Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I felt a correction was in order after the diary I wrote yesterday. Upon deeper introspection I have come to the conclusion that no matter how bad Obama might phuck up he couldn’t possibly be worse at Presidenting than the last a$$clown who tried.

    And upon being reminded what a phuck up the last guy was, I would like to invite you all to please join me in remembering the EPIC and Ongoing FAIL that was the George W. Bush legacy.

    Former President George W. Bush told more than 11,000 people at the Fort Worth Convention Center that he was confident he made the right decisions as president, even if it hurt his popularity.

    “Every single day I was honored to be your president by bringing honor and dignity to the office,” Bush said Monday afternoon, during his first foray into motivational speaking, at the day-long “Get Motivated” seminar.

star-telegram.com

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     Get Motivated! by the biggest Presidential Failure since Herbert Hoover!

    More EPOCHAL FAIL below the fold.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

     For those who will automatically balk at the Obama = Bush charge, I submit to you the fact that by Geneva Law, if Bush/Cheney is not held accountable for the War Crimes they have committed, than the Obama Administration is complicit in those crimes and guilty of covering them up.

   

The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up.

NYTimes.com

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     Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Today on ABC’s Top Line, co-host David Chalian asked Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) if he would “opt-out” of the public option for his state if the measure passed. Pawlenty dodged: “Well, I don’t know if we would opt out but I personally would like to opt out because I don’t like government run health care.” But Chalian persisted, and ultimately, Pawlenty said that he would oppose the public option for Minnesota:

CHALIAN: But you would lead a charge in your state to opt out if that was an option available?

PAWLENTY: I think so because I don’t like government run health care.

ThinkProgress.org

     Sorry Minnesota. Looks like your Asshat Governor wants you to buy for profit insurance and like it, if you can afford it.

     More, with analysis and my take on the Faux Reform that is the Opt Out Cop Out below the fold.

Imagine listening to this for 20 days straight.

It IS torture, hell I can’t stand more than 20 seconds of it.

    Of course, forcing people to listen to loud music for days on end is NOT the worst War Crime committed by Bush/Cheney, but it IS a War Crime nontheless by Geneva Standards.

    Well, it looks like Rage Against The Machine, Pearl Jam and many other musicians are DEMANDING accountability on torture, as far as their artistic contribution to it is concerned.

     Some of the more famous names in the music industry are formally lending their prestige to an effort being led by retired generals, progressive groups and a former member of Congress to shut GITMO down. The list includes Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rise Against, Rosanne Cash, Billy Bragg and the Roots, all of whom are joining the broader National Campaign to Close Guantanamo which was launched earlier in the week.

    Hoping to cast further light on the potential illegalities that took place at the detention facility, the group is also working to obtain records about why and how music was used (under laws authorized by the Bush administration) to effectively torture suspected terrorists. The musicians have officially endorsed a Freedom of Information Act request for the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to music utilized during interrogations. At least two members of the coalition, Reznor and Morello, have had their music linked to interrogations.

    “Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured — from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts — playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums,” said Morello, in a statement provided by the NCCG. “Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney’s idea of America, but it’s not mine. The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me — we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.”

HuffingtonPost.com

    I nominate Tom Morello for Attorney General as SOON as I become President.

     While former U.S. president George W. Bush talked about democracy inside a downtown Edmonton conference centre on Tuesday, hundreds of protesters were outside exercising their right to free speech with signs, songs and screams.

    “Stop the killing, stop the war,” the protesters chanted to the beat of a drum. They held signs that said “Bush is a war criminal;” “Bush lied, 1,000s died;” and “Canada is not Bush Country.”

    Several dozen police officers kept protesters away from the front of the Shaw Conference Centre and as the crowd grew, metal barricades went up between the police and the crowd.

    Marilyn Gaa, who holds both American and Canadian citizenship, held a three-metre-tall black-clad Grim Reaper with a sign on his back that said: “GWB I am your biggest fan” and on the front, “Thanks for 8 great years.”

google.com/hostednews/

Crossposted at Daily Kos

   

    “A Democrat with Guts, people think of it like a mythological creature, like a Unicorn.”

~snip~

    “Bipartisanship is a Weapon of Mass Distraction.”

   ~   Rep. Alan Grayson

    A Democrat with GUTS deserves an electorate that will FIGHT for him. That is how we will encourage more Dems to grow guts and learn how to fight.

    A short transcript and more below the fold.

    Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said on Tuesday that the Obama administration is “half-pregnant” with health insurers and pharmaceutical companies, which may jeopardize the success of reform.

     The congressman — who is a leading liberal voice in the healthcare reform debate — said that rumored deals the White House has struck with big pharmaceutical companies and insurers may guide them to abandon key elements of reform, such as a public health insurance option.

    “The Obama administration is trying to be, I don’t know how to put it, half-pregnant with the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies,” he told WNYC Radio today. “They’re to some degree the source of our problem.”

TheHill.com

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    I for one APPLAUD Rep. Anthony Weiner’s knee jerk Truth Telling. Face it, President Obama has NOT done ANYTHING to fight for a Public Option, without which this is the subsidize and mandate private insurance bill, NOT the Health care Reform that would give Americans Universal coverage that we NEED.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I submit this for the approval and enjoyment of my fellow Dharma Bums as a challenge, not just to Kos, but to each and every Progressive in our nation. It is time to stop bitching about Harry Reid. It is time to do something about him politically.

MoT

By At All Costs I mean POLITICALLY of course.

Not just Kos, we need everyone”s help, but I address this directly to Kos, among others whose aid we will need to pull this off.

    Republican filibuster? Democrats have 60 voters. There is no Republican filibuster, just a Democratic one. The problem is Reid’s inability to keep his caucus together. His office can’t even be honest about Reid’s leadership failures. Fucking liars.

    I’ll take a Chuck Schumer-run Senate with 57 Democrats (bye bye Reid, Lieberman, and Lincoln) than a Harry Reid-run one with 75 Democrats.

by Kos

bold and italic added by the diarist

     I need your help, Kos. Are you tired of Reid? Really? Then help me do something about it.

     How I propose to take down Harry Reid and an open dialogue below the fold.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

War is Peace.

    The Military Industrial Complex meets the Terroism Industrial Complex.

     In his widely reported London speech earlier this month, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, described how people constantly offer him ideas for fixing that country’s problems. One of the more unusual recommendations, he suggested, came from a paper that advocated using a “plan called ‘Chaosistan.’ ” McChrystal said it advised letting Afghanistan become a “Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from outside,” but there was no further explanation of its origins.

Newsweek.com

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Much more below the fold