We Should Never Forget

Today, Donald Trump tweeted:

Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner rather than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must be quickly forgotten. Our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before!!!

Forgotten.  Quickly forgotten.  Must be quickly forgotten.

Over 14,000 dead, and counting.

How far we have come from when a president mourned the loss of lives on 9/11.

George W. Bush said:

This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace….None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.

Well, Many Of Us Knew That Kerry Was Actually The Winner In Ohio

It is interesting that probably the biggest election steal in recent history just cannot get traction despite all of the related and seriously conclusive evidence!

"A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush," according to Bob Fitrakis, columnist at http://www.freepress.org and co-counsel in the litigation and investigation.

If you recall, Ohio was the battleground state that provided George Bush with the electoral votes needed to win re-election. Had Senator John Kerry won Ohio's electoral votes, he would have been elected instead.

Evidence from the filing suggests that Republican operatives — including the private computer firms hired to manage the electronic voting data — were compromised.

Yeah, as IF we didn't know that, thanks to all the hard work done over the years at The Brad Blog.

I suggest you read the full article for all the juicy facts.

The Republicans Just Can't Give It A Rest

All those silly and petty (oh, and add just about every other kind of derogatory adjective you wish to add here) Republicans. What cracks me up is that they don't have an independent operative brain cell amongst them, and it's apparent to anyone that listens, watches or reads about what they say.

Since OBL was taken out, the whiny little brats can't stop peeing all over themselves because, as the narrative has been going, our President has not given the "real" credit where it is due ... to Bush, and his waterboarding, etc. techniques. And this narrative, to a tee, is being shouted from the rooftops (ok, on television, but still ...) by every shill for the Republican party that can read the bullet points.

(shaking head, I stopped banging it on the keyboard when the letters started to come off on my head).

Little boys and girls, please, don't you realize just how irrelevant you have become since you all created your tea party express?

I'm With Julian Assange - Keep The Light Shining On Our Actions

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that he was disappointed by criticism from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates over the release of about 76,000 pages of U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan.

Gates said Thursday that the massive leak will have significant impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures.

Assange rejected that assessment Friday, saying in a release that Gates "has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[snip]

"Secretary Gates could have used his time, as other nations have done, to announce a broad inquiry into these killings," the statement said. "He could have announced specific criminal investigations into the deaths we have exposed. He could have announced a panel to hear the heartfelt dissent of U.S. soldiers, who know this war from the ground. He could have apologized to the Afghani people.

"But he did none of these things. He decided to treat these issues and the countries affected by them with contempt. Instead of explaining how he would address these issues, he decided to announce how he would suppress them.

"This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to expose abuses by this administration and others."

It is these types of stories, well not really stories, real things is better, that get me pissed off the most about Obama and his presidency. I am pretty fucking sure that most of us that voted for Obama actually thought he would pull down troops, bring out soldiers home, and end these two ridiculous and unwinable wars. Most of us, again I am sure, did not in our wildest imagination figure that he would increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. Either Obama knows he is wrong but the money controllers (those corporate people that dictate what goes on in Washington) really have a hold on his nads, or the dufus believes he's doing "the right thing," which is kind of very hard for me to take.

When Bush was in the White House, I knew he was on drugs. But with Obama, man, I feel like I'm the one on drugs. It's like (said as if Cheech to Chong) -- dude, deja vu.

Who thought Obama and the Democrats would continue the tyrannical war policy of the last eight years?

Who knew?

Bush ... Or Monk? You Decide

Can someone just make these Republicans just shut the fuck up and stop lying to Americans?

I am having a hard time trying to find the Republican adults in congress. When I read things like Orrin Hatch saying that health care reform threatens the two party system (which, by the way, to me, is not a bad idea - not in having a one party system, but in not having any party at all, fuck the platforms and partisan ruling), and Jim Inhofe's decision to have his "gang" just not show up for the hearings on the clean energy bill so nothing can be passed, or Virgina Foxx's statement that health care reform is a greater threat to Americans than terrorism, I just don't get it. What is wrong with these people?

John Boehner puts out a document that quotes FactCheck.org as stating that the health care plan will include massive cuts to medicare benefits to seniors, and when representatives at FactCheck.org call and tell him they never said that and to take it out of his document, he refuses?

And these people actually believe that if they fuck up Americans, that Americans will vote for them in droves in the next election!?!?

I am completely at a loss to understand this new culture of "no," especially when you consider that Republicans of the 80's and 90's actually supported certain things that they now claim are going to push America into either a communist country, a socialist state, a Nazi run government, etc. Of course, the battle among the Republicans as to who can be the nuttiest is taking a toll on true conservative Republicans that actually could spark a decent debate over the future of this country, because the right wing fringe nut jobs are forcing issues that have absolutely no bearing on the needs of this country. They are, in essence, eating their own (think NY's Dede Scozzafava, the Republican who dropped out of the race because of the likes of Limbaugh, Palin, Beck, et al [hmmm, none of these people are really politicians] who want to "purge" the Republican party of its moderates, and stock it with bat shit crazy nut jobs), and they think this will actually get them more votes? Have these people not done the math? They lost by huge numbers in 2006 and 2008, and they believe that by being even nuttier and more obstructionist, that more (not less) people will identify with them?

As a point of irony, I read today that Doug Holtz-Eakin, who was a top McCain presidential adviser during his campaign, will soon lose his insurance! And because he had an operation on one of his kidneys, he falls into that category of "pre-existing conditions" that today's insurance companies are denying coverage for! But, of course, McCain opposes the current health care overhaul because he believes the current private coverage available to Americans is just dandy!

Then, of course, there's Michelle Bachmann with her rallying cry of "don't take away my healthcare," as if overhauling our current system will somehow result in taking health care away from Americans. She's such a twit, it's hardly worth the time it takes to type these words. It's an "overhaul" of the system, you know, that private one that gouges Americans, charges them up the wazoo, denies basic needs and coverages, but it is in no way taking away any one's healthcare, bitch.

Then there is the blatant irony of Republicans saying they oppose health care reform because it will add to the budget deficit, while with a straight face, they add to the budget deficit with war financing! And to add insult to injury, Americans are supposed to finance reform in the Middle East, but Republicans are opposed to Americans financing reform in America.

I don't see how you can be an American citizen and root for people in government whose sole contribution on behalf of their constituents is to refuse to play ball. At some point you have to stop, scratch your head, and say, "what the fuck?"

And the most bizarro part of all of this is the fact that the Republicans have no plans to offer the American people except to keep on saying that the past eight years were fabulous, and nothing went wrong until Obama was elected president! (Of course, there is still that buzz that everything went to hell during the Clinton years [ummm, can you say budget surplus?] while Bush put this country on the right path).

While I am in bitch mode, how about the new trend recently with the insurance companies raising their premiums before 2010, some as high as 32%?

Wages are stagnant (my salary hasn't changed in nearly 20 years), millions are unemployed, many more millions have no insurance, people are homeless and starving in this country, but our Republican lawmakers are putting on a full court press that the Bush years were the best we've had, and changing anything is just simply going to ruin America.

Can someone just make these Republicans just shut the fuck up and stop lying to Americans?

Anyone???????

UPDATE: From the mouth of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, regarding the line drawn in the sand as to who can be a Republican:

Well, you can’t be for card check, you can’t get endorsed by ACORN, you can’t support the stimulus bill, you can’t be for bank bailouts, that would be a starting point, Chuck. But if you’re for all those things, you’re probably not a Republican.

H/T to Think Progress.

Obama Thinks Blogs Don't Fact Check, No, Seriously! He's One Confused Puppy

Mr. Obama said he noted the trend. "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual nderstanding," the President said.

Um, Mr. President. People shouting at each other across the void, without a lot of mutual understanding, is not a description of the blogosphere. It's not even a description of newspapers (which is what your comments were that preceded this one). It is, however, what television news has become. And the comment about fact checking being practically non-existent in the blogosphere, and "no serious attempt to put stories in context" shows how little you read the blogs and how much you actually DO watch television news shows! Actually, when it comes to not checking the facts, AP Wire Service, and its reporters, are fabulous for that.

News broadcasters have been telling outright lies for at least the past four to eight years now, with the most egregious lies coming since this president has been elected. But, with the weak-spined president that we have, instead of calling a liar a liar, to his face, this president has to put the blame on the blogosphere -- back to the pajama wearing, Cheetos eating, kids living in the basement of their parents, blogger mentality.

Time and time again it has been proven that the blogosphere is what is keeping truth out in the forefront while the mass media assault on truth is ongoing, with no abatement in sight.

How ignorant. And here, I thought GWB was the twit. Imagine that.

Is Obama Taking Us To Armageddon?

Glenn Greenwald, on Gitmo and Binyam Mohamed, who was released on Saturdy, and upon medical evaluation, appears to have been badly beaten clear up until the time of his release. But, of course, the DOD claims that Gitmo is (and has always been) free and clear of any claim of abuse of the prisoners.

For reasons that human rights groups and detainees' lawyers immediately pointed out, this self-exonerating Pentagon report, from the start, was suspect in the extreme. But a sign of how broken our discourse is and how in love with ourselves we continue to be is that, on the question of current Guantanamo conditions, the conclusions of the United States Pentagon released this week were treated not only as credible, but authoritative. If the DOD -- which has long overseen Guantanamo and continues to do so -- says that everything is great there, well, that's the end of that. What else is there to know?

This is, of course, distressful. Obama promised to close Gitmo, and now it appears he is backtracking. I thought, at least, when it came to foreign policy actions, Obama would be straight forward, but alas, that does not seem to be so.

Of all the defining practices and policies of the Bush administration which the Obama administration has already enthusiastically embraced -- and they're piling up so quickly, it's becoming difficult to keep track -- one of the most disturbing is the Obama administration's press management approach. The administration is singling out particularly supportive journalists to whom they anonymously leak purely favorable pro-administration spin; giving access to others who are have a history of such sycophantic behavior that they predictably produce profiles so one-sided and glowing that even People Magazine would be embarrassed to publish it; and -- worst of all -- they are systematically hiding behind anonymity to disseminate their claims in order to evade accountability, the exact opposite of the "transparency" Obama continuously promised (read David Cay Johnston's superb account of dealing with the Obama White House Press Office to see what a real journalist -- as opposed to one desperately jockeying to serve the White House in exchange for favored access status -- does when faced with baseless demands from administration officials for anonymity and off-the-record chatter).

I, personally, think the faulty guidance that Obama is getting stems directly from Rahm Emanuel, whom we all know did such a fantastic job as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) [cough cough], and how he butted heads with Howard Dean's 50 state strategy. If Dean had not been so singularly focused on the 50 state strategy, and Rahm had his way, the Republicans would still be in power, and McCain would most likely be the current president. And this is whom Obama has chosen to be his White House Chief of Staff? The man who has not been right on anything for the past four years, and Obama is taking advice from him?

That's not to say that I have one shred of evidence at this point in time, but given Emanuel's track record, given the theme of Obama's campaign, "change" and Obama's promise to run the government differently, I am having a hard time in distinguishing the "difference" between Obama and Bush, outside of the fact that Obama can put together complete sentences. The advice being given to Obama is not in the best interests of this country, and although the polls still are pulling in Obama's direction, he's going to go down, and hard.

The stimulus package is too weak, the Republicans are thumbing their noses at him, the TARP money is not working, and is simply being pocketed by the rich, unemployment is through the roof, and it looks more and more like our men and women in uniform will still be fighting imaginary bogey men/women while our country drops faster than a sinkhole into a full blown depression. The only thing that is remarkably different in this scenario than with the 1930's is that the world, as a whole, is financially sinking as well.

Perhaps this is what is truly meant by Armageddon.

Are You Getting Any TARP Money? I Thought Not

A new report out of the Treasury Department Tuesday confirmed what many lawmakers, housing advocates, small businesses and individual consumers have known all along: That despite hundreds of billions of dollars flowing from Washington to the finance industry, bank lending among recipients of the Troubled Asset Relief Program fell in the last three months of 2008.

Among the 20 largest TARP recipients, median mortgage and business lending both fell by 1 percent over that span, Treasury found, while median credit card lending rose 2 percent, reflecting greater reliance on existing credit lines by consumers.”

The findings were based on a survey of the 20 banks receiving the most federal help under the TARP, and mark the first in what will be a series of monthly reports analyzing the lending trends among bailed-out banks.

Not that those banks have been particularly forthright about where the money’s going if not toward lending. In December, The Associated Press asked the 21 top TARP recipients to specify how they’re using the funds. The AP reported Tuesday: “None would provide any specifics.”

I find it funny they call it "dollars flowing from Washington," as if this isn't pretty clearly "dollars flowing from the American taxpayer." They won't tell us what they did with the money, and they won't loan it out, which is what you give the fucking bank money to do.

Aren't you 20 percenters really happy with the situation Bush left the United States of America in? Even the most die hard Republican on my office floor throws up his hands every time he sees me (this after arguing with me once in the elevator about how Bush was going to get those terrorists and the merits of America not really having to have the big nations as allies in our war on terror [cough cough, Iraq cough, cough]).

"Oh No He Di’in’t!"

From the Poorman, posted by curv3ball, regarding Ehud Olmert's gloating over having stated: “I said -- Get me President Bush on the phone. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: I need to talk to him now. He got off the podium and spoke to me.” Thereafter, Olmert claims to have told Bush that the U.S. could not vote for the resolution by the UN Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire in the three-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which order Bush dutifully followed:

Actually, it reveals the depths of our mutually destructive and utterly dysfunctional relationship with Israel - the land whose government is beyond reproach. Such that it’s leaders can yank a chain and pull our President off the podium, instruct him to publicly humiliate his Secretary of State by pulling the rug out from under her and then, get this, brag about it openly days later. Without consequences.

Without consequences.

Worst. President. EVER.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

In early 2006, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said of President Bush: “I really do believe this man will go down as the worst president this country has ever had.” This morning on Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked Reid whether he regrets making that statement. Reid refused to back down. “I think you just have to call things the way you see them,” he said. “I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had.”

White House response:

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino issued a terse response to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) suggestion that President Bush is the "worst president we've ever had."

"The Senate Majority Leader isn't really taken seriously," Perino said. Reid, on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, defended his past remarks that Bush was the worst president and the the Iraq war had been lost.

I tell you, it simply amazes me the way the Republican Party, or what's left of them, are clinging to some imaginary fairy wand that will somehow be waived over the entire world's head, and "poof," gone will be the idiocy that has been known as the Bush Administration, and in its place will be fond and pleasant memories of the Great G.W.!

Man, I need the drugs these people are on, seriously!

"Waiting For The Final Divorce Decree"

We all know by now that the AP writers are generally Bush Lickers, and this new piece on Bush is just more licking.

However, Digby's comments made me laugh so hard, I almost spit my coffee (and then almost choked!):

I've known plenty of people like him. He's America's mean ex- husband and the country can't wait to sign the final divorce decree.

As a family law practitioner, high five on that one, honey!

Throw Something At Bush!

Here's the link. Go throw whatever you want at Bush!

"'Twas The Night Before Regulations" -- A Bush Nightmare Before Christmas

Ok, this one was funny!

"So What?"

In an interview with ABC News' Martha Raddatz yesterday, the president reflected on the war, saying, "One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand."

Raddatz interjecting, noting that Iraq was not a major theater for al Qaeda until after the U.S. invasion. "Yeah, that's right," the president said. "So what?" He added that he believes the terrorist group is "becoming defeated."

So what? SO WHAT? This is what passes as a legitimate response from the highest "elected" (cough cough) official of the United States of America about a war he started without provocation, and about which he continues to lie? So what?

Isn't that more like what a child says to another child when confronted with something they know they did wrong, but could care less? So what?

I think it's way past time for someone to take this man out in back of the shed and beat the crap out of him. Then let him say -- "so what."

An Iraqi Insult - Shoes Hurled At George W. Bush

Ok, this is funny!

McClatchy identified the man as Iraqi television journalist Muthathar al Zaidi and reports he threw both of his shoes at Bush just after he finished prepared remarks.

The New York Times notes that the first shoe “narrowly missed” and the second shoe also missed. “This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” Zaidi shouted.

Courtesy of Think Progress.

Sorry, Obama Family, No Room At The Blair House For You

If there is any lingering doubt about the classlessness of George W. Bush, this tidbit should erase all doubts.

President Bush’s aides have turned down a request from President-elect Barack Obama to move from Chicago into Blair House, the official guest residence across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, in time for Mr. Obama’s daughters to start school in Washington on Jan. 5.

The Obamas were told that they could move into Blair House on Jan. 15, but no earlier, because it is booked, an Obama transition official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,” the official said. “But there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”

White House officials declined to disclose specifically who is using Blair House during that period, for what purpose or how they could take precedence over the president-elect of the United States when it came to government housing; one White House official would say only that it had been booked for “receptions and gatherings” by members of the departing Bush administration. Those receptions, the official said, “don’t make it suitable for full-time occupancy by the Obamas yet.”

Of course the "White House" is not going to give any concrete reasons for why they won't let the Obamas move in. They haven't been truthful to the American public for eight years, why start now?

This man is spiteful, cruel, mean-spirited, disgusting, and quite frankly, I personally would like to see him leave the White House dragged by a rope behind a horse's ass.