Category: Barack Obama

edit. v2.

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You can tell it’s an election year by the amount of wild horses that suddenly have to be removed off Federal range to “preserve habitat” for mule deer hunters and cattle ranchers who also lease it.   This year, 1200 in our sister state, home to the Senate Majority Leader.

The Obama administration touted that it would use so called “science based” decision making.  After watching the Bush administration decide to humor the National Park’s decision to murder a bunch of introduced, very cute, but non trophy type smaller deer at Pt Reyes National Seashore with helicopter hunting, (think more canned Tule Elk Special Hunts as a result ) under the guise of they weren’t “native,” and the helicopter contract went to a big Republican donor, while the Dems made stupid excuses for this, I was sort of cynical that this was going to happen.

Science does not = rotor cowboys.  

Science does not = Cattoor Livestock.

http://rtfitch.wordpress.com  7/12/2010 BLM – Infamous helicopter contractor returns for illegal tuscarora wild horse roundup.  “It was Cattoor Livestock that stampeded the horses of Pryor Mountain in 95º+ degree heat for miles, and again the Cattoors who were actually credited with running the hooves right off from several foals during the bloodiest of all roundups on record, the Calico Complex debacle.  Due to the deaths in the field, …. documented on video, the Cattoors launched an attack on the First Amendment and instructed their attorneys to issue threat/demand letters to news agencies, major non profits, magazines and blogs that were reporting the news to the public on the deadly Calico roundup.  The letters wanted to “fix” the news…. and insist on public apologies for reporting the facts as witnessed. The mention of company owner David Cattoor’s past indictment for capturing and selling wild horses to slaughter was likewise considered taboo. ”

“In their care, 86 horses have died and 40 mares have aborted their late term foals….”

http://tuesdayshorse.wordpress…

“In late December, government contracted helicopters took to the air, rounding up every horse they could find on the vast 500,000 acre Calico range, an area designated principally for wild horse use since 1971, but grazed by thousands of privately owned, government subsidized cattle. The roundup….. has cost at least $1.3 million…. while causing injury and death to hundreds of wild horses.  ….. over 24 million acres have been withdrawn from wild horse and burro use.  The BLM “welfare ranching” practices continue allowing the land to be leased primarily to corporations at minimum fees of $1.35 per cow/calf pair or per 5 head of sheep per month, along with land leases to extractive and energy industries on Western public lands.

From Glenn Greenwald…

The U.S. today charged Bradley Manning with a variety of crimes relating to his alleged leaks of classified material to WikiLeaks, most prominently including the Apache attack video that spawned worldwide debate over the American occupation.

The only “weapon” visible in this video is a camera carried by Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, who was 22 years old when he was murdered by the American occupation of Iraq.

Consider the following.

At an international conference on democracy and human rights in Krakow, Poland, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton railed against governments intolerant of human rights:

“But we must be wary of the steel vise in which governments around the world are slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit,” she said. Social activists, Clinton said, are being harassed, censored, cut off from funding, arrested, prosecuted or killed.

President Obama unequivocally echoed her righteous sentiments in a public statement:

President Barack Obama, in a statement released in Washington, said the United States is particularly concerned about “the spread of restrictions on civil society, the growing use of law to curb rather than enhance freedom and widespread corruption that is undermining the faith of citizens in their governments.”

Then Dave Lindorff reels off around twenty reasons why they are such flagrant freaking hypocrites that their pants should be effectively on fire, while Glenn Greenwald has the temerity to call the US a police state in cahoots with British Petroleum.

Normally, I’d gladly join in the outrage at the blatant hypocrisy, but an alternative hypothesis has been creeping around in the back of my mind lately.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos

“They bought it, Rahm!“

“I mean, I meant it when I said it. You know?”

“But… heh. That was a campaigning thing, you know? And it worked, too! Right? Right.”

“You don’t really expect me to go all bipartisany on you and do what Lindsay Graham wants me to do, do you? DO YOU? He’s a republican! WTF do you want from me?”

“Heh. Shut the fcuk up, Helen.”

“Next question?”

…………………………

NYT friday:

WASHINGTON – Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that  President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.

When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them.

“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and supports the Illinois plan. He added that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who also supports shutting it, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.” He attributed the collapse to some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis.”

[snip]

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Jeeves and Wooster

Mike Luckovich, Comics.com (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Clearly America needs to reach for, and achieve, a Clean Energy Future.

Not so Clear is the Road we will take, if any, to ultimately get there …

Kerry says Obama intends to move votes on energy

Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Richard Cowan, Editing by Sandra Maler, Reuters — June 22, 2010

WASHINGTON – […]

Obama is slated to meet leading Republican and Democratic senators on Wednesday to discuss a way forward for the energy legislation.

[…]

Kerry said the bill must include ways to price carbon but was not “locked into any one single way of doing it.”

“The fact is if we don’t price carbon, we will create one tenth of the jobs and reduce only one tenth of the emissions,” he said. “It would essentially be an energy-only bill.”

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Yoda: I am wondering, why are you here?

Luke: I’m looking for someone.

Yoda: Looking? Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm?

Luke: Right…

Yoda: Help you I can. Yes, mmmm.

Luke: I don’t think so. I’m looking for a great warrior.

Yoda: Ohhh. Great warrior.  [Yoda laughs and shakes his head]

Yoda: Wars — NOT — make one great.

Not even wars, for control and mining of strategically important geo-politcal Natural Resources — that may or may not, determine the course of the world’s future …

The very tip-top of the New York Times’ front page today is occupied by this flaming headline…

McChrystal Is Summoned to Washington Over Remarks

An angry President Obama summoned his top commander in Afghanistan to Washington on Tuesday after a magazine article portrayed the general and his staff as openly contemptuous of some senior members of the Obama administration.

The author of the article — Michael Hastings, a freelance journalist — appears to have been granted intimate access to General McChrystal’s inner circle. Most of the comments seem to have been uttered during unguarded moments, in places like bars and restaurants where the general and his aides gathered to unwind.

A McChrystal aide is quoted saying of Mr. Holbrooke: “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to be fired, so that makes him dangerous.”

The article also describes a conversation in which General McChrystal and an aide talk about Mr. Biden. “Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” General McChrystal jokes.

“Biden?” suggests a top adviser. “Did you say ‘Bite me?’ ”

In a parallel universe, where Planet Earth is inhabited by intelligent life-forms, Obama would say…

“Soldiers have been grousing about higher-ups for at least 5000 years, and only a shit-head of a reporter like Michael Hastings would repeat what soldiers say among themselves off-duty in a bar, and only a shitty “life-style” magazine like Rolling Stone would print it.”

But on our stupid branch of the multi-universe, on Planet Stupid, where shit-heads rule…

This story is a very big deal.

(And if you think I’m a cheerleader for McChrystal, read this.)

General Stanley McChrystal, who runs things in Afghanistan for the US Military,  gave a rather candid and heartfelt interview to Rolling Stone magazine.

“The Runaway General” has a few issues with some of his civilian colleagues….  like the Ambassador Eikenberry.

So far his special assistant Duncan Boothby has submitted his resignation (aka “fired”) and McChrystal has been summoned to a meeting tommorrow at the White House.

And he’s apologized.  McChrystal:  “It was a mistake reflecting poor judgement and should never have happened.”

President Hamid Karzai is praising him, saying he’s the best general ever,  and his spokesperson is saying he hopes he stays.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

This week’s development comes as criminal investigators are said to be examining allegations that Afghan security firms have been extorting as much as $4 million a week from contractors paid with U.S. tax dollars and then funneling the spoils to warlords and the Taliban, according to a U.S. military document. The payments are intended to ensure safe passage through dangerous areas they control.

The payments reportedly end up in insurgent hands through a $2.1 billion Pentagon contract to transport food, water, fuel and ammunition to American troops stationed at bases across Afghanistan.

On one side we have two brilliant strategists and great team leaders, and on the other side there’s a telegenic spokes-model and a semi-senile dinosaur.

And unfortunately for all of us, the great leaders are competing for bragging rights about a kids’ game, while the bozos are fumbling and bumbling and humbugging our world into oblivion.

The Lakers draft Kobe Bryant. McCain drafts Sarah Palin. Obama drafts Larry Summers.

Harharharhar!!!

McCain and Obama are idiots!

And since it’s pointless to ask how we could convert American politics into something more like the NBA, with brilliant leaders instead of clowns in charge, because we all know that isn’t going to happen…

We might as well ask how to convert the NBA into something more like American politics, and that would be simpler than you might imagine, because…

All we have to do is make sucking up to the fans the only qualification for coaching, with the proviso that none of the candidates has any kind of record as a coach, or even as a player.

“You/We are the ones we/you were waiting for!”

“I love your values!”

And if you subtracted sucking up to the fans from McCain and Obama, both those clowns would disappear, like smoke blown away from a mirror.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon