East that's about, potentially about to explode a nuclear weapon, which would change the face of our Earth."In a direct hit at Romney's message, Santorum added: "We have candidates running around saying they want to run for CEO of America. I'm running to be the commander in chief for America." [emphasis added]
Let me put this bluntly...The man is a warmongering fascist.
"America" does not have a commander in chief. The armed services have a Commander in Chief, but America does not. But that Santorum thinks of it in those terms tells me all I will ever need to know about him, and the sort of "leadership" he would embody.
###
It's not about what's fit to print, and never has been. It's about distorting the debate by suppressing the facts, and always has been.
Kathleen Geier at Political Animal:
Jim Romenesko is reporting that the St. Pioneer Press and The Oregonian, among other newspapers, will not be running next week's Doonesbury strips, which deal with the effects of those anti-abortion/mandatory ultrasound laws that are making their ways through a number of state legislatures. From Romenesko's description of the cartoons, it doesn't appear that they're sexually explicit. But politically, Gary Trudeau is not pulling any punches. To wit, here's how one cartoon is described:
In the stirrups, she is telling a nurse that she doesn't want a transvaginal exam. Doctor says "Sorry miss, you're first trimester. The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10รข€³ shaming wand." She asks "Will it hurt?" Nurse says, "Well, it's not comfortable, honey. But Texas feels you should have thought of that." Doctor says, "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape."
Frankly, I'm a little shocked that a strip that for years more often than not has been so toothless is now being so uncharacteristically blunt.Spokespeople for the newspapers which are banning the strips say their reason is that the material is "over the line" and "inappropriate."
I wonder when the day will come when these extraordinarily nasty examples of unadulteratedly racist and misogynist (not to mention witless) political cartoons are also considered "over the line" and "inappropriate."
And when the facts are denied to millions of Americans, you get shit like this.
The facts on Rape-The-Sluts bills are painful and disgusting to face and contemplate, much less discuss and debate publicly, but we have to do it. Make sure everyone you know understands exactly what these so-called "ultrasound" bills really require.
Show them this:
###
Worst person in the world
Fox Nation columnist Mark Steyn for this perpetuation of lies and libel against Sandra Fluke.
Whenever a Fox News employees prefaces by noting that he or she is "not up to speed" on an issue be prepared for that doofus to barf diarrhea all over the page or screen. And that's exactly what Steyn does — furthering the Limbaugh lie that Fluke is demanding birth control in order to feed her sexual activity when, in fact, Fluke's testimony was entirely about other students.
And, by the way, so what if it was about sexual activity (it wasn't)? Shouldn't conservatives want to reduce unintended pregnancies and potential abortions? They're certainly willing to devote taxpayer money towards banning birth control, but they're totally opposed to taxpayer money financing birth control and hence the prevention of unintended pregnancies — even though, as we all know, taxpayer money doesn't pay for birth control.
Ah hell, I can barely follow their twisted, contradictory nonsense anymore.
###
You asked for it, Limbaugh
If they pass a law like this in Florida and New York, Rush Limbaugh will be totally screwed. Another tongue-in-cheek retaliation against anti-birth control zealots — this time in Ohio:
Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way.
The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week.
###
"Get over it. It was a long time ago, people forget. It was a 7-2 decision. It wasn't even close." Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the Bush v. Gore decision
The decision was 5-4. And no sir, we won't "get over it" because it irrevocably changed the course of history — on top of being a crime against citizen suffrage.
###
No comments:
Post a Comment