We’re in a bubble of false hope. The last bubble.
Tag: Obama
Aug 03 2009
The End of Hope, the Beginning of Change
Aug 03 2009
Health Care is Our Waterloo: Here’s Why
They say that even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day (or at least it did back in the primitive analog era), and in his recent comment regarding the health care debate being Obama’s Waterloo, Senator DeMint (R-Mordor) proves “them” correct. DeMint is using the famed 1815 battle as an analogy for a loss in an epic final stand, and while this may be enough to make him appear “smart” in Republican “intellectual” circles, it turns out that upon further inspection, there’s actually some depth to the analogies that can be drawn from the scene of Napoleon’s final defeat.
So join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll take a hair-raising ride through Analogy-Land! See the president play the role of a French emperor, the Public Option as a well-defended farmstead, and we progressives as the Imperial Guard. The battle isn’t over, and we don’t yet (and may never) share their fate, but regardless, now is the time to learn what could’ve been done to alter the outcome of the fighting.
Aug 01 2009
American Dumbass
With all that is so terribly wrong in this sordid and rapidly decomposing empire the amount of fixation on the White House ‘Beer Summit’ offers a crystal clear glimpse through the looking glass at WHY we are all fucked. The media fueled racial circus of the story of the rogue cop James Crowley and Professor Henry A. Gates led to yesterday’s sit down with The Pope of Hope and the V.P. from the Usury State over a few beers in a symbolic conference that was given the importance of say The Yalta Conference. In our cheapened, dumbed-down, busted-flat in Baton Rouge and fucked up the ass with no lube by the oligarchy lemming colony it’s media manufactured horseshit like this that gives me zero hope that anything will ever be fixed in my lifetime. With healthcare reform pretty much dead other than the certainty that the insurance corporations will be rolling in the dough from the coming mandated coverage, the wars still raging and the phony recovery setting up millions of suckers for the next fleecing it’s drivel like this that serves as news.
Oh and Michael Jackson is still dead.
Jul 24 2009
“Lip?” What Ever Happened to “Rights?”
We’re all now well familiar with the bust of Professor Henry Louis Gates on the front porch of his own home after police in Cambridge decided to arrest him for giving them some “lip” about their overzealousness. Was it a racist incident? Actually, probably not, despite Obama’s defense at the presser yesterday.
But Obama was right to say that “any of us” would have been angry about their treatment. And yes, the police were stupid. Unfortunately, their stupidity is now enshrined as SOP for all police everywhere in a post-9-11 world. It has to do with rights, and what happens to people who assert their rights.
An article up on Yahoo points out that Sgt. Crowley is “disappointed that Obama defended his friend in public. Because his itty feewings were hurt by Gates’ saying something insulting about his mama. Bullshit! We pay police to be above and beyond such crap, they’re supposed to remain cool and calm in situations that would lead ordinary people they’re policing to a barfight (that the police were called upon to quell).
Jul 23 2009
Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” moment
I used to think that Obama was, at the very least, a very intelligent human being.
Now I’m starting to wonder.
How smart is it when the people you listen to are all Goldman Sacks employees or ex-employees (which means future employees)?
Sure, if you’re at Goldman Sachs, things are just ROSY.
For everybody else? Well, is he fucking BLIND?
US President Barack Obama defended his administration’s response to the economic crisis over the last six months, declaring: “The fire is now out.”
“I think that we have stepped back from the abyss. I think we’ve put out the fire,” he said in an interview with PBS, according to a transcript released by the TV station.
No, Obama, you’re either a liar or a bonehead (or both).
The fire is most certainly not “out”. It’s more like one of those coal seam fires in coal country, those fires that burn and smoulder for years and years, and nobody ever knows how to put the damn things out. I mean, do you think we’re gonna go back to “home loans for all my friends!” and CDO’s and McMansions and Cadillac Escalades and cheap gas? No, of course we’re not going to. And you damn well know it. The new economy has yet to be built. You wasting billions, TRILLIONS of goddamn dollars by handing it over to your Goldman Sacks buddies and giving it to your Pentagon buddies so we can keep slaughtering our own troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and slaughtering civilians in distant countries, well that is one of the big reasons WHY we do not, and WILL NOT, have a “new economy” here.
And when your own Fed Reserve Chairman doesn’t even know where half a trillion dollars went, and who he fucking GAVE IT TO, well that doesn’t exactly bode well.
But, Barry, if you really want to go with the “fire is out” metaphor, fine. But we’re on a ship. And the fire is out. But the ship is sinking.
You’re like the captain of the Titanic saying “well at least we’re not smashing into that damn iceberg any more! Things are looking up!”
Obama, you expect to have any credibility after this bullshit remark?
Well, you don’t. Not any more.
You’re either a lying dumbass, or you think we’re all just fucking stupid.
Well we’re not.
We know when we’re being lied to, and you’re absolutely fucking lying to us right now.
Jul 23 2009
The Friends We Keep Tell Much About Us
The New Your Times reports:
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – “You know what this is for,” Emilbek Kaptagaev recalled being told by the police officers who snatched him off the street. No other words, just blows to the head, then all went black. Mr. Kaptagaev, an opponent of Kyrgyzstan’s president, who is a vital American ally in the war in nearby Afghanistan, was found later in a field with a concussion, broken ribs and a face swollen into a mosaic of bruises.
The United States has remained largely silent in response to this wave of violence, apparently wary of jeopardizing the status of its sprawling air base, on the outskirts of this capital, which supports the mission in Afghanistan. Indeed, the Obama administration has sought to woo the Kyrgyz president since he said in February that he would close the Manas base.
In June, President Obama sent a letter to Mr. Bakiyev praising his role in Afghanistan and the campaign against terrorism. Mr. Bakiyev allowed the base to stay, after the United States agreed to pay higher rent and other minor changes.
And:
Syrgak Abdyldaev says he barely escaped that fate. In March, Mr. Abdyldaev, 47, a well-known journalist who has scrutinized the president’s political activities, was lured to a meeting by an anonymous caller who promised confidential information, and was attacked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07…
Okay, Okay, you say.
But it’s worth being nice to despotic regimes such as Kyrgyzstan, because we can save the women of Afghanistan from the Taliban, right?
Lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men face violent abuse, including rape, in Kyrgyzstan, both in family settings and from strangers on the street, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued today. The report calls on the Kyrgyz government to acknowledge the problem and protect the victims, and on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other European institutions to step up their response to violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
http://www.hrw.org/europecentr…
That’s OK, right? Obama sure has this one covered:
So why is Afghanistan worth fighting over when Kyrgyzstanis are being tossed away like last months milk ?
Um, well…
Here’s a picture from the north of Afghanistan:
Yea, that’s change alright.
Deja Vue, All Over Again
Jul 20 2009
PUNKED!
It’s been clear for a long time to many of us, and as time passes more and more catch on to the fact that, the Democrats, especially Barack Obama are frauds and, once again, America has been Punked. Bush was the Compassionate Conservative and Obama was the Crusader for Change – fundamental and necessary change to a system which only works for the few.
Jul 18 2009
Do the “Birthers” Have a Point?
A couple of days ago, there were a number of diaries on the Rec List at Daily Kos gleefully trumpeting the news that the Pentagon had compelled a private military contracting firm to fire an employee Army Reservist who had challenged his military deployment orders on the grounds that Barack Obama had not yet proven that he is a “natural born citizen”. The comments were unanimous in their approval of the Pentagon’s action and derision of the soldier in question and his attorney.
More broadly, the “birther movement” is seen by progressives as a complete joke at best, and at worst a racist, even treasonous bunch of far-right xenophobes who cannot accept the fact that a black man with an African father could actually be elected President of the United States. There is never any acknowledgment of even the remotest possibility that there is any merit whatsoever to the cases being brought about this issue.
Nowhere in the progressive blogosphere have I seen anyone ask in an honest way the question of whether or not the birthers actually have a point. That kind of lack of intellectual interest and curiosity always raises red flags for me. For those who care to explore the merits of the case without screaming like banshees, please follow . . . but remember, “be excellent to each other . . . or else”.
Jul 16 2009
Obama Admin. Protests Loss of Private Contractors
So according to the Washington Post, the Obama Administration is objecting to a provision in the 2010 defense funding bill that would bar the hiring of outside contractors for purposes of interrogations.
The provision, strongly backed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), describes interrogations as an “inherently governmental function” that “cannot be transferred to contractor personnel.” It would give the Defense Department one year from the bill’s enactment to ensure that the military had the resources to comply with it.
We have seen the egregious consequences of privatization of governmental functions – all one has to do is mention KBR or Halliburton or Blackwater. But why is the Obama Administration objecting to this provision?
Jul 10 2009
Obama Admin Ends MTR Mining With A Name Change
The Obama administration is at least testing the waters of changing the name of mountaintop removal mining to “Appalachian surface coal mining” or ASCM. This name change, which neutralizes the horrific visuals of MTR mining, may help Obama gain support for a new policy to reduce the harmful environmental impacts of MTR mining.
The Obama administration is taking steps that are a “firm departure” from Bush who “failed to protect our communities, water, and wildlife in Appalachia.” For the first time the government is acknowledging the adverse impacts of MTR mining and will, for example, review the “cumulative impact of valley fill permits on water quality and look at entire watersheds instead of isolated streams.”
However, the question is whether MTR mining should be limited to a policy of environmental impact relativity or do we insist that MTR mining be stopped in obvious recognition that MTR mining by definition violates the environmental rules of law?