Created by Lawlessone after yet another oil spill in California
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Potpourri April 2008
OBSERVATION UPON WATCHING BOOS FOR BUSH WHEN THROWING OUT THE FIRST BASEBALL OF THE SEASON
Bush should count himself lucky that the crowd isn’t throwing bats at him instead of just booing. He deserves an indictment, not a photo op.
ON HEARING HOW THE RIGHT WING PUNDITS ATTACK OBAMA FOR BEING A POOR BOWLER AND RICH WHILE IGNORING THE REPUBLICANS WHO DO THE SAME
Maybe we ought to enact an impeachment process for journalists who can’t get anything right ever. Or, better yet, force them to disclose their bias. Or, better yet, force them to post their track record.
ON THE ETERNAL PREMISE OF THE PRESIDENT THAT HE IS DOING A GOOD JOB
If Voltaire were alive today, almost surely the title of his most famous book, the one about the incurable optimist who experiences an unending stream of disasters, would not be Candide. It’d be called Bush.
ON WHETHER YOO, THE AUTHOR OF WHITE HOUSE TORTURE MEMOS OUGHT TO BE FIRED FROM HIS LAW PROFESSOR JOB
File an ethical complaint with both the state that issued Yoo’s license to practice law and the bar association for the state where he now teaches. Seek to have him disbarred and see if the school still thinks he is fit to teach then. The grounds for disbarment? It is one thing to advise a client as to how to avoid prosecution for past crimes committed. It is quite another thing to actively assist in committing future crimes which is what Yoo did for Bush.
ON THE BIAS AND UNFAIRNESS OF THE PRESS REGARDING THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
What did you expect? Journalism is not a “profession.” A profession is an activity that is a privilege, not a right. A profession is an activity in which the participants must pass tests to be licensed. A profession is an activity in which the participants are held to high ethical standards for which they can lose their license if they fail to obey. Ethics that required more concern for abstract principles than the bottom dollar. None of that is true for today’s reporters.
Besides, this country is already a dictatorship in all but name. The Neocons have successfully converted every single branch of government into purely partisan agencies of Neocon interests from the so-called Justice Department to the Supreme Court. The entire military establishment seems only to serve the Neocon greed, callousness, hatred, paranoia and destructiveness. Those few government entities they don’t dominate or re-purpose have been reduced to drooling ineffectiveness. What made you believe that the media was not a Neocon target for takeover as well?
The news media has long been owned lock, stock and barrel by the campaign contributors to and fellow travelers with the Neocon leadership squatting in the White House, an occupancy seized under false pretenses. Those media owners, eager to share in the Neocon spoils, have been squeezing out opposition employees with varying degrees of speed. Nothing like the power of the paycheck to control what is said by reporters and pundits.
Some news operations, like Fox News, are open about their status as PR departments for the Neocon theocracy. Others seem somewhat less proud of the coup against democracy and freedom, but are almost as overt in their bias against anyone or anything still actively fighting the new dictatorship we are in.
The only mystery is why the Neocons and their stooges like the press seem so dedicated to destroying every single thing America once stood for and why they are so willing to cripple its military, its economy and its future to serve their short term greed. They have even been attacking everything the Republican Party once stood for back when Tom McCalls and Nelson Rockefellers and Teddy Roosevelts and Abraham Lincolns were permitted to be members. It is almost as if the Neocons are in league with our loudly declared enemies like Osama bin Laden.
Think about it. Everything that Osama wanted to accomplish in harming this country is being unrelentingly carried out by the Neocon junta. Do you suppose the reason Osama cannot be found is that he shaved his beard and is working in the West Wing?
HILLARY’S FUTURE ON FOX NEWS
Hillary has a great future as a right wing pundit on Rupert Murdoch station, spewing forth attacks on Obama and all things liberal or progressive. Perhaps it could be the Limbaugh-O’Reilly-Clinton “Hour of Glower.” Oh wait, those boys hate women. Merely because Hillary successfully throws the election to the Republicans does not mean they would welcome her into their ranks. They’ll just delight in how stupid she was to act like them.
COMMENT ON THE MEDIOCRITY OF THE ABC MODERATORS OF THE PENNSYLVANIA PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DEBATE FOCUSING ON QUESTIONS LIKE THE FLAG LAPEL PINS
Candidates should be allowed to quiz “moderators” and reporters about their own finances, elitism, conflicts of interest, biases, and whether they themselves were an American flag pin in the shower. The peccadilloes of moderators, reporters and pundits can also adversely effect the future of America and the public deserves to know what master the questioners of candidates are serving. It is perfectly fair to investigate the investigators. Too bad there is no such thing as real journalism ethics requirements, ones with teeth that call for the revocation of a journalist’s “license” to practice when they are violated.
COMMENT ON CLINTON’S PHYRRIC PENNSYLVANIA VICTORY
I am not an enthusiastic supporter of Obama. (To disclose my bias, John Edwards, or better yet, Bill Moyer, was who I wanted.) BUT, I am thoroughly disgusted with Clinton for damaging the Democrats chances to win in the Fall.
The horrendous, biblical proportion, disaster that has been visited upon the US over the past seven years is because Bush and his zealots forgot entirely their oath of office which was to defend the Constitution and the interests of all its citizens — not just their own narrow partisan lusts.
Clinton, in her short sighted lust for office, seems to have forgotten she is a Democrat. Her victory over Obama may turn out to be a Pyhrric one which turns the White House over “born again” McCain and more of the Republican malevolence. If that happens, Clinton deserves to go down in history as big a traitor to what this country should be as Benedict Arnold was.
I will hold my nose and vote for her come November if she is the nominee. Of course, that doesn’t mean much. I would vote for someone chosen at random out of the phone book if the only other choice is another Neocon Republican like McCain apparently is proving to be.
Doesn’t Clinton realize it was bad enough that Bush put in place judges and decisions that will continue damaging us for decades? For Clinton to give them the ammunition to let yet another of those maniacs add more judges and destruction for another four years minimum is too horrible to contemplate.
It is probably already too late to undo the damage she has done, but someone needs to tell her to stop now openly denigrating Obama. If not and if the national election is lost to McCain, then perhaps an opponent ought to be found by the Democratic Party itself to oppose Clinton the next time she tries for a new Senate term.
COMMENT ON HEALTH CARE
Everyone in Congress believes wholeheartedly in Socialized Medicine. Yep,. . . . for themselves. Regardless of how obscenely rich they happen to be individually, they help themselves to taxpayer money to give themselves the finest medical care available and all for free out of the US Treasury. If taxes are used for that, shouldn’t the American taxpayer also be provided at least the something approaching the health care coverage that our selfish Senators and Representatives give themselves?
REGARDING THE REVELATION THAT ALL THE TOP WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS OFFICIALLY PLANNED TORTURE OF VICTIMS
We apparently are watching a new reality TV series: “Lawless and Disorder”
WONDERING WHY OBAMA RETURNED TO FOX NEWS
Why would he legitimize the Republican PR department otherwise known as “Fox Eschews News”? Democrats ought to universally refuse to appear on that network. For Obama going there is like him agreeing to appear at a KKK convention to defend himself for having a lot of melanin in his skin than them. Obama is campaigning on hope which obviously offends the hell out of those like the Fox Pundits, their boss Rupert Murdock, and all the Neocons who insist on campaigning solely for more hate.
BUSH IS WRIGHT’S WHITE MIRROR IMAGE
Regarding wacko delusions, there are only three significant differences between the wacko delusional Reverend Wright and the equally wacko delusional President Bush. They are (1) the subject matter of their insane delusions divorced from reality, (2) the fact that Wright is black and (3) Wright’s ability to express his delusions in a complete sentence with the words pronounced correctly. Guess which one is the only one voters will really focus on?
REGARDING THE MEDIA’S SINGLING OUT WRIGHT’S WACKO WORDS
If Obama must be held “responsible” for placidly listening to delusional Reverend Wright for several years, then shouldn’t we be held responsible for allowing equally delusional Prez Bush to continue spouting utter nonsense for years?
Potpourri March 2008
RESPONDING TO DAILY SHOW PIECE ABOUT THE UNINTENTIONAL COMEDY OF BUSH TRYING TO ANSWER PRESS QUESTIONS
Bush has always been funny, but he is about the most expensive cartoon that ever existed.
AN OBSERVATION ON THE OREGON REPUBLICANS USING WILLIAM KRYSTAL FOR A KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT THEIR ANNUAL DORSHIRE CONVENTION
Why would the Republicans want neocon pundit William Krystal to offer them advice? He may be a Right Wing plodder and say what they want to hear, but what has he ever actually been proven right about starting with every single prediction he made about Iraq over the past several years? Could anyone except Bush have been more wrong?
ON REPUBLICANS CALLING FOR IMPEACHMENT OF THE NEW YORK GOVERNOR
Why is it that only victimless sex crimes get the Republicans interested in impeachment, when wars without declaration, deliberate lies, conflicts of interest, searches without warrants and torturing does not? Which are the higher crimes and misdemeanors which is the Constitutional test? Could it be that they are jealous or just that they are angry because those who get caught make it too dangerous for the rest of them to do the same immoralities themselves with sex partners behind closed doors?
ON CLINTON’S FERRARO DISSING OBAMA
I fear in the future histories to be written that they will say of the Democrats in 2008 what Lincoln once said about incompetent General Burnside, “Only he could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” Unless the candidates stop trashing each other or, more accurately, granting by silence or weak admonishment tacit permission for their subordinates to trash the other side, we will once again have a Republican in the White House for another 4 years of unmitigaged disaster, ever growing death tolls, degradation of the economy and environment, and emasculation of the Constitution. Why don’t the candidates care more about the country than getting the job?
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR
McCain says we may have to be in Iraq another 100 years. At the rate we are getting our kids killed there, 800 a year on average, that extrapolates to 80,000 just for our own dead. We didn’t do that much wasteful damage to ourselves in Vietnam. As to the wounded, maimed and mentally injured of our finest young men and women, at the present rate, the number shoots up to a million or so if we are there that long. And the monetary price tag could approach a Sixty to Hundred Trillion our kids and grandkids will have to pay. Why don’t we make Bush and Cheney and their cohorts of eager chickenhawks pay for their crimes of dragging us there? Why don’t we recognize McCain for the unthinking wastrel he really is?
IF THE SURGE WERE REALLY A SUCCESS…
If the surge is such a phenomenal success, then why can’t we take the troops out? Actually, there is a pretty easy way to determine the number of troops needed to truly insure no further violence in Iraq. Simply multiply the number of Iraq and Afghan residents times three. That way, there will be armed soldiers on 8 hour shifts guarding every individual in those countries 24 hours a day. Of course, you might need some extras on top of that to feed, supply, house, transport and administer such troops plus some more to allow then a little vacation time, but since when did concern for our troops interfere with Republican goals. That proposal makes at least as much sense as Bush’s failed policies or McCain’s vow to leave troops there a hundred years.
AN OBSERVATION ON BUSH’S LATEST JUSTIFICATION OF INVASION WITHOUT PROVOCATION
Have you ever noticed that every argument Bush has ever used to justify attacking tyrants abroad sound equally applicable to him if you simply substitute Bush’s name for the villain du jour? It almost makes you wonder if he suffers from what psychology textbooks refer to as “projection.” Yet, after all his “speechifying” about the wonders of and need for “democracy” abroad, he insists on doing the exact opposite here. With his so-called signing statements negating bills clear meaning, his illegal wiretapping and searches without warrants, his executive privilege usurpations and violations of established laws and treaties, not to mention his end run of the electoral process that snuck him into office, attack the very principal of democracy at every opportunity. If Bush were held accountable in the way he demands of foreign governments and leaders, he would be waterboarded so often, his skin would look like a prune.
ON THE COLLAPSING ECONOMY
Bush should focus on jobs, not war. After all, without good paying jobs, how will we get money to invest in the stock market so his former CEO buddies can steal it? How will we be able to afford the artificially high gas tank and utility bills his oil partners manipulated? How will we be able to pay the taxes he wants to transfer to his fellow rich? He better wise up or his campaign contributors who bought his office for him might get disappointed.
ON WATCHING THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DEBATE WHERE THE QUIZZERS ASKED INANE QUESTIONS
Stooges, one and all. If there had been a third “journalist” in the interview, they could have poked each other in the eye, yelled “Woop, Woop, Woop” and made a movie. Would Carlson be Moe in the movie? He always was the nasty one?
ON AUTHORIZING TORTURE IN THE LATEST VERSION OF THE INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT
“Intelligence Authorization Act.” What an oxymoron. If only it were possible to have the torture advocates experience it themselves. They seem to forget that their sons and daughters venturing abroad in war, work or tourism may be in increased danger of being subjected to it if we set torture as the new acceptable standard for “civilized” nations of the world.
ON BAILING OUT THE PRIVATELY HELD BEAR STEARNS INVESTMENT BANK
Shouldn’t some portion of the massive bailout taxpayers are handing the rich, but recklessly self indulgent, investment bankers be used instead to hire more bank regulators to insure we don’t keeping throwing Treasury money away?
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