Category — Uncategorized

It’s Saturday and time for the liar-side chat™, in which the Shrubbery complains that he had to sign a continuing resolution because the Dems in Congress hadn’t sent him the authorization bills for the new fiscal year that begins Monday. He apparently forgot that since the Republicans gained control of the House in 1994, the spending bills have never been delivered on time, and the first thing the Dems had to do in the 110^th Congress was to pass all of the spending bills left behind by the 109^th Congress.

The coverage shows that someone on the Dem’s side understands political theater: Radio Addresses: Bush V. 12-Year-Old. The Dem response was delivered by a middle-school student who backs the SCHIP law that the Shrubbery says he’ll veto.

This is totally unfair. If you’re not going to use a politician, the student shouldn’t have gone beyond the fourth grade. the Dems keep bringing in the “intellectual elite” to sandbag Repubs. Let’s have a level playing field people.

Proving once again that we need a kindergarten teacher instead of a UN Secretary General: Iran: CIA, U.S. Army ‘terrorist organizations’

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s parliament on Saturday approved a nonbinding resolution to label the CIA and the U.S. Army “terrorist organizations.” The move is seen as a diplomatic tit-for-tat after the U.S. Senate voted in favor of a resolution urging the State Department to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.

“The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror,” said a statement by the 215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state-run radio.

[Read more →]

NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday had a couple of pieces looking back at the Cold War.

In Americans Give Ahmadinejad Cold-War Treatment, Daniel Schorr compares the way Ahmadinejad was received to the way Khrushchev was treated when he came to the US.  We haven’t learned much in the last 50 years.

In Ex-Diplomats Gauge Russia-U.S. Relations , Robert Siegel talked with two former diplomats involved in the Cold War: Jack Matlock was a U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era; Yuly Vorontsev was Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the 1990s.

The really interesting part is at the end when they pretty much agree that no one won or lost the Cold War, the Russian people just decided they wanted a change. They wanted to be Russians, not Soviets, and didn’t see that “empire” had been much of a help to their lives. Not so much passive resistance as terminal apathy was the end of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

If you have cable and can get CNN, tomorrow night at 10PM EDT on Anderson Cooper 360 that man about New York, President Ahmadinejad of Iran, will be interviewed by Christiane Amanpour, CBE, CNN’s chief international correspondent.

To understand why I recommend this program read Ms. Amanpour’s CNN bio and Wikipedia entry. She knows more foreign leaders that the US State Department, has more time in combat zones than General Petraeus, spent more time on the Gulf Coast after Katrina than Michael Brown, and scared Yasser Arafat more than Ariel Sharon.

She speaks fluent Farsi [as well as English and French] and had the first interview with Ahmadinejad after he was elected.

It’s too bad she’s a citizen of the UK, because she would be a major improvement as Secretary of State.

You can’t have a war any more without Christiane. An Australian reporter covering the aftermath of Katrina said he knew it was a major disaster when he saw she was there.

A very nice CNN article, Brzezinski: U.S. in danger of ‘stampeding’ to war with Iran

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski likened U.S. officials’ saber rattling about Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions to similar bellicose statements made before the start of the Iraq war.

“I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq,” Brzezinski told CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer” on Sunday.

[Read more →]

Before the GOP brought up their blatantly anti-free speech campaign talking point on September 20, they were offered a resolution by Senator Barbara Boxer, No. 2947:

Statement of Purpose: To reaffirm strong support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and to strongly condemn attacks on the honor, integrity, and patriotism of any individual who is serving or has served honorably in the United States Armed Forces, by any person or organization.

The GOP filibustered this resolution with Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Joe LIEberman (Likud-CN) the only crossover votes.

It was never the troops or military service, it was always a political attack on MoveOn.org.

Badtux, the snarky penguin, is concerned about the ability of law enforcement in the Bay State to recognize real threats so he has produced: A tutorial for the Boston Police Department and Massachusetts State Police.

No word if he’ll explain to the Connecticut police agencies the difference between flour and anthrax. Well, it’s not as if the Hash House Harriers is large group [international, in fact, and they have a chapter in my town]. They shouldn’t have started this [they have been using flour or chalk dust to mark routes for over a decade]. If that were the case the authorities would have been notified [the FBI and HSD have both put out fliers in the practice].

[Note: They use flour because it doesn’t kill anything, doesn’t add any litter, and washes away with the next rain.]

Fear makes people stupid, which is the whole point, because no thinking person would have elected the current administration.

You may have heard about an incident with Israeli aircraft did something in Syria on September 6^th. This article from Counter Currents, Israel’s Air Raid On Syria: Another Threat To Iran, covers much of the reporting and speculation about the attack. [Note: I won’t guarantee that the article is anything more than raw speculation outside of the quotes from news sources.]

Syria has complained, but the Israeli government had maintained a strict “no comment” policy until Joe LIEberman’s party chairman, Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud], blabbed about it in a TV interview, apparently to prove he was relevant.

[Read more →]

A quick way of coming up to speed on this case is to read the Wikipedia entry on the Jena 6. It is about a whole series of incidents in the small town of Jena, Louisiana culminating in the charging of six black high school students.

Chris Kromm of Facing South asked Why the ‘progressive’ blogosphere silence about the Jena 6?

I would ask Chris why he thinks that liberal blogtopia™ consists of a half dozen “A-List” sites that generally discuss politics? I have seen stories about the Jena 6 for a long time at the sites I visit, maybe Chris should stop by over here and start clicking down my blog roll.

[Read more →]

Actual factual reporting from Dana Bash and Lisa Goddard of CNN: Republicans again block Iraq withdrawals

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican senators on Friday were again able to block a Democratic amendment that would set “definite timelines” for bringing home American combat forces from Iraq.
…

GOP senators have filibustered every Democratic-led push to bring troops home from Iraq. They used a procedural vote Wednesday to kill a proposal that would have required the Pentagon to give troops returning from Iraq stateside time equal to their time in the combat zone.

Six Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the plan, but the final vote was four short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.

Facts and numbers and truth – I don’t know if I can stand it. What will they do next – label lies as lies?

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo thinks the people complaining about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s desire to visit “Ground Zero” and lay a wreath when he comes to New York for the UN meeting should just Grow Up.

Josh doesn’t understand the problem – no one remembered to send Iran a thank you for all of the assistance they provided in pushing the Taliban out of Afghanistan and rounding up al Qaeda and Taliban people who tried to escape through Iran. I mean you could sort of ignore the condemnation of the attack by all levels of the Iranian government including the Supreme Leader, because most of the world did that, but Iran provided real material assistance to out our allies, the Northern Alliance, and actually captured terrorists, so a note really was called for.

[Read more →]

Sundown tonight marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, for Jews, and their most important holy day. It is a day of fasting and contemplation.

For my Jewish friends, I bid you peace and forgiveness.

Keith Olbermann has a Special Comment on Bush’s hypocrisy for condemning Petraeus ad.

He starts with excerpts from the Shrubbery’s press conference:

“I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. Military.”

“And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad.

“And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like Moveon.org or more afraid of irritating them, than they are of irritating the United States military.”

“That was a sorry deal.”

[Read more →]

Badtux, the snarky penguin, has an easy to understand table comparing universal Medicare and the Hillary Clinton proposal [which is a re-packaged version of the plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts].

Have a look at RomneyHillaryCare vs. Medicare For All: A comparison, kick the tires.

The good news is that there is time to look at what’s happening in Massachusetts to see how this might work out.