"The condition in which a person who suffers illness or disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her illness/disability; may include unawareness of quite dramatic impairments, such as blindness or paralysis." Or Fucktard/wackloon GOPhuxism.
Parishioners Come Armed To Defend Pastor Who Prays For Obama's Death
In Tempe, Arizona yesterday, members of the Faithful Word Baptist Church came to services armed with guns after Pastor Steven Anderson said he and his congregation have received death threats. (Oh, gee. That's fucking terrible! Who'd do such a thing...Oh, yeah...W.)
The threats came in response to a sermon by Anderson earlier this month titled "Why I Hate Barack Obama", in which Anderson said that he prays for Obama's death. (recording of sermon.) Yesterday Anderson says he wants this to occur by natural causes: "I don't want him to be a martyr, we don't need another holiday," he said. All of Anderson's recent sermons are on the church's website. (Funny guy, that preacher. Didja get the dig at the MLK holiday, which John McCain voted against gor Arizonans? I hope Parson Anderson gets hit by a big fucking bus.W.)
ABC15 News today reports that Anderson yesterday welcomed his armed parishioners, saying that "guns are a great deterrent." The night after Anderson's Aug. 16 anti-Obama sermon, one of his parishioners, Christopher Broughton, carried an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle outside President Obama's speech to the VFW at the Phoenix Convention Center.
If I were a praying man, I'd be begging the Lord for a sign: Burn down that fucking church with all its parishioners in it. Just by accident. Like next Sunday, when they're all inside, hit it with a couple of lightning bolts. Or a 500-lb bomb, from Luke AFB.
One of those funny, iconoclastic, antic, occasional, brilliant postings on FafBlog, this by Medium Lobster, somehow eluded me when it appeared in July:
This week the United States moved ever closer to completing its daring humanitarian mission in Iraq: to slowly and grudgingly leave the country, after paying local residents not to kill them, after spending a very long time killing those residents by any means possible, after failing to recruit those residents to work for them, after invading their country and destroying its infrastructure. And to think they said it couldn't be done.
Were lives lost? Of course. Were cities razed, flesh burned with poison gas, families slaughtered and children raped? Naturally. But one can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, burning the crockery, setting the kitchen on fire, firebombing the restaurant and summarily executing the survivors. And lest we forget, the cause for which America launched this war was a good and noble one. For although the war neither made America safe nor Iraq free, it did address one critical problem: the apparent existence of some one million surplus human beings living in that nation, which the United States, in its capacity as the forthright leader of the Free World, quickly recognized and sought to correct.
As America's work in Iraq gradually draws to a close, we now turn to the problem of too many Afghans living in Afghanistan, the crisis of a Pakistan menaced by hordes of Pakistanis, and the dire encroachment of Iranians on the nation of Iran. We can only hope that the same wisdom that has made America such an enormous force for good in the world will continue to guide its hand.
For re-appointing Ben Bernanke to be Chair of the Federal Reserve. As I said at the time, Obama is taking bows for re-appointing the man who, if he didn't lead the country into the crisis, at least peacefully ushered it in. Bill Greider, at The Nation, had a similarly disloyal thought:
The Federal Reserve did not "avert disaster" for many millions of Americans. It helped to cause their disaster. The central bank, as I have written, was co-author of the destruction, along with the reckless financiers of Wall Street. Now we are told to feel good about its heroic efforts to clean up their mess.
The personalized narrative is the standard approach the establishment uses to disarm substantive critics and divert public opinion. Create a fictionalized drama about the wise leaders who manage "to do the right thing" in the face of horrendous adversity and wrongheaded political opposition. Remember Alan Greenspan celebrated as the Maestro. Or Time's "Committee to Save the World" cover after the 1998 Asian financial crisis -- picturing Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers as our saviors. Now it is Gentle Ben to the rescue.
All in all, I guess we should be grateful Obama didn't appoint that sexist, feckless, sack of shit Larry Summers.
We should be celebrating the feculent of fascist is dead. I'd open his grave just to shit on his face. But Barack ("Gotta Tongue-lave the Proles/Pukes' Prostates") Obama is setting up a national commission to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of this filthy, vile, execrable, feculent, dishonest, disloyal, dishonorable monstrosity. Obama earned my scorn and lost my support when he lionized Raygun while castigating the "excesses" of my generation. Had he forgotten his own (half-black) satchel-ass owed a no little bit to those 'excesses,' too?
It felt then, as it feels now, that he is standing on my shoulders, peeing on my head. Fuck the skeevy shitwhistle...
Just FYI (it's so EASY to forget these things, innit?), here's a brief precis of Raygun's environmental legacy:
“The Reagan administration adopted an extraordinarily aggressive policy of issuing leases for oil, gas, and coal development on tens of millions of acres of national lands — more than any other administration in history, including the current one [Bush II],” said the Wilderness Society’s David Alberswerth.
Before delving further into Reagan’s track record, it’s worth recalling his infamous public statement that “trees cause more pollution than automobiles do,” and that if “you’ve seen one tree you’ve seen them all.” This is not, in other words, a president who demonstrated much ecological prowess. … The list of rollbacks attempted by these administrators is as sweeping as those of the current [Bush II] administration. Gorsuch tried to gut the Clean Air Act with proposals to weaken pollution standards “on everything from automobiles to furniture manufacturers — efforts which took Congress two years to defeat,” according to Clapp. Moves to weaken the Clean Water Act were equally aggressive, crescendoing in 1987 when Reagan vetoed a strong reauthorization of the act only to have his veto overwhelmingly overridden by Congress. Assaults on Superfund were so hideous that Rita Lavelle, director of the program, was thrown in jail for lying to Congress under oath about corruption in her agency division.
The gutting of funds for environmental protection was another part of Reagan’s legacy. “EPA budget cuts during Reagan’s first term were worse than they are today,” said Frank O’Donnell, director of Clean Air Trust, who reported on environmental policy for The Washington Monthly during the Reagan era. “The administration tried to cut EPA funding by more than 25 percent in its first budget proposal,” he said. And massive cuts to Carter-era renewable-energy programs “set solar back a decade,” said Clapp.
Topping it all off were efforts to slash the EPA enforcement program: “The enforcement slowdown was staggering,” said a staffer at the House Energy and Commerce Committee who helped investigate the Reagan administration’s enforcement of environmental laws during the early ’80s. “In the first year of the Reagan administration, there was a 79 percent decline in the number of enforcement cases filed from regional offices to EPA headquarters, and a 69 percent decline in the number of cases filed from the EPA to the Department of Justice.”
Reagan's environmental record is second, in its destructiveness, to his economic record and his civil rights records. Ronald Reagan will be judged, historically, as the 2nd or 3rd worst president in history, on his record, if not by popularity indices.
(A Different Clinton: Then President Clinton reacts to applause as he finishes speaking to potential donors and Democratic National Committee members at a dinner in Washington in this June 11, 1997 file photo. From left, Stan Chesley, Bernard Schwartz, Clinton, Hassan Nemazee.)
Lie down with scum-bags, get up all scummy. "They are ALL dirty," is no longer a defensible position, or a mere euphemism... Via TPM:
Top Clinton Fundraiser Charged With Defrauding Citigroup
The top fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has been charged with fraudulently applying for a loan of over $74 million from Citigroup.
Federal prosecutors allege that Hassan Nemazee, a New York businessman who was national finance chair for the Clinton campaign, "submitted, and caused to be submitted to Citibank numerous documents that purported to establish the existence of accounts in Nemazee's name at various financial institutions containing many hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, those were fraudulent and forged documents."
A Justice Department press release offers details on the alleged scheme:
Specifically, the various accounts referenced in the fraudulent documents that Nemazee submitted, and caused to be submitted to Citibank either never existed or had been closed years before he submitted the documents referencing those accounts. Furthermore, on many of the documents at issue, Nemazee falsely provided as the address and telephone numbers of various financial institutions purportedly vouching for his financial strength an address and telephone number that was, in fact, controlled by Nemazee. As a result, in the event anyone at Citibank made an effort to confirm the existence of the assets reflected on the fraudulent documents submitted by Nemazee, they would in fact be contacting a telephone number assigned to Nemazee himself, and not any financial institution.
The Feds explain that they interviewed Nemzaee on Sunday at Newark airport, as he was checking in for a flight to Rome. The following day, he repaid the over $74 million loan to Citibank.
The Wall Street Journal adds (sub. req.): "According to an FBI report, Mr. Nemazee first contacted Citibank in December 2006 to borrow $25 million, and later raised the sum to $80 million."
Nemazee's lawyer, Marc Mukasey, told TPMmuckraker: "We are reviewing the allegations."
A Citigroup spokeswoman told TPMmuckraker: "We are working with the authorities on this matter."
Nemazee, 59, is the chairman and CEO of Nemazee Capital Corporation. He's charged with one count of bank fraud, which carries a potential prison term of 30 years. He's expected to appear in court this afternoon.
Marc Mukasey? Son of the former AG; represented some other prominent fraudsters, iirc: Frank diPascali, a former official in the former Bernie Madoff Ponzi empire.
The body's appendix has long been thought of as nothing more than a worthless evolutionary artifact, good for nothing save a potentially lethal case of inflammation.
Now researchers suggest the appendix is a lot more than a useless remnant. Not only was it recently proposed to actually possess a critical function, but scientists now find it appears in nature a lot more often than before thought. And it's possible some of this organ's ancient uses could be recruited by physicians to help the human body fight disease more effectively.
In a way, the idea that the appendix is an organ whose time has passed has itself become a concept whose time is over.
"Maybe it's time to correct the textbooks," said researcher William Parker, an immunologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. "Many biology texts today still refer to the appendix as a 'vestigial organ.'"
Slimy sac
The vermiform appendix is a slimy dead-end sac that hangs between the small and large intestines. No less than Charles Darwin first suggested that the appendix was a vestigial organ from an ancestor that ate leaves, theorizing that it was the evolutionary remains of a larger structure, called a cecum, which once was used by now-extinct predecessors for digesting food.
"Everybody likely knows at least one person who had to get their appendix taken out - slightly more than 1 in 20 people do - and they see there are no ill effects, and this suggests that you don't need it," Parker said.
However, Parker and his colleagues recently suggested that the appendix still served as a vital safehouse where good bacteria could lie in wait until they were needed to repopulate the gut after a nasty case of diarrhea. Past studies had also found the appendix can help make, direct and train white blood cells.
Now, in the first investigation of the appendix over the ages, Parker explained they discovered that it has been around much longer than anyone had suspected, hinting that it plays a critical function.
"The appendix has been around for at least 80 million years, much longer than we would estimate if Darwin's ideas about the appendix were correct," Parker said.
Moreover, the appendix appears in nature much more often than previously acknowledged. It has evolved at least twice, once among Australian marsupials such as the wombat and another time among rats, lemmings, meadow voles, Cape dune mole-rats and other rodents, as well as humans and certain primates.
"When species are divided into groups called 'families,' we find that more than 70 percent of all primate and rodent groups contain species with an appendix," Parker said.
Several living species, including several lemurs, certain rodents and the scaly-tailed flying squirrel, still have an appendix attached to a large cecum, which is used in digestion. Darwin had thought appendices appeared in only a small handful of animals.
"We're not saying that Darwin's idea of evolution is wrong - that would be absurd, as we're using his ideas on evolution to do this work," Parker told LiveScience. "It's just that Darwin simply didn't have the information we have now."
He added, "If Darwin had been aware of the species that have an appendix attached to a large cecum, and if he had known about the widespread nature of the appendix, he probably would not have thought of the appendix as a vestige of evolution."
thereby, under Israeli law, evading/escaping responsibility to survivors for any possible claims of reparations, for wrongful death, for example. This is the kind of service provided by John Yoo, Bybee, and the rest, for the torturers and murderers in the Bushevik junta.
an American national (from Oakland, CA), was critically injured on 13 March 2009 when he was shot (in the head, by Israeli forces) with a high velocity tear-gas projectile during an unarmed demonstration against the Wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin (report and video). ... (Anderson had) had several life-saving surgeries and his prospects for recovery are unclear. On 10 August 2009, (he) underwent another surgery to reattach the top part of his skull, which was removed in order to save his life immediately after his shooting five months ago.
Several eye-witnesses have given testimony that (Anderson) was shot when he could not have been perceived as any threat to the forces in the area. He was shot from around 60 meters (@200 feet) while standing with a few internationals and Palestinians, hours after the demonstration had dispersed from the construction site of the Wall.
What would you expect from the Obama regime and Israel, if you were, say, Anderson's family, good Americans every one?
(See, The face of shrieking, fascist lunacy. That's how they see "us.")
To see ourselves as others see us. Via Lenin's Tomb:
There are some good analyses out there, such as this piece on Al Jazeera, which - despite basically resting on Hofstadter's analysis of the 'paranoid style in American politics' - hits the nail on the head with this:
But the sheer manic intensity of the foam-flecked tirades bursting out in the town halls, so out of proportion to their proximate cause, bespeaks much deeper roots of rage.
These are some of the same people who howled "traitor!" and "kill him!" at Sarah Palin's rallies last year.
They are the ones convinced Obama is a Muslim "sleeper agent" who will destroy American values and hand the country over to Osama bin Laden.
The flip side of their rage is fear. They scream: "We want our country back!" Their country is one where white, Christian conservatives rule.
To get 'it' back 'that way,' these loons seem willing to "destroy the village in order to save it." But I guess that was just a matter of time...
Was ANYONE REALLY surprised at the revelation, yesterday, by Tom Ridge, that the fascist Bushevik coup--through the Heimatssicherheitsampt--manipulated the "Terror-threat-level warnings," in advance of the 2004 Presidential 'election,' to boost the Chimp's political ratings by pandering to fear?
Was anyone with more gray matter than an amoeba REALLY surprised? The accusations of manipulation were thick, but uniformly dismissed by the SCUM at the time.
I believe she draws a salary from MSNBC. I can imagine only one thing at which she could excel sufficiently to be paid for it, and it is not interviewing (though it does have something to do with that whiny, petulant mouth).
I hadn't swung by Ken Silverstein's Washington Babylon blog for a while, until this morning, where I found that Silverstein has been frequenting "The Onion." I was shocked!
Health Care Deadlock, Explained
After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.
“Both parties understand that the current system is broken,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. “But what we can’t seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue.”
“Ultimately, though, it’s our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve,” Pelosi added.
The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.
“We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. “If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there’s no reason we can’t work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population.”
“That’s what America is all about,” he added.
As with so much of what the Onion produces, this would be funny if it were not so plainly "true."
I was taught that one of the things that distinguishes adults from adolescents and children is that adulthood confers the understanding that, as I have inscribed it in Mis Dichos, that no one ever gets "credit" for doing the right thing, or for NOT doing the wrong one. Jane's (e.g.) attitude seems to accept the fact that the representatives she wants to congratulate are little better than coarsened children.
Dear "Woody"
Over the weekend it became clear that the Obama Administration wants to drop the public option from health care reform.
We saw this day coming. That's why for two months, we've been working hard to get members of Congress to draw a line in the sand: no public option, no health care reform. Yesterday, they did it.
This is exactly the kind of spine we need to see from Congress. Indeed, it's the only way we can pass health care reform that's not a bailout of the insurance industry.
These 65 Democrats need to be commended for doing the right thing. We set up a fundraising page for you to donate to any of the 65 members who drew the line in the sand.
Click here to reward good behavior: http://www.actblue.com/page/theytookthepledge
From Kathleen Sebelius to Rahm Emanuel to Barack Obama himself, the Administration appears ready to throw the public option under the bus. If that happens, any "health care reform" bill will simply be a bailout for the insurance industry and drug companies. (N.B.: It will be that, and little more, no matter the official fate of the 'soi disant' "Public Option." W>)
By holding 40 votes in the House, we can ensure that the only health care reform bill to pass is one with a strong public option. To see 65 members of the House drawing a line in the sand on this issue is huge. (N.B.: Or else it makes it possible to blame "progressives" and "liberals" for the failure to enact a bill. W.)
The tide is turning in our favor. Passing health care reform with a strong public option is now in sight.
We need to make sure that these members know we support their efforts to pass a strong public option.
Click here to contribute: http://www.actblue.com/page/theytookthepledge
Thanks for everything you do.
Best,
Jane Hamsher Firedoglake.com
Sounds like how you train a dogs, innit?
But these suckers aren't simple-minded, devoted, loving dogs. I had dogs behaved like these fuckers, I'd shoot 'em. These fuckers are people, or so they say, so we can't shoot 'em, but I don't see why we gotta feed 'em for doing what they're spozed to do anyway. If they aren't smarter than my dogs, then what the fuck they doing passing laws?
Y'all do whatcha want; I won't be contributing, thanks. Should I send 'em a nice message thanking them for doing their fucking jobs?
Ethnic Cleansing IS "Legal" in Israel, for Jews, and Nobody Else
Israelis will never compromise on Arab East Jerusalem. They intend to have it all.
It should be recalled that it is not any particular "Jewishness" which is at fault here. It is an endemic fault of all conquerors. There will be NO PEACE in Palest/Isreal until the last Arab is assimilated, expelled, or dead...
Larry Wilmore, TDS' "senior Black Correspondent," flat nails it. This should be required viewing at any gathering of birfers, teabaggers, or death-panelers, if for no other reason than it would cause their heads either to melt of explode. Either would be welcome.
TDSWJS is simply the SMARTEST show on the tube. Period...
These are the folks--leftist/prog bloggers, pundits and Pols, the 'changey-hopey" crowd, i.e.--who continue to seek so avidly for, and to insist so valiantly on finding reasons OTHER than deep-seated, endemic, still mostly undiluted racism in USer culture to explain the rabidly vocal "resistance" to "President Obama's" ostensible desire to reform the provision of health-insurance for average Murkins.
The question is: What provokes this large, vitriolic cabal of (mainly working- and lower- and lower-middle class, mainly white) citizens, many of whom are already recipients of the State's largesse, to rage so furiouslt against proposals that, if enacted, would improve THEIR OWN health care, either by offering a 'public' option or by eventually eliminating the Health Insurance Parasites as middle-men, altogether?
And the answer, as plainly as ever has been possible to enunciate, is good, old Murkin institutional (as if there were any other kind) racism. Here's Tim Wise, a widely known lecturer on the subject:
Scholars studying the phenomenon have always averred that racism is not mostly, or even particularly, about individual acts of bias, bigotry, or discrimination. Individuals possessed of those demons exist in all human groups. But it has often been difficult to point to non-abstract examples (explicit 'systems,' or 'policies') which would satisfactorily illuminate the relevant social/political outlines of institutional racism in practice. The unfolding health insurance/health care 'debate' provides a paradigmatic case-in-point. That is, it is an OBVIOUS iteration of the (implicit) "racist" system by which the "superior" majority uses its political power to deny equal, fair access to a 'public good' (improved health care) to the despised, "inferior" minority, even though it means the majority will also be deprived (albeit less so).
And the animosity generated by the right-wing against the policies attributed to Obama apparently stems from the perception--fondly, even rapturously promulgated by the drooling fucktards of the flying-monkey right, the militia movement, and the nativist morons like Dobbs and Beck--that Obama is a disloyal, "un" or "anti" American 'plant' or 'mole' foisted off on the electorate by the "liberals" in an elaborate exercise in Affirmative Action aimned at finally ending the power of the "superior" majority.
(That may happen, in 100 years, but it won't be because of any health-insurance plan Obama happens to sign into law later this year.)
If you've not heard/of Tim Wise, now's the time to start. Scholars studying the phenomenon have always averred that racism is not mostly, or even particularly, about individual acts of bias, bigotry, or discrimination. Individuals possessed of those demons exist in all human groups. But it has often been difficult to point to non-abstract examples (explicit 'systems,' or 'policies') which would satisfactorily illuminate the relevant social/political outlines of institutional racism in practice. The unfolding health insurance/health care 'debate' provides a paradigmatic case-in-point. That is, it is an OBVIOUS iteration of the (implicit) "racist" system by which the "superior" majority uses its political power to deny equal, fair access to a 'public good' (improved health care) to the despised, "inferior" minority, even though it means the majority will also be deprived (albeit less so).
And the animosity generated by the right-wing against the policies attributed to Obama apparently stems from the perception--fondly, even rapturously promulgated by the drooling fucktards of the flying-monkey right, the militia movement, and the nativist morons like Dobbs and Beck--that Obama is a disloyal, "un" or "anti" American 'plant' or 'mole' foisted off on the electorate by the "liberals" in an elaborate exercise in Affirmative Action aimned at finally ending the power of the "superior" majority.
(That may happen, in 100 years, but it won't be because of any health-insurance plan Obama happens to sign into law later this year.)
Scrape the ridiculous rhetoric away, and it comes down to the fact that, for now, anyway, it is still considered bad form to stand aside and shout "Nigger" at black folks, so those who feel compelled to do it (and that seems NOT to be a small number of Middull Murkins) have fastened on 'issues' around which to organize their rage at being "led," even nominally, by an "inferior" race...
Make no mistake: That IS the issue, has always BEEN the issue, and will always BE the issue...
The headline on Jason Leopold's piece on The Public Record says it all:
Obama Promises Senators He Will Help Pass Bill Banning Torture Photos
President Barack Obama sent a letter July 29 to Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham informing them that he would work with Congress to ensure legislation is passed that would block the release of any photographs and videos depicting U.S. Soldiers abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan captured after 9/11.
The disclosure was made in a footnote in a 33-page petition the Obama administration filed Friday with the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither the White House nor spokespeople for Lieberman and Graham responded to phone calls and e-mail queries seeking a copy of the letter.
The petition confirms that the contents of the 44 images at issue, which was first reported by The Public Record, includes one in which a female solider pointed a broom at one detainee “as if I was sticking the end of a broom stick into [his] rectum.”
Other photos at issues show U.S. soldiers pointing guns at the heads of hooded and bound detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The filing also notes that the detainee abuse was investigated by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and “three of the six investigations led to criminal charges and in two of those cases, the accused were found guilty and punished.” [Background on the photographs can be found HERE and HERE.]
The petition requests that the high court take up the administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling requiring the Department of Defense to turn over the photographs to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2003 to gain access to the images.
In June, the Senate unanimously passed the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009, an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations spending bill sponsored by Lieberman and Graham. The House of Representatives referred the amendment to two House committees on June 18 where it is pending.
Additionally, on July 9, the Senate unanimously passed the amendment again as it was attached to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill.
“The President recently informed the sponsors of the pending detainee photograph legislation that he “support[s] this legislation” and “will work with Congress to get it passed,” says the footnote in the Supreme Court petition prepared by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, quoting from Obama’s July 29 letter to Lieberman and Graham.
The bill has faced opposition in the House and that may explain why the Obama administration has decided to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the House kills the measure altogether
Lieberman, I-Conn., and Graham, R-S.C., were sharply critical of Obama’s decision not to fight a final ruling in March by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that called upon the Department of Defense to release the photographs. Obama indicated he would abide by that decision but he abruptly shifted his stance after he was publicly criticized by the likes of Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz.
Lieberman and Graham’s amendment would authorize the Secretary of Defense to prohibit the release of the abuse photographs and videos for three years and renew it for three year intervals thereafter. The Obama administration would presumably drop its appeal if the House passes the legislation when it returns from its summer break in September.
(Artist's impression of Lee Rodgers, five minutes from air)
The estimable Mr Spocko gives a lesson today in the things he does best: reasonable, rational appeals to common sense and common decency, to combat the vile and malign forces deployed by the fascisti to interrupt, and ultimately commandeer, the democratic discourse. His target is, as it frequently is, a certain Bay Area radio pundit/hate jock named Lee Rodgers, who is to be inducted into some local celebrity "hall of fame>." Spocko deftly and adeptly flays Rodgers' rotting, feculent, diseased 'persona' in ways which are both ruthless and exemplary. I just wish I thought a lot more people would be able to actually comprehend what he's so amply and ably demonstrating.
There is a preface which is, in Mr. Spocko's usual, elegant, clear way, eminently readable, and contextual, after which the letter begins:
Darryl:
I know the Hall of Fame is a popularity contest and a lot of very vile broadcasters are popular, but before you honor Lee Rodgers you might want to actually listen to some of his current shows to see how far he has descended from the Lee Rodgers you and others might have known at one time.
You can listen on the Internet to a current show and hear some of his genocidal comments directed toward directed toward Iraqi's, Muslims and liberals.
In addition to his desire to "massacre every last damn one" of the Iraqis he is un-apologetically pro-torture. And if you think that Rodgers apologized for his torture comments, think again. He did NOT apologize for talking about torturing the blowing the brains out of a criminal (link) Here's audio of Rodgers not apologizing for those comments and embracing them. (Link)
Suggesting that someone suspected of a crime be burned alive is just another day on Rodger's talk radio (You will note his old sidekick, Melanie Morgan, added the "hogtied" to the being burned alive comment, I guess when she wants someone to die in a fire she really wants to make sure it happens.) These vicious comments aren't just one time outbursts, they are the backbone of his show, along with his name calling and his constant talk about testicles (link to multiple audio clips)
I suppose Rodgers will have to come back to the Bay Area to pick up his award, but he clearly hates San Francisco and the majority of the people in the city. I know this because he says so almost every day as he broadcasts out of his home in Arizona.
And that's just for starters. The sum and total of the post has the net effect of 1) making Rodgers (justly, imho) out to be a vlie, foul-mouthed, hate-spewing racist bigot, and 2) offering the aforesaid "Darryl the choice of his party, or his soul.
Me? I'm guessin' Rodgers is still going in the Bay Area Radio Museum & Hall of Fame.
There seems to be a significant amount of evidence that suggests that Bushevik ally, and private warlord/violence impressario Erik Prince could, and SHOULD, face murder charges.
It couldn't happen to a nicer, more deserving fellow than this fascist smudge of runny catshit. Jeremy Scahill (who else) delivers the indictment at The Nation (and Democracy Now):
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
Jeremy's quite the propagandist. You'll note how the character-blackening, but apparently otherwise irrelevant accusations of general beastliness arre grafted seemlessly onto the charges? There is more meat here, which helps with the context.
In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.
These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater's motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.
Go reat the rest. It's pretty chilling, especially when we recall that the Bushevik regime gave Blackwater virtually a carte blance to police New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
"CONDUCT UNBECOMING A JUNGLE MONKEY - BACK TO ONE'S ROOTS."
theMom (Attentive Aphorist), following the story of the slimy Officer Barrett (him the of Gates-gate follow-up outrage, and late also of the Boston Police Department)--who has lodged a legal complaint against the Department, demanding compensation for treatment he considers to have been unfair and discriminatory--chased down the unredacted text of Officer Barrett's 'crie 'd'coeur' sent to Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham, and posted it this morning.
Qouth she: "This is the e-mail which Mr. Barrett chose to send enmasse. Yes, I believe he is a racist. Yes, I believe he is sexist. Yes, I believe he is a complete fucking moron!!"
Article writer, That was, by far, the worst article I've ever read. I am a former English teacher, writer, current police officer. father, husband and military veteran. You need to be corrected and I certainly hope others have attempted, for your written messages and material is so 4th grade level. I am embarrassed I paid the 1.50 for the paper [rest assured, it is my aim to tell as many readers The Boston Globe and your biased reporting is both sub standard and strictly one sided]. For you are not professional and basically, your writing is ridiculous. A reader may assume, per your article, that criminals are never well-dressed with a tucked in polo [2nd paragraph] . Your defense [4th paragraph] of Gates while he is on the phone while being confronted [INDEED] with a police officer is assuming he has rights when considered a suspect. He is a suspect and will always be a suspect. His first priority of effort should be to get off the phone and comply with police, for if I was the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC deserving of his belligerent non-compliance. Further [5th paragraph], a reader may assume that crimes only happen in back alleys at 0300?! You're kidding me, right? Are you still in the 5th grade, Catholic School? That paragraph was as pathetic as jungle monkey gibberish - I might as well ax you the question. "Is this your first test at reporting?" You do not understand roles, tactics and dangers police officers face, as apparently you think no one wearing a polo might possess a firearm or knife on his/her person. Might you fathom a woman could be a criminal? Or are criminals all hairy, dirty, stinky, mean looking ugly men? You are a hot little bird with minimal experiences in a harsh field. You are a fool. An infidel. You have no business writing for a US newspaper nevermind detailing and analyzing half truths. You should serve me coffee and donuts on Sunday morning. My last point counters your final 2 paragraphs, in which you state Gates is "this immensely famous expert on race" - you really have to be kidding me? Famous for what? Expert why and says who? What has he done for me and my family? What has he done for the law enforcement community or military veterans or to secure freedoms and our borders in this country? What has he done to help limit and reduce my income tax? He has proven to work to get himself attention and become a wealthy lecturer. He lectures students on the subject of racial ethics and profiling. Jee whiz. I must attend that lecture lest I lose my identity and right to free speech and the right to celebrate God and beliefs as I see fit. I am not a racist. but I am prejudice towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they claim is freedom when it is merely attention because you do not receive enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers. You mention Gates' charges were dropped but that it was too late to stop the damage? Damage? Still kidding? You need to serve a day with the infantry and get swarmed by black gnats while manning your sector. Or you just need to get slapped, look in the mirror and admit, "Wow. I am a failure. I am a follower. Who am I kidding?" Again, I like a warm cruller and hot Panamanian, black. No sugar. Your final statement reads, "Gates, whose great success has allowed him to transcend the racial divide-" to which I ask, when did he transcend? He indeed has transcended back to a bumbling jungle monkey, thus he forever tremains amid this nation's great social/racial divide that makes it a free and great nation mixed with crazy and awkward differences. Go ahead, ax me what I think? Gates is a goddamned fool and you the article writer simply a poor follower and maybe worse, a poor writer. Your article title should read CONDUCT UNBECOMING A JUNGLE MONKEY - BACK TO ONE'S ROOTS. JB
"Of course, I just had to highlight all the "jungle monkey" references. I trust you can pick out the "ask" problem. So don't make me ax you again!"
(Would that be the "syntask?"...Ed.)
As I remarked on her site, if this guy was the quality of cop that his prose reveals him to have been an 'English teacher,' then neither profession is significantly impoverished by his banishment.
Watt was not too happy with his public evisceration, however, and scurried off to get it taken down. Here it is, reposted. Enjoy — it's a very good takedown of the climate denialist claims.
What's so interesting, as much as anything, are the criteria by which NOA measures change...
HOW nominally reasonable, normally intelligent people could think that the owners of the country--oligarchs, plutocrats, aristos-- would ever turn management of THEIR "property," or the system of its administration, over to somebody--to ANYBODY--who wasn't utterly, totally, and completely trustworthy; to someone who posed even the tiniest, remotest, slightest, slimmest CHANCE of undoing the least jot or tittle of their immensely profitable, unimaginably powerful status quo?
No. That's preposterous! Who could believe such a thing?
Thus, "thePrez" has already faithfully demonstrated he neither will, nor even particularly wants to, upset any hegemonic applecarts or otherwise in any way disturb the Owners in their well-earned rest...
And to ignore or deny this quite evident set of facts is a text-book example of "Anosognosia."
"He's an old blind bear....alone in the winter woods...with only the smell of his breath for comfort. Too mean to die, too lost to care. But show some caution....he's still the Bear."
Via The ReligionClause:
