The Blonde Ghoul with whom media "news" shows seem to enjoy conversing suggests that there is no difference between the Iraq War and World War II. They're both wars, you see.
"Yeah, I think Iraq was an important war to fight, and like I say, I think we're enjoying the benefits of it now, thank you, George Bush!"
Besides the ridiculous simplification that Coulter makes here, the CRS projects the Iraq and Afghanstan War to top one trillion dollars by the end of this year. Added to the Bush tax cuts and recent economic downturn, President Obama got to inherit a staggering deficit that will take decades from which to recover. Then there's the 6300 dead coalition troops and 41,100 additional coalition casualties who have paid the price of fighting in the Middle East since 2001. As we watch Iraq turn into a Shia-dominated government that backs Iran's power plays in the region, condones continued sectarian violence, and (my favorite part) uses US foreign military sales to obtain M1 tanks and F16 planes (in addition to other "leave-behind" defense systems), we all get to say, "thank you, George Bush. May we have another?"
Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake of Buena Park sent out an email Monday night, saying that perhaps his prayers had been answered with the death of Rep. John Murtha yesterday.
“Maybe God took him out,” Drake wrote. “Maybe God Answered our IMPRECATORY prayer that we prayed every 30 days.”
The Pennsylvania congressman, a decorated former Marine who fiercely opposed the Iraq war, died at the age of 77 after complications from gallbladder surgery.
I asked Drake if his statements weren’t distasteful, particularly coming immediately after Murtha’s death. He said that as a Christian, he didn’t buy into the sentiment of not speaking ill of the dead.
“It’s not distasteful to pray the word of God and include somebody’s name,” he said. “I didn’t celebrate his death. I said maybe it was God’s answer to our imprecatory prayer.”
Drake regularly asks his “prayer warriors” to participate in prayer targeting “unrighteous” politicians. He typically uses Psalms 109, including these passages including in his Monday email: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” And, “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
At one point, Drake prayed for the death of President Barack Obama. However, he dropped that because he wants to see Obama faces charges that he is not a natural-born citizen and so cannot be president. Drake has such a lawsuit on appeal. Drake said he and his prayer warriors had been praying for Murtha’s death for four or five months. Among other things, Drake said Murtha’s use of profanity and his use of God’s name in vain. Beside praying for the death of specific politicians, he said they pray for “politicians in general who are taking unrighteous stands
Colmes: ...you then said, I asked for whom else are you praying in that fashion and you said President Obama. Are you praying for his death?
Drake: Yes.
Colmes: So you're praying for the death of the president of the United States?
Drake: Yes. Are you concerned that by saying that you might find yourself on some secret service call or FBI most wanted list. Do you think it's appropriate to say something like that or even pray for something like that?
Drake: I think it's appropriate to pray for the will of God. I'm not saying anything, what I'm doing is repeating what God is saying, if that puts me on somebodies list then I'll just have to be on their list.
Colmes: You would like for the president of the United States to die?
Drake: If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around I am asking God to enforce in imprecatory prayers throughout the scripture that would cause him death, that's correct.
Former Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani claimed that no attacks happened on US soil 'except' for 9/11. Rep. Alan Grayson responded by pointing out all of the other exceptions the Republicans would like to exclude from history.
Dave N.: You gotta love Alan Grayson. Republicans' are desperate to make Americans forget what an abject failure conservative governance has been. Grayson is one of the few congresscritters actively fighting back:
Grayson: And I realized that I was witnessing the birth of a new form of political discourse from the right wing in this country: The Exception. The Exceptional Exception -- the exception that proves the rule or disproves the rule, as the case may be.
So in the future I'm expecting that we'll hear from the right wing the claim that no cities drowned under the Bush administration -- except for New Orleans. And that there were no wars that were started by mistake under the Bush administration -- except for the war in Iraq. And that the Bush administration added nothing to the federal debt -- except for a half-trillion dollars, which works out to $15,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. And that they respected all of our constitutional rights as Americans -- except when they didn't.
I think we'll hear Republicans claim that the Bush administration managed the economy quite well -- except when they brought it to the brink of national bankruptcy. In fact, they'll claim that the Bush-Cheney administration was a complete success, except for the fact that it was an abject failure -- an abject failure.
In fact, what we learned in Washington for eight years is that the reason why Republicans hate government so much is because they're so bad at it.
It's this willingness to tackle the right-wing media and its talking points that sets Grayson apart from his colleagues. No wonder his fund-raising campaign has been so successful. People want to reward someone who stands up for them.
This is completely unacceptable. The co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is throwing her support behind a Blue Dog named Jane Harman for reelection in 2010, and who happens to be the representative in my own district in California. I've been thinking of running against her because I'm so upset at Harman's actions in Congress, but for Woolsey to be holding fundraising events for a known Blue Dog should be a firing offense for the CPC.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva has been excellent for the CPC, but obviously Lynne needs to go. The idea is to grow the CPC and progressives in Congress, not support odious Blue Dogs who obstruct progressive legislation and take this country to the far, far right. This is a complete betrayal.
I'm calling for the CPC to remove her as the co-chair immediately.
Harman supports a wide range of Republican policies that Woolsey has always opposed-- from the Iraq War, the anti-family/pro-bankster bankruptcy bill, and abolishing the estate tax to warrantless wiretaps (except the ones that expose her as an Israeli spy) and offering "special treatment" to defense contractors. She is widely considered to be the least trustworthy and most disliked Democrats in the House by her fellow Democrats. And Lynne Woolsey understands that completely.
Is this how the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus builds a progressive movement? Marcy Winograd is in a tight primary race against Harman. It may be too much to expect Woolsey to campaign for Winograd, but endorsing the Blue Dog who is consistently voting against -- and working behind the scenes against -- everything the Progressive Caucus is supposed to stand for? Then they wonder why no one takes them seriously? Woolsey should be relieved of her position as co-chair...
Please have your phone in hand and start calling. Please be polite-- and firm:
Washington DC Office:
202-225-5161
Fax: 202-225-5163
District Offices:
Marin Office:
1050 Northgate Drive
Suite 354
San Rafael, CA. 94903
Ph.: 415-507-9554
Fax: 415-507-9601
Sonoma Office:
1101 College Avenue
Suite 200
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Ph.: 707-542-7182
Fax: 707-542-2745
WASHINGTON — In a significant blow to the Justice Department, a federal judge on Thursday threw out the indictment of five former Blackwater security guards over a shooting in Baghdad in 2007 that left 17 Iraqis dead and about 20 wounded.
The judge cited misuse of statements made by the guards in his decision, which brought to a sudden halt one of the highest-profile prosecutions to arise from the Iraq war. The shooting at Nisour Square frayed relations between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration and put a spotlight on the United States’ growing reliance on private security contractors in war zones.
Investigators concluded that the guards had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault near the crowded traffic circle on Sept. 16, 2007. The guards contended that they had been ambushed by insurgents and fired in self-defense.
A trial on manslaughter and firearm offenses was planned for February, and the preliminary proceedings had been closely watched in the United States and Iraq.
But in a 90-page opinion, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of Federal District Court in Washington wrote that the government’s mishandling of the case “requires dismissal of the indictment against all the defendants.”
In a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights,” the judge wrote, investigators, prosecutors and government witnesses had inappropriately relied on statements that the guards had been compelled to make in debriefings by the State Department shortly after the shootings. The State Department had hired the guards to protect its officials.
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It was Bill O'Reilly and Jim DeMint's turn to pretend like no one has ever cut a Senator's time on the floor short tonight on the O'Reilly Factor. Bill-O and 'PrayerCast' member Jim DeMint do a little bit of history revision and pretend like Grandpa McCain hasn't done the exact same thing himself. So nice of them to show such concern for Joe Lie-berman while ignoring that McCain himself has acted a whole lot worse. Little wonder that O'Reilly would lash out at Franken since he's been mocking Bill-O since his days at Air America Radio.
Franken's spot where he panned O'Reilly for pretending like he served in battle on his radio show and his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them had to have gotten under O'Reilly's skin. If anyone out there has the recording of that segment on Air America, let the site know. I'd love to post it if I could find it.
As Think Progress noted, McCain was more than happy to cut off a Democratic Senator's time during the Iraq war debate. Now he's got memory lapse. Apparently it's too much to ask O'Reilly or DeMint to tell the truth about that in this segment. Fox News... unfair and unbalanced.
I'm still trying to figure out why the staff at Hardball could find footage of John McCain from back in 2002 cutting off another member of the Senate when the Rachel Maddow Show said they couldn't find it in the C-SPAN archives. Very strange.
UPDATE: My mistake on the Hardball/Rachel Maddow show segments. Matthews showed a different clip and not the one Rachel's staff could not find. At least both of those shows, unlike O'Reilly, bothered to point out that McCain is a huge hypocrite with his feigned outrage towards Franken "picking on" his buddy Lieberman when all Al was doing is following the directions given to him by Harry Reid.
h/t to David who sent on the O'Reilly in combat segment. I had thought this might have been Mike Stark but it wasn't. The one thing this is missing is the Franken show's mockery of it, not that it needs it to be funny as hell. Enjoy.
David also sent on what looks to be some of Franken's show footage and where to find it. I'll check that out as well and thank you for the tip.
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(h/t Heather)
Chris Matthews went on a rant against the 'netroots" yesterday when he was talking to John Heilemann from the New Yorker, saying that we're not real Democrats who vote and all we do is back-seat bitching because we're criticizing the LieberCare sellout health-care plan.
When Heilemann noted that the “Democratic left” has been “trashing the health care bill” this week, Matthews said that those people were part of the “netroots” and not “regular grown-up Democrats”:
MATTHEWS: I don’t consider them Democrats, I consider them netroots, and they’re different. And if I see that they vote in every election or most elections, I’ll be worried. But I’m not sure that they’re regular grown-up Democrats. I think that a lot of those people are troublemakers who love to sit in the backseat and complain. They’re not interested in governing this country. They never ran for office, they’re not interested in working for somebody in public office. They get their giggles from sitting in the backseat and bitching.
I started blogging in 2004 because I was passionate about returning America to the great country it was before conservatives got their hands on the government in 2000 -- and it was because of the phony justifications that media elites like Chris Matthews sat back and used to persuade Americans to back such an outrageous position like the Iraq war that drove me into online activism.
The netroots have exposed FOX News to be the propaganda arm of the GOP when the MSM stood idly by and let them disseminate as manyLuntz-polled press releases masquerading as news as they could.
I've been asked to run against Jane Harman in CA-36, but I've held off making a decision until the New Year is upon us. We've broken stories like the scandal over the Bush administration firing seven U.S. Attorneys, and have given an incredible amount of content to news networks because of our commitment for truth. And they use that content without crediting many of us, while sneering at us as dirty f&*@king hippies.
I can go on and on, but I'll debate Chris Matthews anytime he wants about the things we actually do and we actually achieve in the real world -- both inside and outside the Beltway, too.
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December 14, 2009 CNN
BROWN: Tonight, we begin our special series "Band of Sisters," focusing on women at war and the challenges they face on and off the battlefield.
One in 10 American troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are women. And thousands of them are falling victim to an injury with all the power of a bullet or a roadside bomb, an injury that's long haunted men in combat, post-traumatic stress disorder.
In a few moments, we will talk about some of the reasons women may have it tougher than men when it comes to PTSD. But, first, I want you to meet some of the moms, wives and daughters who have faced the emotional and psychological anguish.
Adding forces gives us leverage; military forces are vital to the success of any political strategy because they contribute directly to improving governance as well as to improving security.
The recent American experience in Iraq illustrates how U.S. forces and diplomacy helped correct the behaviors of a sometimes malign government in ways that helped neutralize insurgent groups.
If the Afghan government were fully legitimate, there would be no insurgency. ... [We] must persuade and even compel Afghan leaders to stop activities that alienate the people and create fertile ground for insurgents.
Wow. I'm torn between thinking that that paragraph is either the most patronizing or the most idiotically simple statement ever made. Do the Kagans really believe that if the Karzai government were less corrupt, that the Taliban would all say, "oh, obviously we can deal with this man, let's all give up our arms and drug money and participate in a democratic government." The Taliban are inherently opposed to a democratic-type government, they want to be in charge.
American military forces can also help restrain politicians' abuses of power. U.S. forces can develop a picture of local power structures, including those through which Afghan officials abuse their power and exacerbate the insurgency. American commanders can collect evidence on individual offenders that a reformed Afghan judicial system would one day be able to use.
That's a great idea, if Karzai doesn't go legit, we'll make him - by embarrassing him, because the blatant evidence of corruption in Kabul hasn't really done it enough. As for the Afghan judicial system, does "decades from now" count as "one day"? This is not a culture that will adopt Western values, but again, somehow the Kagans think that we can impose it on them. The Kagans' argument - that we need to force the Afghan government to behave so that our "security concerns" are met via the McChrystal options - is illegitimate and boastful. It could only appear on the Wall St Journal or - embarrassingly for the alleged liberal MSM - in the Washington Post op eds.
Joe Scarborough thinks the $3 trillion Iraq war that was accompanied by tax cuts didn't balloon the deficit more than the current healthcare bill. You know, the healthcare bill that's entirely paid for -- and will actually reduce the deficit.
Guest Joe Conason made the mistake of pointing this out, stirring Scarborough into one of his little freakouts. Of course he denied supporting the combination of wars and tax cuts, which, if you watched any cable news during that time, is total horseshit.
Nothing like pointing out a few facts to make Scarborough's head explode. I don't know how Conason manages to suffer through being a guest on that show.
