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As more and more information comes out about the actions of Chimpy George and his trusty NeoCon sidekick Dick Dungeon Master, it becomes clearer and clearer that these two operated above the law and without regard to the Constitution or its laws. Now that they can no longer use the power of the White House to cover up their foul deeds, by drips and dribbles the truth is leaking out and a clearer picture is forming as to the violations of common decency, international law and our own principles that these two undertook in the name of security. All these actions did was to reinforce the lawlessness that NeoCons like Cheney would allow in the pursuit of their goals.
Fear was the primary motivator for Cheney. Once he was infected with this bug, it was only a matter of time before the simple minded George blindly followed suit. The latest revelation came when we discovered that the CIA did in fact lie to Congress about a number of different things but mainly they lied about an assassination program that they planned to create. This program was intended to circumvent the laws that the Church Commission passed back in the 1970’s which is the last time the CIA was outed for their sundry misdeeds. Assassination of foreign leaders was prohibited back then and the CIA has chafed about it ever since. They saw how the Israelis hunted down and killed everyone responsible for the murder of their Olympic athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games and they longed for the power/capability to do the same to the Taliban, AQ, and others we don’t like in response to 9/11. Trouble was, unlike the program the Israelis put together, this program never took off. It never even got past the planning stages. So much for avenging our losses, eh? Just maybe NeoCon balls aren’t as big as the bluster is.
One thing stood in the CIA’s way to create this program: the law. It’s a hard thing to deal with in a society based on following a Constitution and legal restrictions passed by a representative body. This did not stop Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld during the 1970’s when they told the CIA to lie to the Congress/members of the Church Commission in order to hide their deeds/misdeeds from the light of day. Now, early in the Bush administration, Dick Dungeon Master was at it again and told the CIA not to tell Congress about his secret assassination squad plans. Cheney had no legal authority to order the CIA to do anything. Only the President has that power but Cheney did it regardless. This ought to tell historians who held the real power in this past administration and it wasn’t Texas Chimpy.
Between Bush’s admission of war crimes in authorizing torture to be used against enemy detainees, the secret CIA jails they were kept in, the extraordinary rendition that got them there and Cheney’s conduct with respect to the CIA as well as his circumvention of the law, we have a couple of real fine examples of republicans in action. They seem to think that the law does not apply to them and until they are brought to court to face the power of the law, they are correct.
President Obama, you may want to go forward but if you ignore where we just were then you will soon lose direction as well. Bringing people to justice that have violated the law is an American principle that never gets old, never goes out of style and is not too late to act upon.
links: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4736.shtml
Sarah Palin is a real piece of work. I’m sitting here in amazement at the whole episode she created because of some off color joke that David Letterman told. She might have had a point… if even worse jokes had not been told before that she just let slide. The way this whole thing came down just tells me that Palin was exploiting her daughters for political points and to get her name in the news once again. What a media whore she has become.
This all started because Palin took offense at one of Letterman’s jokes about Palin’s trip to NYC. She was spotted at Yankee Stadium with her 14 year old daughter and Letterman made a joke about her thinking she was the older daughter. When all hell broke loose, letterman apologized immediately. That should have been the end of it but Palin kept at him, not accepting the apology. Letterman tried again the next night but that still did not do the trick. Palin had to milk the event for as much air time as she could.
In the meantime, some New York radio bum organized an anti-Letterman rally at the Ed Sullivan theater to protest Letterman’s joke. All of 15 wack jobs turned out and the hate they spewed was much worse than Letterman’s original joke. The radio bum beat a hasty retreat from the Psycho Convention he organized and later Palin accepted the Letterman apology.
That would have been the end of it but an Alaskan blogger dug up ten jokes made about Palin that were worse than the one David told. Palin never got her panties in a twist about jokes about incest told on Saturday Night Live about her family even to the point of appearing on the show soon there after. This trend repeats itself with joke after joke and Palin ignores them all.
It makes me think that there were a couple of reasons Palin acted the way she did and neither of them had to do with Letterman’s joke.
1) Palin is no longer in the national spotlight on a regular basis so she had to create some media attention to keep people thinking about her possible candidacy for president in 2012.
2) Why not take the occasion to bash a liberal talk show host as she makes that name for herself? Get him to bow down to her faux outrage and apologize a couple of times just to show him who the boss is.
If you think Sarah’s stunt is anything more than a brazen political stunt, you don’t really know Sarah Palin.
link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/top-10-reasons-sarah-pali_b_215468.html
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” ~ Mark Twain
Violating this cardinal rule of politics is the ace in the hole for Lamar Smith, the republican idiot who represents the folks of the 21st District in Texas. Known for being one of the small NeoCon parrots in Texas, every now and then he spreads his wings to say something else stupid to get himself noticed on the national stage. He pandered to some guy from Project Runway and lined up his staff for a clothing inspection on one occasion. He famously used a ridiculous scenario to tell us that 99% of American would support waterboarding when 58% of American already said that they thought the procedure was torture. Now comes the icing on the manure cake Lamar has built up over the years.
Today, Lamar Smith went on some yo-yo’s show over on Fox News and declared what he thought was the greatest threat to America.
It wasn’t the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It wasn’t global warming.
It wasn’t the economy and the billions of debt.
It wasn’t the mortgage or banking crises.
In wasn’t terrorism or extremist violence.
It wasn’t even torture and it’s NeoCon defenders.
Lamar Smith today declared the greatesn threat to America is…
Liberal media bias.
Are you shitting me? Is it still April Fool’s Day? No, it’s not and Mr Smith was totally serious. Liberal media bias is the greatest threat to America today.
Lamar has begun a congressional caucus to promote media fairness. He said he wants the media to adhere to the highest standards of their profession and to encourage them to report the facts, not offer up their opinions. Yet he comes on Fox News to publicize that new caucus. He assumes that people are not getting the facts because they repudiated the negative campaign of John McCain last year and supported Obama’s message of hope. I wonder why he would choose Fox to announce this on since they are the most biased of all the cable channels. There isn’t one non-conservative host for any of their news programs. In fact, most of the shows on Fox can’t really be called news given the sensationalism they demonstrate. They are more accurately called entertainment.
Maybe if three times as many Liberals were getting air time than conservatives I could see Lamar’s point but the opposite is true. Maybe if there were a channel dedicated to espousing the Liberal point of view then I could see his point but the opposite is true. Lamar Smith says this isn’t about censorship but when his side of the picture gets shown much more often than any other point of view and he still thinks that the problem is a Liberal Media bias, the problem isn’t media bias. The problem is a short-sighted NeoCon from Texas who wants it all his way and no one else’s way. George Bush used to feel that way but he’s gone. Lamar Smith has volunteered to take George’s place as the Texas Village Idiot.
Congratulations, Lamar.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/
It has become apparent that Dick Cheney has no morals when it comes to his beliefs and the power he once wielded. His contention that it is his opinion and only his opinion that counts runs contrary to everything that America stands for. Isn’t there an undisclosed location that he could inhabit for the next 20 or so years? Of course, this would mean that he won’t be held accountable for the torture program he pushed for and the war crimes he committed. I would prefer a nice cozy jail cell in the Hague instead of the undisclosed location but either one would work for me. I am getting pretty sick of his shit.
Richard Clarke has had his fill of Dick Cheney as well. A recent op-ed pretty much destroys the fantasy world that Cheney has pushed on the public since 9/11 and especially since he left office. (Clarke is the former national coordinator for security and counterterrorism for Clinton and Bush in case you forgot.) There are many parts to the Cheney fantasy that most people haven’t realized yet. Let’s destroy the illusions and the lies once and for all, shall we?
1. Cheney claims we were caught unawares on 9/11. Only the clueless NeoCons running the country were caught with their pants down because they ignored the warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that al qaeda was planning attacks against the United States. These NeoCons did not believe that a bunch of cave dwelling fundamentalists could manage the scale of attacks that the warning briefs were signaling so they went on vacation.
2. Cheney claims that all appropriate measures were taken after the attacks to make sure we were not attacked again. Again, not true. The measures they took were extreme, poorly thought out, and often illegal. They were in panic mode because they did not want to be held accountable in case of a second attack took place on their watch. Illegal wiretaps, the Patriot Act, waterboarding, extraordinary renditions, secret CIA prisons, and outright torture were the measures the Bushies took in response. None of these had the desired effect of keeping us safer. All they did was infuriate our citizens, our allies, and our enemies once they were made public.
3. Iraq and Saddam Hussein helped al qaeda to plan 9/11. This is the NeoCon fantasy supreme because they refused to believe that Osama bin Laden could have pulled this off by himself. Torture was approved to try and establish a non-existent link between the two. Despite Cheney’s claims to the contrary, no such link has ever been found.
4. Torture of detainees saved lives. Torture does not work because the information that results is unreliable. The most famous example is that of John McCain in Viet Nam. He was tortured and he broke. His captors wanted names of his battalion leaders so he gave them the starting offensive line of the Green Bay Packers and they were never the wiser. Cheney is now claiming that two memos would prove they got viable intel from tortured detainees but Senator Carl Levin has seen those secret memos and he says they do no such thing. Every example that Bush and Cheney have used to justify torture have been disproven by the facts already known.
5. Torture was made legal because of the Office of Legal Counsel’s memos. Were it only that easy. International law prohibits torture, a law we agreed to. US law prohibits torture. We have prosecuted torturers in our recent past. Dick Cheney seems to think that circumventing the law is as easy as saying, “We think differently about torture” and then putting that sentiment in writing. all they have done is givin any future prosecutions the smoking gun evidence to convict the whole bunch of them of war crimes.
6. Detention without trials was the best way to deal with suspected terrorists. Ignoring the fact that the Clinton administration had convicted and locked up every terrorist prior to 9/11, the Bush people thought they could go one better with their plan for indefinite detention. Not only did our abandonment of our national ideals show the hypocrisy of this move this tactic meant we were stuck guarding these people forever. A number of detainees were innocent but only after years of imprisonment were any of them released. Abandoning trials was a huge mistake, one we pay for in damaged reputation for decades.
7. Tested interrogation techniques were abandoned in favor of harsher methods which worked better. This is the biggest lie of all. Incident after incident that has come to light shows that regular police style interrogation worked to illicit viable intel from suspects and when subjected to torture techniques no viable intel was gathered. In addition to being illegal, they simply did not work.
8. Wiretapping gained valuable intel but it meant bypassing FISA. Then it no longer is wire tapping. It is illegal wire tapping. Breaking the law in a land of laws cannot be justified even by the president of the United States. No one is above the law. No proof was ever offered that viable intel came from any of the illegal wiretaps.
9. Extraordinary measures are needed to fight terrorists and terrorism. This does not mean illegal methods can be employed or that our standards have to be discarded. That route only puts us on par with the very terrorists we are trying to defeat. You cannot enforce American values by ignoring them or abandoning them. This is a point lost on the NeoCon Cheney crowd time and time again.
10. Repeating a lie a thousand times does not make it true. If it did, Dick Cheney would be known as the most moral man in America but he very clearly is not. His complicity in torture, illegal wire tapping and other compromises of American law just make him the most immoral man in America. Lying about it and trying to justify illegal actions cannot stand the test of time or the court of public opinion.
Shameful.
link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052901560.html
There’s been a lot of talk lately concerning who is the leader of the republican party, whether it is Mike Steele, Rush Limbaugh or the congressional leadership. From the interviews that have taken place over the last couple of weeks, it is apparent that Dick Cheney is making a bid for that title. Instead of riding off into the sunset like the Chimpster did, Darth Dick has re-inserted himself back into the mix hoping, I think, to salvage the reputation of the Bush Administration that he was largely responsible for damaging.
In keeping with his NeoCon tradition, he seeks out grateful rightwingers who will conduct softball interviews where Cheney’s pack of lies gets out there without being challenged or contradicted by the truth. Talking to a radio host on an AM station in North Dakota is about as obscure as it gets but Darth Dick is right at home in this environment. It’s far from the Beltway pundits who will rip his every thought to shreds at the drop of a hat and it will be the highlight of that poor schlep’s entire career to tell his grandkids he interviewed the former Veep. What an interview it was.
Darth Dick ruminated over the usual NeoCon talking points but one in particular gave me a great deal of hope. The point he made in response to a question as to whether the republican Party needs to moderate was classic Cheney. He said that they did not. He claimed that it was about republican values and what he saw as the role of government in relation to those values and there was no need to moderate those values. Hooray! Clear out the underbrush (translation: get rid of the non-believers) and let the new NeoCons rise like scum to the top of the pond and all will be well again. Yes! Exactly! I agree totally. I want those NeoCons to rise up and cast out the RINOs. Lock down the 20% of the population that believes the fantasy of the Bush years, the NeoCon philosophy and then consign yourselves to being the permanent minority party because without the moderates you will never win another national election. Thank you, Jesus!
Darth Dick also spent some time with biographer Stephen Hayes and he asked why Cheney kept inserting himself into the discussion of issues now that he is no longer in office. Cheney basically offered up a defense of the Bush years and claimed that no one was coming to the defense of the little guys so he had to. What a laugh riot Darth Dick has become. The little guys! You mean the same little guys that him and Chimpy kept pissing on the last eight years? Those little guys? No, stupid, the other “little guys.” You know, the ones that the bad Obama people are investigating.
I think he means little people like John Yoo and Jay Bybee and Steve Addington and, of course, the ultimate little guy, Scooter Libby. We could even throw Alberto Gonzales and Donald Rumsfeld into that “little guy” category if you really want to. He’s not, however, talking about the soldiers who were prosecuted for torturing detainees even though we now know they were just following policy set down by Cheney, the White House, and the authors of the “Torture Memos” Bybee and Yoo. He’s talking about the people who set up the policies that violated our laws and international laws and attempted to tell us that illegal actions like waterboarding were just fine under American law. I’d love to see anyone of them make that argument before a court, preferably a court in The Hague. I’d love to see them dragged off in chains when they realize that words on a piece of paper do not excuse war crimes no matter how well those words are written and who signed off on them.
In short, Darth Dick is trying to justify the use of torture, excuse the people who perpetrated the torture, and kick everybody out of the GOP who doesn’t agree with those assessments. Quite frankly, come this time next year, 20% may seem to be a high water mark for people identifying themselves as republicans if Darth Dick continues this marvelous crusade of his. One can only hope!
links: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/07/cheney-moderate-
gop/http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/cheney-little-guy/
It seems like the re-write of history over at Fox has found it’s spokesmodel in Karl Rove. Nothing like spouting measured warnings to the new president about the course he should take in hopes of rewriting the shameful history created under his watch while a crewman aboard the USS Chimpy. Let me explain.
Karl Rove was a guest on the Billo The Clown Show and he was offering up his not-so-sage advice on what he thought President Obama should do with regards to the David Souter vacancy on the Supreme Court. It all sound somewhat reasonable if you don’t know your history but if you do know your history you are struck at what a complete asswipe Karl Rove is and how no one calls him out on it over there at Fox. It’s almost like they enjoy broadcasting crap like this to see if you are paying attention and if you are not, then too bad for you.
ROVE: I was part of a five party committee that spent years at the White House under President Bush preparing for the moment of the Supreme Court vacancy.We had thick notebooks on all prospects. We had everything from all of their writings and opinions to college transcripts to tax returns to, you know, charity dinner speeches, you name it. We had it. We studied those. It was why it was possible three months after a vacancy occurred to have Chief Justice John Roberts confirm to the Supreme Court. […]
So I thought it was smart when President Obama said, you know, this is going to take at least six months. Because they do — they cannot afford to have a vetting mistake after having five cabinet nominations or five administration nominations with tax problems. They can’t offer up somebody they’ve not fully and completely vetted. And that takes time.
First of all, it suspends belief that Rove gives a rat’s ass about the tax troubles of various Obama nominees. That shit fails the smell test right from the get go. Secondly, after decades of partisan histrionics we are to believe that he now has the best interests of the new president when he hands out advice like this? Hardly. Lastly, all you have to remember is the name Harriet Miers and the total clusterfuck that nomination was to know that Karl is just blowing smoke out of his ass on this subject. Like we forgot about this fiasco os soon as you left public service, Karl. Rove’s standing on Supreme Court matters is nothing short of toast to the 79% of America that does not identify itself as a “republican.” What’s left hardly matters.
There is nothing so annoying as a bullshitting screw up lecturing people on what they should be doing to righteously piss me off. Billo can give this idiot a platform once a week but that just means one more opportunity to call him out on his bogusness. Once a rightwing liar, always a rightwing liar.
link: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/06/rove-vetting-scotus/
One of the good things about Fox Noise hiring Karl Rove as one of their selected rightwing apologists is that almost every time he opens his mouth another lie pops out. He’s a modern day Henry Kissinger; a guy who doesn’t know the truth from a lie and says whatever jumps into his head that he thinks will make him look good. He’s a pathological liar in the mold of Lee Atwater and Richard Nixon.
Over the last week, Karl has been busy rewriting history to make himself look better but, unfortunately, the facts keep catching up with him. The first incident came when Bill O hit him with an unrehearsed question whether he had ever threatened anybody who ever challenged him while he was working in the White House. Karl lied and said he had not but Karl couldn’t keep a straight face when he said it and you knew it was a lie as soon as the denial spilled out of his mouth. Karl Rove saying that he never threatened anybody in retaliation is like a male dog alleging it never peed on a fire hydrant. Unfuckingbelievable. Karl Rove is today’s political hitman and everyone knows it. Even Karl Rove.
Valerie Plame Wilson took the hit from Rove when he exposed her secret posting in the CIA in retaliation for her husband’s exposing the lies of George Bush about the Iraq War. Alabama Governor Don Siegelman was a victim of Rove’s courtesy of corrupt and partisan US Attorneys who initiated a political coup that ruined his political career all because he was a Democrat in a red state. Even before he was a White House flunky Rove was a master of the smear campaign as witness to Ann Richards in 1994 and John McCain in 2000. There are countless other episodes of political depravity and bottom feeding that Rove has been behind since he crawled out from under that sandstone rock in Texas back in the 1970’s but the ones above are sufficient testament to Rove’s lies.
The second incident came when Rove took a shot at White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs because Gibbs dared to poke fun at Dick Cheney’s lie-filled interview on CNN saying that Rush Limbaugh must have been busy so they got the second most popular republican to appear. Waaaaaa, waaaaa, waaaaa. This faux outrage is just more NeoCon bullshit from the mouthpiece of the right. NeoCon liars like Karl have no trouble calling people Marxists, Doofuses, or Snobs but let anyone say something about a NeoCon sacred cow and all the crocodile tears come out and the joke maker is accused of being a “junior high smart mouth.” Well, Karl, better to be a junior high smart mouth than a pathological liar or master hypocrite like you.
Rove is trying to position himself as an above the fray political commentator and that would be OK if he didn’t have so much history that makes him out to be a liar every time he opens his fat maw. The crap he whines about Democrats or Liberals doing is that very same shit he did and thought he got away with or even denies doing in the first place. Quite frankly it goes past hypocrisy and starts getting into the category of lying and actually believing the lies you are telling but then that’s a NeoCon trait and I really shouldn’t be surprised that Karl does this. Reagan did it. Gimpy Bush did it. Chimpy Bush did it. Lee Atwater did it. Nixon really did it. Agnew certainly did it. Kissinger did it. Gingrich did it. Cheney did it. McCain did it. Palin did it. Limbaugh did it. And there are a few hundred more NeoCon liars out there who have taken one position and then flip-flopped over to another position and then lied about the flip-flop to everyone within ear shot. Karl is actually in pretty elite company as one of the pre-eminent pathological liars of this generation. It must make his mother so proud.
links: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/14/roves-threatening-record/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/18/rove-gibbs-junior-high/
NeoCon arrogance knows no bounds. Their erroneous perception that they are always right and everyone else is always wrong has never shone more brightly than this past weekend when Cheney consented to a marshmallow interview with CNN’s John King. I guess Rush Tub-A-Lard was taking the weekend off so Cheney stepped in to be temporary leader of the clueless republicans for a couple of days.
Speaking of the Tub-A-Lard, that brings us to our first point: Cheney’s endorsement of Rush as the defacto party leader. To show you how discredited the Gang That Couldn’t Govern Straight was when they left the White House, they have allowed an unelected but popular windbag assume the mantle of party leader, a mantle that he certainly can wear since it has become clear that the moral fiber which the republicans once stood by is in shreds and tatters. Only a thrice divorced, pill pushing drug addict is good enough to command respect in their regional rump party. Amazing. Cheney says he loves Rush. Depravity loves company, I guess. Only Cheney would say that someone who spreads the NeoCon lies like Rush does is doing “good work.”
The next big splash came with Cheney’s denial that the economic crisis was global in nature and that their incompetence did not cause it. Well, he got the global part right but it’s only global because the United States is the sole remaining superpower and our economic power reaches worldwide. The Brits used to boast that the sun never set upon the British Empire. The same can be said for the American economic empire. Everything we do touches countries all around the world. Cheney acts as if the global market caused the current crisis when everyone but the NeoCon faithful knows the truth: free market-deregulating-greedy motherfuckers did this to us while the Bush-Cheney cabal sat idly by.
The failed NeoCon concept that the market will correct itself is what caused this crisis. A lack of regulation in a financial market that allowed bad debt to be bundled and sold like pigs or cows caused this shithole we are in. Greedy sonsabitches never stop until told to stop and that was the case here. Adults got elected last November and put a stop to the insanity that the Chimpster and his minions allowed to fester and burst. Blaming the rest of the world for a problem that we caused is the height of arrogance and something we totally expect from NeoCons like Cheney.
What would a NeoCon interview be without some fear mongering? It would be a failure so Cheney threw some of that in as well. His claim that President Obama has made America less safe when it was Cheney’s administration that allowed the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history to occur is the absolute height of NeoCon arrogance. Placing detainees in Gitmo only furthered the resolve of terrorist recruiters and did nothing to insure the safety of America. Cheney can repeat the lies about making America safer all he wants but they are still lies. Most of the recommendations from the 9-11 Commission are still not in place years after they should have been. President Obama has changed the nature of our nation’s defense and that is what is pissing Cheney off. Gone are the torture policies, the unlimited detention, the secret prisons, and all of the other illegal apparatus that the Bushbots put into place after 9-11 and Cheney just hates that all his work is coming undone.
I just have a few questions about this episode. Does Cheney have any inside information that gives his assertions about our security any credibility or is he just talking out of his ass as usual? Where was John King’s head during this rant? Why didn’t he push Cheney on any of his obviously wrong claims? How much in awe was he of Cheney that he found this marshmallow interviewing technique to be acceptable for CNN? I can understand it if it was one of the goons at Fox doing this but has CNN slipped this far that they found this interview up to their standards?
Hmmmmm.
links: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/15/cheney-shrugs-at-economic_n_175055.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/15/cheney-on-limbaugh-i-love_n_175077.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/15/cheney-obama-has-raised-t_n_175053.html
They can’t seem to get it right. Instead, they just get it rightwing which is never right. But when you are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the public and lying might get you back in the game, then lying it is. It is classic NeoCon strategy but this time it won’t work.
The drum banging by Fox News about the Employee Free Choice Act has been a one note song. They keep claiming that the EFCA will take away the secret ballot in union certification elections but that claim belies the very name of the legislation. If it really does that then what does the Free Choice part of the Act refer to? Fox News hopes the viewing public is too stupid to recognize the huge lie sitting right before them that Fox keeps repeating when the truth is the Act gives employees more choice, not less. It gives them a right to form a union using a card check instead of an election. If Fox told its viewers that simple fact their main issue would go away and they would not be able to keep trumpeting about this boogyman under the bed that does not exist.
Fox is clearly in bed with the republicans and their big business allies on this issue. They want you to forget the impact that unions have had on the economic health of this country. If we look back into our nation’s history we discover some pretty cogent facts about the power of unions.
No wonder that businesses do not want to level the playing field for union workers. They have been on the run since Ronnie Ray-gun blasted the Air Traffic Controllers union out of the sky. Four successive anti-union administrations have dealt serious blows to unionization forces in this country. The EFCA is a step to restoring fair play and equality between the workers and management. Government has stacked the deck over the last 40 years and management has taken advantage of that crooked deal to freeze unions out of constructive participation in the economic health of the United States. The race to the bottom in terms of wages and health care has not gone unnoticed and the middle class is under an increasing attack from corporate interests who care only about their bottom line and nothing else. Fox News caters to just these interests. Small wonder that they are so adamantly against an expansion of workers rights.
Keeping the argument in perspective is vital to the passage of the EFCA. Calling Fox out on their campaign of lies is just a first step. Remember, the EFCA is an expansion of employee rights, not a denial or a contraction. Current law allows for a company to allow collective bargaining with a union if they realize that the majority of the workers want the union or they can force an election (which is tilted in favor of management despite it being a secret ballot). All the EFCA does is to retain those two options and then add a third one: allowing a union to be formed if the majority of a company’s workers sign a card check indicating they want a union. It’s a simple option but one that management cannot easily control and, thus, the outcry and the lies. Even Warren Buffet has bought into the lies since his comments on the subject shows he’s gotten his talking points from Fox News and he has not read the bill in question. Sad.
Fox News should be ashamed of themselves for passing out this catalog of lies masquerading as fact. But, hey, it’s Rupert Murdoch, king of the NeoCons, and lying is SOP in the book of business ethics he follows. No surprise.
What an ignorant bazoo! If there is a standard that Karl Rove adheres to it is denying responsibility for the mistakes he helped put into place during the eight years of mismanagement and political gamesmanship that was the Bush Administration. It was, without a doubt, the worst administration ever. The NeoCon philosophy he helped to put in place led to disaster after disaster and an alienation of the American people from their government. Karl Rove was a large part of it and now, as a political commentator for the rightwing NeoCons at Fox, he can twist history to absolve himself of blame for the fiasco aboard the USS Chimpy. Too bad that the facts keep Rove from realizing his dream of being a credible voice on matters political. Quite frankly, trusting Karl Rove to dispense the truth on Fox is like expecting your order of quarterpounders from McDonald’s to still be there if you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and your dinner guest is Rush Limbaugh. Ain’t gonna happen.
It’s rare that Rove gets his comeuppance but every now and then it happens. A few wteeks ago on one of those Sunday morning snooze-fests he was matched up with Katrina Vanden Heuvel from the Nation and she ate his lunch and stole his milk money. He tried one of his classic routines where he bashed the Obama administration for plunging the country into deeper debt with it’s new budget but Vanden Heuvel let him have it right between the eyes.
She reminded him that he was part of an administration that ran up the debt like there was no tomorrow, gave tax cuts to those who needed it the least in hopes that those same rich folks would create jobs (which did not happen), and plunged us into an unwinnable war that is costing us trillions of dollars. She also reminded him of the fundamental truth of NeoCon-republican policy: starve the government for funds so basic services and entitlement programs would get cut back and eventually eliminated. Fiscal irresponsibility was at the core of Chimpster’s eight years in Washington. Rove had no comeback when faced with reality.
That doesn’t mean that he’s going to stop trying to convince people that he was an innocent by-stander during those eight long years. This past Sunday he was at it again trying to blame the Obama administration for the banks bailouts. Funny, now Karl is trying to say that an Obama administration that wasn’t even elected in September when republican office holders convinced a Democratic Congress to stem the tide with bailout money was now somehow to blame for the entire mess. He tried to say that the Chimpster wasn’t even in on the decision to go forward but that Obama’s pick for Treasury secretary who didn’t get nominated until weeks after the election is totally to blame. Do you see how totally stupid this line of bullshit sounds when you know your history? Karl Rove obviously doesn’t. The yahoos at Fox don’t either.
I knew it would only be a matter of time before the NeoCon liars got to work blaming the current crisis on the Obama administration even though the deregulation, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resultant housing crisis all took place before the election in November. They did the same thing to Bill Clinton blaming him for their fiscal incompetence until people started to remember how good they had it under Bubba’s watchful eye.
There will always be a segment of the population that will believe what Rove says because they heard it on TV. Those people are hopeless and beyond saving. Rove is a NeoCon. Lying comes as easy to him as drawing breath into that bloated body does. He cannot afford to tell the truth about his performance over the past eight years because the GOP is already rudderless, leaderless, and hopeless. The truth would put an end to the GOP as a viable political party. I’m hoping that this glorious event will happen sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I’ll keep setting the record straight. It’s the least I can do.
Links: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/01/vanden-huevel-rove/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/09/rove-bush-absent-on-bailout/
What a hypocritical sack of NeoCon shit this punk is. This guy seems to think that we have no collective memory about the past and that when he gets on the NeoCon Network of choice and starts whipping out his BS that somehow history will disappear and his words of today will replace what he has spewed for years. Sorry, Bucko, but it doesn’t work that way. The latest in the litany of lies came a few days ago when Rove pontificated that the White House was politicizing the controversy surrounding his butt-buddy Rush Tub-A-Lard. Infuckingcredible!
He went on TV and started whining that the Obama White House was reverting to the 1990’s style of politics practiced by Bill Clinton where surveys and focus groups determined what policies and strategies were employed. He claimed that Clinton did this for political expediency and not for the best best interests of the nation. He went on to say that “we” grew to dislike this style of politics. You mean as opposed to the style of politics that Rove practiced in the 1990’s? As opposed to the Lee Atwater slash and burn politics where everyone is fair game and no smear or unsubstantiated rumor is beneath repeating? Yeah, Fat Boy, tell us about your Come To Jesus moment that allows you to be sanctimonious on your little TV interview segments whilst ignoring the vile crap you have peddled your entire political career. Infuckingcredible!
Rove has a marvelous way of ignoring history, facts, and reality when it doesn’t serve his NeoCon talking points. Let’s start with his bashing of Bubba. Rove did not like the fact that Bubba used focus groups or surveys to determine what direction he wanted to go because NeoCons like himself never ask anybody what they should do. They have their “fuck them all” philosophy to go on andi nothing else matters. Asking people their opinions about policy matters or issues? What? Are you kidding? No wonder Rove and his ilk hated Bubba. How dare he! That “we” shit about politics in the 1990’s applied only to NeoCons who could not stand the fact that, even in the middle of being impeached, Clinton had better ratings than Congressional republicans and every NeoCon you could name. They have never gotten over it. Infuckingcredible!
Rove seems to think we have forgotten about his own involvement with the Chimpster’s campaign for governor in Texas in 1994 where he was behind the scurrilous push poll that alleged that Ann Richards was a lesbian. He seems to think that his nasty racially inflammatory allegations that sank John McCain’s campaign in 2000 have been forgiven and forgotten. He wants us to gloss over the flyers he put together attacking a candidate’s family that he thought were a legitimate tactic to use in campaigning. Rove wants us to ignore the dirty tricks and underhandedness that have marked American politics in the last two decades that he has been directly responsible for when he spouts this utter nonsense on national TV hoping that he can smear Obama with the same broad brush that he’s smeared everybody else with. Infuckingcredible!
Rove claimed that by going after Rush Tub-A-Lard that the Obama administration was somehow attempting to refocus our attention on that worthless pile of rat meat that is the Tub-A-Lard and not on the issues facing our country. He wants us to think that Obama is obsessing over Tub-A-Lard when the economy is in the ditch, unemployment is increasing, infrastructure is crumbling and hundreds of other things are looking bad after eight years of Rove-Bush-Cheney misadministration. Is he kidding? No, he’s not. He’s just lying just like he always does. Infuckingcredible!
I’m not going to go into all the thousands of ways that, as political operative with a White House job, that Rove politicized an entire presidential administration including corrupting the US Attorneys’ office, endangering women’s health, circumventing environmental regulations, and going after Democratic office holders as a matter of course. Even the former mouthpiece for Chimpster’s presidency (Scott McClellan) was astonished at how political it all was and how it seemed like the campaign of 2000 never ended once they got into the White House. President Obama has a grip on what ails us and is busting his ass to fix everything the NeoCons broke over the last eight years and Rove cannot handle that Democrats are better at governing than NeoCons ever could dream to be. So what was Rove complaining about again? Whiny bullshit, that’s what. Infuckingcredible!
Inspirational link: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/05/rove-limbaugh-political/
Karl Rove is playing hardball with Congress and he’s winning. He’s delayed, denied, and danced around Congressional subpoenas for months now claiming executive privilege. No court has ever recognized the reach of executive privilege that Rove is trying to claim and if this winds up going to court he’ll be compelled to testify. Then, he’ll come up with some other bullshit excuse not to tell Congress what it wants to know. He’s Karl Rove after all, a weasel in human clothing.
Even if Congress managed to get him to testify, chance are that he will lie his fat ass off. He’s lied for his entire political career and once he accepted the talking head position at Faux News, he had an even bigger platform to spread those lies. I doubt he can recognize the truth from a lie he’s been doing it so often. As a Lee Atwater protege, he’s earned his colors a hundred times over.
I’m not going to go into cataloging all the lies that he’s told over the years because this isn’t the Karl Rove is a Liar blog but, trust me, there’s enough of them that it could be done even with daily entries that did not repeat themselves over the life of the blog. George Bush was fine with the lies and even got into the act himself after he saw how effective they were at fooling most of the American people. After a time, though, people start to catch on and you get hung with the Liar label and it sticks. The rightwingers did it with Bill Clinton and now Liberals returned the favor with Rove, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, and a few thousand others. That payback was a real bitch.
Rove has agreed to show up before the House Judiciary Committee according to Chairman John Conyers as long as he does not have to testify about conversations he had with Bush about anything. That’s OK. We’ll let Rove be the fall guy and knock over all the other pins under him. Bush’s day is coming in a War Crimes trial over in the Hague and he’ll need all his energies for that. Conyers is small potatoes compared to that.
Only one problem with Rove testifying: telling the truth. Will committee members be up on the events of the time to see the lies as they roll out of his fat mouth or will he slip them a NeoCon story and have them buy into it just like they have in the past? Will the Committee allow sufficient time for members to ask probing, in depth questions or will this be a rush job? Will Rove re-appear at a future date if the Chairman deems that he needs to answer more questions than they have time for?
What happens if Rove tries to hide everything behind Bush? Will the chairman use the all-too-little used power of the Chair to call in Capital Police and arrest the fat bastard right there in the committee chamber and lead him off to the prison cell in the basement of the Capital? Probably not but we can dream, can’t we? I’d bet it would sure make Don Siegelman’s day.
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/05/rove-on-testimony-democra_n_172098.html
It appears that Bobby Jindal, the guy who is being hailed as the new blood of the republican party, isn’t really so different from the old blood of the republican party. He certainly sounds the same as the old blood when he talks about how tax cuts will set us free. He ignores the simple fact that tax cuts starve the government of funds to pay for the social programs that people want but who’s quibbling about the little things? He speaks of creating jobs under republican rule when the last republican guy was notorious for losing jobs or sending them overseas and then doing nothing about it. Jindal talks about doing what’s right for the people but he supports the very programs that benefitted big businesses at the expense of “the people.”
I first had a problem with Jindal when I discovered that he no longer uses his ‘real’ first name anymore. You know, the Indian one he was born with. Instead he uses his self-chosen nickname “Bobby.” Is it because the rightwingers he hangs out with would have as much difficulty with that foreign sounding name as they had with the Kenyan name carried by our current president? Well, maybe it’s why he won’t go back to that name anytime soon. Jindal picked up the name Bobby from the doofus ass kid from the Brady Bunch, a show I’m proud to say I did not watch during it’s prime time run. This just clinches the deal for me with this guy but it was what he did on prime time after the president’s speech that should clinch it for the rest of America.
Here’s what really convinces me that Jindal is no different than every other rightwing hack that came down the old Radical Right Turnpike: he cannot tell the truth when it counts. He responded to Barack Obama’s address to Congress with a speech that was written with help from the RNC and other republican operatives. Someone, probably Jindal himself, slipped in this whopper and no one caught it. The whole nation heard him tell it and it wasn’t true. None of it.
You know the part where he talked about how he stood shoulder to shoulder during Katrina with a local Democratic sheriff who was trying to rescue people stranded an their rooftops by battling the local bureaucracy who was trying to stop them? Great story only it didn’t happen that way. Jindal wasn’t there and he heard about the sheriff days later and merely co-opted the story to make himself look good. Jindal never battled the bureaucracy during Katrina. Is this story going to make people see that the bureaucracy is bad and, like the GOP always claimed, that government is the problem? I don’t think so. They are going to see that people who make up stories to try and counter the truth is the bigger problem.
So is the whole point of Jindal’s story that government bureaucracy is bad and is it just one big urban myth, a fable, a concoction, a bald-faced lie? Yep. Told by the new, shining star of the GOP. He’s just like the last new shining star of the GOP from back in 2000 (the guy who’s brother stole the election in Florida which gave him the White House, that shining star). Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. We won’t get fooled again.
It’s real simple to see why people do not trust republicans anymore. They are liars thru and thru.
Link: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/
jindal_admits_katrina_story_was_false.php
At one point during the Iraq War the republicans came up with an expression for anti-war democrats and liberals as one of their talking points. If I recall, that expression was Cheerleading for Failure. Funny the difference a few years makes in who is thought to be a cheerleader for failure. Now the cheerleader candidates are disgraced republican goon Tom DeLay and the leader of the out-of-power GOP Rush Tub-A-Lard. Both of these two are the new Cheerleaders For Failure.
Imagine wanting the leader of our country to fail during the most dire economic crisis we have faced since Hoover’s short-sighted policies plunged us into the Great Depression. Can you possibly be so partisan as to hope that the measures being taken do not succeed all because a Democrat came up with them? What could be more stupid, more selfish than this? I guess it’s the best we can expect from the massive egos of people like Rush and Tom DeLay who are caught up so deeply in their own egos and hype that they cannot conceive of anyone else having answers to the problems we face as a nation. If they are not NeoCon answers they don’t count in the small minds of these two buffoons.
You see, if President Obama answers the problems we face with solutions that these two losers do not approve of, it means they have been telling us lies all this time about the direction the country should be going. It means the last 30 years have been a tragic, misdirected journey into a political wilderness led by a two-bit actor on the verge of losing his mind who had a lot of charisma but very little common sense. The rejection of the policies that led us out of the disaster of the Republican lassiez-faire economic idiocy of the 1920′ & early 1930’s has proven to be wrong after all. It would mean that their oft-repeated but unsubstantiated mantra that this is a right-leaning country is not true and that the only policies that actually work are left-leaning ones. Rush and Tom could not stand the thought that their whole political philosophy and political lives were for nothing. They won’t go down without a fight.
Tom DeLay, the disgraced political manipulator who thinks nothing of cheating to win but hates when he loses a fair fight, jumped into this fray about failing even though as a “former” leader in the GOP he has no political standing or office to defend. He is just another rightwing loud mouth who represents the failed policies of exclusion, deregulation, excess, and steal everything that isn’t nailed down-ism that republicans of the last 30 years have been so proud of. Who better to come out and want a president to fail than a guy who supported the biggest failure in our nation’s history, George W. Bush. DeLay was there backing the Worst. President. Ever. 100% and without exception. We all see where that got us. DeLay wants Obama to fail so his own poor choice does not look so bad when the history is written.
One of the governors who was thinking about turning down some of the stimulus money disputed the notion that republicans want Obama to fail. Governor Sanford of South Carolina said that anyone who thought that way was an idiot. Even the usual way-out-there space cadet Pat Robertson said it was a “terrible thing to say.” Yet, Rush and Tom say they have the balls to say what no one else would dare say, that they want Obama to fail so their own ideas are justified. This isn’t the talk of idiots. It is the talk of America haters. UnAmerican rightwing haters. Just another term for NeoCons. I am left wondering…Why do NeoCons hate America so much?
(Starting with this post, the comments section will be open to anyone willing to share their name and email address. Comments will be moderated for taste, intelligence and personal attacks. The decision of the author of this blog as to which comments see the light of day is final but fairness will be attempted in all cases. It is the Liberal way after all.)
links: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/26/rush-sanford-idiot/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/27/delay-obama-fail/
The CPAC conference is a showplace of insanity featuring the best craziness that rightwingers have to offer. Every NeoCon worth his/her salt is there to lob rhetorical bombs at anyone not exactly like themselves. It’s the one thing they are good at. God knows they suck at governing.
They have ignored the disaster of George Bush their once mighty leader, now in exile at Preston Hollow. They hope by issuing some Mea Culpas that Americans will forget the abuses of constitutional law, the arrogance of power, the torture in our name, and the disaster of two wars and a crippled economy. Fat chance.
One of the best examples of this NeoCon hatred for the President is John Bolton, the one-time ambassador to the UN. He spoke to the gathering of the clueless about Obama and his alleged naive attitude about the perceived threats present in the world. Bolton, who never met a country he didn’t want to bomb, told the crowd that Iran is developing a nuke that could destroy an American city and that only the destruction of a city would get Obama’s attention. The city he chose to make the example of was, of course, Obama’s hometown of Chicago. The hate-filled attendees thought that a hilarious proposition and roared their approval. Can you get any sicker than that?
We’re not done. These haters invited Joe the Pretend Unlicensed Plumber to speak. There’s a real genius at work with this guy. Joe postulated that people who criticized the troops, especially members of Congress, should be shot because that’s what they did in “the old days” and nobody said anything. Perhaps he was thinking of lynchings where entire communities witnessed blacks being hung or shot and no one said a word about it. Other than that I can’t recall a time when a Congressman criticized our fighting forces or was shot for his trouble. Hmmmm.
Seems like the campaign isn’t over for Accuracy In Media’s Cliff Kincaid. While introducing another speaker Kincaid claimed that the President wasn’t born in the United States, a claim that has been disproven time and time again. So much for accuracy in media. Typical NeoCon who appears to think that if you just repeat a lie enough times that it will magically become the truth. of course, the crowd thought this was the best thing since sliced bread and cheered the “news.” Senator Shelby would be proud.
One thing is for sure: when you get the rightwing cromd together in one place they will make news. Not truthful news but news nevertheless. Liars and haters are always in demand with the press. They make good stories.
Links: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009/02/john-bolton-cpac-benefits-nuking-chicago
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/27/jtp-congressmen-should-be-shot/
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/26/kincaid-obama-certificate/
I’ve composed a handful of rules to help you better understand how NeoCons operate. There are only 25 to start with but I’m sure I will be able to think up some more as time goes on.
1. Neocons don’t have to follow rules concerning common courtesy. They may insult anyone freely and take extreme umbrage if anyone calls them on it.
2. Neocons are allowed to lie to anyone (except another neocon) and it does not count as a lie because anyone other than another NeoCon doen not count anyway.
3. Anytime a neocon sees something in the media he doesn’t like he can claim it is because of the Liberal Media. “Real” media doesn’t publish or broadcast anything contrary to Neocon philosophy.
4. A neocon doesn’t have to bring any documentation to their discussions of an issue. Their word ought to be enough to serve as fact. Citations, links, and facts only get in the way of getting the message out.
5. A true Neocon never participates in anything illegal, corrupt, or morally deficient. Those that do are dismissed as RINOs and not really a true conservative in the first place.
6. Neocons can condemn or ridicule any moderate or Liberal or Democrat with impunity or supporting evidence. They can do so without consequence for their words. That goes double for public figures.
7. Neocons will defend every other Neocon public figure to the bitter end no matter how overwhelming the charges, the evidence, and the facts and then point to the Clinton administration or Democrats in Congress and blame them for crimes much worse even if there is no proof of the charges.
8. Every Neocon policy failure can be traced directly back and blamed on the previous failures of the Clinton Administration or activist judges.
9. Neocons are exempted from prosecution of any crimes they may commit, imprisonment for the conviction of said crimes, and expect immediate clemency once they are freed from jail for those crimes while everyone else should get the book thrown at them. Any Neocon who does admit to a crime of any sort is automatically forgiven because of their religion while everyone else is vilified until they die and then some.
10. Words like “Liberal” and “Democrat” are to be used as epithets by Neocons no matter the charge. They are synonymous with any vulgar epithets you may hear in jail or coming out of Dick Cheney’s mouth.
11. Neocons refuse to recognize the difference between a Democrat and the Democratic Party preferring to use the term “Democrat” for the party and the people alike. They take great delight in misapplying the name and not recognizing the difference between an adjective (Democratic) and a noun (Democrat). Instead of taking it as an insult, most Democrats and members of the Democratic Party use it to identify the truly ignorant Neocons without having to ask any questions.
12. Neocons will never admit to a mistake, no matter how small. Their Commander In Chief never admitted to one in eight years and they see no reason to do so either.
13. On the rare occasion that a NeoCon decides to use facts in a debate, rest assured that those facts will be cherry picked to suit the theory in accordance with NeoCon ideology and facts contrary to the ideology are summarily dismissed as irrelevant. Using the scientific method to develop a theory based on available facts is dismissed out of hand as anti-Christian heresy and not employed by NeoCons in general.
14. Republican Moderates are to be driven out of the party with charges of being a RINO and not following NeoCon orthodoxy. Claims of a Big Tent for Republicans only applies to bringing more NeoCons into the fold. No one else need apply.
15. Using demagoguery and fear as tactics to win public approval for an issue are accepted practices for NeoCons. Discussing an issue using logic, reason, and supporting facts are not. Throw in a few “you hate America” epithets for good measure.
16. Neocons will always claim that they believe in tax cuts so they can shrink the size of government when what they really mean is they want to cut entitlement programs for everyday Americans. They just don’t have the testicular fortitude to come right out and say it so they hide behind the tax cut mantra.
17. Neocons will always claim they believe in a balanced budget but ignore the unbalanced budgets George Bush has signed off on during his term in office. Neocons will fight against restoring Pay As You Go because it would mean some of their vaunted tax cuts would themselves be cut.
18. Neocons will never credit Bill Clinton with eight straight years of economic growth instead giving credit to the stock market for the boom while ignoring all of the programs that stimulated growth that he supported. Conversely, they will blame the current deficits on Bill Clinton and the recession that hit after he left office on those same policies ignoring Bush’s massive tax cuts that reduced revenues and caused investor confidence to dwindle which caused the deficits in the first place.
19. Neocons are essentially chickenhawks meaning they never saw a war they didn’t like but never found a war they would be willing to fight in. There are exceptions but they are far and few between. The Republican Party is littered with drum-banging war hawks who passed on an opportunity to serve their country in time of war.
20. Neocons will disparage the service and war record of anyone that disagrees with their ideological views no matter how honorably they may have served. Their own war record notwithstanding, character assassinations, half-truths, and smears are the standing orders to discredit any opposition to their viewpoints including using the terms “surrender monkeys,” “terrorist sympathizers,” and “cheerleaders for failure.”
21. Neocons can repeat a baseless charge over and over again regardless of whether it is true or not. Just by repeating it numerous times they lend authenticity to the charge. The more Neocons you can get to repeat the baseless charge along with you, the better.
22. Personal attacks are Standard Operating Procedure for NeoCons when everything else fails to win the argument. Never let facts get in the way when you can disparage someone’s character to score points. As the old mantra goes, “Why bother to debate when all you need to do is hate.”
23. Using racial epithets and guilt-by-association are acceptable tactics especially if you can pull them off by feigning ignorance of the true meanings of the code words used when discussing them. Never stray too far from your base of rightwing, good-old-boy voters when making your point.
24. NeoCons always spin the negative into a positive by ignoring crucial facts. Ignore the destruction of a major American city and the government’s negligence by stating that New Orleans will be re-built and it will be better than before. Dismiss criticism of the destruction from the Iraq War by claiming that 25 million people were freed. Deny our government’s role in torturing detainees by redifining torture to mean killing detainees instead.
25. Failure to follow any of the above rules will mark you as unpatriotic and unAmerican. Only by following the above rules to the letter will you earn your NeoCon loyalty badge. Make George Bush and Dick Cheney proud, OK?
About author
A proud St. Louis Cardinals fan since 1959 as well as a committed, unreconstructed, Yellow Dog Democrat since the autumn of 1960. Politics and baseball... as American as apple pie.
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