Yet another Benghazi investigation?

Where was their outrage from 2000 to 2008?

A brief reminder of where George W. Bush and the Republicans took us

And someone wants to vote Republican?

It's 1968 all over again

I found a blog recently, by accident, railing about how bad and stupid and mistaken and apparently just wrong the "Occupy" movement is and my first thought was "it's 1968 all over again." Back then, I was a teenager and I had come to the conclusion that the Vietnam War was wrong. Monumentally wrong. And I said so. Other friends at the time thought it important to go along with the official line of the administration. Then there were the Conservatives, Republicans and Right Wing of the country that was also for fighting and supporting that war. Later, when Robert McNamara, then-President Nixon's Secretary of Defense told us the truth, that it was all a lie and he cried on TV about it, well, it was too late but at least we were all vindicated, those of us who were against the war. Now, it's the same thing all over again. The students and young people are out in the streets, protesting. They're protesting Wall Street's ripoff of us, the American people. They're protesting the stranglehold corporations have on the country. And there are the same, mostly older, Conservative, Republican and Right-wing folks, thinking the kids are just hippies and druggies and unemployed low-lifes, looking for "Uncle Sugar" to give them something. Well, as I said, they were mistaken then and they sure as hell are mistaken now. And it just makes me mad. It's very disheartening, at least.

A disgusting vote from our Senators today

I can hardly believe what I'm reading but both Senators Roy Blunt AND Claire McCaskill voted today in the Senate to authorize the indefinite suspension of habeus corpus. I am so disgusted at this news--and at both of them--I can hardly speak. For a refresher, habeus corpus is Latin for "you may have the body". In the law, it "is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention... It has historically been an important legal instrument safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary state action. It is a writ requiring a person to be brought before a judge." The writ oh habeus corpus has long been a strong underpinning of our judicial system so people would not be held indefinitely, without being charged with some crime so they could defend themselves. That these two--and 59 other--senators would vote in favor of maintaining this is, I think, unconscionable. Fortunately, regardless of the outcome in Congress, President Obama has vowed to veto it. Here's hoping it fails completely, utterly, as it should. It should be pointed out that habeus corpus was first done away with, to set this up, in the George W. Bush administration, no surprise, what with their paranoia and disregard for the Constitution. Links: http://wearechangetv.us/2011/11/61-senators-betrayed-you-today-they-authorized-the-indefinite-suspension-of-habeus-corpus/#ixzz1fDOeH9Wg; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/senate-votes-to-let-military-detain-americans-indefinitely_n_1119473.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeus_corpus

Sure! We're in the middle of a recession at least--let's cut spending NOW

This is what I have said--and economist Paul Krugman has said--repeatedly, that is, maybe now, in the middle of the worst economy in 80 years--since the Great Depression--isn't the best time to cut programs.  From today's headlines:

Party Like It's 1937

by Randall Forsyth 

Friday, April 15, 2011

Dueling deficit-cutting plans, plus end of QE2, raise risk of premature withdrawal of stimulus. St. Augustine, let us pray.

Just as the U.S. economy is emerging from a severe contraction caused by a credit crisis, there are pressures to tighten both fiscal and monetary policies in order to rein in an excessive budget deficit and stave off nascent inflation.

Sound familiar? It should, because that is precisely what happened in 1937. As students of economic history are aware, those shifts to restrictive policies on the budget and by the Federal Reserve set the stage of the second part of the Great Depression.


After all, remember what ultra Right-wing, conservative and now Former VP Dick Cheney said?  No, of course you don't.  He was famously quoted as saying "Reagan proved deficits don't matter.


Back to the article:


The history of the 1930s is the best example available to us. After contracting by more than 30% in 1929 to 1933, the U.S. economy grew more than 9% per annum in the next four years. The recovery began in March of 1933 — before Franklin D. Roosevelt took office — but after the Federal Reserve embarked on large-scale purchase of U.S. government securities, which would be called quantitative easing today.

In 1936, however, sharp rises in income taxes were enacted. Beginning in August of that year, monetary policy was tightened through a doubling of bank reserve requirements to absorb excess reserves that were thought to threaten inflation.

That sounds awfully like that's what's in prospect.

So yeah, bring on the budget cuts, folks.

Deepen and lengthen that recession.

And while we're at it, let's not learn from history, how about that?

Link:  http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112554/deficit-depression-1937-barrons;_ylt=AtJcimqTtBV.FiGYLNfBOrq7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2bjU4bzVwBHBvcwMxMQRzZWMDdG9wU3RvcmllcwRzbGsDaXNpdDE5MzdhZ2Fp?mod=bb-budgeting&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=

Explaining 8 years

Unless we remember we cannot understand.
--E. M. Forster 

Keeping in mind, of course, that if you never "knew", you can't remember.

To any and all of those who voted, even once, for this man, we thank you.

Actually, scratch that, we blame you.

Dick Cheney: Maybe it's time to limit gun magazine size

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dick Cheney.  Right-wing, uber-conservative, Republican says maybe it's time to limit the size of gun's magazines.

It's a new day.

It's almost enough to give you hope.

Isn't it?

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/dick-cheney-gun-control-magazines_n_811057.html

Possible good news out of Iraq

According to a story on NPR, there is word that Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri Al Maliki is "talking tough" and saying he wants all US troops out of Iraq by the previously-set deadline.

Thank you, Mr. Maliki.  We couldn't agree more.

Here's the jist of the article:

It's long been assumed that the withdrawal deadline of December 2011 would be renegotiated — that Iraq might need some kind of troop presence beyond then. But lately, it's looking like the United States and Iraq might have to come up with another plan.

Over the past two years, U.S. troops have remained in Iraq under a treaty between the two countries known as a Status of Forces Agreement.

The treaty is set to expire at the end of this year. But American generals and Iraqi politicians have long hinted that the two sides might reach a deal to extend the deadline — if, of course, the Iraqi government formally requested it.

But in an interview Maliki granted The Wall Street Journal last week, he said the existing agreement is "sealed" — and subject to neither extension nor alteration. Still, he did seem to leave open the possibility of a new agreement.

No, no, Mr. Maliki, stick with the plan.  Throw our butts out.  Have us bring ALL our soldiers home.  You run your country and let us stick with ours.

Hopefully this isn't just a ploy on his/their part to get yet more money out of the stupid Americans.  You know, "Well, we might let you stay a while longer if you'll give us $X million to stay in the meantime--but only for a while..."

And hopefully this means our soldiers can come home sooner rather than later.

Of  course, in the meantime, it also means that George W. Bush's, Dick Cheney's and Halliburton's ridiculous, huge and extravagant "embassy compound" we built over there--the largest in the world--will go to some waste but hey, we knew that when they started building the ignorant thing, didn't we?

Link to original post:  http://www.npr.org/2011/01/04/132632709/in-surprise-iraq-may-enforce-withdrawal-deadline

To the Tea Party..

In case you haven't seen this already

To the Tea Party members:

You didn't get angry when the Supreme Court "Conservative Judicial Activists" Five stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get angry when Cheney allowed energy company officials to dictate energy policy while excluding any environmentalists from that meeting.

You didn't get angry when on Spet. 10 2001, 1 day before 9-11 Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon lost 2.3 TRILLION dollars.

You didn't get angry when Bush's generals let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora.

You didn't get angry when a covert CIA operative was outed because her husband did his job and exposed Bush's lies about yellowcake uranium.

You didn't get angry when the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the John Warner Defense Bill were passed and our Constitutional rights were shredded.

You didn't get angry when Bush illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice all lied us into the illegal, unnecessary war on Iraq.

You didn't get angry when Bush spent over 600 billion dollars (and counting) on the illegal, unnecessary Iraq war.

You didn't get angry when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn't get angry as thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or maimed in Bush's illegal, unnecessary war.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed U.S. soldiers and the CIA were torturing people, including in former KGB prisons.

You didn't get angry when Bush admitted the government was illegally wiretapping Americans
.
You didn't get angry when it was revealed that Bush ignored many warnings of the 9/11 terrorism.

You didn't get angry when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital while you claimed you "supported our troops".

You didn't get angry when Bush let New Orleans drown.

You didn't get angry when mostly white people were helped in New Orleans.

You didn't get angry when it was revealed Bush ignored warnings about Hurricane Katrina and the levees.

You didn't get angry when Bush gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.

You didn't get angry when Bush turned Clinton's budget surplus into a gigantic budget deficit.

You didn't get angry when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark.

You didn't get angry when Exxon earned more in profits than any company ever, but paid zero U.S. taxes.

You didn't get angry when, using reconciliation, a trillion dollars of our tax dollars were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides.

You finally got angry when Obama decided that people in America deserved to see a doctor if they are sick, but you got angry at Obama, not the insurance corporations and drug companies that wrote Obama's bill. If Obama were white, would you hate him so much?

Illegal wars, killing Americans and Iraqi and Afghani women and children, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you.

But an African-American President taking the first very flawed, very insufficient step to getting health care for all of us?

Hell, no! That's "socialism"! you say, as you depend on Social Security and Medicare.

Socialism for corporations and the rich doesn't make you angry. Only "socialism" by Democrats is "un-American" to you.

Only "liberals" are your sworn enemies.

Are you aware that liberals and progressives fought to get us all: vacations, the 40-hour workweek, weekends off, the minimum wage, worker safety laws, child labor laws, the right to vote for women, environmental protections, food inspections, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, to name just some of the social improvements which are hallmarks of a civilized society?

Wake Up... Wake Up... Wake Up


With thanks and a hat tip to "angry chad" blog:  http://angrychad.blogspot.com/

Local weather forecasters and Dick Cheney

They should both just shut up.

Yesterday, on the front page of the Star, there was an article asking local meteorologists about global warming/climate change and whether or not they thought this winter proved or disproved anything.

Really.

That's liking asking the guy who just fixed your brakes about the international automobile market.

It makes no sense.

Sure, he has an opinion but it likely isn't an informed one.

How about let's ask the scientists who are studying the planet and not the guy who's watching a cold front coming in from Canada?

The fact is, snow or no snow in Dallas, the glaciers--around the world, mind you--are melting.

The ice caps are melting.

The oceans are rising, due to that melt-off.

Islands are shrinking and disappearing.

And we just had our warmest year ever, on record, and a whole lot more, but sure, let's focus on a few isolated snow storms.

The fact is, there is also a strong likelihood that, with the warming oceans, there is more moisture in the air and that this is what's causing the snow storms.

Insanity.

And then there was Dick Cheney on the television news shows yesterday morning, shooting off his mouth, too, on what this current Presidential administration in Washington is doing wrong.

Whatever happened to Vice Presidents who got out of the White House and did the respectable and respectful thing of shutting up and going on with their lives?

I don't ever remember a more troublesome or mouthy ex-Vice President than this one.

So yeah, guys, do us all a favor and shut yer pie holes, k?