Aug 18 2010

Being Gay in the GOP…

written by ekg

From The Raw Story today

Mary Cheney, the openly gay first daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, gave hundreds of dollars in campaign contributions to a Senate candidate who opposes same-sex marriage, records show.

This is not the first time Mary Cheney, who lives with her partner Heather Poe and their two children, has supported a candidate that vehemently opposes her lifestyle.

Last August, Raw Story reported that Cheney gave $1,000 to Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman, who as a congressman voted to ban gay marriage and deny same-sex couples the right to adopt children.

How much can one person hate themselves? I cannot for the life of me imagine a party-ideology worthy enough to make me support that party when they want nothing more than to deny me basic humans right that even the lowest form of scum in this country is entitled to. Crackheads and whores can marry. Murderers,rapists and child molesters can marry. But two adults who are kind,loving, and law abiding are deemed too unnatural to wed because they love the same sex?

Here in Florida, our great gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Bill McCollum thinks gay (foster) parents should be outlawed

Florida AG Bill McCollum Wants Gay Foster Parents Outlawed: ‘I do not think we should have homosexuals guiding our children’

McCollum says about changing the law in Florida to outlaw gays from becoming foster parents…

I think that it would be advisable. I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children. I think that it’s a lifestyle that I don’t agree with. I realize a lot of people do. It’s my personal faith, religious faith, that I don’t believe that the people who do this should be raising our children. It’s not a natural thing. You need a mother and a father. You need a man and a woman. That’s what God intended.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JUNE 16:  Anti-gay religio...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

How does anyone who is gay support a party that thinks they are incapable of raising children? How can Ms. Cheney hate herself so much that she would contribute to the campaign of people who call her raising of children ‘unnatural’ and against God and outlaw it?

I won’t even touch on Dick and Liz’s role in this. While they haven’t come out against gays in this way, they haven’t really endorsed their rights either. Liz feels states should decide, but she won’t say whether she supports gay marriage. Dick Cheney says that he also thinks it should be decided on a ’state’ level. I guess that means they support the idea that their daughter can be married in 2 states, but that marriage wouldn’t be recognized in any other if no other state allowed gay marriage? I guess they support that Mary would be a criminal in states that want to criminalize her way of life because it was decided by the state? But they would not support the Federal Government protecting her from this madness?

What?

I cannot understand this. I cannot understand this at all. How does Mr.Cheney stand amongst a crowd that cheers when their candidate says his daughter should be outlawed from having (foster) children while his grandchildren looking on? How does Liz Cheney stand amongst a crowd that cheers when their candidate calls her sister unnatural? How do they (Mary included) look Heather Poe, Mary’s partner, and those children in the eye and tell them.. This is the party we support. This is the party we campaign for and donate to? These are the ideals we may not fully believe in, but we will elect people to office who do. We will elect them and when they enact their arcane,homophobic laws into place that would not just outlaw Mary and Heather’s right to foster children, but who like the Taliban, would criminalize what their acts of love, we will give additional money and support to keep them elected because that is the party we support.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand this.

Here’s my question, if gays are outlawed from raising foster children because they are unnatural, their love is deemed criminal, and they are unable to ‘guide’ children… how long before biological children are outlawed to gay couples? How long before biological children are taken from homes where criminals acts such as gay-love and  ’sins’ such as homosexuality are taking place each day? We allow crackheads,whores,murders,rapists and child molesters to loose their rights of biological parenthood because they too are deemed criminals and unfit for parenthood, so how long before ‘gay’ is included in a valid reason to remove children from  their home regardless of blood-ties? Mary Cheney has nothing to worry about, her kids would just go to her father or her sister so she can be assured they’ll be raised by the same values that removed them from her care in the 1st place, but what about all the others who don’t believe in this type of corporal mortification?What about the homosexuals who do not hate themselves and  feel like they are criminals and know they are able to not only love, but guide children to be just as well-adjusted and successful as non-gay parents?

I guess they can decide for themselves what matters more to them, their rights as humans.. or their political party. I will just have to remain oblivious to  how the ones that chose the latter are able to stand erect with that much disgust towards themselves and their fellow sexually orientated brethren, weighing them down.

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Feb 3 2010

…without waterboarding?

written by ekg

Huh, would you look at that..

Washington (CNN) — Senior Obama administration officials revealed late Tuesday they’ve secretly gained the cooperation of family members of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to help get the Christmas Day airline bomb suspect talking.
The cooperation effort has led to actionable intelligence that could help prevent terror attempts on U.S. soil, the senior officials said.

No torture, no waterboard,no stress positions,no violation of human rights or our own laws… and he’s actually talking and without a military tribunal to boot!


The senior administration officials said that since AbdulMutallab began talking to investigation again last week, he has been cooperating on a daily basis. The officials added the information gained from the interrogations has been disseminated throughout the intelligence community.

One of the senior Obama officials, who bluntly said the Republican attacks have “frustrated the hell out of me,” asserted that gaining the trust of the family was the best way to handle the case and helped the administration gain valuable intelligence from the suspect, who is believed to have ties to an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen.

“It could be used to disrupt other attacks,” one of the senior Obama officials said of the intelligence gleaned from AbdulMutallab in the interrogations, who added the president has been getting regular updates on what the suspect has been revealing.

The Republican response so far is to complain that President Obama has wasted these 6 weeks, but let’s have some truth for once shall we…

U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people, among them six of 15 top leaders of a regional al-Qaeda affiliate, according to senior administration officials.

The operations, approved by President Obama and begun six weeks ago, involve several dozen troops from the U.S. military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. The American advisers do not take part in raids in Yemen, but help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions. Highly sensitive intelligence is being shared with the Yemeni forces, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps and detailed analysis of the al-Qaeda network.

I know some were worried about AbdulMutallab being mirandized and like John McCain, were trying to attack for Eric Holder for his decision and I guess prosecute him for treason(ok, not the treason part-or are they) but it looks like they can put those feary-tales to bed.

“It is also my understanding that Mr. Abdulmutallab has provided valuable information. Is that correct?” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein asked.

“Yes,” Mueller replied.

Mueller then confirmed that the interrogation has continued despite the fact that the suspect had been advised of his right to have a lawyer and remain silent.

Now this is something I also found to be of interest

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, politicians and the courts have wrangled with the thorny question of how to treat suspected terrorists. The Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether the government has the right to hold a civilian as a military prisoner, and both times it appeared the court would get the chance to decide, President George W. Bush opted instead to bring the cases in civilian criminal courts

George Bush was hard on terror; he, Dick Cheney and those like them are the only ones who can keep us safe. President Obama, following their plan makes us look weak to our enemies though and thus makes us more vulnerable to attacks. How does that work?

The fact is we have a 100% success rate in trying terrorists in civilian court and as far as I know the only ones walking around and back to their old tricks, are walking around because Dick Cheney released them! We’ve killed or captured more terrorist leaders under Obama’s 1st year than we did in the last year of Bush. We’ve had more ‘drone-launched missile strikes’ in President Obama’s 1st year than in Bush’s last 3 years. We are spending more money to “expand secretive Special Operations units, deploy more unmanned aerial drones” , but somehow it’s not good enough because President OBama doesn’t torture, because he doesn’t throw everyone into a military tribunal, because he  treats people as the laws this country was founded on tell him to treat people, so  he is still weak on terrorism. If anything, the increased drones attacks,increased terrorist casualties, successful interrogation of a  terrorist should prove that not only is he not weak on terrorism, but that he’s doing something pretty right.

Alas… like the elusive Osama Bin Laden tape that surfaces only after some major event has happened, I expect a carefully worded press release from the most elusive of all creatures, Dick Cheney. Fox news and the conservative blogosphere need something to come after Mr. Obama on since he ate them for lunch at the GOP retreat last week, coupled with this new information on the lack of torturing actually working and Cheney is probably being roused from his slumber now.

I don’t expect anyone from  the right to commend the President for a job well done,that would be ridiculous and let’s face it, the halfhearted attempt would come out more condescending than anything else. The GOP for all it’s glory has painted themselves into a corner. In their quest to dismiss this President, they have painted him as a weak, incompetent, unintelligent, lying, dangerous,socialistic,Nazi-like, thief looking to steal your money to give it to the poor and your guns to give them to the Muslims.  I’m sure there is something to nit-pick about and if not, they can take a page out of a GOP strategists memo and just lie, but I thought this was a pretty good job of getting the guy to talk without having to drown him 1st.

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Jul 18 2009

Why is it wrong or controversial for the President to add his own paragraph to an intelligence briefing?

written by ekg

In another discussion with Lil Mike, I’ve come to realize that I just talk to freaking much-LOL.. But seriously, it struck me that if he doesn’t understand.. then maybe others don’t see the big deal either, and that scares me. If we could for once.. just once take the political party out of the equation and base our verdict on the facts, I don’t think any of us would see things differently..  But we can’t take the (R) and the (D) out of the equation because then our entire world crumbles when we find out we’ve been duped and in the end supported a lie. Where we should be angry at the one who made us into the fool, we are angry at ourselves and not many of us like the idea that we were taken for a ride. It’s why ponzie schemes work so well.. Who wants to admit that they really believed the 40% return they were promised was real and legal..

I wrote a blog the other day

The special powers an (R) next to your name gives you…

In it, I talk about the mess we find ourselves in today, the news that the Investigators General found that the White House inserted it’s own wording into a threat assessment from the CIA and then used that paragraph to enact an unconstitutional doctrine..

To explain it more would take to much space and this reply isn’t about the paragraph as much as it’s about how that deceitful act is more detrimental to the principals this country was build on.. Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness then anything we’ve seen so far.

Once again, my reply to Mike..

“That[inserting of the paragraph] opens a whole can of worms, but the actual paragraph, I don’t find a lie or contraversal. Do you? How would that change anything?”

The easiest 1st.. How does it change anything? If the White House is allowed to make up what they want, to get what they want.. how does that NOT change anything?  Please explain how you support any President doing this? Because I think you are slowly realizing that just because we had an (R) President for awhile, doesn’t mean we will always have an (R) president, we will eventually get a (D) and you can’t be ok with allowing this to continue when a (D) has the precedent..

But more than that… where do you draw the line?  The President can make up what he wants for security reasons that hamper constitutional rights… he can hold false PC hearings that tell us the ‘news’ he wants us to hear… he can use ‘plants’ to steer the topics of real PC’s to the direction he wants..   where do you draw the line? You don’t like the MSM being liberal, but you’re ok with the complete fabrication coming from your oval office?

Now the other part of your justification…that you don’t find it a lie… How do you know this paragraph is true? Because  it fits in with your opinion?

Had it been true (or a true threat) the CIA would have put it in there right? But they didn’t find anything like that so, the White House made it up.. at that time atleast, you were made to believe a falsehood that the Oval office told you.. and worse than that.. that falsehood was then used to convince you the NSA program (and so many others just because of the butterfly effect-) was needed, because that statement saying it was needed, was also inserted falsely..

In this instant, I won’t make your head swim at how much of a can of worms it is because I don’t think you would ever acknowledge it.. but in this instant, you..we were hoodwinked.

Bush/Cheney wanted the NSA program.. we’ll leave off the ulterior motives for that right now and just stick to that.. They wanted it and asked the CIA to give them a reason.. The CIA did what it was supposed to do, it investigated and put together a threat assessment.But, it wasn’t threatening enough to get Bush/Cheney what they wanted so they made up their own assessment and then used what they made up to bring to Congress and the American ppl to get that NSA program..

I really can’t believe you don’t see the implications of this. I don’t care whats going on in the world.. a President of the United States cannot make up a story, attach the CIA’s name to that story… and then steal rights from the citizens of the country because of that story.. That’s not what this country is build upon!

I won’t get into the problems this creates for the CIA… but take a minute and think about that…

Let’s look at the broad implications.. If, as you say, the paragraph was true then how can anything from the CIA ever be useful again? If they can’t get the threat right,  and it takes someone from the White House..(and we both know there might be 2 people in the White House who would know as much as the CIA on any given intelligence assessments)..but if it takes someone from the White House to see the real threats and tell people about it, then how do we believe anything from our intelligence division again? How can we trust their competence?

Ask yourself this, if it was so true, why didn’t they(the White House) put that paragraph out there themselves? Why did they attach it to  the CIA’s briefing. They had to have some intelligence from somewhere saying these things right? So why did they have to put it in a CIA memo? Why didn’t they make the intelligence division who gave them  the information, put out their own memo? Who was that intelligence division anyway and why are they to be believed over the CIA?

Or did the White House just make it up?

You can’t ignore those scenarios because they are the only two that exist.

Let’s go farther..
You will admit that the NSA program is a massive invasion of privacy.. one that, in your opinion is needed though..-yes?  Well, now you’ve just been told that the CIA did not find  reason enough for it and  the President made up a reason on his own and stole privacy from the American people.. your reason for it was made up! You may have felt there was a good reason, you may have been happy that the CIA report backed you up.. but the truth is, it didn’t!  I may love the idea that a chocolate diet helps me lose weight, but I can’t write my own little paragraph and insert it into Jenny Craig’s website saying it..

Bring this down to an easier level. You’ve been accused of killing someone. The local PD gets involved and investigates you, sure you look guilty and you probably did do it, but while everything looks bad against you, there really isn’t much to report. At an internal briefing on the status of your case the DA says.. Ok, well I want this guy wire-tapped.. The cops say, “well..we do too, but we can’t find a reason for it” .. So the DA decides to write a paragraph that does implicate you, it’s not  based on anyting he’s been told-he just makes it up on the spot and he hands it to the cops and says.. “Now go get your wire-tap. The cops go to a judge and say “Judge, read this paragraph right here, that’s why we need this wire-tap” and the judge says “Ok”..

Is this legal? and more than that..is that what you are saying you are happy to go along with in this country..

Is this what you want your President to do and will you ignore it now that you know what he did?

Is this the level of power you wish to give to the already most power office in the world?

If you want to allow a President and Vice President to arbitrarily make up their own reasons to do things that are unconstitutional…then why are you fighting government run health care.. why are you fighting government   run anything?

You didn’t’ serve this country for the last 25 years to allow your president to make up a fantasy to get something he wanted..did you?

I know this is difficult.. because to admit this opens a can of worms that could devour a country. You wouldn’t believe a liar who lied to you, or a thief who stole from you in your personal life.. but to believe this?  Wouldn’t this alone make you question.. What else did they do this on?

and I think that is why you will ignore this as a problem, because the  answer to that.. is something you don’t want to know..

Let’s face it, larger picture is extremely  frightening.How many other times did this happen? Besides just the NSA program, what other things did the White House insert it’s own wording into and then use that wording to get their way on… Is it possible it’s all been a lie or based on a lie? and what do we do about it? To investigate further might tell us the scariest truth we’ve ever dreamed up.. but to ignore it–well, that blesses every President from now until we resemble Russia Circa Stalin, which on that path, would be in our lifetime.

This can’t be what you and thousands of others like you served their country for..your oath didn’t say to protect the President when he lies to get his way-even if you agree with that way… did it?

It always seems like there is something in an (R) and (D) psyche that is almost like they feel if they acknowledge this.. like a house of cards, the whole thing will crumble. But if that house of cards is an illusion built on a lie, why would you want it to stand in the 1st place?

Where is your anger over what was done in your name?

Where is the line? Would it be OK for the Oval Office to make up a threat assessment with the intelligence community’s name on it, that says we must nuke a rival country and then go out on every “Meet the Press” tv show that will have them and promote this insertion?

Where does your tolerance end?

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Jul 15 2009

Does this mean he failed?- Chrysler and others pay back TARP loan.

written by ekg

I’m sitting here refreshing Drudge and Cnn while simultaneously flipping through all the headline news shows… and no hoopla!

You’d think with months of screaming, ranting,crying, and those  tea-parties, someone would have mentioned that we are now  ‘less Socialistic’ …

If I could stomach listening to Boss Limbaugh, I would see if he was sweating and dancing to the tune of Beck’s  “Loser”. Since President Obama has most certainly failed in his attempt to turn the USA into the county of the New National Socialist Party,  with his ingenious take over of the banks and car companies.. whilst driving the rest of the country into the shittier by stealing our wealth and spreading it amongst the elites…

but nope, nothing.. instead I get the news from my favorite ‘Mo

Chrysler Financial repays $1.5

bln US gov’t loans

DETROIT, July 14 (Reuters) – Chrysler Financial said on Tuesday it has paid off $1.5 billion in loans it had received from the U.S. Department of Treasury in January to fund vehicle loans and incentive programs for Chrysler consumers…

BB&T repays TARP money

Seven months after it accepted $3.1 billion from the federal government, BB&T Corp. – a longtime opponent of big government – repaid the money with interest Wednesday.

$93 million in profit was made off that investment.. Not too shabby in my opinion.

FirstMerit repaying TARP

loan this month

An Ohio bank with more than a dozen branches in the region announced plans this week to repay the federal government’s more than $125 million investment under the Capital Purchase Program.

In fact, if it had not been for the ‘mo..and the 2nd story I never would have known that American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, State Street and U.S. Bancorp also announced that they had repaid their loans from TARP, or the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

I should be surprised that I haven’t heard anything from the biased and untrue liberal MSM.. right?

Then again, if the media really was a ‘liberal slanted monster’ this would be on every headline news crawler and program just to rub it in to the faces of the Chicken Littles who were screaming that we were being taken over by our government…ironically while ignoring that were already  ‘taken over’ by our government..

I guess they are moving on to make more accusation about the Democrats evil attempt to bring socialism to the shores of the country by giving every baby born, house cleaner working, and any one else who likes to choose things for themselves instead of having someone else choose for them, that deplorable option of…. Health Care. So like everything else we’ve seen ignored in the last week.. Chrysler’s repayment will go unnoticed because it’s easier to keep throwing the kitchen sink of accusations than it is to actually give it a minute to see if it just might work.. It’s more patriotic to wish failure for the Government attempt to stop the slide into another depression era than it is to say “OK, that was my bad.. Carry on”.

Anyway, thank you for the $93 million in profit BB&T.. it was a pleasure doing business with you.. Come again soon.

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Jul 13 2009

The special powers an (R) next to your name gives you…

written by ekg

A woman goes missing on Christmas eve, she is 8 months pregnant and due to attend a party later that evening. Her husband is 90 miles away fishing, it’s also found out that he had been having an affair and had told his mistress that he ‘lost’ his wife. Months later, the wife’s body, along with that of her unborn fetus is found on the shores of the area where the husband was fishing that day. After an extensive search and investigation, no evidence of even a crime is found…Is the husband guilty?

A teenager on vacation goes missing after a night of extreme partying. She is last seen getting into a car with 3 men unknown to those who had been on vacation with her. An extensive search and investigation produced nothing but a tome of lies from the 3 men, one eventually admits to being with the teen on the beach but says he just left her there and went home. She is never seen again… are the 3 men guilty?

A child is found to be missing a month after the mother last saw her, the mother never considered alerting anyone to this fact even though she claimed to be sure the child had been kidnapped.  During that month the mother partied heavily like she didn’t have  a care in the world. After an extensive search and investigation, and 1000’s of lies told by the mother, the body of the child was found near the mothers home….is the mother guilty?

After years of misleading us for the reasons of ‘national security’ a President is found to have also misled  Congress and implicated the CIA as an accessory to these ‘misleadings’.

A Vice Presidents orders the CIA to shut out top ranking Congressional members on a top secret surveillance program that a new Head of the CIA is aghast to discover. He subsequently orders a full disclosure of this program to members of Congress and an end to said program.

“The constitutional authority and responsibility for congressional
oversight is gone,”-Sen. Arlen Specter

A president wants certain powers to be extended to him to use at his leisure and asks his Attorney General to approve it. The Attorney General is in the hospital, sedated from surgery he had only moments prior, but this doesn’t stop the President from sending henchmen to the bedside of the Attorney General to try and coerce him into signing off on this law. The Attorney General refuses this order from the President because the law is unconstitutional and therefore illegal, and to allow the President to use these guidelines makes him an accessory to the crime. Instead of listening to his Attorney General, the President then has one of the henchmen from the hospital room, his “In House” counsel, approve the tactic over the refusal of the Attorney General and acting Attorney General. The Attorney General later resigns to spend more time with his family and the White House counsel is re-paid for his efforts that night by being raised to the level of Attorney General.

A security briefing memo is constructed by the CIA after tireless hours of investigation and hard work. The memo isn’t as ‘threatening’ as someone in the White House wish it would be so this person adds their own threats to the security memo. That ‘addition’ is later quoted as the reason for  using illegal means to investigate citizens deemed ‘terrorist’ by the previous law enacted by the same administration..because it said “… “individuals and organizations involved in global terrorism possessed the capability and intention to undertake further terrorist attacks within the United States,” and “that the president should authorize the NSA to conduct the surveillance activities.”

Not only did the White House make up it’s own CIA threat memo, but it then quoted that fable as the reason to authorize  the illegally wiretapping of Americans.

The question isn’t ‘are they guilty?”  The question is, why aren’t we investigating this?

When are we going to stop with the word salad of  “He didn’t lie, he just intended to ‘mislead’ you?”

When are we going to say.. “That’s it! enough already! At the very least you people need to answer questions on just exactly what the hell you were doing!

How can any party that claims to love the Democracy that we live in, stand by while a member of their party goes to such extremes to bypass every part of a democracy. If they are afraid of Socialism because of some healthcare for the poor and downtrodden, then where is the outrage of the power grab that went on unchecked for years? Is one man worth your support in the face of such crimes just because of the (R) next to his name?

At one time I was against any investigation into the Bush administration, I still believe it would be the biggest political mistake of President Obama’s career, but at what point do you just have to look at the American people and say “We can no longer deny this, we can no longer cover this, we can no longer allow this to happen.” and finally order a full scale investigation, that would lead to criminal proceedings if warranted. Yesterday the mistake may have been to go after an ex-President in a way that would cripple all future Presidents out of sheer ‘vindication’ and ‘retribution’ from a malicious political system.  But today, with more and more extremists views and the outright take over by a corrupt White House, the danger of not investigating far outweigh  any others.

“Consequently, it is difficult to attribute the success of (any) particular counterterrorism case
exclusively to the (program),” -inspectors general report

How can we stand up as the beacon for democracy when we don’t even investigate those who tried to steal the democracy away from the American people under the guise of ’safety’ … a ’safety’ they are happy to tell you worked so well that we haven’t been attacked since 9/11/2001 (while omitting the part where they were to ones who were on watch when that attack took place to begin with), was bragged about being from numerous assertions that their excessive measures stopped multiple attacks. This,  has also been found to not only be misleading, but bordering on an out and out lie.

How do we go about calling this the greatest country on the planet when we allow a President to hide or even block  his illegal activities from his own Justice Department. A move which the IG reports calls “extraordinary and inappropriate”, so much so that the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General,Director of the FBI and… more than a dozen officials at the highest levels of government became concerned that if the surveillance program was allowed to continue on as it had been, the government could be engaging in an illegal activity at the direction of the president, and they quietly spoke of resigning en masse.

How do we stand up to other countries where ‘coups’ have ousted members of the Government or forces within the Government have usurped the laws of  that country for their own benefit, when we allow the same thing to happen here? How do we condemn a madman for his ‘genocide’, but when presented with evidence of another mass murder we ignore it because the murderer happens to be on our side today, when he was against us and killing our servicemen yesterday?

The mainstream media is treated like a rape victim of the 1980’s…they are blamed for what they report.  They are called biased and unfair, slanted and ‘liberal’.. they are condemned  for reporting the news. Why are they castigated for telling us what was done to us, but the person doing it is enveloped into a protective shroud all because of his political color.

“Bush officials so restricted access to information about the program that Justice Department
officials couldn’t properly monitor it — or even judge its legality, the inspectors general concluded.”

The ‘liberal’ slant to the media is always the reply to the story, like that somehow excuses the actual facts.  It’s become an ‘eye roll’ that says… “There goes the liberal press again, blaming Bush for an illegal program that Ashcroft, the FBI and members of the DOJ refused to endorse”… The fact this happened isn’t their focus,  the fact that it was reported is..

If the MSM is so liberal with it’s slant.. why isn’t  anyone talking about  the report from the Inspectors General of the CIA, Justice Department, Defense Department, National Security Agency and Office of the National Intelligence Director, on “Google Trends”?

The CIA not only admitted to misleading congress on some programs, but in one case  omitted telling them completely.. But the media and Nancy Pelosi are partisan and slanted for saying the CIA has lied to Congress?

If we cannot look at the facts and come to a logical conclusion all because it’s our own political party that erred.. then maybe it is time to end the Democracy as we know it and evolve into something else. We have  already had a President who usurps laws and governmental offices at his leisure,vilifies anyone who disagrees with him, tries to coerce those around him into doing his bidding and when unable to, conspires to go around them and get what he wants from someone else and then raises that someone to position of the person who originally denied him. Our democracy is already dead and we lived in  a Banana Republic that was run by a dictator and his army of thugs. But for me to tell you this makes me unpatriotic and the one who ignores real criminals like President Obama.

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Jun 17 2009

Torture; paybacks are a bitch..

written by ekg

There has been a lot in the news about torture over the last few months. Did the US torture? If so, who authorized it? Do we punish the persons who actually did the torture? Do we punish the ones who authorized it? These are all questions that in all likelihood will piss people on both sides off when they are answered.

The “Jack Bauer” scenario is the most prominent reason given for torture.

A  bomb is about to detonate in a heavily populated metropolitan area, a person who knows the whereabouts of this bomb and other details of the plan is captured and he is not talking.

Pop-quiz asshole! What do you do?

Both sides answering this question have valid opinions.  One side screams to torture them until they spill every ounce of information they have. The other side points to this and says “But you don’t know if the information  is real. They could just be telling you anything and while you are out on that Easter egg hunt trying to confirm the information, valuable time will be wasted.” They are the ones who want to use tried and true interrogation tactics in this scenario because they believe those tactics work and they also believe that a time of stress and crisis is when it’s most important to stick to our values.

I agree with both sides.

I guess I’m in the ‘if all else fails‘ camp.

Obviously ‘normal’ police method interrogation works. We’ve seen it’s success across the country on a daily, if not hourly basis. When people are caught for their crimes they want to talk, they want to explain,  they want you to understand why they did what they did but they need to be nudged into it.  That’s where a seasoned detective comes in.  If this type of ‘non-enhanced’ technique did not work, no one would ever confess… but they do.

But does torture work? Dick Cheney says it does. In fact he says that we actually faced a ‘Jack Bauer’ scenario and torture is what stopped this ’second wave’ from happening.  The Head of the FBI says this is untrue, The CIA says this is untrue, and others who have seen the memo’s Cheney is quoting  say this is untrue.  Dick Cheney has also heralded the capture of KSM as proof of tortures value. That has  also been called into  question by the actual interrogator.

Look, it’s not that you won’t get someone to talk by torturing them, I don’t think anyone is debating that point. It’s just that you will get them to talk about everything they think you want them to talk about, whether true or not.

Every example that Dick Cheney uses as his proof has since been found to be lacking in the ‘proof’ arena, and just like he now says Saddam didn’t have anything to do with 9/11.. maybe sometime in the future he’ll change this ‘torture worked’ storyline. Since it looks like he could be tried as a war criminal though, I doubt he’ll ever say that. What he will do is make sure everyone and anyone is aware that this was George W. Bush’s plan.  That’s also  turning out to be just another of Cheney’s fantasies though.

SCHIEFFER: … somewhere down the line. Did President Bush know everything you knew?

CHENEY: I certainly, yes,have every reason to believe he knew — he knew a great deal about the program. He basically authorized it.I mean,this was a presidential-level decision. And the decision went to the president. He signed off on it.

The problem I have with any of this “torture question”, is the hypocrisy of it. The,

“We don’t torture because we changed the definition of torture so we could torture legally”…

…is where I call foul. What made it ok for Jack Bauer to torture the terrorists in 24(besides the whole “it’s a TV show”), was the fact that he was willing to stand up to Congress and lay it all out on the table and take whatever punishment they doled out. That’s when, in my opinion, it’s ok to torture someone for information in the “ticking time-bomb scenario”.If you feel that what you are doing is not only right, but your duty as an American and you are so sure of this that you are willing to face the consequences afterward, then have at it and get all the information you can.

But just like lying about a blow job got a president impeached, lying about torture and your role in it should at least get you a public hearing.

It’s not the acts themselves that bother people, I would wager that if a “Jack Bauer” situation was being played out in real life an overwhelming majority of Americans would either turn a blind eye or slap the interroagtor on the wrist for their actions. But when you lie about, mislead others into believing your lie and then try and cover up your lie.. then the jury isn’t the only one who knows you were committing a crime.

Of course I will be ask …

“What if someone had your child, wouldn’t you torture them to find them?”

Yes… yes I would and if they harmed a hair on my child I would follow them home and cut them up into little pieces….slowly. But, when the police came to arrest me it would only take that seasoned detective about a minute to get me to talk. I would want tell him why did what I did. I would explain what I did to him and my subsequent jury. I would make them live through the horror  I and my missing/harmed child lived through and I would hope for  jury nullification.

Torture for the use of  gaining information, in my opinion is a crap shoot. It might work and it might not. The worst part about this ironically is the ‘ticking time-bomb scenario’. In that scenario there is no time for proper interrogations to be used, no time because the bomb is set to go off at any minute. Yet, there is time to investigate the false confessions which all agree are a part of the torture process? I don’t think so. If there is no time for mistakes then why chose the path which will ensure the most mistakes? It’s for this reason I am going more and more to the side of a “No Torture” policy for information gathering purposes.

That is not to say I am against torturing for punishment..

I will have to turn in my ‘liberal’ card for a month by saying this, but I think there are actual justifications to torture people, but in my world those reasons have to do with their crimes and not to get information out of them. Don’t believe there is a crime that the deserved punishment is some form of exquisite  pain upon the person guilty of the crime?

NEW ORLEANS —  Authorities say a 17-year-old teenager was charged with aggravated rape and first-degree murder of an 8-month-old child.

This is not a ‘redeemable’ child, this animal (because he is most definitely not a man or a human) who at the ripe old age of 17, already has convictions for  “drug possession charges; obscenity; battery on a correctional officer; three counts of battery on a school teacher; theft; weapons charges; and assault” in my opinion is worthy of a life of exquisite pain upon his conviction.

Not ‘torture-worthy’ enough?

CASSVILLE, Mo. —  The two men charged in rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford had their first brief court appearance Tuesday.

These men, one the child’s step-father, have been charged with ” first degree murder, sodomy and rape charges in connection to the death of Rowan Ford of Stella.” Whose body they just dumped in cave like a piece of garbage that they were done with using.

I  think they could to with a little ‘waterboarding’ just for the fun of it.

Torture for investigative purposes won’t give us the real-time intelligence we need in a ‘ticking time-bomb’ scenario.. but it will damn well make us feel better when we use it for the sole purpose of… ‘pay backs are  motherfucking bitch!’

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Jun 15 2009

Point to Panetta

written by ekg

It’s about time someone said it…

“It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”

CIA director Leon Panetta says it’s almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the “harsh interrogation” of terrorism suspects.”

Seriously, What is Dick Cheney’s point? What is his goal? For years he has done nothing but promote  “Me and my policy are all that keeps you safe at night” and bloviate how  we will be attacked again without him. Now his rhetoric is almost like a ‘code word’ for anyone who is against the Obama administrations National Security policy.  It’s like he’s talking to one or two lone nuts out there into proving that Bush/Cheney were right for the last 8 years.

Ironically, we were attacked while Dick was in office and after Dick ignored the pleas of those in the intelligence field to heed their warnings. So why would anyone take anything he has to say about keeping America safe as gospel is beyond me.  How about we listen to the ones who actually have kept us safe.

and stop giving Dick the pat on the head he’s looking for.

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Jun 14 2009

Hoping for some Audacity

written by ekg

President Obama, you were not given the Oval office and the Congress solely for the purpose of trying to appease or make friends with the party that shut out an entire political section of the country for 8 years. It’s time to start acting like the majority elected you to act.

Yes we can!

You were elected and given the keys to your success because you promised us change during your campaign. You were given a friendly congress because we knew the losing party would do everything in their power to discredit and demonize you. To prevent the loss of any political capital, you were given massive support, money, votes and Congress… so what are you waiting for? Use the tools you’ve been given already! You have tried and failed at extending your hand across the aisle and now it is time to give them the finger. This failure, like the disastrous condition of every aspect of the government, foreign and domestic, is not your fault. You were given a ‘Handy-man’s special’ and while you’ve made some improvement just by being there, you have a long way to go before this country is back up to ‘code’

Mr. Obama, you expected to come into Washington and work with adults, only to find nothing but spoiled children running through the aisles.  Every day you spend trying to bring your opponents into your circle, they are spending theirs  eating your political capital  like a fat girl eating chocolate flavored bacon-bits.

Change you can believe in!

Had the Holocaust Museum shooter been Muslim, your presidency would have been over. You would have not only been the country’s 1st black president, but after weeks of allowing Dick Cheney to call you every form of dangerous and venting about  your lack in the ability to keep us safe, you would have become the country’s fastest Lame Duck President ever.You have let this kind of abuse go on for too long and now you are seeing a drop in your poll numbers.

I understand your strategy of letting them become the party of “NO”. I understand that the more ‘right’ they go the more ‘centered’  you look and the more Independent voters you pick up.  But what I don’t understand is this need for all ‘political correctness’( so to speak) in the face of such outrageousness.

“It may include groups and individuals

that are dedicated to a single-issue,

such as opposition to abortion or immigration,”

the warning says.”

A few weeks ago your Head of Homeland Security had to  apologize for a report that said ‘right-wing extremists’ were on the rise and their chatter was reaching higher levels.   The GOP went apoplectic in its anger over such extreme “Liberal MSM-type” spin and accusations. Even some Democrats screamed about being ‘dumbfounded’ by this report. Michael Steele of the R.N.C told Fox news

“This is the height of insult here,I mean to segment out Americans who dissent from this administration, to segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration, and labeling them as terrorists and then to call into question the service of the men and women who are right now standing on that wall defending our freedom and linking them to terrorism while you refuse to call the terrorists — the real terrorists — terrorists, to me it’s the height of insult.”

In the height of irony, not “insults” as Mr. Steele put it, this report that the GOP went into seizures over, warned  that

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority

Since that report and the GOP’s temper tantrum over it, we’ve seen not one, but  two atrocious acts that we were warned about. While the party of “NO” has a record in ignoring threats and warnings when given to them,  that doesn’t mean you, Mr. President, should have your people apologize to them for being right.

Doctor Tiller was murdered in a sanctuary, his place of worship by exactly the person the report warned against. A week later, James Von Brunn, who was a Navy officer during World War II and after leaving his notebook with a list of places he planned to hit and a statement saying “You want my weapons – this is how you’ll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews,” decided to shoot anyone in his way.

I know saying “We told you so” is not the politically savy thing to do, but had Mr. Brunn been of Arab decent, how fast do  you think Dick Cheney would have been on Fox news saying exactly that?

Misters Brunn and Roeder, Dr. Tiller’s murderer, are not the first extremists to meltdown since you took took office. As I’ve blogged about before, another unstable radical believed in the same insane,violent and dangerous rhetoric of the Right when they said you were going take  away his guns. So he went out and murdered 3 police officers.

“Friends said 23 year-old Richard Poplawski feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.”

Mr. President, it’s time to put an end to this trying to reach across the aisle.  As PAUL KRUGMAN of the New York times says; There is an ‘upsurge of right-wing extremism’ that is being “fed by the conservative media and political establishment.” Your ideal world in which Republican and Democrats can live in harmony is a wishful Utopia that will not exist until a generation has passed from the extreme partisanship the Bush Administration spread throughout this country.

There are some of course, like Shep Smith on the FNC channel, who see this hate and are fearful of the level in which it is being amped up to.

But just as fast as he can bring attention to this hate and anger, others paint over it by saying Smith is ‘”whining and moaning and complaining about emails”, while making it about themself and in then  justifing  the hate they and others  spread throughout this country. You cannot reach out to these types of people. Their motives are clear, with blood on their hands from their ‘hate speech’ they only speak louder,harder, angrier. They put their hands up and say “Wasn’t me” like they haven’t been the one rattling the cages of most extreme of their extremists. They are spoiled and dangerous children who cannot be appeased by rational thought and/or actions. These are not the moderate GOP persons you want in your circle. Even those people see what is being done and are appalled by it, but they cannot stop it because they understand this ‘hate’ will spread to them next.

“If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican,

I’d go with Rush Limbaugh.

I admire your tenacity in continuously  trying  to bridge the partisan gap in the face of such mounting and dangerous rhetoric, but there comes a time when it’s OK to use the popularity you’ve been given. You promised change, you have been given all the tools necessary to bring about this change, you do not need 100% cooperation when 51% wins the race. We who you convinced to  stand behind you, who believed in you and voted for you are still standing here waiting to support you. We are waiting for you to remember what you promised us…. Yes we can Mr. President… Yes we can.



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